Condolences to Elix Skipper

A former TNA X division wrestler whose 21 year old son was shot dead today. A suspect is currently in custody. So sad and senseless when such things happen. My heart goes out to the family.

No ITVR tonight, and RIP Playboy Buddy Rose

Sorry guys - between appointments, spring cleaning, and errands this week in general and today in particular, and then trying to take it easy and recover this evening, our time got away from us - it's now 11pm and we haven't even so much as set up a run sheet for our show. And as of tomorrow we have out of town guests and lots of stuff on the weekend coming up as it's our baby boy's naming ceremony. In the next couple of days I will do my best to at LEAST get up my solo show/audio blog kind of thing that I try to do on the weeks we don't get to a full-on ITVR, and we might yet find some time to do a full podcast - but today was the main day we had clear in the evening and it just kind of disappeared.

Meanwhile, however, I want to express my condolences to the family of Playboy Buddy Rose, a wrestler from the 1980s and early 1990s who passed away today. The era I watched him, he was glorified 'enhancement talent' for WWE shilling some 'Blow Away' weightloss powder, but I know he was a former AWA tag team champion, a very successful wrestler prior to that, seconded by such 'managers to the stars' as Bobby Heenan and Sherri Martel. A tribute to him can be found at wwe.com. He will be missed.

Reid Flair, Backlash and Raw

Well as we've discussed, there hasn't been much going on in the wrestling world of late; even the onscreen product, while exciting as it was Wrestlemania time and the draft, was in quite a holding pattern from No Way Out on, as all champs retained their belts at Mania, no real major heel or face turns have occurred, and the draft wasn't truly in effect until last night.

Not to say that a holding pattern is bad - some excellent matches have come out of the last few months, and a few stories have been pretty well told (Shawn Michaels and Undertaker covers both of those requirements, Randy Orton and Triple H's story was well-told at least at the start). However, once we've been done saying 'another excellent job by Wrestler X', there hasn't been much to say.

But all that changed this weekend/Monday night; Backlash was arguably a more newsworthy and exciting PPV than Wrestlemania from an overall perspective, and Monday night basically followed up on that really well. In the offscreen world, the youngest son of a legend was also busted for drug use. While we're already back at the eve of a new ITVR broadcast, I don't want to get into any of these in mad detail, I want to touch on all three stories of the last few days briefly.

Starting with Reid Flair:
Reid Flair, son of wrestling legend Ric Flair, was arrested this weekend for drug possession (felony, as the drug was heroin), DUI, and driving on a suspended license (due to a previous DUI). As a young man who recently made his professional wrestling debut, and already carries around a lot of pressure as the 'son of the Nature Boy', this kind of publicity and setback is the last thing Reid Flair needs. Hopefully he gets the help he needs getting his life back on track or else he risks his shot at the big time in a big way in terms of his reputation as a liability. I wish the Flair family luck in dealing with this situation.

Backlash/Raw:
I'll cover these together, as really they were two parts to the same story. Ari and I will cover this in a more blow-by-blow fashion shortly: but for now the highlights by storyline:

• Triple H/Batista/Shane McMahon vs. Legacy: a decent match, although I hope they keep Triple H offscreen awhile to sell the kick to the head here, but moreso to refresh his character. As small as the segment of the audience might have been cheering his being taken out on a stretcher and jeering him, they were vocal, and definitely representative of a certain segment of WWE's audience. I wish they'd done the same thing with John Cena, but more on that later. Congratulations to Randy Orton on his reign. His match with Batista should be good at Judgement Day, and I'm interested in their furthering of the dynamic between Batista and Triple H as well, as Batista could be argued to have cost Triple H his title when Triple H admonished him for wielding a chair. They kept Shane McMahon in the spotlight Monday night as well, without ramming him as a non-wrestler down anyone's throats. Good work.
• MVP had a good match with Randy Orton; that didn't hurt anyone and in fact was a great start on Raw for MVP. The other Raw debut from the draft, Miz, could have had an equally good start by challenging John Cena, if Cena hadn't come out later on to distract Big Show and cost him his match with Batista for the #1 contendership to Randy Orton's title. Miz calling out an injured John Cena he knew wouldn't show week after week would have been entertaining, and could have gotten Cena some fan appreciation back when he finally did show; instead it looks like he won't even be taking time off to sell the major injury Big Show inflicted on him by throwing him through the spotlight and costing him his title defense to Edge (an amazing spot by the way). Instead as I said we have Cena still on TV, and Big Show continuing to look stupid by allowing Cena to dstract him on Monday night into a countout. They've now both cost each other titles/title shots. On the plus side, by GM Vicki telling Show she wanted a strictly professional relationship going forward, I think they effectively pulled the plug on this storyline, which makes sense with Edge and his wife on different brands now.
• We can save much of the rest for tomorrow - the lacklustre response to the Primo Brothers' debut on Raw, the funny-ness that was Santina declaring his love for JR at Backlash and Hornswoggle macking it up with the Bella twins under the ring before revealing Santina's 'bits', etc. but as I say tune in to In This Very Ring tomorrow for all that. The only thing I want to add in the meantime is a congratulations to Jack Swagger and Christian on a very good match at Backlash, and Christian on his ECW title win. After a Mania at which no titles changed hands, for all 3 of them to change hands made Backlash at least a newsworthy show. Kudos to all involved. Efforts were more or less succesful as we'll discuss tomorrow, but they were still all worthy efforts. Yay.
• Also ... where on Earth is Shawn Michaels still?
  

