Poor Joe Hennig now holds the honor of having the two worst ring names in pro wrestling history. Curt Axel is slightly less ridiculous than Michael McGillicutty, but holy crap, just the same.
Is it so wrong to acknowledge and borrow from and steal from the past? Why not have him be all, my father was Mr. Perfect, and perfection runs through my veins. Everything I’ve ever done in life, school, athletics, girls, you know it, and it’s all come easy to me. So the competition in the WWE? I don’t sweat that at all. And give him a nickname that suggests or hints at Perfection? What the fuck is wrong with that?
And Ted DiBiase Jr. Why not have him be all, I can take money out of my dad’s account any time I want. I could buy this whole arena if I felt like it. Spoiled rich kid trying to live up to his dad’s reputation. Give him a fucking bodyguard. What else is Ezekiel doing with his life these days?
Is any of this bad? Is it bad because it’s unoriginal? I would argue that it’s at least better than this awful, awful trend of bad names and one note gimmicks. If a little girl happened upon WWE programming, she would probably think Dolph Ziggler calls himself because he likes dolphins. This has to fucking stop. -Dusty
Thanks to the Stunt Granny photography department aka “The Woman”
Stunt Granny is back with another edition of the Stunt Granny Audio! The guys actually talk wrestling for a change because Kevin attended Monday Night Raw. Dusty joins him and asks an important question. After noting that the crowd was much larger than the one in November, Dusty asked “What do you think caused the jump in attendance? What is different?” Which piece of the puzzle had more new shirts at this Raw than anyone expect for the standard bearers like John Cena, CM Punk, Randy Orton and Sheamus? Part of the change in attendance is Kevin’s fellow Kent State Alumni Dolph Ziggler. Did he get a crowd boost because he was near his old stomping grounds in Kent? Does Dusty again with Kevin about Dolph’s ability to sell? The third pillar in this attendance equation is Fandango but what happened to his fancy entrance? How good of a dancer is Fandango? The last part of the change equation is The Shield. How easily can Kevin point out the obvious about Roman Reigns when he walked past his row to the ring? Does Dusty make an inappropriate joke? Kevin wraps up Raw Live by talking about his usual habit of people watching. Would turning John Cena heel work from a merchandising stand point? What kind of a cross section did Kevin sit in? Dusty had one last question for Kevin, what the hell is up with Ring of Honor? Find out that and more when you click the link below!
OH my god, you better hide your heart because Kevin and Dusty are coming! The fearless duo reunited once again to talk about the latest happenings in the world of WWE. Paul Bearer recently passed away and they discuss some of his career highlights. Dusty segues into a digression about the backstage gang warfare going on in the WWF in the mid 90s. Which gang wore black hats and spelled “crew” incorrectly? Which gang wore red bandanas? Why couldn’t the Hart family even agree on which gang to join? Meanwhile, Monday Night Raw was actually pretty good (except for the abysmal announcing). A troupe of doods made their case for trying to end the Undertaker’s streak. Who prevailed? Why did Big Show just recently realize that if he h it somebody, it would probably hurt? Did WWE miss an opportunity with Zack Ryder? Finally, they talk a little football and call it a night. All that and a whole lot more, so listen for the god of love. Oh, and check this out:
So I went ahead and watched the WWE pay-per-view on Sunday night. Hell in a Cell. I was talked into watching it with my best friend till the end Keesh, because he was going to watch it himself and needed someone to bag on it with him. So I thought what the heck, what harm could it do to spend my Sunday evening watching some grappling, just like old times. But oh man, I wish I hadn’t.
I don’t know if it’s just because I’m so burned out on wrestling right now, but it was a very frustrating three hours for me. I found myself constantly yelling at my screen, critiquing what was happening and making suggestions for what should have been done differently. When I first started watching wrestling, I never did any of that, even though I have always been a know-it-all brainiac who thinks my own ideas are better than everyone else’s. Used to, I could turn my mind off for three hours and take what I was watching at face value as mindless entertainment. WWE nowadays simply does not allow me to do that.
What follows is some of the myriad things I found myself thinking as I watched the show:
Randy Orton needs to go. The guy is just treading water at this point. One of the biggest residual problems from the late 90s Monday Night Wars is that WWE got into the habit of making sure everyone who means anything to the company is locked up for the long term. Only completely fuck ups like Kurt Angle and Jeff Hardy are allowed to leave on their own volition, for the most part. How this relates to Orton is, I find his act to be completely stale. He is serving no greater purpose by winning meaningless opening matches on meaningless pay-per-views.
