Is this thing on? If you’re reading this, zillz has lived up to his word and allowed me, a 30 year old Jersey cat, to write some drops for Mandom regarding the wonderful world of Professional Wrestling. My name is khal, and I run a few blogs on the Internets, two of them being rockthedub.com and blackrasslin. I’m a lifelong fan of both Pro Wrestling and Hip-Hop, and I bite my tongue for no one (word to Biggie). This is the first of what should be many drops on Wrestling (primarily the WWE-side of things), and if you’re into essentially playing Fantasy Booker / figuring out how the behind the scenes drama of real life plays into the on-screen “real life”, this is going to be your kind of section.
If you’re messing with the WWE you have to know that the “Grandaddy of ‘em All”, the Rasslin’ Super Bowl known as Wrestlemania is a week away, so let’s take a look at how this show is sizing up…
You can’t blame WWE, though – The Rock brought a grip of $$$ into the federation during that push to last year’s ‘Mania, and no matter how much the undercard talent whines, their paydays are much bigger due to Rocky being involved. He’s the movie star and during his WWE run, he was a part of the last true boon to the industry, so you’d think cats would give him that respect and realize, while he’s “one of the boys”, he ain’t really “one of the boys”. It’s almost like making Jay-Z wait to hop in the cipher. And the wild shit is, even if the HHH/Taker and Cena/Rock matches are going to be epic, the real fan’s fan is definitely checking for both of those titles matches, as CM Punk and Jericho will (hopefully) be putting on a clinic, and Daniel Bryan can pull out a dope match with just about anyone.
Further down the card is where things get tricky. Randy Orton vs. Kane, in a match that was effectively pulled out of Vince McMahon’s ass to get Randy on the show (and give Kane something to do with that horrible wig/welder’s mask they shelled out for his return). The Team John Laurinitis vs. Team Teddy Long 12-man match won’t live up to what a Money In The Bank match would’ve done, but they hadn’t figured out that Dolph Ziggler is amazing and needs to be in some kind of real showcase, so he’ll just have to take a bunch of punishment and shine in this trainwreck of a match. Big Show vs. Cody Rhodes has given us a lot of laughs due to the videos Cody has presented showing Big Show getting jacked up at prior Manias, but their match will be nothing more than a decent TV title match at best. They snuck a Maria Menunos/Kelly Kelly vs. Beth Phoenix/Eve Torres match in here to bring some star power, but it got booked so late in the game no amount of Extra hype can make the fans care any more.
And that’s the show. Again, on paper, this doesn’t feel that exciting. I wouldn’t be surprised if Primo & Epico (aka the goddamn WWE Tag Team Champions) get added against a team, but then I wonder who they’d cook up to go against them. The four main events will surely help push this show enough, as the HHH/Undertaker match ended up being way more fun in hindsight than I remember it being when I was watching it originally. The real question is how the Rock/Cena match will end, as that will determine how the WWE moves in the immediate future.
I’ll be back next week with my predictions, but for the time being, here’s episode 24 of my blackrasslin podcast, which I do weekly (for the most part). It infuses my love of Hip-Hop with a ton of rasslin’ talk, and weekly Raw recaps. Check it out, and keep checking for me. I ain’t going nowhere until zillz says so.
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