Tonight's RAW

[Loss]

I'm already concerned about the ROH crowd turning on Matt because of the obvious nature of him being in WWE. Hopefully, he and Gabe have considered that as a possibility and have a battle plan worked out in case the audience boos him. We also still haven't heard word about Hardy's scheduled appearance on this Sunday's TNA PPV. I think Edge coming into ROH, while it sounds like a good idea at first, would totally turn the crowd against everyone involved because they're so opposed to WWE. However, there's a possible Punk/Hardy storyline here if the crowd *doesn't* reject Matt, but if they do, I just hope it doesn't catch anyone involved by surprise. It shouldn't, anyway.

 

So far, this angle has been done entirely right. They're walking a very delicate line though, and every single segment is going to have to be booked with the same attention to detail as Matt's run-in on RAW.

 

When it comes time for an authority figure to step in and make the match, hopefully they're wise enough to realize they *must* have Vince in that role and that putting Bischoff in that role will totally kill this.

[Guest teke184]

I don't know who had the idea, but having Edge show up to the ROH show and having a "confrontation" with Hardy backstage that leads to him being thrown out would be a great way to go.  Don't mention it on RAW, but have a "fan" take pictures of Edge being led out by security and have Matt spread the story around on his site and post the pictures.

That's old-school Cornette booking there... although Cornette was a little more obvious because a fan would 'happen' to be taking a home movie attempting to meet Storm and Jericho or Shelton Benjamin and Big Show when a "masked man" injures said star.

 

(Specifically, he did this to set up the bloody Storm and Jericho vs. Heavenly Bodies match at Night Of The Legends 1994 and to set up a Big Show vs. Mark Henry feud in OVW in early 2001.)

 

 

Doing it in the way you suggest is more likely to build a good buzz towards the program than Cornette's "chance fan-cam" method, which seems contrived to anyone who thinks about it.

[Loss]

Here's a much better recap. Lita seems to be a surprisingly good talker when she's given something to work with.

 

Byte This Review

Wednesday July 13, 2005

Host: Todd Grisham

Guest: Lita

Report by Michael KopStick, Torch Team Contributor of the Century

 

 

I?m not sure when the Byte This show aired, but I signed on at 8:00PM to watch the show live and lo and behold it was already taped. As disappointed as I am that I won?t be able to watch the show live and bring the review to you right after the show goes off the air, I do believe this is a pretty cool stunt, symbolizing that the events this past Monday were unusually important and a cause for an ?special edition? of Byte This. This past week I was envisioning a live episode where Matt Hardy would pretend to be one of the callers and rank his ex girlfriend out, however this method of presenting Byte This has strong merits, as well.

 

After reading the Torch Newsletter this week, as much controversy as the Matt Hardy incident has stirred, fans are a bit more furious on the Smackdown side, with Mohammed Hassan?s angle. Byte This would have been wise to schedule a similar edition of the show with Hassan getting the ?emergency? interview time, to play off of controversy that even the outside media is focusing on, but perhaps they intentionally are trying to shun away from their Thursday afternoon mistake of not doing any final editing, and Hardy-Lita is helping to divert a lot of the negative focus. Also, a great interview taped this Tuesday with Hassan is on the main page of WWE.com where he explains that the six men who attacked the Undertaker were in ski masks so no one has a right to just assume they were Arabs (I was hoping that he would bring each one of the men out to unmask and show that indeed one was Chinese, another a balding white guy named Frank, a Jewish Rabbi, Abe ?Knuckleball? Shwartz, and Earl Hebner, but no such luck). So for your Hassan fill, check out his little clip. In the mean time, it?s time for the self-proclaimed ?slut of the century? to speak her mind?

 

 

Todd Grisham welcomes us alone to the Byte This set and tells us that Lita will be arriving live in studio and will be answering our questions live. (Is this a joke? Am I missing something here? The start time was supposed to be 8:00PM, as it says on WWE.com. Either I have my days and times mixed up or WWE is trying to ?fool? us once again. Who would have called into this show not knowing when the start time was? My Matt Hardy prediction from above is now back?)

 

Byte This gets a new theme and video this week, much needed as the previous one was a few years stale and still featured Sable. We get back and Lita has her feet up, Todd is in Steve Romero?s seat, and Steve is absent, probably waiting to start the show at eight.

 

Todd thanks Lita for coming, Lita thanks Todd for not peeing on her as there apparently was a request (e-mail?) for him to do so. Todd shrugs, ?We do what we do here,? and asks Lita for her take on ?the shocking events? that have gone on this past week.

