The John Report Wrestling Blog

 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.)

Read more…

On The Aire: Selective Hearing
By Mike Aires

Last Friday’s column, besides being about awesome and horrible characters, featured my picks for the Royal Rumble pay-per-view.  I was fairly close on my predictions for the entire show, minus a couple of minor things here and there.  Cena and Kane going at it outside of the ring (right by a TJR sign, no less) to a Double Disqualification was fairly predictable.  The World Heavyweight Championship went about as planned, as did the WWE Championship match.  The Rumble, however, was a big freaking curve ball.

Read more…

The John Report: The WWE Raw Deal 01/30/12
By John Canton
Follow me on Twitter at @johnreport

Live from Kansas City, Missouri this is the Raw Deal…

Read more…

WWE Royal Rumble
St. Louis, Missouri
January 29, 2012
By John Canton (Twitter @johnreport)

They aired a video package hyping that the winner of the Royal Rumble gets to go to WrestleMania. Lots of people do, but for now we should only believe the winner does.

Read more…

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.)

Read more…

WWE Royal Rumble 2012 Preview
By John Canton, Andrew Johnson & Christian Michael

John Canton: I’ve always loved the Royal Rumble pay per view. I showed that love last year when I recapped every Royal Rumble match. The concept of the match is wonderful. Even if you think you know what might happen, there’s always a very good chance that something crazy will happen. I didn’t think Cena would win in 2008 or Edge in 2010 because they both made surprise returns. Could there be a surprise winner this year? You never know. The sad thing about the Rumble is that the winner doesn’t really get to “main event” WrestleMania anymore (especially this year), but it’s still one of my favorite matches and I know I’m going to enjoy it like I do every year. Right now there are only four announced matches. I’d expect some kind of midcard match to be added as a buffer to some of the big ones on the card, but I’m not going to guess what they will be.

Read more…

Thursday Headlines: John Cena’s Angry Face

This week’s episode of Raw was a good one. We got some great CM Punk/John Laurinaitis interaction, another fantastic Chris Jericho segment in which he finally spoke, and an excellent video package promoting the Royal Rumble. All in all, it was a very good go-home show (a show that promotes an upcoming pay-per-view, for all you non-wrestling nerds). But there was one segment that stood out for all the wrong reasons, and ended up being a disappointment. Of course, I’m talking about John Cena’s “angry face” segment.

Read more…

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 you Princes of Maine, you Kings of New England. This is the fourth week that I’m attempting to review WWE Smackdown, and with your help I’ve crafted a format that I’ve become pretty pleased with. So instead of spending an entire intro telling you what I’m going to do and asking you to leave a comment below (oh look, I did it anyway) let’s just get right down to it.

Prepare to Smack It…HARD. (Oh lord, that came across a lot more sexual then I wanted it to. Geeze, I’m really, really sorry. I still haven’t gotten a handle on this catchphrase thing, please be patient. (Ugh, I feel like I need a shower now. (Shut up internal voice, get it together. You have a show to review. (Alright fine, don’t get your lack of underpants in a twist. (I have underwear, they’re just in the laundry. (Yeah, sure.)))))

Read more…

Probably the greatest moment in all of their lives

By Laurence Salford

In the ongoing quest from the WWE to try and inject a modicum of interest into its PPV’s that aren’t called Royal Rumble or Wrestlemania, WWE has decided to bring back the sorely missed (ahem) Bragging Rights PPV format for 2012. It is replacing the hilariously named Capitol Punishment from 2011, and I don’t think anyone, anywhere, truly cares about this change.

Read more…

Headlines: You Were Expecting Someone Else?
By Mike Aires and Marc “Fozzie” B.

Fozzie: Man, what a slow news week. Let’s see what we have here: Randy Orton says he is “pain free” from his injuries. There is a rumor that the injury angle is to cover the fact that he failed a wellness test. While I don’t believe this to be true, this could explain why he finds everything “hilarious.” Because when you’re high, even the thought of a Chris Benoit movie is funny. Wait, whaa?

Read more…

Canton’s Corner: Thoughts on Orton, Cena and Lesnar – January 1
By John Canton
Follow me on Twitter at @johnreport

Happy New Year! Welcome to Canton’s Corner. Normally this gets posted on Saturday, but it was New Year’s Eve and I was out of town, so this week only it’s getting posted on a Sunday. We’re ditching the regular format for this week because I haven’t seen all of Impact (just the main event) or Smackdown (just the main event ending). This week’s CC features three commentaries on three big names in the wrestling business: Randy Orton, John Cena and Brock Lesnar. Let’s begin with the polls as always.

Read more…