Like I mentioned on Wednesday, this update is a lot earlier in the day than usual because I’m attending tonight’s Monster Pro Wrestling show in Edmonton. Expect a blog update about it in the next couple of days!
By the time I got around to drawing this page, it had been written for a few weeks, maybe a month or so. When I sat down to draw it I realized that, aside from explaining that there’s a board somewhere in the prison with the matches on it, nothing really happens. Then I came up with the joke about the funeral and tried to make the page as visually interesting as possible. I feel like it was a success, but ultimately that’s up to you guys to decide for yourselves.
Oh, and you may want to take note of some of the names on the match board in the second panel. We’ll be seeing quite a few of those guys in the future (four of them on page 30, in fact).
On Wednesday: “… am I supposed to be a viking now?”
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I watched WWE RAW last night and uh… four matches in two hours, totalling about half an hour of TV time (probably not even that much). Now, I know that WWE has gotten even talkier since I stopped watching it a few years ago, but seriously, four matches in a two hour show? And Jack Swagger vs. Santino and MVP vs. … whoever MVP fought barely combined to break the one minute mark.
Ted DiBiase vs. Randy Orton and DX vs. ShowMiz were okay, and I guess a decent length by modern TV standards, but considering that the other hour and a half of the show were nothing but yakkity yak yak, it was pretty disappointing. Despite also being a WWE show, Smackdown seems to have a much higher wrestling-to-talking ratio, which I approve of. Until it was canceled, that was my favourite part about the modern ECW: it was almost entirely wrestling, without a whole lot of promo time. Which is also why I was a huge fan of Ring of Honor when it was running on the Fight Network: lots of really good wrestling. Except that when they did talk, the audio was so terrible a lot of the time that it was basically unintelligible.
I think where I’m going with this is that I watch wrestling for wrestling matches, and thus am excited to see Monster Pro Wrestling live in Edmonton this Saturday. All wrestling, no fifteen minutes of John Cena and Batista nattering about their upcoming match, which resolved nothing. So yeah, if you’re in Edmonton, check out Monster Pro Wrestling on Saturday night. Should be a good time! Vance Nevada is taking on Massive Damage in the main event.
This afternoon, the Univeristy of Alberta shoved the Guinness World Record for World’s Largest Dodgeball game into the mud and stomped on it’s balls until it’s face turned blue. The record, previously held by San Diego State University, was 450 people. Today in the Butterdome, I participated in a dodgeball game with 1200 people. TWELVE. HUNDRED. It lasted almost an hour, despite it being almost impossible NOT to hit somebody early on. I’m used to larger dodgeballs (roughly basketball-sized, and made out of rubber), so trying to throw these little rubberized foam things was tough. No matter how much heat you tried to throw with, the ball sort of just floated to it’s destination. Standing on the court was like being in that scene from 300 where the Persian arrows blot out the sun. Except instead of arrows, it was red balls.
I attended a WWE Royal Rumble party at a friend’s house tonight. I am drunk while typing this. Those two facts are intimately related to one another.
Remember that Royal Rumble drinking game I posted a week or two ago? We decided to take that challenge. We very quickly regretted taking that challenge. Our host encapsulated the drinking game by saying “This is the second-worst idea I’ve ever had in my entire life.” It might have been number one if we hadn’t shot down his suggestion to do shots anytime the rules said to drink. That’s 59 shots without even going into the hardcore rules, incidentally. I think that would kill a small walrus, but have no scientific data to support that. Names will be withheld to protect the completely fucking hammered.
Oh, and we added a rule on top of the rules that I posted earlier. Because only 25 of the participants were revealed prior to the event, we all got to pick a wrestler who we thought would be one of the five “mystery” participants. If our guy turned out to be in the match, everybody else had to take four drinks. If your mystery wrestler didn’t show up, then you had to take four drinks.
Christian vs. Ezekiel Jackson
Oh, ECW title, nobody cares about you. I guess, considering that all of the bouts other than the Rumble itself were championship matches, that somebody had to go first, but still. My favourite part of this match was, as I said during the match, the fact that Ezekiel Jackson didn’t clothesline Christian, he bludgeoned him in the face with his arm. Seriously, those were some vicious-looking clotheslines.
The Miz vs. MVP
The US Title gets higher billing than what is, supposedly, a world championship. I liked the match, though. Mostly we just made a lot of jokes about how all the major black wrestlers seem to end up with an “I was in prison” angle at some point.
Sheamus vs. Randy Orton
There was a very astute comment made that the entire point of Sheamus’ title run seems to be just to break up the monotany at the top of the card. After the match I was left wondering why Sheamus’ title run seems to be designed to make him look like a total pussy. Also, the referee watching Cody Rhodes the entire time he was interfering in the match, then taking his time to ring the bell was hilarious.
