| Date: 06/13 | 5:00 PM |
| Views: 1,534 | |
Time for another edition of the weird, the wild, the whacky and the nutty that we like to call Friday Night's Absurd News! Our opening story this week is subtitled PANAMA GOT KAYFABED. It seems that Mr. Kennedy and Carlito caused a bit of controversy this past Wednesday during a WWE press conference in Panama to promote a show July 4th. Both WWE stars behaved in character when they were interviewed, and went so far as to insult the women of Panama to get heat. I guess that means Kennedy is only a face in the United States! In fact his exact comments were "We thought we would see beautiful girls here; still, we have seen none. In fact, you can't tell them apart from the men." Carlito followed up by saying "I don't agree with Mr. Kennedy. After women in England, the USA, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, etc. then come the Panamanians." Their comments so outraged the local press that there's now a big story up on a local website here. Their article even points out that Carlito disrespected THE LOCAL FRUIT. "Are these apples? Here in Panama everything is small." Apparently he threw them on the floor and this "created disgust" among those present at the press conference. (LOP) ATTENTION PANAMANIAN PRESS PEOPLE - YOU HAVE BEEN WORKED.
The absurdity of the next item lies not in the wrestler or his response, but in the question that provoked it. In Lance Storm's latest column he notes being asked if WWE will ever focus on "smaller, more natural" wrestlers. As we all know WWE suspended Jimmy Yang for 30 days this week, proving you don't have to LOOK huge to be doing something, which is exactly the point Lance Storm went off on in his reply.
Questions like this frustrate me. People need to understand that "smaller" and "more natural" can be two completely different things. The steroid issue is far more complicated than you think. I don't like naming names but there are a TON of smaller guys in this business who are on as much if not more gas than the larger guys in this business. Fans used to complain about WWE and WCW pushing jacked up monsters rather than smaller more talented guys like Benoit and Eddie, yet we now know that both of those guys were big steroid users. I know guys in this business under 175 pounds who are on steroids, so you can't just push smaller guys and lay claim to pushing more natural talent. Look at the signature pharmacy list, again not to bury anyone but there were a ton of small guys on that list. On the other hand, I firmly believe Mark Henry is actually clean and anyone I’ve ever heard from that knows him or has discussed the subject believes this too. Mark is a 400lbs monster who could actually be "natural" yet Funaki (of all people) was on the customer list of signature pharmacies so at least at one point in his career may not have been. The term "Small" and "Natural" do not necessarily go hand in hand.
It appears WWE may have unintentionally given away who Ted DiBiase Jr.'s "mystery partner" is going to be. When you click Ted DiBiase's highlighted named on the preview page of the World Tag Team Championship Match for him against Hardcore Holly & Cody Rhodes at Night of Champions, it goes to the profile page of fellow Raw star DH Smith. You can check it out for yourself here. This is curious because Smith hasn't appeared in a WWE ring since the beating he took from JBL on May 5th edition of Raw a month ago. (LOP)
It's been an almost all-WWE edition of Friday Night's Absurd News this week so we might as well close with this item - when on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program this Thursday, Vince McMahon was less than subtle about his current mental state. While hyping Million Dollar Mania, Vince said, "I am totally out of my mind. I've been out of my mind for a long time." Even if that IS a work on his part, it certainly has the ring of truth - although he's been driven crazy by what he PERCEIVES to be the low Raw ratings when they really aren't that bad (especially when you factor in DVR timeshifting). That's it for the FNAN but we'll see you here again next week!