By Dusty Giebink, Torch Team Contributor

WWE Velocity review
March 26, 2005
Taped 3/22/05
Aired on Spike TV
Report by Dusty Giebink, Torch Team Wisconsin Dream

Velocity is Trivial! Just think, if the NHL season was going on, we'd be down to the last couple of weeks and one playoff spot would be left to fight for between seven different teams. Outlandish as it may seem, it was about 15 years ago that 21 teams would play a whole season just to eliminate five, Detroit being one of them. Teams with sub-.500 records would roll into the playoffs (Toronto) and make it to the division finals.

Looking at how the NBA has revamped their divisions for this season, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if a sub-.500 team won their division and got the #3 seed. Now, that's insane. And they say the NHL steals the NBA's ideas.

This past week, the Torch threw in a quote from an old interview with Shane Douglas. It pinpointed how he was very interested in staying with the WWF for the rest of his career. Needless to say, that didn't quite happen as he had hoped, and this was years before he returned and butted heads with the Clique. I decided to throw another quote from a different wrestler that seemed legit at the time, but we know better now. Name the wrestler who said this: “Looking at it right now I might have the chance of going through my whole wrestling career never having to change my name. How many guys get to do that? You see guys going through nine gimmicks.”

Of course, since this is VelociTrivial, you get no hints. Catch me at the end of this recap for the answer.

Answer at the end of the review. On to the show!

The show began with the opening montage, which is almost as badly in need of being changed as Raw’s opening montage, and which featured wrestlers who would rather have a truck park on their throat than to actually appear on the show. Steve Romero and Josh Mathews welcomed us to the show, and we are helpfully reminded that WrestleMania is a mere single digit number of days away so look out for that.

(1) Paul London defeated Spike Dudley. The finish came when London hit his customary splash off the top rope for the victory.

Match Analysis: London started out the match by doing his customary slide through the ring and all the way to the other side. He was naturally wearing his Barbarian furry jacket and Texas Tornado-meets-Ultimate Warrior in a dark alley tassels ensemble. Spike still has the two pronged goatee look going. London did the Jimmy Jacobs war dance thing around the ring and so Spike slid to the outside to break that up. Spike started off fast with a back suplex. He choked London in the ropes and then stomped on London’s head. Spike informed a fan in the crowd that he can’t even spell “sucks.” Mathews suggested that it’s spelt “S-t-e-v-e.” The man is brilliant. London hit a Coconut Crunch for a two count. London (who reminds me of Rick Steamboat every time I see him, to the point where I have to point it out every time I see him) did a skin the cat deal but on his way back up over the topes Spike gave him a big knee to send him crashing to the floor. Back in the ring Spike hit a neckbreaker for a two count. Spike did an innovative camel clutch/single legged Boston crab rest hold, which was nice to see. London eventually got to the ropes. Another thing I need to point out here or else I’ll lose my job is that no one sells like Spike. London hit a side kick for a two count. London hit the dropsault for a two count. London did a great “what is it going to take to win this match?!” face after that. London hit the Mushroom Stomp and got a two count for his troubles. London whipped Spike face first into the turnbuckles and then nailed the 450 splash (as Romero pointed out Spike was probably too close to the ropes) to get the win. Mathews: “The futuristic caveman with a cosmic cyclone for the victory.”

Match Grade: A-. Based on the sliding Velocity Scale, where you have to judge matches not necessarily on how good they actually are, but how good they are in the context of being on Velocity, this was a very good match. London is a tremendous worker with a distinctive look (he probably doesn’t even need the tassels, but figures it can’t hurt him) who is simply not big enough to get the big push in today’s WWE.

From this past Thursday’s Smackdown, we pick up with Eddie Guerrero proposing to Rey Mysterio that they should wrestle each other at WrestleMania 21. He makes a good case for it, too, saying that this is the biggest show of the year and they’re the best wrestlers in the world and all that. Mysterio doesn’t believe he’s serious, since they’re the tag team champions (which I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know that immediately) and friends and all. Eddie makes like he was just exposed, like he really was joking, then reveals that he was dead serious. Mysterio gives one of those classic “I just realized something was up” looks that they usually cut to commercial on, and then we cut to Mysterio’s match that happened immediately after this. It was Eddie and Mysterio against Charlie Haas and Hardcore Holly, and it’s nice to see them out of VelociHell and onto the A-show. Mysterio takes out Holly on the outside while Guerrero hit the frog splash on Haas inside the ring for the victory. They immediately showed a replay of what I just described for you, because you’re all six and have the attention span of Vonzell (my first American Idol reference!). Mysterio grabs the microphone and asks Eddie again if he was serious about the match proposal he offered in the locker room before the match. Mysterio said he accepts the challenge and thinks they could tear the house down in their match. Eddie has this sort of Jake Roberts “you knew I was a snake before you took me home” look on his face, but maybe that’s just a swerve.