 

?Yea, I?d like to talk about it a little bit, just because for months now I?ve kept quiet, trying to take the high road, trying to leave my personal life personal. Legitimately, safety issues come in, like Edge being blindsided on Monday and still not clear from knee surgery, it?s just like, when is enough enough? When is it going to stop? So, I don?t know if this is going to make any difference, but this seems to be Matt Hardy?s forum, this seems to be where he?s most comfortable here in cyberspace. If it?s happening in cyberspace, it?s happening in Matt Hardy?s living room, apparently.?

 

Todd turns to read through what Matt wrote on his website this week and asks Lita if she took a look at it. She says she did and knows why Todd can?t read the whole thing, since contrary to his moral persona that he tries to portray himself in, Matt wrote some pretty harsh vulgarities.

 

Todd reads aloud Matt?s article and asks Lita to comment. (I personally have a hard time writing this, by the way, because, as regular readers of my BT recaps know, I don?t enjoy documenting what wrestlers say in character, as there is plenty that goes on during this show with wrestlers saying what is really on their minds. But I do know that there is a lot of interest on this particular subject, so as I write what is being said here tonight, please keep in mind that I am recapping a worked-shoot and not actual shoot comments. Tonight I am straying from my approach of breezing through the BS and instead diving right into it.)

 

Lita first says that what Matt wrote about making her life a living hell sounds like a threat. Secondly, ?I?m sorry the guy?s never got his heart broken before and I hate to be the first one that had to have done that, but grow up. And he talks about potentially suing Vince because of getting arrested, the fact that he never got arrested before this, I mean I?m sorry your heart was broken, I know emotions come in to play, but it?s illegal, the stuff that he?s doing. And the fact that I fell in love with somebody else is the bottom line, it?s the bottom line. I?m not saying how I went about it is right. But that?s basically what happened, I fell in love with somebody else and I think you can see a little bit, a little bit more how things have played out, it became more evident to me as time went by, one of the main differences between myself and Matt. I?m a very private person, I keep to myself, private issues are private issues, and the entire wrestling world was his life, and that took presidence over our personal relationship, which ended up taking its toll. There was never a break where he wasn?t on the phone trying to get the inside scoop from every wrestler in the country, trying to comb every website to make sure every detail was, you know, going that he was in the loop with everything, and how he makes the comment of we have to pay for what we did to him and what we did to ?us,? talking about the MFers. Okay, so it?s like I fell in love with Edge and that affects the fans how? How is that their business? [To the fans:]Go and just concentrate on people like Angelina and Brad and Jennifer and read Us magazine. It?s like, uch, let me entertain you from nine until eleven and let me be in bed with whoever I want to be.?

 

(I think that Angelina and Brad and Jennifer feel the same way about wanting their privacy and the reason that the public feels they shouldn?t get it, whether justified or not, should also be applying to Lita. Lita is as much of a public entertainer as those three are, and if wrestling was bigger she may be followed by paparazzi, too, so that last bit of logic is faulted. Anyway, back to reality, it seems like Lita is trying to do the ol? Chris Jericho, where she is trying to portray the heel who doesn?t love wrestling and the fans as much as the babyface, Matt Hardy, does.)

 

Lita continues, ?I have no obligation to the fans to be Matt Hardy?s girlfriend. And based on how he?s been acting, can you see why I would not want to be with him?? What Matt did was immature and made her decision to be with Edge a lot easier, she states. (For the record, Lita is not presently with Edge in Real Life World. Adam Copeland is attempting at a reconciliation with his wife while Lita is reconciliating with, um, I dunno, Essa Rios, perhaps?)

 

An e-mail asks if she feels bad about the ?bad press? she has been getting because of the whole situation. She says she does feel bad, ?because I won?t go sign autographs for fans, I don?t go out to eat because I don?t want to hear it. And I know that there are some fans that are going to be fans of mine no matter what, and I can appreciate that, yet I?m not going to go get yelled at by MFers so that I can go sign somebody else?s autographs, I just ignore it all. And getting the bad press, the main thing that I have done until today is been to not turn on a computer, ignore it, and try to conduct my life.?

 

There are lies out there, too. ?There is a lot of stuff that?s out there that is just not true. Matt always precedes his statements with, ?I?m not by far a perfect person, but?? and then goes and talks about all the reasons he is perfect. I can tell you one thing he is being perfect at is being a spin doctor. He will spin every scenario to make himself in the absolute right and I?m in the absolute wrong and that?s not the way it is. And I did not want to have to go here but here we are.?

 

She says that she never in a million years would have guessed that her personal life would be as overt as it has been in the past few months. ?And it makes me shut down because I am used to being a really strong person but the way that I?ve been a strong person is I need to pick up for myself, I know nobody is going to be there to catch me when I fall, so I need to be responsible for myself. Now I?m having such an effect on an outside uncontrollable force that I can?t control that it makes me shut down and it makes me, makes me want to go away.?

