Welcome to the MTV VMAs, Wrestlemania Style

Macho Man vs. Miss Elizabeth, It’s The 2010 VMAs!

Normally, award shows are pretty much the bane of any real journalist. You sit there glued to your television set for about three hours while the same predetermined darling of a particular network begins racking up award after award. Yes, we like car crashes as they happen in real life and want to see the usual “who/what/when/where/why/how” but those moments rarely happen at awards shows these days.

For MTV, the Video Music Awards are their version of Wrestlemania. There’s pageantry, there’s a lot of spectacle and by night’s end there’s probably going to be a new champion crowned during a four hour telecast. Hence the title of this ode to MTV’s biggest baby, and how much it’s fallen from the realm of shocking and original.

Now – we’re left with two pop stars feuding over an interruption, a question of what will the 21st century Madonna wear next and whether or not the host actually did get groped maliciously by a dozen black men. That was the 2010 Video Music Awards in a nutshell, one complete with “surprise” appearances everyone saw from a mile away (like Eminem wasn’t gonna performance “Love the Way You Lie” ha!), B.o.B absolutely tearing down the stage and Drake’s hands looking as if they were an Inspector Gadget add on gone seriously wrong.

Yes, I’m pretty sure if you watched MTV for a little bit you would have realized that without Beyonce in attendance for anything, Lady Gaga was going to clean sweep her way to vids (and outlandish styles of dress). The channel has become so predictable even the performances seem a little off. Kudos to Swizz Beatz for learning how to play something other than the Casio keyboard during the Drake performance (or did Alicia teach him?) and kudos to Katy Perry, Rihanna, Ke$ha & Nicki Minaj for creating the best musical rendition of “Marry, F*ck, Kill” you might ever see.

Hip-Hop wise, the ordainment for Eminem to be MTV’s favorite rapper no matter the album was set in stone ten years ago. You’re not winning a hip-hop award going up against Marshall. Maybe that’s why he pick(ed) at pop stars for all eternity. Marshall leaving showed he had more important interests, such as being the greatest opening act in the world at Yankee Stadium for Jay-Z (Memphis Bleek is STILL one hit away). Oh well, he did get into some sort of fisticuffs on Entourage by socking Vincent Chase in the face.

Oh, and lest we not forget Kanye West & Taylor Swift .

For the first time in maybe five years, you actually had a reason to care about the VMAs simply because of those two names. Did the shenanigans deliver? Kind of. Taylor gave a slightly weak performance and gave us a new term for the denizens of society, “an innocent”. Thank you, so now Kat Stacks, Mel Gibson, Sarah Palin and others can run with the “innocent” label. I don’t know what compelled MTV to even bring it up but then again, Taylor has ridden this thing to the bank and then some and if anybody knows beat something into the ground – it’s Viacom.



The ubiquitous final performance by Kanye West left a little to be desired. Sure, everybody’s inner hip-hop geek had their hymen broken once that MPC found its way on stage and Ye combined theatrical elements with autotune not to mention the giant look it was for Salmon Suit Pusha T but it’s going to give way to something even more terrible – the asshole and douchebag fad. Trust me, as impressionable as the youth are, West has that power to change how people look and act. I fear walking out and hearing this song from the nice people who want to claim asshole territory.



It almost didn’t even seem like an award show really, seeing that there were no shocking winners. It played rather like a buildup for rematch between the Macho Man & Miss Elizabeth. Either way, we’re watching again next year because the VMAs are ingrained in our lives like sunshine and cleavage because you haven’t lived unless you’ve seen them at least once.

For more coverage of the 2010 MTV VMAs, including complete performance video and a red carpet run down, click here.