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Chairshots 8/10/01

Who loves you baby?

Smackdown

The WWF recovered from a mediocre show on Monday with last night’s well thought out not too campy Smackdown. Edge took on Rob Van Damn in an excellent Hardcore match. Spike Dudley made his return to action. Test jumped from the WWF to the Alliance (big freaking deal) and both the WWF and WCW tag title belts changed hands. See WWF? That wasn’t so hard. Less comedy, more characters, more wrestling. My only beefs with the show were that Perry Saturn got too much screen time and that Rhyno goring Jericho through the Smackdown set would have been a bigger surprise if the announcers hadn’t told us earlier that there will be a new set next week.

Tough Enough

Right after Smackdown it was time to check in on wrestling’s answer to The Real World, Tough Enough. This week we refocused back in on ring training as the Hardy Boyz and Lita paid a visit. Another quality show. The two big revelations this week were that Greg has a herniated disk (but is fighting through it) and that the winner will probably be the person that can stay healthy.

Rock K.O.s Duncan in Round 1

Premiere Magazine reports that The Rock missed a stunt hit against Michael Clarke Duncan while filming on the set of The Scorpion King. Instead, he knocked Duncan out cold. The Rock felt so badly that he bought him a watch. Cast and crew coined the phrase "take a hit, win a watch" during filming. I thought movies were fake?

SummerSlam

A bunch of new matches for SummerSlam were made on Smackdown last night. Here is the card so far according to WWF.com:

World Wrestling Federation Championship
Stone Cold vs. Kurt Angle

WCW Championship
Booker T vs. The Rock

WWF & WCW Tag Team Championship
Steel Cage Match
Undertaker & Kane vs. DDP & Kanyon

Intercontinental Championship
Lance Storm vs. Edge

X-Pac vs. Tajiri

Chris Jericho vs. Rhyno

I only hope that Tajiri can save the X-pac match from complete suck-a-tude.

WWF Beaten by Pandas

A long time ago the WWF used to be called the WWWF (World Wide Wrestling Federation) and then Vince McMahon Jr. bought the WWWF from his father and changed the name to WWF. There was a problem with that since the World Wildlife Fund was also using those initials. The wrestling company and the panda lovers reached an agreement that both parties could use the name. Then along came the Internet and the pandas bought WWF.com. The internet got popular and the wrestling company asked the panda lovers if they could use WWF.com to promote wrestling. The two parties reached an agreement (panda lovers moved to wwf.org for a fee). Wrestling became popular, people assumed that WWF meant World Wrestling Federation and began to associate World WildLife Fund with violence and sex. The panda lovers got angry. So, they did what all pandas do; they went to court. Today a ruling was made by Justice Robin Jacob that the wrestling company had breached a 1994 agreement between the two sides that limited its use of the initials.

“In a written judgment, Jacob said it was understandable the fund did not want to be associated with the wrestling group. ‘Some would say its (the federation’s) glorification of violence is somewhat unsavory,’ Jacob said.”

The World Wrestling Federation released a statement on the issue. Here is an excerpt:

“We do not believe that the Fund has, in any way, demonstrated that our use of the initials WWF has had any impact on the Fund's activities. We do not believe there is confusion in the public's mind between the World Wrestling Federation and the World Wildlife Fund and the logos of the two organizations.”

The World Wrestling Federation can continue to use WWF.com until October 1, the court date when the actual hearing of the judgment is read and interpreted. Vince and his lawyer posse can file an appeal at that time. MSN covered the story here.

Bye Bye Stinko Malenko

On a final note, The Pillman 2001 Memorial show was last night. On the card, Perry Saturn & Dean Malenko defeated Raven & Justin Credible. Immediately following the match, Malenko took the house mic and announced that he was ending his career as an active wrestler. The crowd chanted his name and gave him a huge ovation. Dean has been rumored to be on the verge of retiring for a long time, so this could legitamitely be it. Good luck, Dean.

And good luck to you. See you Monday.

Michael Goodson

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