Sporctober

If you have read any of my previous blog entries you have come to the conclusion that I’m a pretty big sports fan. From football to baseball to basketball, all the way to UFC and pro wrestling -we could spend hours talking about pro wrestling and if I should call it a sport or not. While the results are predetermined, you need to be a complete athlete to perform the way the do, there is no denying that; so I do consider it a for of sports and entertainment- I love watching sports, I’ve played most of them (soccer, baseball, basketball, flag football, bowling) and without a doubt I love talking and writing about them.

That being said, I’m really excited by the way October is shaping up. October brings to us the MLB playoffs and the second month of the NFL season, also kicks off the NBA season (most likely not going to happen this year), so there are a ton of options on stuff to see live. The reason I’m so excited is because I’ll be going to a ton of events that month:

• UFC 136 – October 8th we get UFC 136 live from Houston’s Toyota Center. Just today I bought my plane ticket and made hotel and car reservations for this trip. The card is looking good so far: Demian Maia vs Jorge Santiago, Chael Sonnen vs Brian Stann, Jose Aldo vs Kenny Florian for the Featherweight title, and Frankie Edgar vs Gray Maynard 3 for the Lightweight Championship. If you follow MMA you know that these have the potential to be some of the greatest fights in a long time. Also during the day we get the UFC Fan Expo which should be an interesting event.

UFC 136 Edgar vs Maynard III Poster

• Raiders vs Texans – While these are two teams I don’t really care for, the game will be October 9th so I’ll be in Houston to catch it. Basically any NFL game I can catch live I’ll do. Reliant Stadium is a beautiful venue (was there last year for a great Chargers-Texans game), the Texans have a great high powered offense and I expect the Raiders to suck (which is good for us Charger fans) so the Texans will certainly score a ton of point. Not to bad of a quick Friday-Sunday trip up to Houston.

Reliant Stadium and Reliant Astrodome at night from Kirby Dr.

Inside Reliant Stadium

• WWE Raw Live – every chance I get to see WWE live I’m there, so I’ll take full advantage of them being in town for 2 straight nights. October 12th  is a house show (not taped for TV) but these usually provide the most interaction with fans as the wrestlers have no time constraints and can go out there and have a good time doing their thing. While they don’t bring a big screen and all the stuff you see on TV, you get that interaction that more than makes up for it.
• WWE SmackDown Live – The following night, the 13th, we get Smackdown for another live show. Same as the above, the interaction is well worth the price of admission; also getting to hear some of the guys curse in Spanish is pretty funny. I’m waiting to see who comes out with a soccer jersey (Monterrey has 2 teams), a couple of years ago Michelle McCool came out wearing a Tigres jersey looking for a face pop but half of the arena booed her – I guess most people in attendance were for Monterrey.

CM Punk & Alberto del Rio in Monterrey 05/14/11

• WWE Vengeance. On October 23 WWE will revive the Vengeance PPV (I was at the 2001 edition in San Diego, yeah the one were Chris Jericho was crowned the 1st ever Undisputed Champion, see video below) live from the AT&T Center. While at a Raw taping at the same joing in May WWE announced that the event would be Uprising but quickly changed that. The last couple of Pay Per Views have been really good, lets hope they keep the trend leading to October.

• WWE still has not announced any other events around the PPV, but we’ll most certainly get a show in Austin, maybe Laredo, McAllen or Corpus Christi. This would definitely will be a great way to close out what is shaping up to be a great month.

What cool events do you have on the radar for the coming months?

Mr Khakbaz out!!!

WWE Extreme Rules

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Still having Wrestlemania hangover? Well we get WWE’s next pay-per-view installment Extreme Rules.

This show originated in 2005 as the rebirth of ECW in a magical show in New York that saw the Dudley Boyz beat Tommy Dreamer & Sandman. In the 2006 show RVD finally won the WWE title, this was the last show that trully had a ECW feel to it. The 07 show was a forgettable one, but 2008 was a solid one that gave us a great ladder match between Edge & Undertaker that I had the chance to see live at the San Diego Sports Arena.

