By Shane McKinkley, Torch specialist

"Hey my superstar
My flying shooting star
Somewhere in the night
My crashing meteorite"

-"Superstar" by The Presidents Of The United States Of America

Kudos to the "Hulk Hogan" and "Iron Sheik" debate on the pwtorch.com posts on the article discussing how the Hulkster could side with the Juice O.J. Simpson. What a messy divorce.

The other news that got my attention was reading about that kid who believed he could fly by jumping off the 13th floor with a plastic bag. It's tragic and sad. It's akin to how there was stories of kids believing they could fly by watching Superman on the telly screens back in the '50s. If the argument is against the content shown, then heck, let's just take away everything in the entire world that can remotely be misunderstood in a possibly harmful or deadly way.

On one hand it couldn't hurt to run a 20 second video bit on each broadcast saying "Don't Try This At Home," but on the other hand, Vince McMahon and Company are not responsible for every single human being. It's a sad tale involving a lack of common logic. People who rally against WWE for this are really stretching. You can't hold people's hands all the time. The coffee will be hot, you need to look both ways before crossing the street, and so forth. It would be one thing if a kid tried to do a swanton dive onto concrete like Jeff Hardy did to Umaga at one PPV (he landed on stunt pads), but generally kids and parents understand that this stuff should not be done at home.

I remember the hubbub about backyard wrestling years ago. When I was young a friend of mine (who loved Japanese Hardcore Wrestling) wanted to know what the experience was like to land on his bare back in a pile of thumbtacks. I told him he was stupid for even considering to do so. But he did it in somebody's crappy made ring and he regretted it. A lot. He didn't use common sense.

But enough about that, let's get to WWE Superstars, the hottest new show everyone is talking about.

Superstars opens up with a lot of fans applauding and marking out over the sheer excitement of WWE content. Hearing the seemingly-forgotten Jim Ross perks up my ears. Audio was messed up. Either these matches were the opening dark matches or the audio was sweetened, but WWE audiences are more docile than this.

Yes, we all know that WGN Superstars doesn't really happen on Thursday night. Superstars is basically WWE's reason to dump dark matches from all three brands. If you're young, you will probably believe that yes, indeedy WWE sold out an arena full of crazy WWE fans for an one hour show. Of course, fans can put two and two together. Hey, why did they change the red ropes from the Taker vs. Matt match to white ropes for the ECW match? Why are their different fans in the background? The announcing tables? At least that dorky "WWE" sign on the entrance ramp stayed on the right side of the screen.

I mention this because it's no shock that WWE will play up that Superstars is really happening on Thursday night. Same thing with Smackdown (the PPV is two days away!) and so forth. It works great for kids who can believe that big-time WWE puts out four shows on four different nights. And also it keeps things simple. It's false, but it's simple.

The lotto character selection screen pulls out Shane McMahon and Cody Rhodes. Whatever happens after Backlash, Shane's got to go. (credit to judybell1125.tripod.com for pic)

Grisham informs us that Superstars is "the only WWE program to have all three brands featured." Uh huh.

Ross and Grisham give some love for the HBK-Taker match. Hardy wins the match by refusing to fight the Dead Man. "He quit! What a coward!" Often in WWE you wonder if the heels shouldn't have heel mustaches like with evil Spock or those old cartoon baddies. Nyah nyah nyah! (credit to columbia.k12.mo.us for pic).

Hopefully Superstars won't become just a video recap dump. I won't tune in for that.

That badass Shane, who wears a Triple H t-shirt underneath his dorky "McMahon" shirt, is talking to Eve...maybe Shane should wear a t-shirt that says "Shane" on the front. Anyways, the Doughboy won't get his hands on Orton, so he'll just have to settle with grinding Cody Rhodes's bones to dust. "It's up to Trips to get the job done because I would have handled it myself." Please stop. Just. Stop.

Christian gets the victory over Finlay. Hornswoggle is moving to Raw to play the important role of popping out under the ring whenever a boring match is happening to encourage fans to stay awake.

They leave a huge chunk of time for Shane vs. Cody. The Executive Vice President vs. a Wrestler.

It's like TNA pumps up the Eric Young vs. Danny Bonaduce match by saying that Young better not judge a book by its cover. Bonaduce knows how to wrestle. Well whoopee doo. One guy wrestles for a living. One doesn't. Just how think of the kayfabe embarrassment in the back to learn that you lost to a child star. Or to lose to the executive vice president who spends more time talking about sales figures and potential growth markets in viable areas.

No, Danny boy should own Young's ass! It's just realistic! So maybe y'all can pump up watching these douche bags get the living crap beaten out of them.

It's Cody vs. Shane. You may have noticed that Cody Rhodes has the Triforce from those "Legend of Zelda" videogames on his boots. He's an avid Zelda fan. He was facing Ganondorf tonight, apparently (credit to i.neoseeker.com for pic).

Cody has had just too much of badass Shane after two minutes. Also note that after two minutes, Shane is already sweating profusely.
Cole: "Cody is trying to escape!" Wha? We understand that they can have Shane pretend he's actually a wrestler because little kids don't know the difference. It's the reason why Lawler can say "Shane's an incredible athlete" not once, but twice in the match. For most of us, watching Shane causes frowny faces and depressing thoughts.

This is how Shane sells: First he grabs his shirt and yanks it down to cover up flab (because great athletes wear layers to hide their incredible muscles) and then sells. "Oh my stomach it hurts."

Got to say that Team Jarrett's dissension is more intriguing that Team McMahon's dissension. Welcome back to WWE, Batista. Here's Shane McMahon spearing your ass.

Shane's just too tough, so Cody grabs a chair. Damn those tough Executive Vice Presidents.

And just to repeat...

As you can tell, I'm not crazy about SuperShaneMania going on. It's serviceable enough to get to Backlash, but it should end at Backlash and Shane shouldn't wrestle on television...for a good long while. All in all a decent night, but let's see how the rest of the WWE Uuniverse (sorry, couldn't resist) reacts to it.

SUPERSTARS Verdict: In The Middle Of Absurdity

Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com

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