The John Report Wrestling Blog

Canton’s Corner: The Wrestling Week in Review – February 4
By John Canton
Follow me on Twitter at @johnreport

Welcome to Canton’s Corner. It was a good week of wrestling on TV this week. I thought Raw was excellent while both Smackdown and TNA Impact Wrestling were above average this week too. I’ll cover all three of those, plus the usual polls, video, Melo Out and other things you’ve come to expect from Canton’s Corner. It’s the Super Bowl on Sunday. If you follow me on Twitter you know I’m a huge NFL fan, even more than I am a wrestling fan. Before I get to the wrestling part of the column, I need to share my pick.

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 Hello everyone, and welcome to the 5th, 3rd, 80th whatever Smacking Of Smackdown review. In lieu of asking you to leave a comment below after you read these carefully crafted words, I would ask you to send a fruit basket or maybe a flower arraignment instead. If that’s a little to inconvenient for you, then I suppose a comment will do.

Alright, let’s smack your cares away! (Great, I thought I finally found a catchphrase but now I have the “Fraggle Rock” theme song stuck in my head. That’s going to be there all day.)

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The Midweek Breakdown: The 10 Count
By Cody Dodson

Ladies and gentlemen, the funk is on a roll, there are too many limes for lobster heads, and the Deadman is back complete with new curled hair action. This is the Midweek Breakdown, and I am your ever so grateful host, Cody Dodson. I want to thank everybody who read last week’s column and left me feedback on the “10 thoughts” format. The feedback was very positive, and it seemed that most of you would rather hear read me ramble a little bit about a lot of things instead of ramble a lot about one thing. I enjoyed writing the column as well. It was over 500 words longer than my normal writing and I didn’t even notice. I’ve decided to make it a regular feature that I will call “The 10 Count.” I’d like to thank the bossman himself, Big Johnny Canton, for that title. I won’t be doing it every week, but it will definitely appear pretty often on Wednesdays as long as you continue to enjoy it. Without further adieu, let’s get started with this week’s 10 Count!

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Hello chumps and chumpettes, and welcome to another edition of The Smacking Of WWE Smackdown. I expected this review to go up a lot earlier, but that was before I hyperextended my knee and everyone started swinging chairs at each other.

So are you ready to get smacked up and then lay around for a while and not really do anything? I know I am! (Oh God, I forgot. That’s heroin abuse. I really wish this thing came with a delete key.)

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Andrew had something come up, so I’m stepping in to do Headlines today. I don’t normally complain about wrestling, because it’s wrestling. It’s going to be silly, you’re going to scratch your head sometimes, and that’s fine. Again, it’s wrestling, and it’s always been that way. What bothers me, though, is that 30 years ago–before the internet ruined our lives–storyline injuries worked better because they were believable. Someone was piledriver’d on the cold, hard concrete and their neck was broken. Randy Savage smashed Ricky Steamboat with a ring bell and his trachea was permanently destroyed forever. Then these guys would come back from career-threatening injuries, because they’re superhuman, and they would seek revenge on their attackers. That was then. Now it’s usually ridiculous.

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Tuesday Headlines: Come With Me If You Want To Live
By Mike Aires and Marc “Fozzie” B.

During a recent public appearance, Lex Luger was asked what being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame would mean to him.

“It would just be a tremendous honor if someday I was inducted in the Hall of Fame, but really, we’re here to get down to glory to God now with our lives and serve others and use open vessels for him to bring people to Christ,” says Luger, who in 2006 declared himself a born again Christian. Lex continues, “But, would that be an honor? It’s something that would also help to use as a platform to continue ministry as well. It would be wonderful, definitely.” (Rajah)

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Is the WWE Ruining Zack Ryder?

Being loyal WWE fans, it isn’t very often that we get exactly what we want.  The wrestling business is designed to withhold complete satisfaction.  We may want our favorites to win championships, and hold onto those titles for an indefinite amount of time, but that would be a foolish business practice.  No, the real money is in the chase.  We pay to see our favorite superstars fight for the opportunity to earn a title.  Why is Ric Flair one of the all time great draws?  Because people paid to see him to lose to their territorial favorites.  Fortunately the NWA had the foresight to (mostly) keep the title on him.

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Welcome true believers to this week’s sin-tastic review. Smackdown hailed from lovely land of broken dreams Las Vegas last night, so you know what that means; roulette wheel filled with gimmicky matches and lots of “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” comments. Let’s get to it, shall we?

It’s time to SMACK YOU IN YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH. (Wow. Just… I thought that I needed a catchphrase with a little more oomph. That wasn’t oomph, it was just… mean. I’m so sorry guys. That was uncalled for. Friends?)

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Canton’s Corner: The Wrestling Week in Review – January 21
By John Canton
Follow me on Twitter at @johnreport

Welcome to Canton’s Corner. I have some news that will likely interest you, the reader. Starting February 1st, I will be posting recaps of all 27 WWE WrestleMania events. They will feature recaps of all the matches and segments, plus analysis as well as star ratings. I’ll also give the show a grade, list the stars of the show and add whatever other tidbits I can. I’m excited about writing it as it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve already written the first three. The last one will be posted one week before this year’s WrestleMania 28 event. They will be exclusive to thejohnreport.net, except for a select few that I will post at other sites as well. Basically what this means is in February & March you’ll get a lot of my writing. With that out of the way, let’s get rolling with this week’s column.

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Smacked Up!
Written by Christian Michael

Did you miss me? Probably not, but that’s ok because I’m back anyway. Before my hiatus I was covering SmackDown weekly here on TJR and I’ve been replaced by the super talented Andrew Johnson. This is the final edition of Smacked Up! and it’s the State of SmackDown Edition. I was watching the show that aired this past Friday and wondered to myself where many of the Superstars are headed as we near WrestleMania season. So, I decided that it would make a great return column to discuss that. So, let’s get this started. Read more…

Hello lasses and fellows. Welcome to this week’s smacking of WWE Smackdown. We’ve got a lot to go over this week, so let’s skip the part where I ask you to leave a comment below to express your love/disdain of this column and get right into the meat and potatoes of this thing.

It’s time to smack it around a little bit and see what happens! (This is getting sad. I should have come up with a catchphrase by now that doesn’t allude to some sort of masturbatory phrasing. You’d think I’d be better at this. Surprise, I’m not.)

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As The Beard Grows
by Mike Aires

Last summer, I wrote an article about Daniel Bryan after his unbelievable and unlikely win in Smackdown’s Money in the Bank match at the same-named pay-per-view (that article can be found here).  Bryan and I even had a little feud going when he posted the article on his own website then tore it down minutes later.  He’s been trying to keep me down ever since.  That’s another story for another time, though.  Since then, Bryan’s had several confusing and amazing months.

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