The SmarK Rant for WWE Saturday Morning Slam – 08.25.12
Goddammit Microsoft updated Office and now it’s messing with ALL OF MY SHIT and completely reset all my autocorrect nonsense and preferences.
Anyway, some videos of this show came upon my timeline and I pledged to review the crap out of it if given a chance, and lo and behold a magic Google Drive folder appeared shortly after and made itself known to me.
So this was an attempt at a kid-friendly show from WWE, aired on Saturday mornings on the CW, with an edict from production that matches could not feature any strikes or weapons or anything that would place the rating above “G”. So you know that Bryan Danielson was immediately all over it.
Hosted by Josh Matthews and Santino Marella, who have to pretend that it’s actually being taped in the morning on a Saturday. This show is already a lie.
Saturday Morning Spotlight: We head to Planet Funk to meet Brodus Clay, who wants us to know that everyone is invited to get funky with him and the Funkadactyls. Then Brodus teaches us how to dance.
Step 1: CRAZY CLAWS!
Step 2: Funky Step Right!
Step 3: Funky Step Left!
Step 4: PROFIT!
Holy crap, I can dance now? Perhaps I will now call my momma. This show is already paying off for me.
Video Vault: Apparently there were other dancing acts back in the day, such as Rikishi, 2 Cold Scorpio and Disco Inferno. We learn about them, along with Junkyard Dog, who may have been the original funky funkster.
The Third Degree: This week, WWE Superstars reveal their favorite Olympic sport. Cody Rhodes loves freestyle wrestling, but HATES Greco-Roman. Why do people even do that one anymore?
Kofi Kingston v. Heath Slater
Heath was currently the One Man Band, shortly to be repackaged into a 3 Man Band. Heath offers a handshake and Kofi doesn’t trust him, so Heath takes him down with an armdrag and rocks out a fair degree. Kofi and Heath trade armbars while the announcers discuss the exotic worldly history of both guys, since Kofi is from West Africa and Heath is from West Virginia, thus they’re both from “West somewhere”. Heath with a monkey flip out of the corner, but Kofi lands on his feet and gets his own before taking him down for two. They do a criss-cross and Heath loses track of where he is while Kofi walks away from him, and Heath gets blown up. Kofi goes back to the arm, so Slater throws him out of the ring, and Kofi hits him with a baseball slide as we take a break. During that break, Daniel Bryan urges anyone watching never to copy what they do. Yeah way to cut off competition. Back with Slater wrapping him up with an armbar and then following with a slam and some more Elvis-like moves. Kofi with a sunset flip for two, but Heath runs him into the turnbuckles for two, as the camera carefully cuts away to avoid showing the impact. Heath with an abdominal stretch while grabbing the ropes, which has Santino OUTRAGED at the level of cheating. Kofi fights out of that and hits the Boom Drop, but misses Trouble in Paradise. But then Heath charges and runs into the corner, knocking himself out, and Kofi goes up and finishes with a crossbody at 8:10. A fun kid-friendly match, although certainly not as wacky as the matches would quickly become on the show.
Meanwhile, WWE teaches kids to Be A Star in their latest thing that they supported for a few months and then never mentioned again.
And we close with a music video with various wrestlers lip-syncing to a generic inspirational song, although CM Punk is grumpy as ever and refuses.
What a fun show! They’re only 22 minutes long without commercials so if people enjoy this I’ll probably do 2 or 3 at a time if I carry on with it. If I was a kid in 2012 I would have been all over this.