Segment Grade: A. Once again, these Smackdown highlight segments are a clinic in production values, and in helping inform the viewer of what he missed and/or lapsed into a coma before getting to on Thursday. And this sets up what should be one of the best matches on the Mania undercard, and there’s always the will he or won’t he factor regarding Guerrero turning on Mysterio. Good stuff here.

WrestleMania, you say? Why yes. There’s going to be other matches on that show, too, including: Batista vs. Triple H for the World Title, a ladder match for a future World Title shot between Chris Jericho vs. Chris Benoit vs. Edge vs. Shelton Benjamin vs. Christian vs. Kane, Trish Stratus vs. Christy Hemme for the Women’s Title, a Piper’s Pit hosted by (duh) “Rowdy” Roddy Piper with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin as his guest. The night before at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, several people who don’t really count and Hulk Hogan will be inducted. In other matches at Mania, we’ve got Akebono vs. Big Show, Kurt Angle vs. Shawn Michaels, JBL vs. John Cena for the WWE Title, Undertaker vs. Randy Orton and they forget to mention that the cruiserweight title exists.

(2) Mark Jindrak defeated Doug Basham. The finish came when Jindrak hit his patented, trademarked and no one else in the world can do it left hook for the pinfall.

Match Analysis: WWE seems to have no idea what to do with the Bashams. They keep changing their look, and they never allow them to talk, even though their talking (especially Danny’s, who could be a big star someday if they let him) would be their biggest selling point if they wanted to actually make some money. Instead, they job to useless, never going to get it Mark Jindrak. Doug worked the arm of Jindrak and hits a belly-to-belly suplex. Romero makes an excellent observation that Basham is working over the left arm of Jindrak to prevent him for hitting that left hook, which is supposedly deadly. So, in case you’re keeping score at home, Jindrak is now Lex Luger mated with Billy Gunn. Somewhere in my rant Jindrak comes up selling his knee. Danny tries to work it over with the ref’s back turned, but the ref spies him with his little eye and kicks him back to the back. Doug hits the OVW trademarked scoop slam and gets a two count on it. Doug is now working the knee over, even though that has nothing to do with stopping the guy from hitting his trademark left hook. Jindrak eventually rolls his way out of the mat work and starts hitting sloppy, generic big man moves. He back dropped Doug and actually pinned him off of that. Doug tried to go back to the leg but Jindrak cut him off and hit a big knee for a two count. Doug tried to cover Jindrak with his feet on the ropes, but the referee (who must not be a trained official, because he’s actually noticing stuff) saw it and refused to count. Jindrak hit the left hook for the victory.

Match Grade: C-. Romero noted that this marked the fourth consecutive victory for Jindrak using his left hook finisher. Mark Jindrak sucks.

(3) Heidenreich defeated Robert Adams. He won it with a sidewalk slam.

Match Analysis: Adams has a mullet and looks like every single late ‘80s, early ‘90s Superstars jobber I ever grew up on. Name from my past: Ed Arce. Yes, I am absolutely insane for remembering that. Heidenreich is in this match, so that deserves more attention, in my defense. Heidenreich hits some basic power moves, and does great facial expressions to his credit. Romero and Mathews talked about the weirdness of Heidenreich shouting out that Adams is his friend while beating the crap out of him. He hit the sidewalk slam for the victory and then pats the guy on the head and force handshakes him. Match was not good but Heidenreich has a certain bizarre loveability factor to him. He’s sort of like Anthony Federov (American Idol reference number two).

Match Grade: C-. Most importantly, though, is that Heidenreich sucks and this was not the best squash match I’ve ever seen by any sort of stretch of the imagination. It makes me hate this company so much that they have a spot for Heidenreich, but they could find nothing to do with a guy like Sean O’Haire, who at least had more potential and a better look. Yes, I’m still bitter.

They air the “Taxi Driver” WrestleMania commercial, and it’s really good. I got called an idiot by someone I really respect for not liking the Royal Rumble commercial, and to be fair a couple of the WrestleMania commercials were probably worse, but that just goes to show that people can have different opinions on these things. In any event, the best part of this commercial was something falling and Snitsky being all “THAT wasn’t my fault,” and worst part of this by a country mile was that useless, talentless “woman” Candice Michelle dancing around with her big breasts showing. I am disgusted by her, because she seems to be a parody of all the other nameless, faceless women they’ve brought in recently. “I can do this.” I wish her great pain and zero success in the future.

