Monday Night Raw

I’m about to enter the world of the Internet Wrestling Community (IWC).  It’s basically people who discuss wrestling on the internet and by discuss I mean complain, but in all seriousness most of the time with good reason.  Wrestling just isn’t like it once was.  I.E. fun, unpredictable, compelling, continuity, red-hot crowd, actual care for mid-card, an announce team that made things feel important, not pandering to the people who will never ever understand and watch wrestling, not an absolute chore to sit through 3 hours of constant recaps.  What I wouldn’t give for a sit down interview with Vince McMahon.  I’m starting to get off track here back to the IWC.  If you don’t know anything about the IWC, please understand that they are not happy with anything.  Like any large group they can never agree on anything and there are many factions within the group.  Just by talking about wrestling online Triple H has put me on his hit list.  Triple H is the executive vice president of the former World Wrestling Federation (sorry I just can’t bring myself to say WWE).  His insecurities are very real and will probably never eat a pretzel again or stomp on a bunch next Monday as his way of burying me and this site.  Oh who am I kidding, he only buries people when they make it big time. 

            Now, picking an actual episode among the 1000 plus was a little tough.  However, you need to remember I’m not trying to pick the best episode of all time, but the one that starts a run of can’t miss episodes.  May 26^th 1997 is the winner.  An almost pretty inconsequential episode that’s smack dab in the middle of two ppv’s.  Usually the show after or right before a ppv is the most memorable.   Let’s go through some of the reasons why raw pretzeled at this time.  One, there was no jobbers (wrestlers that are inconsequential to a storyline and always lose to make the other look better) used this night and began a move towards ending the practice of using jobbers.  Two, we are in the midst of the Monday night wars between WWF and WCW.  The show was actually renamed Raw is War and War Zone for the first and second hours.  We are in the attitude era the greatest wrestling era of all time.  Three, Mankind’s part 2 interview with Jim Ross gives the audience a look into the Mick Foley’s alter egos Dude Love and Cactus Jack.  The three faces of Foley were an instrumental part during the attitude era.  Four, Stone Cold in the main event spot.  Stone Cold and Shawn Michaels defeated Owen Hart (R.I.P) and British Bulldog (R.I.P) to become new tag team champions.  Stone Cold is the greatest superstar of all time and I will defend that until my death.  Coming off of his great WrestleMania match with Bret Hart at WM 13, Steve Austin has the crowd and the company behind him.  This show is a precursor to some great points in wrestling Canadian Stampede, SummerSlam 97, Badd Blood, Survivor Series 97 and of course WrestleMania 14. 

2007 New York Giants

I think the Giants pretzeled during their last loss of the season.  In the last game of the season, they played and lost to the undefeated New England Patriots.  The Giants fell to 10-6 and the Patriots went to 16-0.  What followed over the next four weeks was nothing short of incredible.  At the time, the Giants had sewn up the 5 seed in the NFC playoffs.  No matter what the outcome of the game they weren’t moving any higher or lower.  Yet, still Tom Coughlin played it as if it was a playoff game.  He played all his starters even the banged up Plaxico Burress.  They gave the Patriots their largest deficit they had to face all season.  By hanging tough with the Pats, the Giants had their pretzel moment.  It spurred them on with confidence and momentum for the playoffs.  They beat the Bucs in the wild card matchup in a game that was never really in any doubt.   Had a 4th quarter comeback win against the Cowboys that included an end zone interception on a defensive stand on the last drive.  In the NFC title game, the Giants won in OT following a classic Favre choke job.  They then avenged their last loss in the Super Bowl against the Pats that had one of the most famous sports plays in history with the helmet catch.  Tell me what other pretzel moments you think the 07 Giants had in the comments.

Seinfeld

Well here it is, the show the site/term/idiom gets its namesake from.  Season 3 episode 11 “The Alternate Side” is where I think the show pretzeled.  I know some people think it was the very beginning and a case can be made for the Chinese restaurant episode or the parking garage, but I feel like those just don’t hold up and really weren’t engrossing from the start.  You could also make an argument that it pretzeled when Andy Ackerman took over directing in season 6 and the gang got into even more over the top crazy hi-jinx.  This episode had it all.  All the characters have their own stories going that intertwined by the end.  George takes over the odd job for parking cars, Kramer is in a Woody Allen movie and Elaine is taking care of her elderly boyfriend.  Kramer’s kookiness in this episode really shines through and becomes a staple for future episodes.  Also, of course the famous quotable line of “these pretzels are making me thirsty” was said by all four main characters.   Seinfeld really started to find its groove after this.  Some great episodes followed and the plots began to allow each character to have a subplot that gets tied up at the end.  

What is this all about?

Welcome to Pretzel Moments.  Here at Pretzel Moment, we try find that moment in time when your favorite tv show or sports team really came together to begin its ascent into greatness.  You know, before they go off the rails and jump the shark.  No show ever kicks ass in the first season because characters aren’t fully formed yet  We are not looking for the best episode of all time, but that first real superb episode that made you say I’ve got to watch this series until I can’t anymore.  We have our own takes, but we also look for your input to really pinpoint that pretzel moment. We would love to be able to write/speak freely in the vein of a site like barstoolsports, but we’ve got careers to think about and can’t be out there flamethrowing every day causing outcry from the masses.  The name comes from “the alternate side “episode of Seinfeld during season 3.  All four characters use the line “these pretzels are making me thirsty”.  It’s an episode that started a great run of memorable moments in a string of future episodes and the line we think just fits perfect with what we are trying to do here.  When you hear the term “pretzeled” or “pretzel moment”, it is referring to the time when everything kind of just ties together.  It helps when it begins a string of classic or memorable episodes that directly follow it.  You might not be able to tell when it happens, but looking back on it you can definitely tell.  So when did your favorite show pretzel?  When did that championship team have its pretzel moment?  Click around and find out.  As always drop a line to pretzelmoments@gmail.com to request shows/teams.