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Posts Tagged ‘shower chairs’

In the wake of Monday’s Raw, the WWE has announced that William Regal, who plays the role of Raw general manager and who won the King of the Ring tournament about a month ago, has been suspended for 60 days by WWE for violating the Fed’s Wellness Policy.

The WWE must have known the decision it was about to make when Raw went on the air Monday, because they booked Regal to lose a “loser leaves Raw” match against Mr. Kennedy. The match provides a storyline reason for Regal’s absence.

Exact details of Regal’s violation are not known.

In the past, Regal did battle substance abuse problems and had apparently cleaned his act up for the past several years. Whether this suspension is a result of a relapse or an unrelated violation is not known at this time.

Meanwhile, on Raw, McMahon teased the return of “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase to WWE, as possibly the next GM of Raw. Of course, a few years ago, after “firing” Eric Bischoff, McMahon teased Dusty Rhodes as a possible next Raw GM, but that tease never paid off, so it’s entirely possible the DiBiase cameo is a head-fake by McMahon to buy time while he ponders his options for replacing Regal as GM, either in the short or long term.

A short run by DiBiase as Raw GM would be quite a bit of run, though perhaps not quite as much fun as shower chairs. However, I expect that the ultimate choice will either be an uninspiring temporary measure, like Coach or Shane McMahon, or perhaps a test-run for a long-term replacement by, perhaps, Ric Flair in a pure GM role.

It should be noted that DiBiase does have a son learning the trade in one of WWE’s developmental territories.

Everyone’s talking about Floyd “Money” Mayweather vs. the Big Show like boxer vs. wrestler is something that’s never been done before, yet the tradition extends all the way back to Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki back in 1976. Inoki wasn’t allowed to use any wrestling moves. Other famous boxer-wrestler tilts from years past include Andre the Giant vs. Chuck Wepner, Muhammad Ali vs. Kenny Jay, Muhammad Ali vs. Gorilla Monsoon, and more recently (and embarrassingly), Bart Gunn vs. Butterbean.

Many boxer-vs.-wrestler matches end up being pretty embarrassing for the wrestler in question. Andre vs. Wepner involved Wepner being tossed from the ring and left in such condition that he had to use shower chairs after the match. Ali vs. Inoki ended in a draw, a finish that satisfied fans from both sides somewhat at least. But Gunn vs. Butterbean ended in less than a minute and left Gunn with no respect and, ultimately, no career after that. Gunn was about half the size of Butterbean.

The Mayweather vs. Big Show tilt looks to be an Andre/Wepner style mismatch, only worse… this time for the boxer. Mayweather stands 5′8″ and weighs around 155. Big Show is right around 7 feet tall and still weighs around 420. So Big Show has well over a foot and nearly three times the weight as Mayweather; Big Show’s open hand is nearly as big as Mayweather’s head.

What this likely means, in addition to a $20 million payday for Mayweather, is another embarrassing episode in boxer-wrestler history, rather than anything approaching a legit mixed martial arts contest. There are only a couple ways I see this going down.

First, it could be a crush by the Big Show, with him completely dominating and quickly defeating Mayweather. Give the size differential, this would be believable as a finish, but would do nothing to help Mayweather’s career as a boxer.

Second is even more embarrassing for sports entertainment in general and the Big Show personally; and that would be for a man of Mayweather’s size to take Big Show down in flukey but similarly swift fashion.

What I don’t see happening is a longer, more legit match; the injury risk to Mayweather is too great, and given his upcoming boxing title defense in August, it’s unlikely Mayweather would agree to anything like that. So no matter who gets squashed here, I expect it to be a blink-and-miss-it event that will disappoint and annoy fans of both wrestling and boxing.

Still, Vince McMahon always knows how to get the non-wrestling sports press talking right around WrestleMania time every year; last year, it was McMahon vs. Trump in a hair match; this year, it’s Mayweather vs. Big Show.