Latino Heat Parking Lot Brawl from WWE SmackDown! (September 11, 2003 episode): Eddie Guerrero vs. John Cena
Kicking off my other (1st was Smash Saturdays) new experimental weekly blog series with my puroresu pick of the week where I select/recommend a match every Friday for the rest of this month that I personally enjoyed in the world of pro-wrestling! I do apologize to non-wrestling fans that follow me (which is probably the majority of you lol), but I just love my sports entertainment too much that I just have to share, and maybe some of you can check it out. This type of wrestling is more than just guys “fake” beating the hell out of each other, but mostly around characters, storytelling, and the spectacle of it all.
Anyway my first pick comes from WWE in a SmackDown episode that aired late 2003. It was just a short match that lasted around 10 minutes between two big SD! talents John Cena (O.G. CENA) and Eddie Guerrero who were feuding for the United States Championship. To be honest that the match wasn’t that great, but it was a rare occasion to have a Parking Lot Brawl match type and they have it on a taped show! Both used the cars and their surroundings nicely. That final spot in the finish was really a good way to end it (not spoiling if anyone hasn’t seen this match yet) The other reason why I picked this match was because this is was the match that hooked me to watching wrestling weekly on TV. Back then I just watched WWF PPVs casually with grandpa’s old VHS tapes without really understanding the story. After this match, I followed every one of WWE’s story-lines from both RAW and SmackDown and never looked back since!
MY GOD what a show…from the 5-STAR opening 6-man ladder match, a tough women’s bout, Roddy’s ultimate swerve heel turn and the NXT title match’s amazing finish! As usual NXT, over-delivers with their product!
Of course the Johnny Gargano vs. Tommaso Ciampa unsanctioned match was indeed worthy of a main event to close the show. If you ask me why I love pro-wrestling, it’s because of matches like THAT! This type of wrestling all about the ART of storytelling, and this match had so many emotions among both these men’s history with one another. Ciampa is probably the best heel ex-best friend character we’ve had in quite a while, a literally the crowd HATES him! Wonderful storytelling by both these men, and I can’t wait to see how NXT moves forward after this event. The Undisputed Era continues to grow, new debuts, and the NXT title reign of the Dutch Destroyer, Aleister Black begins!
Watch a lot of wrestling in NOLA this past weekend (as mania week is the biggest weekend of the year for the industry), and I have to say this by far is the best show! I definitely have to catch what I missed with ROH Supercard of Honor XII since it did compete in the same time-slot as NXT TakeOver, but I know for DAMN sure that WrestleMania AIN’T topping this!
Monday Madness Media for 3/12/18
Media: Video Game WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain
“Well, HERE COMES THE PAIN!” -Tazz This phrase not only describes Brock Lesnar (during his early WWF/E career), but also made the title of one of (if not) THE BEST wrestling games to ever exist. I’m a huge wrestling fan since 2003, and this was my first WWE game. At the time when this game first came out, I still didn’t have a PlayStation 2 and would always go to my cousin’s place to play with him this game. Our favorite part playing this game was doing street fight tornado tag matches because you could go anywhere backstage in this game…EVEN ALL THE WAY TO TIMES SQUARE! Doing big moves from the top of the building to the street were just awesome…something you wouldn’t see in today’s WWE games (I mean it’s unrealistic yeah, BUT THIS IS JUST A VIDEO GAME). We would usually pick Mr. McMahon, a wrestler we really hated at the time or some generic CAW (create-a-wrestler). Season mode was another good thing about this game because of so many different story paths to go whether you win or lose a specific match. In later WWE games’ single-player story mode, there is no option like that anymore…you have to win your next match otherwise you can’t progress in the main story. We were young boys at the time, so we might have done a few bra and panties matches here and there 👀
This is probably the first multiplayer game that I ever got addicted to, and it was because of this game (and a couple others) that made me want to upgrade my PS1 to a PS2. I continued playing other WWE games that came after this, and sure some mechanics were improved, bigger rosters, and that the graphics were superior compared to the older games, but in my opinion, no other WWE 2K games today could match the “badassery goodness” of the SmackDown! game series especially Here Comes the Pain in particular.
P J's blog 