 

What about Jeff? ?I have spoken to Jeff maybe twice since all of this has happened. And I understand why. I mean his brother?s going to have his back, that?s the way it goes, and I understand that. And I can be supportive of that. And up until now, because now it?s like it?s on, but up until then I was like look ?you people are Matt fans, you people are Lita?s fans,? that?s cool, nobody has to take sides. But now, you forced me to go here, so let?s go.?

 

(If ?you people are Matt fans and you people are Lita?s fans,? um, doesn?t that mean they are in fact taking sides? Just wondering.)

 

She says she can?t see herself becoming friends, much less romantically involved, with Matt ever again, ?but, like I said, I couldn?t see myself sitting here today.?

 

What about the fact that Edge is married, Todd asks. ?I really don?t have a comment on that. I think we can leave it up to him to talk about because I feel like that?s personal and he can tell you want he wants to tell you about that.?

 

Todd asks her if she still thinks or cares about Matt. She says she does still think about him and care, and because she has been blocking out all of his crazy rantings it has helped her still have some compassion for the situation. ?But as time goes by, an I can?t ignore it anymore, and I actually start to look and see the things he has said about me, and of the situation, it?s hard to have any compassion left for him.?

 

They begin to take callers (or ?callers,? as I still think they?re just WWE plants, much like the ?audience members? that Chris Masters?s puts in his Masterlock each week on Raw) and first up is Giselle who tells us that she is one of Lita's biggest fans and supports her because she understand that sometimes things happen that is out of our control, ?and what you do behind closed doors is your business.? Lita thanks her and tells us that although there are wonderful supporters out there like Giselle (some who possibly are not even getting paid by WWE to say they support her), she can?t allow herself to hope those fans are the ones calling her. She has to do whatever she does whether the world is for her or against her, or else she is not being true to herself.

 

Todd wonders what kind of response her and Adam get from the fans when they meet them. Lita says that the internet is like road rage, where everyone is ballsy behind their cars, or computers, as you will. Nobody is going to go up to them to tell them off, so of course the only people that approach them will be people who tell them how much they support them. And maybe there are some who, from 20 yards away, will mumble under their breath, ?You screwed Matt,? and then write on the net that they had the balls to stand up to Amy and Adam, but that just isn?t true.

 

Todd asks if the ?You screwed Matt? chants distract her or does she feed off that to perform even better. Lita admits, ?To me, I will actually lose myself and lose my train of thought of what I?m doing out there because I?m like, ?I cannot believe this, this is ridiculous.? This is ridiculous because of a personal decision that I made that there is 20,000 people at MSG chanting something that they know nothing about, other than one person?s spin on things.

 

Todd asks Lita if she would have done things differently. ?Absolutely,? she agrees. ?Life is a learning experience. All you can do is learn from your mistakes you can?t go back in time. Matt suggested that I owe an apology to the internet. And that, along with most of the other things he has said, is the most ridiculous statement ever. I don?t owe an apology to the internet. I have apologized to Matt, I didn?t mean to hurt him. Yes, I wish I went about things differently, I wish I would have realized that if I was feeling things for Edge that I needed to end things before I went there and I didn?t. And all I can do is apologize and just hope that we both learn and grow from this but apparently he doesn?t seem to be growing too much. And I really regret it because I didn?t want to hurt him, but hard situations definitely bring out the best or worst, different qualities in people, and I?m pretty shocked at how I?ve seen how he?s acted since this.?

 

Todd takes another caller. Each time, by the way, that he brings a caller on to the show, unlike usually when they say ?okay, John from Montanna, you?re on Byte This,? Todd is telling them to state their name and what they have to say, almost as if they?re waiting for someone to shock them with a name like, oh I don?t know, Matt, or something.

 

This caller is another girl who asks what has changed in her life because of what Matt has done. Lita recounts how Matt told her, as she was leaving, driving down to her mom?s house in Atlanta, how leaving him is career suicide and how she is going to pay for all this. But as much as this all hurts, she is trying to take the high road. But it does hurt and she thinks about this all the time.

 

Regarding Edge, Lita says that she is in love with him but it is very hard now, not just trying to start a new relationship, but the fact that it?s under a microscope now. ?I mean even fans that think they?re being supportive, ?Screw Matt, go with Edge.? I?m like, I can?t believe someone just said that to me, they don?t know. I can?t explain how things exactly happened, I can?t put a finger on it, why I?m in love with Edge. All I can say is that I am. And I am happy for the feelings that I feel when I?m around him, but I do regret how we both went about it.?

