April 22, 2010.
A date which will live in infamy….for many male members of the Internet Wrestling Community, which makes up about 98% of it.
The day that Mickie James was released by the WWE, along with 6 other “independent contractors” (because wrestlers aren’t called “employees” so they can’t get health benefits or pensions but that’s another story entirely). In such historic moments as these like the Kennedy Assassination, we all remember where we were. Me? I was in a bar in metro Atlanta on Karaoke Night singing “The Rose” by Bette Midler for a room of drunk people that would rather hear the Toby Keith song about leaving his wife and driving off with his dog in a pick up truck.
The official reason given was because she was late for the bus in Europe and that was the “last straw” after she’d been moved to Smackdown for “disciplinary reasons”. Note to WWE stars: it’s official now that when you’re moved to Smackdown, you ARE being demoted and disciplined.
Personally, I saw it coming. I think it was less “she missed the bus” than to make room for the new crop of “Divas” that John Laurinitis found while perusing issues of Playboy, Penthouse and the Disney Store Catalog.
And because Mickie James likes food. Yep, she likes food so much that she looked like a normal human being, and WWE “superstars” are NOT to be thought of as normal human beings.
And when you’re a normal human being, you’re fat.
Yes, the WWE’s penchant for making fun of fat people has been well-documented on this site. Adorable Adrian Adonis, The Rosatti Sisters, Rhonda Singh (Bertha Faye), Molly Holly…wait what? Ah yes, remember when Molly Holly was “punished” for being a moral role model for young girls, by having the other Divas call her a “prude” and saying she has a fat ass? Yeah, I prefer to forget that one too.
The point is that Mickie James was NOT, I repeat, NOT fat.
If you look at this picture and think she could put Precious to shame, then your ideal woman is a Nieman-Marcus store mannequin.
Regardless, she was made to be humiliated in an angle that I personally would’ve nominated for the Gooker. But RD and Blade were so angry about Mickie being released by WWE, they pulled rank and told me to get on it immediately.
Of course, if those two had any synapses firing, they’d realize she’d get a LOT more sympathy by being in a Gooker winning induction than just putting it out her after she got fired. But talking with these two these days is a spotty proposition at best.
(Note from RD: Here’s my logic on this. By the time the 2010 Gooker voting rolls around, no one will remember just how horrid this angle was. There will be something more recent that folks remember, and this would lose out anyway. I’ve seen that happen time and again. In fact, had we allowed it to be up for the Gooker LAST year, it probably would have won. Whatever. Yes, I am breaking the rules here. My site!
Note from Blade: Mickie’s hot.
Note from RD: You heard the man! Now get back to writing!)
See what I have to deal with?
It started when Mickie began to feud with Layla the “Deever” and Michelle McCool because…well, no one knows really cause not much thought or time is put into the Diva feuds, other than they just wanted to mess with her. In this instance, apparently someone must have just watched Mean Girls.
Good thing the creative team didn’t try to explain where they got this bit from to Vince, as I’m sure “Lindsay Lohan” ranks up there with “Johnny Depp” on the list of people he’s never heard of.
Anyway, the mockery of Mickie began at Survivor Series, as Michelle appeared on the Titantron in a really badly green screened cartoon farm scene.
One ridiculously unfunny parody of Old McDonald later, and we’ve got ourselves a feud.
Hey, remember when Michelle just rolled around on the boardwalk and showed zero charisma?
Same thing here.
Only somehow with less ryhthm.
Seriously, it’s a kid’s song that everyone knows. How on earth could she be offbeat on it?
TWO YEAR OLDS can keep time on it, why can’t you?!
You know what the saddest part of this image here to the right?
The fact that there is a generation of kids that have no idea what a Warner Bros. cartoon is because THEY AREN’T BEING SHOWN ON TV!
Mickie looks on in stunned silence and walks away from the ring wiping genuine tears from her eyes (if those aren’t real, she is a better actress than anyone in the whole damn company), while the audience getting back from their bathroom and snack break either quietly boos or just sits there in silence wondering what the frick they just saw.
Yes, this intricately planned feud is off to a rousing start.
Now I know there’s a lot of you out there thinking, “But Michelle is the heel! She’s supposed to say stuff to get a heel reaction!” Yeah, that’s true.
However, this isn’t like the usual face-heel feud because this particular storyline was designed purposefully to humiliate and bury Mickie. That’s also the reason she was sent over to Smackdown in the first place, because the powers that be decided she needed to be punished for weighing approximately 2 pounds more than the other girls on the roster.
I know, far be it for the WWE to push a feud that’s simply designed to bury a particular person or promotion that isn’t liked by the ruling heads backstage.
Trust me, this ain’t the first time it’s happened, and sure won’t be the last.
Undaunted, Mickie actually gets to one-up Michelle and Layla by coming out during Smackdown and delivering a very convincing promo on them both for being insecure pitiful bulimic bitches, though not in those words.
Which is too bad, because if WWE were to start marketing Michelle t-shirts with “Bulimic Bitch” on them, I bet they’d sell dozens of them.
Which would be dozens more than any other Michelle McCool item has ever sold.
