And yet, with all evidence pointing to the movie sucking for 2 hours if it can't even be funny for 30 seconds, millions will flock to see it this weekend! Because it's Valentine's Weekend, baby, and the national fascination with the Pussification of the American Male (tm, George Carlin) continues! Even a vile ogre like Kevin James can be made presentable to the opposite sex with some dance lessons and ass waxing! That's sooooo funny! And sooooo romantic! Somebody fetch me that one episode of "South Park" about the "Queer Eye" guys so that I may begin the brain-unwashing process!

Although, if it weren't for Valentine's Weekend, I wouldn't be able to spin you a yarn about another commercial I've been seeing for the past week. And this one? It's so absolutely bad that it's hilarious: Dayton's main local pizza chain is advertising a special heart-shaped pizza? The hell? If those things sell by even the TENS this weekend I'd be shocked. I know some dudes out there NEED Valentine's Day, since they have trouble comprehending how to be suave and considerate the other 364 days a year, but is there really any guy out there SO pathetic that he'd think a heart-shaped pizza is the key to anything other than a girl's pitying laughter? I'm trying to envision the scenario... "Hey, baby. On this, the most romantic of holidays, please accept this heart-shaped pizza as my way of saying 'I truly and deeply love you, and one way or another, this special night just can't end until you've had some sausage in your mouth.'" Oh, yeah, that's the ticket, Don Juan... 

Alright, enough with the mocking of social conventions. And on with what passes for some wrestling news today:

• Last night's SD! was about as good as that show's been in months. For once, I don't have to feign enthusiasm (or feign having watched the show on anything besides ultra-FF)...
  
  Rey vs. Angle in the main event was the easy Match of the Week, and Funaki vs. Chavo was damned good, too. And on the story side? Man alive, I might be in the minority on this, but JBL and the tranquilizer gun and acting all wacked-out and setting an ambush for Big Show? Hilarious.
   
  I'll say it again: hilarious. Feel free to put another black mark on my Permanent Record, you magnificent jack-offs! I say HILARIOUS!
  
  I started out wanting to hate it, just because the bit with Useless Amy and JBL was really stilted and bad: but retroactively, you can tell yourself, "Well, it was stilted and bad because they were acting as if they were acting"! See the layers! For once, Amy is dead-on perfect because for this skit to work, she was SUPPOSED to be unconvincing. And from there, I was busting a guy at just about all of JBL's antics. Sadly, it's nothing I can even put into words, and have it come across. Because you can read, "JBL talked to a giant inflatable Godzilla for 10 minutes" or "JBL thought Carlito had a racoon on his head" and wonder if *I* was as heavily drugged as JBL was pretending to be... but if you actually saw it, you probably should have been laughing your ass off, too. Some things just can't be recapped.
   
  Although I will say that as it morphed from comedy to an actual wrestling angle, I dug that, too. I think this is the closest the WWE Title has been to a clever and compelling Wrestling Angle in a long time. No diva ambushes, no other crazy crap, just JBL hatching a pretty clever plot that even I didn't see coming. It's just too bad it backfired. Or not, since any excuse to cast JBL as a chickenshit heel is a good one: the guy has certainly found his niche, character-wise. Now if only we could get him busted down to the mid-card where he doesn't have to wrestle more than 6 minutes at a stretch...
   
  All the JBL stuff also led to the Big Show/Akebono Moment, which like I said Monday was a pretty cool visual, if nothing else.
   
  So you had that fun stuff, and then the two aforementioned matches. Funaki's homecoming was just really cool, and they turned out an 8 minute match that had the fans rocking by the end. Angle/Rey was just stellar, and was more like a 20 minute match, and in its final third was some of the best action we've seen on free TV in a while. Big fan.
   
