By Shane McKinley, Torch specialist

"It's not easy to be such a genius ... and to have such presence and charisma"
-Chris Jericho

It was amusing to listen to the sport talk radio shows mention the Vince McMahon-Denver Nuggets blood feud. During my graveyard shift job (long nights and early mornings), I got a full dose of the Genetic Jackhammer's sound bites and quotes. Made me feel warm inside. Although they did pick some odd ones...

"I got balls the size of grapefruits!"

"This time if Bob Costas gets in my way, I'm going to forget that he is 4-feet-10 and 120 pounds. I'm just going to consider that he's Hulk Hogan, and when he gets in my face this time, in all likelihood, I will beat the living hell out of him."

"I understand the common man because I understand me in that regard at least."

"I believe in the laws of nature. When it's time for me to go, I would like to be devoured by the biggest, baddest carnivore that ever walked the face of the earth. And then, I'd like that son of a bad word to get indigestion and vomit my remains back up."

"I don't care if you call yourself double-trouble crap on a stick."

And my favorite...

"Damn it! I'm your father! Now kiss it!" (during the whole "Hornswoggle is my bastard son but not really because Finlay and the rest of my family just wanted to embarrass me but before that I'm forcing my bastard son to kiss my beautiful ass" bit).

Jason Smith of ESPN's "All Night" said that he wouldn't want to see Vince McMahon and Stan Kroenke in a steel cage. He talked about each side having representatives. WWE would have John Cena and the Denver Nuggets would select Kenyon Martin, a.k.a. "K-Mart," a.k.a. the dude you don't want to mess with. Sorry. We've got John Cena vs. Big Show. Can't put out the flames of that barnburner.

I can do without hacks who haven't watch a lick of wrestling take really old shots at the WWE for the lame XFL failure or siding with Sable suing the WWE for feeling degraded on TV. Go back in portraying wrestling as full of steroid dopers who do cheesy, stupid soap opera fake garbage that scams gullible fools and losers. It's already past old.

This milking works great for Vince, as he gets to push his product. Guess who is on Monday Night Raw next week? Why it's Ric Flair. You're not going to put Ric Flair in a parking lot, are you? You're going to make Flair cry! ("With a tear in my eye...Orton, I'm going to kick your ass with a shopping cart!") We're already getting calls that we can hold Monday Night Raw on top of the Empire State Building! Or on the moon!

That's got to be a hell of a feeling as a wrestler to know that a wrestling company falls ass over heels to get you so that their ratings don't completely tank.

Meanwhile, we've got white-hot feuds with...Orton and Batista. Cena and Show. Matches are slow, story is contrived and predictable, and business is down. Things are looking fine.

Cole welcomes us with this line: "Judgment day was controversial, astonishing, and at times, miraculous." Miracles happened? Oh...the whole thing with Cena. Miracles. Miracles all around.

I have a feeling that they threw out that line out there to piss off the old WWE fans. "Controversial" and "astonishing" are attributed to every damn WWE PPV. But "miraculous?" Even they had to know that was utter bullcrap. Unless they are all delusional. Which I'm pretty confident they are.

You know, I haven't seen one person who wears a Randy Orton t-shirt. Maybe it's because the t-shirt features a dude wearing a gas mask and has a hood over its head. It's something your six-year old nephew wears, along with his cowboy boots and SpaceMan Spiffy metal pants. But the "gas mask hoodie" is appropriate to the character of Orton: idiotic.

They recap the entire Orton-Batista J-Day match in pictures while Orton slumbers to the ring.

"Old friends Batista and Flair stood proud." Way to go, loser. You didn't get the job done. Congrats, buddy.

Maybe they can spice things up. Instead of predictably having Orton punt Flair in the head next week, perhaps they can have Orton have the steel cage lower down and beat up Flair in there. Batista tries his best to get in but just can't. The human marshmallow fails once again. That makes Dave angry. You no like Dave angry. Dave smash.

Orton talks about how he should have expected Flair. Wha? You were expecting somebody who shouldn't have been anywhere near the arena during your PPV match?

Orton: "I am currently surpassing Triple H." Nope. And not a lot of the WWE universe is buying it either. "When is Trips coming back so he can chase Orton with a sledgehammer again?" Orton talks about how he caused Flair to lose his WM 24 match by punting Flair...whole lot of stretching here. It's a weak tactic. Much like how Orton waited 5 years to payback Trips.

I wrote the following awhile back...

"Will WWE resist the urge to have Batista vs. Orton inside a steel cage?" (All together now...the old WWE cliche..."what are you gonna do with the animal locked inside a cage?" Huh? Huh?")

