In 2001, Stone Cold Steve Austin made an ill fated heel turn. It was a bad idea, but at least it was an idea he endorsed. The business fell sharply, but his turning heel wasn’t the only reason. And even though it wasn’t a money making turn, it was very entertaining. He was facing great wrestler after great wrestler, cutting hilarious promos, and created maybe the most annoying catch phrase ever. Well, at the time, I loved it. But it still lives on today, even though he’s been retired.
This is the funniest “What?!” promo that I can remember. It was before the Royal Rumble 2002 and Triple H was coming back from a torn quad. And he had a beer belly. I said a beer belly.
We had play by play coverage of the EXC show, but didn’t have live coverage of the Cotto vs. Margarito fight. But we do have some thoughts afterward. Here’s the aftermath.
Miguel Cotto vs. Antonio Margarito
Duan
Show overall rating: Thumbs way up
This was easily my favourite fight this weekend; a great performance from both men. Margarito was absolutely relentless. He took everything Cotto had in his stride and continued to press the action. It was really dramatic watching as he clawed his way back into the fight, after Cotto established a big lead early on. I had the fight pretty even going in to the 11th round, where the knockout took place. Cotto started showing signs of disillusionment from the 7th round, and it became a matter of whether or not he could ride out the last few rounds and sneak the decision. By the 11th round it was evident that he just had nothing left to give. His corner made the right decision to pull him from the fight at that point. It could be a tough loss for Cotto to rebound from, as he was defeated both mentally and physically.
4 matches this week. I’ll see if I can fire through the rest next week. While I’m definitely not getting sick of watching these matches, finding different things to write about them is becoming hard.
Kenta & Marufuji vs. Ogawa & Suzuki – 4/3/2004
Former GHC HEAVY champ Yoshinari Ogawa drops down to the junior division here to get a crack at Kenta & Marufuji. He picks Kotaro Suzuki as his partner. This was the youngsters first title shot and easily his biggest match ever. They went a half hour and to it’s credit it never got boring. Suzuki had some slip ups here and there but that added to the story. Marufuji got a huge win pinning Ogawa with a top rope Shiranui after surviving a couple of backdrop suplexes. Very good defense ****1/4.
Kenta & Marufuji vs. Misawa & Ogawa – 4/25/2004
Quite the awesome dynamic here. Kenta & Marufuji go for the HEAVYWEIGHT tag belts, a true step up. Ogawa wants to prove himself after the junior champs beat him and Suzuki a few weeks prior, and Misawa wants to prove that pesky little men deserve nothing but elbows in the face, lots and lots of elbows in the face! Kenta & Marufuji have faced heavyweight competition before but never in a match of this importance.
Every week I will try look at Raw, ECW, TNA, and Smackdown and give my thoughts. These are just my thoughts ladies and gentlemen, just my thoughts.
Random wrestling thoughts for the week of July 21, 2008:
Raw
After all the great work that Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels did last night, the Raw show opens with Kane and his bag. Great, just great.
It appalls me how much JBL is pushed considering that with his back injury, he’s one of the worst wrestlers in the company. I know he can talk, but if when he gets in the ring, I want to fast forward, what good is that?
What a shitty opening segment.
Paul London is out to face Lance Cade. Where’s London’s big, huge bodyguard? Wait, that’s Brian Kendrick.
Because I’m watching the EXC show, I’m not able to watch the big fight tonight. ESPN.com has the punch by punch analysis.
I’ll be back here to add more information as I watch how the match develops.
Update: Margarito stopped Cotto to win in the 11th round. From the looks of it, Cotto was ahead early, but Margarito picked up the pace near the end of the fight. Margarito is the new champ.
I’ll have more later, but it looks like it was the classic fight everyone expected it to be.
Bad Left Hook said that Cotto was up 97-93 until Margarito took over.
Dan Rafael said that this fight gave boxing fans a true battle.
Though people will want to see De La Hoya and Mayweather Jr. get involved here, why not let these guys have a rematch. I imagine it would do better business than the first fight.
The first three fights of this card are on Showtime and the rest on the CBS show.
The announcers are Gus Johnson, Mauro Ranallo, and Frank Shamrock.
1. Wilson Reis vs. Bryan Caraway
These guys are fighting at a weight of 140 pounds. There must’ve been some heavy blood in the dark match as there was a few different splatterings of blood on the mat inside the cage. Caraway started off by throwing two big rights that made Reis stumble a bit. But Reis immediately took him down. Reis is a BJJ guy and Caraway is a “cowboy karate” guy, whatever that means. Reis stayed more active and was able to keep Caraway on his back with the single legs.
Caraway is hitting Reis at will, but the second he does, Reis immediately takes him down. The crowd is booing the ground action, but this is not simply controlling someone on the ground. Reis has been active in trying to move forward, while Caraway is active in trying to combat Reis’s jiu jitsu.
We had coverage for every show last weekend. Here’s what we thought about all those shows after thinking about them for a few days.
UFC Fight Night
GG
Show overall rating: Thumbs in the middle
Best Fight: Anthony Johnson vs. Kevin Burns
Worst Fight: Brandon Vera vs. Reese Andy
There wasn’t really a top notch fight, but I thought Johnson and Burns was the best until the lame stoppage. There were some fun knockouts with Rory Markham and Anderson Silva coming to mind, and a great submission by CB Dollaway, but the show was really just there. If Silva had a better opponent, I think the fight could’ve felt bigger. But James Irvin wasn’t going to cut it, and he showed why, taking a beating. Brandon Vera’s terrible performance took a lot out of the show as well.