The crowd is very firmly on her side, and even moreso when she proclaims, “THIS is what a real woman looks like!”
Sure, I could note that she’s walking around with two plastic balloons on her chest, but instead, I say:
Preach, Sister Mickie, Preach On!
She goes on to proudly proclaim that she’s a real woman and gives an empowering cry to all women out there, short and tall, fat and skinny, that they are beautiful and sexy because of what they have in their souls.
I know I just lost about 98% of the readership at this very moment but it’s true.
(Note from RD: Agreed.
On both that being true, and on losing 98% of our readership.)
It’s truly Mickie’s crowning moment but needless to say that her proud exclamation of her natural beauty and femininity goes over about as well as the suggestion to make the WCW guys look like a threat during the InVasion. The Deever and Michelle rebut her statements by making fat jokes and calling her “Piggy” some more.
To steal a line from Jim Cornette, letting Michelle McCool anywhere near a microphone should be a Capital offense.
Mickie answers all our prayers by decking both the Deever and Michelle with two stiff punches as Maria joins in the chaos.
You know, because when you think about who would fight for the rights of women who have some meat on their bones, you natually think Maria Kanellis.
Then Beth Phoenix (??) comes out, obliterates Maria (wow, what help SHE was!) and then holds Mickie still so Michelle McTaker (yeah, that’s the reason why she will have consistent employment there) will shove a cake shaped like a pig into her face.
Poor unsuspecting pig cake. He has no idea what stupidity he’s being used for. Orally pleasing the ghost waiter from The Shining was more dignified.
Now if we could get an insane Jack Nicholson to chase these two through a hedgemaze…now THAT would be an angle.
Mickie gets caked while Matt Stryker makes a Mark Madden-esque comment about cakes on tables in wrestling rings. And to add insult to caking, she gets the punch bowl on her face and is left there to look like a humiliated fool.
Hey, remember when Mickie was Trish Stratus’s psycho lesbian stalker?
After this angle, no one else will either.
Which is a shame, because that angle RULED.
Michelle McCool comes out the next week for an in-ring promo on the Smackdown before the Royal Rumble because YOU, the WWE UNIVERSE demanded it. That’s right, you did, even when you didn’t know you did.
Her (complete and total in)ability to convey humanity and natural spontaneity with her words makes me realize that The Undertaker couldn’t have picked a more deserving receptacle for his undead zombie biker spooge, on and in Ms. McCool.
(Note from RD: I can’t believe Braxton’s corrupted you to the point that you used the term “SPOOGE.”
Note from Blade: Her journey to the darkside is now complete.)
She makes fun of Mickie some more and challenges any Divas to a title defense on the spot. Apparently Michelle hasn’t seen a little match from the past with The Honky Tonk Man and The Ultimate Warrior.
Normally I wouldn’t mention either The Honky Tonk Man (Greatest Intercontinental Champion of All Time) OR The Ultimate Warrior in the same sentence as Michelle McCool but that’s what I’m reduced to.
Layla comes out in a fat suit and dances around while chomping a donut. Well donuts are good but she should really have some ding dongs instead.
“Yo! Ding Dong! Ding Dong! Yo!”
No thanks, really.
They make more fat jokes because they NEVER get old and Stryker laughs while saying she looks like Dr. Evil. Wrong Mike Myers character, overpaid dullard. By the way, when did the Deever get a British accent?
Didn’t she originally sound like she was from Brooklyn?
(Note from RD: In fact, that’s where the whole “Deever” thing came from – when she was originally in the Diva Search, she talked about wanting to be a “DEEVER” in an accent so Brooklyn I thought she may have been Taz’s sister.
Turns out she is in fact from England, though.
Very weird.)
Of course if I was called “fat” like that I would just resort to, “You ain’t FAT! You ain’t NOTHIN’!”
YOU AIN’T NOTHIN’!!
…
The segment goes on for the next 5 hours as Michelle leads her around the ring with a donut and then pins her. The time I could’ve spent cutting my wrists while blasting Beethoven’s “Ode To Joy”, I had to spend watching that.
Mickie finally gets to win the title at the Royal Rumble and payback for the weekly humiliation by caking both McCool and the Deever.
See, this is what you call a “feud blow-off”, which leads me to believe no one in the WWE had anything to do with this particular match.
Except,of course, this wasn’t the blow off, which leads me to believe WWE had everything to do with this particular match.
Thanks to Vickie Guerrero (because again, you, the WWE UNIVERSE, demanded it (even though you didn’t)) grants Michelle a rematch, and she promptly regained the title.
Bravo, making fun of Mickie’s weight continues on!
Mickie’s final humiliation came on Smackdown as she jobbed to Layla the Deever by way of the worst Rude Awakening I’ve ever seen.
And thus, our favorite Diva was gone, with the sole remanants of her existence being wiped out as fans screamed “We Want Mickie” on last Monday’s Raw.
Mickie IS an aspiring country singer so all we can do at Wrestlecrap is wish her the best in all her future endeavours.
And warn her to never lift the tail in Blade’s presence.
Godspeed to you, Mickie James.
Godspeed to you.