From this past Thursday’s Smackdown, Romero helpfully points out to us that we are going to be shown “smack talk from Smackdown.” In any event, this is one of those pre-big match debate deals they always do when they run out of ideas for how to promote matches. Cena was messing with JBL because of how he couldn’t hit him until JBL made the first move or something. Cena poured water in JBL’s hat and then dumped it on JBL’s head. JBL reacted the same way I would, staring down and looking like he can’t believe what just happened. Cena tries to get JBL to hit him, because that would give him the license to “knock the hell” out of him. All the while, GM Teddy Long got to stand there like wallpaper, highlighting the fact that he is completely impotent as an authority figure. Cena said he bets JBL thinks he’s clever, but he thinks he’s something else. Cena actually does the “I’m not touching you” bit, and then paints a yellow strip down his back with spray paint. Cena spouted off a bunch of his cliché catchphrases and then spray painted “F-U” on JBL’s front of his shirt. “Ah HA!” Cena noted.

All that set up this: Cena will be challenging JBL for the WWE Title at Mania.

Segment Grade: B+. This was a solid segment that helped set up the biggest match of the Smackdown portion of the WrestleMania lineup. To that end, this was pretty darn good. I have to admit that I actually found the “I’m not touching you” bit funny, mostly because, again, that’s exactly what I would do in that situation. I suppose that the worst part of all this is how Teddy Long just stood let, letting it all go down. He might as well have not shown up for the night, based on this segment.

(4) Billy Kidman & Akio defeated Nunzio & Funaki. The finish came when Kidman pinned Nunzio on a non-fruit rollup with a handful of tights.

Match Analysis: Unfortunately, because Akio doesn’t really have his own entrance music but sort of comes out to generic Diva music, the heels came out to Kidman’s entrance music. Which is always sad, and makes me feel bad for the state of America, because as deplorable and void of any redeeming qualities as that song is, some people actually like it. And yell at me for not liking it. And oh yeah, there’s a match going on right now. Kidman starts things off by going to work on Funaki. Kidman looks much better with facial hair. Funaki hit a headscissors on Kidman, and then hits a crossbody off the second rope for a two count. Funaki and Nunzio hit a double hiptoss on the running in Akio, sending him right on top of Kidman, on his way to fleeing out of the ring. Akio kicked away on Nunzio back in the ring. Nunzio hit a small package out of nowhere for a one count. Nunzio hit a nice tilt-a-whirl headscissors on Akio. Funaki tagged in and Akio went for a powerbomb, but Funaki armdragged his way out of it. Kidman wanted to tag in while Akio dragged Funaki into their corner, but Funaki fought his way out of it. Kidman finally did tag in, though, much to Funaki’s chagrin. Akio gave Funaki a backbreaker and then didn’t let go, thus stretching Funaki’s back into a world of hurting. The heels were making quick tags and cutting the ring off here, like any good heel team should. Funaki hit an enziguiri out of nowhere and made the desert crawl to his corner. He made the no reaction whatsoever tag to Nunzio who was Scarlett Johansson on the heels with stuff like a DDT on Kidman, which Akio broke up before Nunzio could get the pinfall. “It’s breaking down on Velocity!” Mathews yells as things disintegrate their way into a four way. Nunzio missed the Sicilian Slice, got kicked by Akio, rolled up by Kidman who with a handful of tights managed to get the victory.

Match Grade: A-. This was another solid Velocity-style match. Velocity really is the home for cruiserweight action, what with two matches featuring six cruiserweights on this show. They might as well just let cruiserweight action be Velocity-only, with a few other matches thrown in for flava, just as they could do with the women’s division on Heat, just to switch things up all Flipmode Squad and make things interesting there.

Final Show Grade: B. Overall, this was a solid edition of Velocity. The highlights were the Smackdown highlight clips and the opening and closing matches, London vs. Spike and the tag match. The low points were the continued attempt to make rancid lemonade out of Mark Jindrak (at the expense of Doug Basham, for God’s sake) and the Heidenreich squash match, if only because: a) it’s Heidenreich, b) Heidenreich sucks, and c) it was a squash match besides. So, thumbs up overall, and really it was better than many recent editions of Velocity, so that is good news.

Answer to Trivial! “Looking at it right now I might have the chance of going through my whole wrestling career never having to change my name. How many guys get to do that? You see guys going through nine gimmicks.” Who said it? It was the Sandman, from November 7, 1997. He was more thrilled about being a guy whose character and name will never change than winning the ECW title. "[Paul] gives [the fans] a great underdog in Mikey Whipwreck. They loved it and look what happened to his career after that. He's the only guy to hold all three of our titles. I want to be next. I want that [gosh-darned] TV belt. Actually, I'm only kidding. That belt is just a hassle. It weighs like 15 pounds, you gotta carry it through the airport. I don't need a belt anyway. Anytime I've had the ECW title it was pure fluke.” The man soon-to-be-known-as-Hak should just let things happen instead of making guarantees.

Thank you to “The Supreme” Seth Berger for the Trivia!

***Dusty Giebink thinks that Josh Koscheck is going to win The Ultimate Fighter competition, and he welcomes any questions, answers, comments or concerns that you might have. He can be contacted at dusty13@gmail.com, or the ultra-clever “Dusty Giebink” on the VIP Forum message board, if you have anything you wish to say.

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