 

I knew it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Todd says to the next caller to state their name and?. ?Hey Amy, this is Matt Hardy, the question I?d like to ask you is?? and he gets interrupted by Todd wondering if this is really Matt Hardy, showing us why he is an announcer and not an actor. Lita sighs that it sure sounds like Matt and this shouldn?t surprise her at this point. Matt proves that it is him by saying that just like Newark is the same place that Matt showed up to embarrass her this past Monday night (actually it was Secaucus, I was there),

 

?Newark was also the same the same place you told me you loved me, Amy, remember that?? ?Yes I do,? Lita answers dryly.

 

?You need more conformation?? he asks. ?No, Matt, go ahead, what?s up,? she says, rolling her eyes.

 

Matt says that he wants her to explain herself. ?Go ahead, I want to hear it from the horse?s mouth.?

 

?What would you like to know Matt because I?m sure you?ve been listening to this entire show, because if it?s online, it?s on in your house, I know that much.?

 

?Well, how did you like seeing me on Monday?? Matt asks Lita. She replies,?I don?t know if it was so much seeing you that I didn?t like as it was seeing you blindside my boyfriend and attack him. But that was awfully sweet of you.?

 

?Well, if you thought that was sweet of me, believe me, your life is only starting to become miserable,? he comes back (and we learn why he didn?t get that much mic time to begin with. Let?s hope his ?shoot? promos on Raw stay scripted, although I hope the writers can keep him away from talking about going to hell with the devil and kicking the devil's ass, like other main eventers chose to rant about in the past). ?And Adam Copeland, your boyfriend, the little love of your life, his life is only starting to become miserable. Because Monday is only the beginning of my movement. And my movement is going to be to get retribution on you and that piece of feces, Adam Copeland, and against the WWE, more specifically the office of the WWE, Johnny Ace and all the other assholes that fired me.?

 

?That?s great,? Lita blahs. ?Are you done with your wrestling promo that you just cut?? (Hehe, worked-shoots can be funny.)

 

?Oh no, I?m not. I?ve got plenty more wrestling promos to do and I?ve got plenty of things to discuss with you.? Matt urges her to explain why she is ?more in love with Adam Copeland that you are with me? Why did you throw away six good years?? Especially, Matt continues, since Adam has been married twice and has mistreated those women in the past. ?What makes you think you?re different??

 

Although Lita refrains from discussing her new personal life, Matt feels she owes it to him after he has given her six good years of his life. ?And I probably loved you more than anyone else would love you.?

 

Lita says she doesn?t need to discuss her feelings for Edge, but she can tell Matt why she doesn?t want to be with him. ?You cutting wrestling promos in a personal context can be one excuse that I can tell you.?

 

Matt responds that she is the reason he is cutting these wrestling promos, why he showed up Monday night, and why all of this began. And the reason why this is public, he points out, is because the two of them are public people, wrestling celebrities. ?And we were more than just a couple, Amy. We were a working couple. We were together in the WWE for many years.? Plus, add to that that it was another worker, Edge, who Lita chose to leave Matt for, of course this was going to get out in the open, Matt argues.

 

Lita contends that Matt was really trying to rally his MFer troops for some support. Dealing with this together, behind closed doors, would have been a more effective first step to try to work out differences. ?The two of us needed to sit down and talk, not being ranted on on the internet.?

 

Todd asks Matt if Edge should have been fired over him. ?Yea, absolutely,? Matt answers. But first, let's put things in perspecitve. The right thing to do, Matt charges, would have been for Lita to tell him the second Adam put a move on her. "But you didn't do that. So, everything after that was intentional." Matt also reasons that as soon as people would have seen Lita hanging out with Edge in public the story would have been out without him saying things on the internet. Therefore, Matt was just covering his tracks, letting people know beforehand how crushed he was aboutt he whole thing in order for people not to think he treatedt Lita like anything less than gold. "I've treated you as good as gold. And there's no denying that. And as far as the whole Matt being fired and not Edge, I mean you've got a guy, John Laurenitis, Johnny Ace, as everybody calls him, he's the guy who's in charge of talent relations right now. I was ready to make a comeback, I rehabbed, I was supposed to be out eight to nine months with my left knee, I had it totally reconstructed. I was ready to come back in six months because I busted my ass to rehab my injury and come back to the wrestling company that I loved with everything I am, that I sacrificed everything I've had over the last seven years. And you guys know that, steel chair matches, ladder matches, table matches, whatever it may be. And I was ready to come back. I was in South Carolina working out, I was in the ring working out actually with one of my buddies Craig and I got a phone call from Johnny ace, and it's funny, he said, 'Well, Matt, I just want to tell you, we're gonna have to release you. Creatively we don't have anything for you, we don't -' and I said, 'Johnny, Johnny, that, that's, I don't buy into that. You're going to release me because creative don't have anything for me? You tell me that this doesn't have nothing to do with my situation? No, it doesn't have anything to do with my situation, no not at all,'" he finishes sarcastically.