I have always been impressed and interested what WWE offers us in relation to the production and setup for the show. Stages used to be unique for every show and not the same one every month with different logos. This is a picture of the stage from my seat

The ladder match had some awesome spots that ended with Edge throwing Undertaker off the ladder to the outside of the ring through 4 tables. This is one of the final extreme matches Edge had, he unfortunately had to retire this month because of his recurring neck injuries (for a Edge tribute blog go here)

The stipulation was that if Taker lost he would be banished, so we didn’t get to see him for a few months until SummerSlam

So lets get into the matches announced for this Sundays show

Jerry Lawler & Jim Ross vs Michael Cole & Jack Swagger
I’ll start off by saying that I’m sick of this feud, I have no interest whatsoever in Cole and usually end up changing the channel; the only good thing to come put of this is to have Jim Ross back on commentary, even if it is for a couple of months. Also finally Swagger is getting some TV time which hopefully gets him a further push after this ends.
I have no idea how this will end as I expected this to be blown off at Mania but noooooooooo, we get another month of it. I don’t care who wins as long as it end; I expect King and JR to pick up the W with help from Swagger who in the process will turn face.
Lawler and JR pick up the win.

Cody Rhodes vs Rey Mysterio (Falls Count Anywhere Match)
I’ve been a fan of this feud from the get-go and was expecting someone to help get over Rhodes and Rey has been instrumental to get this done. Their Mania Match was a solid one that told a good story with the Dashing One picking up the win, therefore I expect Mr. 619 to get the W in this one to keep this feud going.
I hope they get 15-18 minutes to tell a good story, with Rey getting the win.

—SPOILER ALERT— This match will be announced on SmackDown!
Michelle McCool vs Layla (Loser leaves Smackdown match)
I’ll start off by saying I love LayCool and think they have been great in their role, whether McCool was given a head start because of her backstage relationship or not is irrelevant as she was given the ball and ran with it. Michelle has an injured foot so I guess this is a match that will be used to explain her absence, thus Layla will pick up the win (for the record, I find Layla to be the hottest diva today, her face, her body, her accent, THE WHOLE DAMN PACKAGE)
Layla wins this one in a 7-8 minute match.

Randy Orton vs CM Punk (Last Man Standing Match)
This feud has grown a bit stale even with 2 of the greatest SuperStars around. Orton will be moving to Smackdown and Punk is THE greatest heel in WWE today, bar none. With rumors going around that Punk won’t resign with WWE this match may go his way to make him feel good, also a loss wouldn’t hurt Orton as the people are really behind him.
I’m interested in seeing how violent the WWE allows this guys to be, no need for huge spots but some use of weapons could help the match and accentuate how sadistic both guys are -in their own way-.
Punk wins in a 23 minute (sounds like a good wish) show-stealing match

Alberto del Rio vs Christian in a Ladder Match for the WHC
This is quite a mystery and hard to call as we have ADR going to RAW because of the Draft and if he wins he would take the title and have both titles on Monday Nights, yet he is so overdue to win this match and the crowd may lose faith in him if he doesn’t pick up the W. On the other hand Christian is a solid performer but has never been see as Championship material by the office so -I’d love to see him finally get the title- it’s hard to believe they will put the strap on him.
Regardless of the outcome I expect these 2 to put on a clinic -along with the Orton-Punk match- I expect this one to steal the show. I’ll go out on a limb and pick a winner
Alberto Del Rio gets the W, not sure how they will manage the title after that but that’s for creative to figure out.