"PPV cage matches are designed to give fans the impression that the good guy has the meanie all to himself without outside interference, so we won't screw you over this time! We promise! Cross our hearts and hope to die!"

Another thing you will pick up on is that when a wrestler says he is retired, it means that he plans to keep wrestling. But you probably already knew that. Stylin' and profiling.' Just cuz I'm retired doesn't mean I can't fight. Boo yah.

Flair comes out. He has got his eyes on Orton. "You were grabbing that pole like a b----." Well, he didn't say that. But in playing the heel, there's a fine line between playing the coward and embarrassing yourself.




Ahem...

Naitch talks about how Batista has become the man. Flew past Orton. "Zoom! Zoom!" Ah, Flair.

What I would like to see next week: instead of the boring punt of doom, let's say that Vickie and Orton strike up a deal. DiBiase and Rhodes beat up Santino after Santino wins his match with William Regal. In return, Vickie orders the cage to be lowered down during an Orton-Flair bit. Batista tries in vain to get into the ring as Orton punts him in the head and kisses him afterwards. Or something like that. Whoo!

Meanwhile, back in Kentucky, Orton takes a cheap shot at Flair. Legacy comes in. Batista comes in. Let's go with the Hulkster showing up. Anyone. I don't want to see...

John Cena, the man with his insides filled with broken glass, comes screaming down the ramp. How does he do it?

Has the Macho Man DVD been released? I wouldn't know. WWE won't tell me.

Raw comes back with a jubilant Cena. He talks about being beaten up forever (or one month). He defeated physics and gravity. And lucky for all of us, he's in a submission match with Big Show. Thanks for torturing us, big guy.

I know that in this feud WWE has already ignored people over the age of 13, but hear me out. Give me a reason to watch this match. Cena busting out submission moves? I'll take it. I would stay away from doing sharpshooters. That would start a riot.

I'm looking for something along the lines of the Miz interfering and Show winning by Cena "passing out from the pain." It's unfathomable to vision Cena actually tapping out. Show shouldn't eat a loss at Extreme Rules...I feel like a doofus every time I have to write out that PPV name.

Since Santino/Santina and Hornswoggle are already tied up tonight, the divas match needs something. What they have is Maryse being the special guest announcer. Guh.

Santino vs. Chavo. Santino reminds me of the character of Eugene at times. Wish that his clotheslines weren't so fugly. Or that he wasn't so clunky in the ring.

It's at this point that I realize that if given the choice between Lakers-Nuggets or Santino Stupidity, it's Lakers-Nuggets. Hot NBA playoff basketball...or simple filler until another handicap main event starring Batty and the male models.

Miz talks to the French chick. OMG. Get out of here. Please.

Matt Hardy gives a good heel promo with Josh Matthews. Raw follows this up with a strong confrontation with Vickie/Orton.

The wwe.com screen shows when Ric Flair, having flown from his jet and arrived at the arena in his limo, saved Batista from a beat down. The title wwe.com chose? " 'Nature' Calls". All right, Joey.

The Brian Kendrick gets The Wrestler Who Hasn't Been Relevant In Years. Every time I watch Goldust I feel incredibly sad. Goldy just gives off that impression that he drowns his sorrows in a six-pack after a match.

Story of the match is that Goldy punks out TBK. Hornswoggle comes out and gets all chummy with Goldust. Goldy and Horny. The tag team from hell. The odd couple. Their matches will be as ugly as the Denver Nuggets owner. Take that, person I never met and who I know nothing about. I'm milking this for all it's worth.

Although I could start an extreme never-ending battle with pwtorch.com's "Under The Microscope" universe. The Absurd Army vs. The Microscope Skynet Machines. I kid! I kid! Please don't send any hate email! I'm not worthy! I'm just doing what Vince does!

Raw comes back and focuses on the AWA blasphemy Cena's "HLR" t-shirt. Ooh, it's the Miz! Yay!

The Miz is here. Nothing to fear. He makes some rhymes. To fill some time. But he must have been smokin' crack. Because his promo was wack.

You see, you need to be skilled in creating lame bits. Just like what I just wrote above. That took me three hours to think up. Nah, I'm just joking (cries to himself).

Typically if you call somebody out for being lame, you don't respond with equal (or worse) lameness. I should buy "12 Rounds" when it comes out on DVD and put it in the crapper? Sounds like a waste of money, Mizzy.

Speaking about waste of money, "Extreme Wakeboarding" comes to you in three weeks. I was going to put "Extreme Waterboarding," but that would probably upset people who don't find torture hilarious. (Caldwell's Note: But Don West does.)

And speaking about funny torture, wouldn't it be a hoot if former vice president Dick Cheney be GM of Raw? "Bah! Go screw yourself! Bah! Bah!"