New ITVR Post

Click the post heading to listen and enjoy. XO

Raw thoughts and ITVR note

First the ITVR note - due to a prior commitment tomorrow night we will be broadcasting Thursday evening. Be sure and tune in then for us chewing over Raw thoughts in more depth than I'll be going into here, as well as Backlash predictions.

Meanwhile - some Raw thoughts to tide us over:

• I enjoyed John Cena and Edge both last night - I find it interesting that John Cena's on the receiving end of the boo birds again despite the fact nothing has changed in his gimmick between his comeback (when he got some major pop going on) and now. But he delivered a decent promo and a decent match; Edge's interference at the end of the match and the 10-count which Cena didn't answer was effective in pushing the importance of the Last Man Standing stipulation in their match at Backlash.
• Similarly WWE did a good job playing up the dynamics between the Legacy and the Shane McMahon-Triple H-Batista team throughout Raw. Some signs of Ted Dibiase Jr. doubting his leader Randy Orton, as well as some hints of dissention - as well as of things being smoothed over - on the face team. It will be interesting to see what's red herring and what's honest foreshadowing of heel and face turns to come - Ari and I will discuss that in more depth tomorrow - but the fact that I as a longtime wrestling fan can't tell if any turns are going to happen, and if so which ones, I think that's pretty impressive.
• The Santina-Santino segment was comic gold, with Santino talking 'live' to his 'twin sister', where the tape ended up speeding up and he spoke of her love for Red Bull, etc. Good stuff. I can't wait to see the inevitable kiss between Santina and the Great Khali.
• I'm glad the Raw announcers addressed the non-enforced draft situation I've complained about a couple of times, and I'm at least somewhat appeased that my suspicion was correct - it's mainly because Backlash will blur draft boundaries anyway. Hopefully they are back in full force come Monday, and brand lines are again crossed only in special circumstances. Otherwise there's really no reason to continue with the brand extension.
• Lastly - I enjoyed Chris Jericho's promo, Rick Steamboat's responding promo, and I'm looking forward to their match at Backlash. A bit disappointed after the response/sendoff Steamboat got the other week that he's getting back in the ring, but this is hardly a Ric Flair return - he made no promises of not comign back, and he can still go. It should be an interesting, and passable, match.

We'll talk about all this and much more in depth on Thursday in our podcast right here In This Very Ring, folks. Be sure and tune in then. Be well.

Ted Dibiase Boys and Girls Club Speech

Ted Dibiase Sr. (the Million Dollar Man) gave a speech at the Boy's and Girl's Club this weekend and it was very interesting. You can find a report on it at Jason Powell's prowrestling-dot-net: http://www.prowrestling.net/artman/publish/WWE/article1005482.shtml.

Of particular interest are his comments on Randy Orton's maturing process in recent years, and his son's imminent face turn; despite being a long-tenured employee of the WWE, I can't imagine Ted's spoiling his son's heel run going over too big in the office. Then again, it could be no big thing.

Anyway the report's an interesting read and I encourage you to check it out. :)

Not much to write about

So missed Smackdown this week, and there hasn't been a whole lot of 'real-world' news as we said on ITVR Wednesday. I've actually been blogging over on my main blog more than here as there hasn't been much to say about wrestling.

I am going to try to catch SD on Youtube or via download at some point in the next day or two as it sounds like it was solid - the Hardys got back onto the right foot with their storyline, Big Show had a good match w/Jeff Hardy that Matty interfered in; Undertaker did a good match with Shelton Benjamin, MVP fought with Dolph Ziggler in a surprisingly good match that put Dolph over without damaging MVP too badly ... Triple H and Randy Orton had a decent exchange, although not enough to save this storyline which started wtih such promise and seems to be flagging quickly ... although I'm intrigued enough at the dissention on the face team and have to wonder if Shane McMahon or Batista will be supporting the Evolution side of things as of next Sunday ...

Anyway, my only real complaint from the sounds of it - and I guess it's somewhat understandable as SD was taped Tuesday, before the supplemental draft we spoke of Wednesday night - is that the night right after the draft, the draft seemed irrelevant as stars from all brands made appearances. Hopefully now that the draft is solidly behind us, we'll get some more normalcy in the brand split as of next week - although I know some crossover will occur as Backlash was planned pre-draft, and provides fall out from the draft-immune Wrestlemania. And in order to balance out the world title scene - both of which are on Raw at the moment - I know that either CM Punk as the MITB holder, or Edge as a Smackdown wrestler, will need to claim John Cena's title soon (I assume it's he who will lose it as the other champ is Triple H, whose opponent, Randy Orton, is also on Raw).

Anyway hopefully next week will continue to be interesting onscreen while quiet off - it makes for poor blogging but as 'real world' wrestling news rarely tends to be good we're probably better off without it. I'll be around for Raw thoughts on Monday, and ITVR Wednesday, and Backlash predictions going into the weekend - a busy week ahead so please stay tuned. Peace.