John Cena vs John Morrison vs The Miz in a Triple Threat WWE title Match
For some reason I’m not real interested in this match although I like all 3 guys. Cena takes a bunch of crap from most fans but you have to respect his commitment and hard work, I mean the guy is on the road close to 300 days a year, does media appearances left and right, is a great performer and always gets a reaction. Morrison is one of the best wrestlers around, his parkour is amazing, he gets a great reaction from the crowd but for some reason (maybe it’s Melina and the stuff backstage with Trish Stratus) WWE decides not to let him be a real top guy. And finally, The Miz; this guys is a perfect example of what hard work and fighting for what you believe in is all about, that package before his Wrestlemania still gives me chills and I think he is a role model for anyone to follow.
With that being said, I don’t care for this match. I expect R-Truth (a guy I could care less about) to somehow mess with JoMo, that leaves us with Cena-Miz  which I’d love to end with Miz picking up the clean win but I find it hard to believe they will go with that.
A good thing about this is that the winner is hard to predict, which is a testament to the Miz growing as a believable character. No one believed he’d go past a couple of week as champ, but here he is after beating Orton a couple of times, Cena at Mania (all have been with help, but it means WWE believes in him and makes fans think he can win any match which adds to the product).
Winner: I want Miz, I expect Cena.

The storylines are not that interesting but we have some matches that have huge potential and could be some of the best this year.
Hope we get an entertaining 3 hours and our moneys worth; I’ll be back on Sunday night for a review, for now…

Mr Khakbaz out!!!

WWE WrestleMania 27 review

So WrestleMania 27 is in the books. I enjoyed pretty much the whole event, some matches more than others, but all in all it was a solid show.

Here are my WM thoughts, as it went down….

-Amazing opening promo, as always. As I said in
my preview blog, WWE is the best in the world at doing video packages and the didn’t disappoint last night; they provided a different kind of packages, somewhat risky but highly great. Also the set and fireworks show were off the hook.

-The Rock kicked off WM and I thought his promo was OK and nothing more. Also the crowd seemed pretty dead. It was odd to hear the Rock directing how the crowd would chant, he didn’t need to do that on his last go-round. I felt the crowd was not mic’ed up correctly as you could not feel how hot they really were, also having the show in a stadium doesn’t help.

World Championship Match: Edge vs. Alberto Del Rio – Talk about being surprised by getting the WHC Match right off the bat, many people see this as a bad thing but I believe the first match is as important as the Main Event if not more, as the crowd may be a bit cold and the performers need to work harder to get them hot. I had Sheamus vs Bryan opening the show but they were bumped to the pre-show match. Edge and ADR brought their A games, and this was a well worked, damn good match. Edge retained the Title clean with a Spear. A solid opener with a result that really surprised me as I was sure ADR would win the Title, but oh well. With the post math stuff we are sure to get more of this feud, still with Christian involved -many expected him to turn, I did not, didn’t see a reason for him to do it-. (With Edge retaining I’m 0-1 in my predictions)

-Rey Mysterio vs. Cody Rhodes – I really enjoyed this match. Not the quickest or best match you will ever see but they truly told a good story. I’m so pleased by the way Cody has progressed throughout this feud; I love the darker, more psychotic Cody we got. I call it and had Rhodes winning (1-1), Mysterio gained nothing from winning and this is the Dashing One’s biggest win to date.

-That Snoop backstage segment… well I won’t comment on that.

The Big Show & Kane &; Santino & Kofi Kingston vs. WWE IC Champ Wade Barrett WWE Tag Champs Heath Slater & Justin Gabriel & Ezekiel Jackson – Talk about having a match just thrown in there for the heck of it. It lasts 90 seconds, some guys don’t even get tagged in and you have the IC and Tag Champs job in brutal fashion. Took a quick bathroom break in this one. (WWE wins, so I’m 2-1)

-Great line with Rock called Mae Young “Divasaurus”. Classic stuff. The Austin-Rock staredown was nicely done and gave to greats of the business a nice moment; all 3 of their Mania matches were great, I was lucky enough to be live at the AstroDome 10 years ago for the second one (this was when they tried to get Austin to go heel and align with McMahon). It was one of those special moments that had the IT factor.

-Randy Orton vs. CM Punk – This was a damn good match, as everyone figured. I was really pleased with this one and enjoyed it from start to finish. Punk is freaking awesome, he is my favorite heel right now, this is one of the guys I love to hate; so different from Cole who I just want off my screen). Fun, fun match with a great finish; I can’t stress enough the trust you must have in the other performer to pull off a move like the final RKO, it was nothing short of AMAZING. The slow motion replay was great and one of those Kodak Moments right when Randy takes Punk by the neck. I didn’t make a prediction on this one as it was to close to call.