  Something else good: Luther Reigns. It's probably been 6 or 8 months now since I first mentioned how "Luther is one trade to RAW away from actually getting over."  Just because he seemed like he had some natural promo ability that simply wasn't gonna be tapped as long as SD!'s writers were putting words in his mouth. Well: I don't necessarily see a feud with the Undertaker as a stepping stone for Luther's breakthrough, but the promo he cut last night was borderline awesome. But already, SD! undercuts him: he does a sweet promo about what's he's been through and what he DOESN'T fear, but as soon as Taker interrupts his match? He throws Jindrak to the wolves, and powders out. How fucking hard would it have been to have Luther live up to his words? Have him shove Jindrak ASIDE so that HE could get some of Taker, have them trade fists, have Luther get a few shots in, but then as soon as Taker comes back and matches him, THAT is when Luther powders out, maybe even gets PULLED OUT and held back by Jindrak, having taken the measure of the Dead Man for himself but deciding to fight another day. I'd have bought into Luther's prospects for getting something out of a PPV feud with Taker a bit more if they'd done that....
   
  Hey, I'll even say this: John Cena cut his best promo in AGES! Problem is, it was still quite bad. OJ Simpson jokes, Cena?  Wow, what's next?  A 10 minute freestyle about Al Capone's vault? And people say *I'm* running out of material....
   
  So if Cena's cutting a semi-tolerable (if pitiably-dated) promo, is there room for me to rip on anything else? Not really. Eddie/Kenzo and Cena/Jordan were no great shakes, but neither overstayed their welcomes. And the "Kimono Match"? Well, for the most part harmless T&A on SD! doesn't bother me so much, since that's kind of where it's SUPPOSED to be, if that makes sense... plus it was pretty short and fun, and Hiroko, for some odd reason, always manages to put a little smile on my face with her antics.
   
  You can get a more complete breakdown of the show in Big Danny T's SD! Recap.
   
  
• The rating for last night's show was a 3.4 broadcast rating, which is up just a bit from the week before, and is also a bit more in line with recent averages.  That's good news... this is not the time of year to be losing momentum.
   
  
• They made a big deal out of a "Press Conference" being held in Pittsburgh (site of next weekend's No Way Out PPV) next weekend... I'm not sure if this is based on factual knowledge or is just an associate's speculation, but there are apparently some who think they'll use this as an announcement that Batista will appear at the PPV as the invited guest of Teddy Long.
  
  And I mention it despite the factual knowledge just because I do like the sound of that. I think Batista sitting ringside at No Way Out would be a boon to the SD!-brand show, and then I think it gives WWE lots of interesting options for when he goes back to RAW the next night to announce his final decision.  At the very least, it gives the IMPRESSION that Batista could end up somewhere other than a WM21 main event against Triple H... and might even be a cheap and easy test of Batista's drawing power to see how much of an impact he could have on flagging SD!-brand buyrates.
   
  Not making any promises, just something to think about...
   
  
• Tons of feedback about the Brock Lesnar situation... and 95% of it from lawyers. Jesus, guys, what are you? All Mike Samuda's old buddies, or something?
   
  In any case, most all of them wanted to fill me in on two things:
   
  (1) That I was wrong about Brock's no-compete being air tight. On the contrary, courts have often set the precedent of over-turning no-competes that seem excessive. And everybody agrees that Brock's current no-compete is excessive. There was no general consensus, but some mix of reducing the number of years or allowing Brock to work in Japan is something that a court MIGHT do to uphold the justifiable portion of the no-compete while allowing Brock to make a living.
   
  (2) But I was right to theorize that this case will probably never see the inside of the court room. Rather the two sides will negotiate a settlement on their own... apparently, that's quite common, since the company doesn't want to risk a TOTAL overturn of the no-compete, while the (ex-)employee can use that as a bargaining chip to get what he wants (in this case, it sounds like Brock desires employment witht he company again), and neither side has to pay for some drawn out court proceeding.
   
  So the upshot of it all: the lawyers seem to think there's an above-average chance that Brock Lesnar will be legally cleared to compete in a non-WWE ring WELL before 2010. And some of them even agree with me that this reeks of a negotiating ploy to get him back into a WWE ring. Which would be cool with me.
   
  
• Another thing that I got tons of feedback about was the Amy Weber thing... specifically that I was rude and inconsiderate about her decision to leave the Japan tour.
   
  I had to go back and re-read what I'd wrote, because I certainly didn't remember "condoning sexual harassment" as many accused me of... but once I did, I guess I did sort of misspeak. In one breath, I admitted that I didn't know exactly what kinds of crap she had to put up with after the boys found her in a strip club advertisement, but then in the next, I had my own joke all lined up and ready for fire, and was telling Amy to fucking chill out and get over yourself.
   