Typical rule of thumb for creating a PPV name is that you have to say it to somebody who thinks wrestling is stupid with a straight face. "Hey man, I'm going to pay $40 to see "Extreme Rules." You should do it too."

Here are some old WWE/WCW PPV names: Capital Carnage, December To Discemeber (I remember the last one...shudder), This Tuesday In Texas, Chi-Town Rumble (Judgment Day could have been called this), Greed, Capital Combat...

Is "Extreme Rules" fine? What should be the replacement title?
"Judgment Day + Weapons"

"Immoderate Stipulations"

"Hey, at least it's not December to Dismember"

And this December to Dismember PPV poster is odd as hell. Would you want to see The Sandman down your chimney? Hell no.




The "nerd" label isn't really apt to be put onto Cena. "Tool" would be better.

The Doctor of Smarkanomics Miz is sinking. Lawler comes out to tell him that he is indeed sinking: "The commercials are getting better ratings than this bit." Especially that Vince-Cena Gillette commercial. It just won't die.

Lawler then says the following: "Bruno! Hogan! Stone Cold!" That's all he did. Just shouted all random names of popular wrestlers. For 30 minutes. The angry smark Miz just got pwned by Lawler. We're all sad.

Show comes out. "Look. Make-believe time is over." Actually, it's still going. I wouldn't consider the Cena-Show feud to be "realistic."

Show then locks his in submission move on Lawler. Cole whines and says, "Let him go, Show! You big bully! Vintage! Controlled frenzy! Takes away the power game!"

And for all the Cena fans out there, the moral of the story is this: You can only save one Hall of Famer per night. Sorry, King.

Jim Ross is here, and he's giving off the impression that he has had too much of the sauce. Barbeque sauce. I could have done without Cole mocking Ross going, "How about them apples, BBQ boy? Huh? Huh? Excuse me while I go frost my hair."

Did like the fan who was creating various hand gestures with the inflatable Cena hands. Look, there's the bird. Look, there's the shocker.

Ric Flair talks about how he can beat 90 percent of the guys on the roster. Batista responded with "squeak! Squeak!" Or something. It's quite remarkable how Batista can be portrayed as a rampaging monster that destroys everything in its path...and then becomes the human marshmallow. Soft. Doughy. "Squeak! Squeak!"

Vickie is on top of the couch, ready for some living room wrestling with Chavo. Interesting visual.

By the way kids, don't try this at home.

Santina stops by and does the obligatory Raw fat joke.

Funny, I don't hear any cross-dresser jokes on Raw.

"You know, Cole, Santina is as ugly as the Denver Nuggets owner."

"You dummy. Everybody uglier than the Denver Nuggets owner."

It's Santina vs. Vickie for the "Miss WrestleMania" title.

Jim Ross says that Santina has a nice ass. Or nice sash. Couldn't tell.

Chavo informs us that it's now a no-DQ match.

Jim Ross: "Does that matter?"

It's giving a hungry dog a bone to chew on. Don West and Jim Ross being the voice of depressed fans who are sick of this crap. While it's nice and all, you know what would be better? If the crap wasn't put there in the first place.

But then again, I spend typically four hours writing these absurd articles covering the stupid crap and dissecting it, so...I don't think I can classify myself as a "winner" in my argument here.

Regal vs. Santino. It just hurts to think about it.

Raw ended with another handicap. Good. Blah blah blah.

I missed out on ECW, but judging from the reviews, I'm glad I dodged that bullet. I agree that WWE wrestlers are portrayed too much like children. "It's my time to talk. That's disrespectful to interrupt me! Can I have the night off? That's not fair! Can I have the bathroom pass? I need to tinkle." And so on.

The response to the Absurd Sting Retirement bet was controversial, astonishing, and at times, miraculous. Thanks to all of those who sent in ideas. And the usual death threats. They're getting more creative. I'll probably go with getting an embarrassing tattoo. Or wearing the current Orton shirt in public.

Check out next week's Raw. You can cheer for the walking messiah John Cena, the human marshmallow Batista, the idiotic male model Randy Orton and his kids, and the Big Slow. Plus Ric Flair getting sodomized by Orton. Plus Santino stupidity, Carlito crud, Vickie's vernacular, and Matt's moping. How about them apples? Huh? You can connect with that, can't ya? Can't ya? Well, you can sure connect with this.



Watching Vince getting hit with a chair is somewhat uplifting. You know, I will take a steel cage match with Vince and Stan boy, thank you.

RAW'S VERDICT: In The Middle Of Absurdity

(credit to blisstree.com, i298.photobucket.com, bleepbleepbleep.files.wordpress.com, and 30.img.v4.skyrock.net for pics)

Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com

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