I hope everyone had a great New Year's! Well, today was the big day: Mattel took over the WWE figure line, meaning all new figures of every Superstar. I hit our local retailers and was able to come up with a decent roster for the Hollywood Nation Action Figure League (above). I think Mattel did a fantastic job. I really like the Entrance Greats Triple H, the Undertaker figures and Edge. A tad pricey but worth it. Of course, I grew up with those crappy plastic LJN figures so these are like gold. Good job Mattel. Now let's get some legends figures out there.
It's New Year's Eve and I'm spending it at home with the Thursday Impact special and the Twilight Zone marathon. Yes, I'm staying in; why break tradition? I enjoyed tonight's four-hour Impact extravaganza. They need to do this every week: matches with enough time to develop, throw in some interviews in between, leave the silliness out, and make the titles mean something. I almost guarantee that ratings would go up over the course of the first month. It seems so easy and they screw it up on a weekly basis... I was listening to our local NPR station yesterday and Don Marsh hosted a roundtable with former St. Louis TV news people Julius Hunter, Don Johnson and Dick Ford. It was a tremendous show as they told stories and commented on the current news industry. I could have listened for hours. There should be a regular show like this. On a side note, I always feel so elite when I listen to NPR... I hope everyone has a safe New Year's Eve. I'll leave you with Beyonce and Gaga; I love these broads:
I was sorry to hear about the passing of "Dr. Death" Steve Williams, who lost a long battle to cancer (his action figure has had a place here on my desk for the past couple of months). Williams was known as one of the legit toughest men in wrestling. He was one of my favorite "good guys" when the UWF was my favorite wrestling league in the 80's. He was great as a singles wrestler and also made great tag teams with Ted DiBiase, Terry Gordy, Johnny Ace, and perhaps my favorites as partners with Kevin Sullivan, Rick Steiner, and Mike Rotunda in The Varsity Club. Here is a classic clip with Williams and Gordy vs. The Steiner Brothers:
In other news, we are only a few short days until the big Monday night wrestling showdown on January 4th. I think WWE is going to trounce TNA. Recently Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff have been making noises about concentrating on the in-ring product; if so, I'm all for that. The first two moves they need to do is get rid of writer Vince Russo and get rid of that awful name. I don't see how they are going to beat the return of Bret Hart to Raw though. I'll be switching back and forth all night... What a classy send-off for Tommy Dreamer on Tuesday night's ECW. Even I was fighting back tears when they showed Beaulah and the kids in the crowd. It would have been funny if they did a take-off of the Ric Flair retirement ceremony and brought back Paul E., Sandman, Justin Credible and the rest of the gang... I'm about half way through with the Ring of Honor year in review on HD Net. Incredible stuff. These guys always remind me why I became a wrestling fan... I can't believe they haven't pulled the Charlie Sheen/Michael Jordan ads yet. It almost feels like you're supporting domestic violence (allegedly) just for buying a pair of draws... Between that and the bomber guy, it's been a bad week for draws... I caught the season premiere of MTV's Real World: Washington D.C. last night. Decent cast. It's always funny to see the first episode with everyone getting along, just knowing it's gonna end badly. The Stephanie McMahon lookalike girl is the one to watch this season.
Sorry to hear about the death of Eddie Fatu, better known as "Umaga" from his monster heel role the last few years in WWE, who died today at the age of 36. He came from a big wrestling family and was perhaps the best of the bunch. My condolences to his family and friends.
(Below is one of my favorite clips of Eddie Fatu, playing the role of "Jamal" of Three Minute Warning, when he interrupted the infamous wedding of Billy and Chuck and got to attack Stephanie McMahon-- go to about the 5:00 minute mark):
"Now I'm a stop to see what you got/ Get off the mic before it get too hot/ I wanna see which posse can dance the best/ It should be easy 'cause the beat is fresh/ Now if your from uptown, Brookly-bound, The Bronx, Queens, or Long Island Sound/ Even other states come right and exact/It ain't where you from it's where you at/Since you came here, you have to show and prove/And do that dance until it don't move/'Cause all you need is soul self-esteem will release/The rest is up to you, Rakim will say peace"-- Eric B. and Rakim "I Know You Got Soul"