  And I guess my point was that if what she had to deal with was just guys making unfunny jokes in her direction, she really just has to grow up. I have my own twisted ethic: when at all possible, laugh at words, and only get pissed off at actions. It might have been mean, it might have been stupid, but a joke's a joke, and you deal.
   
  But apparently, there are other details going around other places that it wasn't jokes, it was more intimidation stuff, and had details that I don't know if they were made up or not. But if not, then let me say that yes, if that's what happened, Amy Weber is 100% in the right, and I'd never in one billion years condone that sort of horseshit. The first "Here's $50, so ON YOUR KNEES, bitch," the first pants removal, the first anything like that... that's no good, and Amy doesn't have to take that.
   
  I'm sorry if any of you inferred that I thought she should. You know me better than that, don't you? Just because I don't think she's got much in the way of skills pursuant to a WWE career doesn't mean I think she should be treated any less respectfully or decently.
   
  
• More on the Rock...
   
  I can confirm that even back in December he was telling associates that he was "done" with WWE. But "done" in terms of his current contractual commitments, not "done with wrestling." In fact, he was still very much in contact with the company about WM21 possibilities, provided that the creative team would come up with something for him that he liked.
   
  Now, my assessment of the creative team's capabilities aside, the Rock wasn't necessarily demanding to book his own matches, but he also wasn't gonna come back for crap. I think at this point, there has been some new acrimony (over "The Rock" name, over Vince thinking that Steve Austin and WWE films are all the "Hollywood" WWE needs, etc.), but I also think that you need to be very careful in talking about the Rock being "done with wrestling."
   
  "Done" with his current contract. "Done" with ever being a full-time performer. "Done" for the short term to focus on about one thousand movie irons he's got in the fire. But even two months ago, he was only "Done until they find a good spot for me." The Rock doesn't WANT to be "done," but he might stay that way for a while till he can pick his spots... because there won't ever be many of them, he wants them to be good if it's just once or twice a year.
   
  
• Oy, can I got a week without being bombarded about a wrestling story that shouldn't even be a wrestling story.
   
  Today's entry in that beloved genre of crap nobody should care about, but apparently it gets ratings, so I prostrate myself by half-assedly mentioning it is the tale of the 1997 Miss Nitro Contest Winner (now aged 27) having sex with her 13 year old favorite student.
   
  Wheee! Stand in awe as another stone crumbles in the foundation of western civilization. But don't anybody actually stop to do anything about it! It's more fun to just watch and take joy in others' humiliation!
   
  Lots of folks sent along links to news stories and stuff about this. I'll pass along this one, since at least this one has pictures of Miss Nitro in a bikini along with her ridiculous tale of moronity. Looking at her hair: christ, was 1997 really THAT long ago?
   
  
• I think the last thing I want to mention today is that Sunday is TNA's Against All Odds PPV. Since I cannot be trusted to talk about TNA without making snide comments, Actual TNA Fan Jason Longshore has again volunteered his services for a preview, and will also handle a recap on Monday.
   
  For my own part, I'll mention that the Styles/Daniels Iron Man Match figures to rock. Even I am not immune to their charms (Daniels doing some serious-ass guest commentary in the last few weeks -- and exposing the current pair of talking goons as the windbags they are -- even has me thinking one of these two has a personality to match the OMG~! WORKRATE~!~!). If you're looking for a reason to motivate yourself to check out the show, that's the one I'd give you.
   
  Also: just about everybody and their uncle suspects that some combination of Billy Gunn and X-Pac will appear on the show, so if stuff like a possible DX reunion (albeit without the DX name and with none of the individuals involved able to use their WWE names), that might be another reason for you to check it out...
   
  I'll probably just wallow in my own crapulance on Sunday, enjoying the nice, comfy, reliable comedies on FOX while making final recoveries from the weekend. But OO will still have full TNA PPV results on Monday, so if that's your thang, we'll have your back. And even if it's not enough of your thang to justify $25, you still probably wanna know what happened, right?  So c'mon back for that....
   
  
• And come on back for all the week-starting news and stuff, including the preview of RAW's return to actually being live!
   
  Enjoy the weekend, kids, and I'll see you then....