Greetings from under the custom made, black hat from your resident Okie coming off another Summerslam pay per view while preparing for Unforgiven in about three weeks in Cleveland.

BBQ’ed thoughts from hither and yon….

Great wrestling matches start with the combatant’s in ring effort and for there to be a clearly defined reason for competing with one another. With that said, the Hell in a Cell match at Summerslam delivered the goods. I loved the physicality and the pacing of the contest. The Undertaker is as dominate as ever and an argument can certainly be made that The Undertaker is the greatest WWE Superstar of all time based on productive longevity. Edge is allegedly recuperating in his fireside condo in Hell but more info on the status of the “R Rated Superstar” will be provided on Friday Night Smackdown.

I read where some “blue suit wearing executive” of this fine organization declared that Monday Night Raw was the top TV program in the WWE and not Friday Night Smackdown. An interesting observation that won’t endear this fellow to Tazz, not that any one I know has endeared themselves to my broadcast colleague outside of his immediate family.  This executive must have gotten his info from Mike Adamle, Raw General Manager who took numerous shots to the head in his illustrious NFL career.

Friday Night Smackdown emanates this week from the Quad Cities an area still recovering from the unbelievable floods of earlier this year.  Hopefully the

WWE was able to bring some needed entertainment to the area on Tuesday night. But I did not get to make it to the John Deere Steakhouse as I had planned but others did and raved about it. I dropped a few bucks in a Texas Hold ‘Em Tournament while in town and had to watch my spending.

Unlike Raw, who simply named their entrants to the “Championship Scramble” to be held at Unforgiven, the 4 challengers to HHH’s WWE Title in this format will be determined by competition in the ring. All 4 contenders will be determined on this week’s Friday Night Smackdown broadcast.

Did you know that with balladeer Johnny Cash now deceased that WWE Dot Com guru, Dr. Joe E. Styles, is now the leading candidate to be named by a popular periodical the most famous person in the world who wears black attire on a daily basis? 

Chris Jericho may be on the cusp of replacing fellow native Canadian Edge as the most disliked Superstar in the WWE after Jericho inadvertently struck HBK’s lovely wife Rebecca Sunday at Summerslam. I think both Jericho and Michaels should be traded to Friday Night Smackdown and commence to settling this issue in the ring. What about a former wedding planner and a wrestler to be named later? Plus, a case of J.R.’s BBQ Sauce! And 97% fat free beef jerky! This could be bigger than the Jets signing QB Brett Favre!  

Yours truly spoke with Stone Cold Steve Austin recently and Steve is still working out as diligently as ever but 3:16 fans don’t get your hopes of a “one more match” scenario for Austin. That is likely to never occur even though I would love to see it. However would WM25 in Houston, Texas be a good time and place for Steve to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame? It seems as if there is no demand for out of shape action adventure, film stars which pretty much eliminates that vocation for yours truly’s post WWE life. 

Speaking of the WWE Hall of Fame, I would like to see WWE.com and its visitors to be involved in the voting for the Hall of Fame to some degree.

Todd Grisham and Matt Striker, if that is his real name, is doing a really nice job of broadcasting ECW. It always takes time for new partners to mesh and when one adds in the added element of both being new in these particular roles I think that both these young guys are doing a “darned” good job. (PG13).

I can’t believe that my beloved United States Women’s Softball team lost the Olympic Gold Medal to Japan. This isn’t a shot at the Japanese as I didn’t think any team in the world could beat the USA in women’s softball. With that said, just wait until I see Funaki in catering next week in Pittsburgh!

Is it me or does it seem like grapplers such as U.S. Champion Shelton Benjamin, “The” Brian Kendrick, MVP, Vladimir Kozlov, Kenny Dykstra, Festus, and, of course, Jeff Hardy have taken clearly defined steps to raise their respective games in recent weeks on your favorite Friday night TV program? I say, give ‘em the ball coach and let’s see who can “get ‘er done.”

There is no fact to the rumor that the legendary ring announcer and WWE wrestling savant Howard Finkel and SD newcomer Scotty Goldman are cousins.

Keep an eye on raw boned and aggressive Ryan Braddock who makes his 2nd SD appearance this Friday night. In time, I think Braddock will turn heads.

Did you know that you can purchase autographed copies of “J.R.’s Cookbook” for only $9.99 when you visit our online store at www.jrsbarbq.com?

Is it just me and my nearsighted and totally biased opinion but is the United States Title getting more popular than the long standing Intercontinental Title?

If so, we can always “Blame it on Rio.” Come on…do your home work…its a little funny.

WWE Champion HHH joins “The Tazz” and me on some commentary this week on Friday Night Smackdown which I think you will enjoy.

“Got Sauce?” We do on our website in the form of high quality T shirts with the catchy phrase of “Got Sauce?” and our BBQ logo on the front. This new item sells for $9.99 each. Hey, we are approaching the gift giving season aren’t we?

R Truth is slated to debut very soon on Friday Night Smackdown and it seems as if there is an anticipation of such. What will call this young man, R Truth or once we get to know him can he be simply called “R”?

The King, who I got to visit with in Indianapolis Sunday, is very excited about Unforgiven being held in one of his all time favorite cities, Cleveland. The Browns are at home earlier the day of the PPV and King has indicated he would like to attend some of his beloved Browns game before broadcasting the Raw portion of Unforgiven. Maybe Jerry will invite yours truly to tag along. Browns General Manager Phil Savage is a long time wrestling fan and a friend of both Lawler and mine.

Our Q & A section of our www.jrsbarbq.com site is rolling along and you are invited to check it out and ask your questions. We get some beauty’s let me tell you. Take care and thanks for your support of Friday Night Smackdown.

Boomer Sooner!
J.R.