-The HOF stuff was a bit rushed -loved how Drew Carey was booed loudly-, nice moment for some of the past greats; laughed at the little tuxedo bow Jim Duggan put on his 2×4. In the end the moment was for HBK. I could write a ton of HBK stuff but there is no way I can put into words how amazing of a performer Shawn is, truly in a class by himself.

-Jim Ross at WM!!! Great to have the best announcer in history back, even if it is for this one night. Nice to see Booker T get a bit of a WM moment too.

Jerry “The King” Lawler vs. Michael Cole – Match went just as expected, Cole got in some offense, but in the end, King destroyed Cole, got his payback, and had his WM moment. I believe this went to long and even the live crowd got impatient, I would have given this 5 minutes and have Cole totally destroyed and just end this feud. (King gets the W, that puts me 3-1) King and Austin chugged some beers after. Hilarious bit afterwards with Booker T doing the Spinarooni and then taking a Stunner. The GM announced that Austin cost Cole the match, and reversed the decision giving Cole the match. Ugh. I felt so disappointed at this, this is the payoff the crowd gets for having this feud stuck down their throats the last 3-4 months? Such a RAW finish. Should have just had King beat the shit out of Cole and let him have his WM moment.

The Undertaker vs. Triple H – Wow. That’s all I can say. Undertaker and Hunter had a great great match. One of the best matches in WM history. We got almost half an hour of great action inside and around the ring; the backdrop Taker gave HHH off the announce table was great and H seemed to legitimately injure his wrist -although it didn’t hamper the match-. HHH hit UT with everything he had and the Deadman kept coming back for more. 3 pedigrees, chairshots -including one to the head, which is not seen nowadays- and even a Tombstone which I expected to be reversed. The ending was nicely done as HHH tapped out to Hell’s Gate why he lost grasp of the sledgehammer (this somewhat reminded me of the finist at WM17 where he had the hammer in his hand but was not able to used it in time as Taker hoisted him up for a Last Ride). Found it weird that Taker was carted out of the arena, seemed to be something legit as it doesn’t fit his character to sell that way. For one night, with it all on the line, both men delivered big time, and showed why tonight, they are two of the greatest of all time. Awesome match but still doesn’t overshadow Taker-Shawn from WM25. (4-1)

-John Morrison & Trish Stratus & Snooki vs. Dolph Ziggler & LayCool – Called this one as well. Feel bad for Ziggler, Morrison and LayCool who have been great this year and have to put up with this crap. Good thing it was over quick. (5-1) I hope they changed the mat and ropes after this one as I’m pretty sure Snooki is carrying every STD known to mankind.

-Can’t get over that Miz video package show before his introduction. WWE delivers again with something special.

I’ll look for a better quality video and upload it, but just by seen this one you can tell it was a perfectly made package.

WWE Championship: The Miz vs. John Cena – I’m a big fan of both guys but the match last night started out missing the IT factor, the live crowd felt the same way -starting out with Cena’s shitty entrance-. I saw as the Miz busted his ass and Cena didn’t seem to be into it at all. After Miz kicked out of the huge Attitude Adjustment it started to pick up steam and the crowd really got hot. The ending wasn’t something I would have expected at WrestleMania, more of a Raw thing but it believe it was done to not make anyone look weak and have a reason for Rock to come out. Rock screwing Cena was pretty predictable but I’m happy with Miz retaining the title in this one (6-1). The one thing I would have changed was the Rock beating Miz down, Miz should have ran out of the ring and have Dwayne beat Cena some more to further their feud.

Overall…this was a good WM, not great, but not awful.

Taker/HHH is the match of the night, no doubt.

Final prediction score: 6-1 not to bad, although that means it was somewhat of a predictable show… I’ll give the biggest show in history (until next month) a 7.83/10.

Mr Khakbaz out!!!