 

And while we're talking about Ace, Matt doesn't trust him. "Johnny Ace has a personal vendetta against me," Matt feels. "Considering that I was the guy who was the victim of this whole thing, I mean, Adam Copeland was the guy that was married, he was committing adultery, an affair, with my girlfriend. Those two were in the wrong. And the company, the WWE, was going to endorse that and fire me? While i was home with an injury? That is absolute bullshit. How can that be justified? The thing is, Adam Copeland, the Edge, that's the guy who should have been fired. they should have sent him home. And maybe they should have sent you, too, home, Amy."

 

Did you notice that Matt called Edge Adam but still called Lita by her stage name? No, neither did I. Oh well... "Monday night I came out there and I called him Adam because that's all I know him as. And I didn't even call you Amy because the Amy Dumas I know, that girl, she's dead. she's gone. Lita's all I know. this filthy whore hanging out with Edge."

 

Matt says that, even though he loves wrestling, it came to a point where he put wrestling second and Lita above sports entertainment. "And in case people don't know this. I was on Smackdown, I was in the midst of the best singles run I had in my career. the whole reason I came to Raw was to be with this girl, Amy Dumas, to be with Lita on TV, so it wouldn't mess up our schedule, so it woudn't mess up our relationship. And coming over did nothing for me, it was a career killer. And part of it was your fault because you got heat when I got over there... When I was out hurt, though, it seems to you that our relationship didn't mean anything. Wrestling was first to you and even your realtionship with Edge became first to you." So, now it's time for some retribution, Matt prosecutes.

 

After the whole tirade, Lita jokes, "Okay, thanks, so we're now hosting the Byte This show, I am your host Lita, we have Matt Hardy here here as a guest, too." Very cute. "What else have you got for us, Matt?" host Lita implores.

 

"Would you like to hear some more?" Matt challenges, then spurts off that since his no compete clause has ended, he is a free man, so he will be wrestling an indy date in Indiana, Pennsilvania this Friday. then Saturday he will be at Ring of Honor. "Come out and see Ring of Honor, a real wrestling promotion, as opposed to WWE and their soap opera storyline," he says, unintentionally referring him to himself.

 

As Matt continues, Lita tries to cut him off, telling us that we have run out of time, thanking guest Matt for being on the show. but then Matt asks, "On a serious note, why? Why would you do it?" Lita answers that, There's obviously something missing there for me to go fall in love with somebody else, Matt.

 

"What was missing?" he asks. After a moments pause, she hints, "I don't think I need to share that with the rest of the world, Matt, even though that's how you seem to be dealing with things, there's still places that I don't want to go. And I don't think I should have to." (Is this a penis size insinuation?)

 

Matt tells her not to be afraid and to tell the world (how small he is, I imagine) but Lita walks off, ending the interview. Matt stays on the phone, plugging his reality show and web site and Todd thanks him for clearing the air, and the show signs off for the night.

 

 

Well, there you have it. I feel like the biggest mark, writing basically word for word what went down on a complete work. but since there is significant press dedicated to this angle, the story did make the Torch cover, I don't feel that silly. but there is deifnite silliness I am experiencing noentheless. The interview was hanled well, though I did see the Matt call-in a mile away. Lita didn't fake cry or anything, so they played their parts better than before. The two of them know that this is their money angle and they better pull it off as realistically as possible. Not much Vince McMahon references and the occasional lines about Johnny Ace only suggests that he's definitely going to be getting some on air presence soon. Look out for it. And look out for me! I'm at [email protected]. Peace.

[sek69]

Boy, was that guy who did the transcripts a self-important douche or what? Did we really need his MST3K type comments after every paragraph?

[Loss]

Yeah, that annoyed me too.

[sek69]

Yeah, there's nothing more irritating than someone who acts like they're better than what they're reviewing/transcribing.

 

You're a wrestling fan for chrissakes, don't act so goddamn uppity.

[Coffey]

Eh, it's no worse than posters on a wrestling message forum acting uppity. Look at TSM. There's a ton of people who sit on their high horse and speak (type) like their word is gospel. If you disagree with them, you get bombarded by their sheep following. Apparently, they have people that go out of their way to defend other posters because they've agreed with something that they've said in the past.

 

You know what I mean?