Michelle McCool vs. Mickie James
This match was so stupid I think it gave me cancer. Five minutes of promos, then match lasts LESS THAN A MINUTE. Then about ten minutes of rolling around in cake. Beer match, anybody?
Undertaker vs. Rey Mysterio Jr.
Yes, I know they don’t call him “Jr.” anymore, but I don’t care. Most of this match was spent reminiscing about how awesome the Undertaker used to be and wondering how Mysterio can still be considered the ultimate underdog when he’s beaten pretty much every big man worth beating.
The Royal Rumble
That drinking game really did seem like such a great idea. We didn’t even get to #10 before being incredibly glad that we didn’t do shots, because we would have all been dead before #30. The mystery picks were John Morrison, Santino Morella, Edge, and Drew MacIntyre (my pick). There should have been three others, but they either didn’t get made or I just don’t remember them on account of the booze. We loudly swore at the TV for most of the Rumble, because it kept making us drink (based on our own stupid rules). Carlito, Kane, Edge, and Shawn Michaels drew particular scorn because they kept hitting their finishers, which made us all take another drink. Several times during the Rumble we had to keep track of how many drinks we had accrued since we last took one because they piled up so much (the most common instance was a lot of guy’s hitting finishers, followed by several guys getting thrown out, some of which were our draws, followed by the entrance of a new wrestler who was one of the correct mystery picks). I think the highest was 19. My personal highest was 11.
Random weird things that I remember people saying:
A: “I think I’m going to pick Edge, because he has a huge forehead. And you know what they say about huge foreheads.”
B: “Foreheads are NOT PENISES!”
(after the Randy Orton match with Sheamus, when Sheamus was standing behind Orton)
A: “Sheamus is so white Orton can probably see him reflected in the turnbuckle.”
B: “Or because he’s facing the fucking video wall.”
A: “I like how Orton just wrestled for a half hour, but he’s fine, whereas DiBiase and Rhodes got kicked twice and are done.”
(on Rey Mysterio’s entrance mask)
A: “Why the fuck is he wearing a mask over his mask?”
B: “More importantly, why does it look like a KKK hood?”
(during Michelle McCool’s promo prior to the women’s title match)
McCool: I know y’all paid to see me –
A: “You have thirty seconds to take off your top!”
(on the involvement of cake in the women’s title match)
A: “Yes, because that’s equally as bad for her as when guys get locked in flaming caskets and crap.”
B: “Hey, cake fucking burns girls, man! If I get it on me it’s like I’m on fire.”
A: “What’s with all the bromances going on here? Those guys are breaking up, those guys might be breaking up, what the hell?”
(after having consumed an entire bottle of whiskey in roughly 45 minutes, due to the drinking game)
A: “I can feel my teeth. No, seriously, I’m completely aware of my teeth. And I can feel my brain working. Like, when I talk, I can feel the electrical impulses hitting the back of my skull.”
As part of the blog post attached to Classic Wrestling Moments #1, I announced that there was a piece of real world wrestling trivia hidden somewhere in that strip. I also announced that the first person to correctly identify that bit of trivia would get to have a wrestler of their creation featured in the comic later on. Which, somewhat anti-climactically, turned out to be the first person to answer, period.
The hidden trivia was the date: 09/17/’81 was the date on which Ric Flair beat Dusty Rhodes to win his first National Wrestling Alliance World Heavyweight Championship.
So congratulations to comment box frequenter JJ Bar for being the first to email me with the correct answer! His creation, the Invincinator, will be appearing somewhere in the neighbourhood of page 35.
The WWE Royal Rumble is this weekend. Relatedly, my friend Roger (of Micro & Macro fame) came up with a Royal Rumble drinking game. Which might kill you. So, uh, keep that in mind if you try anything beyond the basic rules. Roger wrote the rules, and tested them by watching two Royal Rumbles back to back (not sure which two). He died four days later. Or at least that’s what I tell people, because “he had a stomach ache and was tremendously drunk” isn’t nearly as entertaining.
Royal Rumble Drinking Game
A fun drinking game based on WWE Royal Rumble. The most interesting part, is not knowing when you might have to chug that last few sips of a drink vs opening a new drink and having to chug it.
Base rules:
Every time a Wrestler enters the Rumble, you drink
Every time a Wrestler is eliminated, you drink
Now the fun part Randomness:
Everyone picks one or two wrestlers, two for hardcore, one if your not. If its an old Royal Rumble, you can draw numbers/names from a hat, to decide on your wrestler.
*Shots can replace a chug.
When your guy enters the ring, you chug.
When your guy is disqualified, you chug.
Hardcore additional rules:
If your puts out a guy, everyone else drinks twice.
If your guy puts out some one else’s guy, they chug twice.
If your guy is put out by some one else’s guy you chug twice
Exceptional Hardcore:
If one of your guys puts out your other guy, you do four shots.
If a wrestler does a finisher, drink.
If an exceptional chop is done, drink.
If Ric flair woos, drink.