By Shane McKinley, Torch specialist

"Is this a blessing or is it a curse?
Does it get any better? Can it get any worse?
Will it go on forever? Is it over tonight?
Does it come with the darkness? Does it bring out the light?
Is it richer than diamonds or just a little cheaper than spit?
I don't know what it is, but it just won't quit"

-"It Just Won't Quit" by Meatloaf

First off: RIP Mitsuharu Misawa. Sad to see you go so soon. Your legend will live on.

I'm not digging the summer of 2009 so far. I'm thinking that Twitter was created by the Devil to turn humans into nimwits.

-Regarding wrestling, it got to the point last week that I was burned out. Aside from watching some snippets of Raw, I didn't watch any other wrestling content. I'm going to be recapping The Bash, which was sponsored by Burger King. Okay, it wasn't. But considering how Monday Night KFC went, it's only a matter of time. I think it's only a matter of time before that creepy King mascot is sitting ringside with headphones over his head. And he would be ten times better than ... (insert your own hated wrestling announcer here).

Even the Internet crowd's fave Chris Jericho took two years off to recharge his batteries. I think you cannot fault a wrestler for having other interests outside of wrestling. I find that you are more liable to burn yourself out if you're just 24/7, non-stop wrestling. Wrestling fans go through these burnout phases where they need to take a break.

-I'm reading a lot that the Joe joining Kurt Angle was a "Vince Russo" special. Y'all were supposed to turn your brain off when watching KOTM matches, remember? Who cares about Joe and Angle while they were in the match? It's all about the outcome. (I'm being an ass here.)

I kind of dig it that Angle hired Joe to wipe out the rest of the non-loyalists in his gang. I'm assuming that they're going somewhere with this. Who knows. Maybe Nash will dress up like Vinnie Vegas on the next Impact. "Your luck just ran out, Joe! Vinnie Vegas is back, baby!"

-In regarding WWE's The Bash...it's sad to say, but most of us are shocked that a wrestler pays attention (gasp!) to the storyline and tries hard to make it more believable. The little trick of Mysterio wearing a mask underneath his own mask was pretty cool.

-Happy for my boy Ziggler that he has escaped Khali hell before he had to face the movie star inside the Punjabi Prison, but then I'm thinking about Khali vs. Kane and how cleaning out my ears might be more fun. With rusty barbwire.

-Lay off of Teddy Long, Vince. You know that he has had heart problems. He's got an acute case of severe thuggin' & bumpin'. He wears suits five sizes too big for him because he is mentally deranged. I missed something here. When did we get to the point of big bad Vince saying he'll rather shoot himself in the forehead than spend some quality time with Typhoid Teddy in a foxhole? Shouldn't you be buffing your ass, Vince? Or off of television in general?

Has Vince McMahon ever handled a firearm in his...well, that I can believe. Vince McMahon is not Suge Knight. Hey, is Suge Knight out of prison/off probation? Hell, Suge could be the next Smackdown G.M. while wearing his platinum ankle bracelet. WWE is right, Teddy has been there too long. Future endeavor him and bring in Suge. He'll be great for the kiddies! His catchphrases? "I'll pistol whip ya! Pistol whip ya real good!" and "Give me my money, or I'll break your kneecaps!" Move over Vickie's "Excuse Me!," we have a new Friday night delight! (I must admit watching Jeff Hardy flounder while Suge goes off script during their promo-exchange would be great television.)

-Edge and Jericho winning the tag team belts was pretty much WWE putting their big thumb over both the male models and the apple chewers and squashing their feud. There are people who argue that Orton needs to lose Ted and Cody. Until the character of Orton progresses into a more evil badass than of a scared coward (Orton is pretty much the evil A-Rod nowadays), I think Ted and Cody should stay put. WWE hasn't put much faith in their tag team division lately, so I can't see Ted and Cody breaking off and doing their own thing. Of course, this is WWE. Things change on a whim. Want to know how to fix your problems? Just bring in Trump. He's the fixer. He'll throw his hairpiece at you. Watch out.

-Oh, the evil Canucks are now the tag champs. And we've got evil Zoolander as WWE champ, a conflicted hobo as World Champ, my-masked-ass-might-be-out-the-door-soon Mysterio as IC champ, Milli Vanilli as IC champ, and some barely-on-the-radar divas I can't name even if I were married to all of them (and even then probably not) who are women's champions.

-What bothers me about wrestling sometimes is that sometimes you've got to make sense out of something that often makes no sense at all. Joe siding with Angle makes quasi-good enough to get by-sense. The whole McMahon-Trump feud, especially what went down last Raw, makes no sense at all. If it's a one-week deal, then that whole thing was nuts.

-My problem with the Punk-Hardy feud is that I no longer care about Jeff Hardy. It's hard to care about a guy who is continually flaky and keeps mentioning every week that he's gonna quit. I guess I don't have much patience during this whole Punk "slow heel burn" trip he's going on. Personally, I look forward to a feud more than the status of a mid-card's moral character. So hopefully it's going somewhere.

-I thought the Miz vs. Cena match was great. Miz tapping out to Cena in five minutes really helped him...sure helped out Cena...wow, you squashed an ant. What can't you do? Can you FU a searchlight? I'm sure you can. We all believe in you. Use the Cena. The Cena lies within every living thing. It controls the universe. Learn this you will.

Some would say that Miz got the rub through two months of great promos and being in the same spotlight with Cena. True, but that only goes so far. You've got to make a big mark. We get it that WWE was going to rally behind their moneymaker in Cena, but Miz might join Matt Hardy and MVP as "The Forgotten" on Raw.

-You know, it wouldn't be a bad idea on paper about having each Raw have a new special celebrity manager. Of course, that would mean that Raw fans would be treated to knuckleheads like Tom Green running the show. I'm wondering what they are going to do on the July 6 edition on Raw. Got to have a big ratings grab. Their desperation is entertaining.

-Read rumors that WWE is considering a PPV that is all Hell in The Cell matches. I'm hoping that it remains a rumor and doesn't become fact. Know that it would get a lot of PPV buys, but honestly. Let's at least protect one WWE concept match.

-The 3 stages of heck match with Orton vs. Trips was what it was. Maybe somebody over in WWE hears us and knows that not many of us want to see Orton vs. Triple H XVII. The feud reached its breaking point at WrestleMania and got back together for some wacky fun at Backlash. I would like to see Orton vs. Cena (because I always get a kick out of that feud) and Miz vs. Show. Orton vs. Trips has achieved "The Feud That Won't Go Away" status. Orton vs. Trips has become a bloated, disgusting creature that needs to be vaporized.

-Check out "Transformers." I'm hearing that there are two robots who talk all ghetto like and make Jar Jar Binks look like Jesse Jackson. I'm guessing that director Michael Bay hasn't watched the movie "Hollywood Shuffle." (Line from the film: "Could you talk, ya know, more black?")

Hey, all I know is that Brock Lesnar is "built like a black man." Oh, that's our Brock! He doesn't have any common sense when talking to the media! Awww! Such a wovable, violent dummy! Yes you are! So violent!

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you down the road.

(credit to nwo4life.com, crime.about.com, classesandcareers.net and cdn2.maxim.com for pics)

Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com

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