I thought the outcome to that match was a no brainer. Alberto Del Rio had to win, because he’s the one with any upside potential at this point. Give him a win over the “name” guy and try to get something started with him. Orton is a complete non-starter to me. He’s won the belt umpteen times, he’s feuded with all the top guys, beating them sometimes, losing some other times. It’s just all been done with him. And he’s not an interesting enough character on his own to refresh himself. He, like Christian before him, would just generally benefit from going away for a while and then coming back.
Now granted, there really isn’t anywhere to go but TNA, but fuck it, that’ll have to be it then. It’s too bad WWE would never really consider doing anything like this, but I really think they ought to consider working out some kind of trade with TNA here. TNA would salivate at the opportunity to obtain another “big name” WWE performer. WWE could try to approach this in a couple different ways. One would be to try to get face value for Orton, which would mean someone like Bully Ray. Bully Ray would excel in the current WWE environment. He’s probably my favorite act in all of wrestling for 2012. He deserves one last WWE shot.
Or they could take the opposite approach and poach a couple prospects. Guys like Magnus and Rob Terry, who would seem to fit in with the standard WWE prototype. Either way, WWE needs to shake things up here, and I can’t think of a single better person to use to make that point with than Orton. He does no one any good in the opening match spot. His win was an empty token gesture based on past performance. His presence is actually hindering WWE’s progress at this point, as I think the logical move would have been to move forward with Del Rio, who at least has more upside potential.
Comedy that isn’t funny. I’m beating that dead horse all the way to the glue factory, I realize this, but it drives me up the wall every time. The skit with Daniel Bryan and Kane backstage was fairly funny until it wasn’t funny at all. “On a farm… Old McDonald’s farm! Here, let me sing the Old McDonald song! How long can I string this out?!” If the WWE writers had written the script to The Sandlot, the famous line from that movie would have been changed to, “You play ball like a girl! Because you play ball in a very feminine way! And people who are feminine tell to play ball at a lower level than those who do not play in a feminine way! Therefore, I am insulting your masculinity as well as your ability to play the game of baseball!”
In other words, less is more. If you feel the need to tell a joke, tell the joke. Leave it sit. It’s either funny or it’s not. Know when enough is enough. If you need to explain the joke or continue on the joke for too long, it wasn’t funny and the laugh wasn’t meant to be. As a famous philosopher once said, it’s just tone deaf to do it the way they do it now. I’m all for character building segments like that, but not when it comes attached to a joke that would make a record screech in a bad television sitcom.
Darren Young, Titus O’Neill and Justin Gabriel don’t belong on PPVs. Being on a pay-per-view isn’t a right; it’s a privilege. You should have to earn your spot on the card, not be given it because there just aren’t any better ideas on what to do. Basically this just speaks to the long time theme that WWE doesn’t care about their midcard and can’t be bothered to build it up enough to where people actually care about the competitors therein. So what you get is jack-in-the-box title matches conjured up six days prior featuring someone who has no discernible character, and is just generally an indie guy who wears tights and does wrestling moves.
Every match on a pay-per-view should be meaningful in some way. If it’s a non-title match, it should be between two guys who stand to gain something from a win. Maybe a win gets them one step closer to a title shot. Maybe they have animosity towards each other for some reason, and a win over the other would be exacting an amount of satisfying revenge. But if the match is a title match, it simply cannot have six days build. That’s not adequate booking in any way. It’s simply not acceptable. Title shots should be earned over the course of extended programs. Not just, “Hey, we have nothing for this guy to do and the PPV is coming up.” Justin Gabriel is a decent wrestler, but I have no reason to care about him. I never had any doubt in my mind that he was going to lose that match. That is simply not acceptable. With title matches should come intrigue.
On the other side of the coin, I appreciated the idea behind the Young/O’Neill tag team match. For one thing, you’re building up the tag team division, and for another, as I outlined earlier, perhaps a win there gets them a title shot. It’s just that, like Gabriel, I really don’t see why I need to care about these two. They’re being thrust into a position they’re not ready for, simply because everything in WWE happens too fast these days. Gone are the days of the Rockers slowly, methodically working their way through the tag team ranks for a couple years before even being considered legitimate threats to win the tag team titles. Now it’s just, win this match and you’ll probably be the number one contenders. There’s no build and there’s no character building. I have no idea why I should care about their plight.
Michael Cole seemed like he was in a coma the entire show. Granted, he’s never been any good, and this is yet another dead horse of mine. But come on here. Show a little bit of enthusiasm. Do your job in a professional manner. If you can’t handle it, you need to be replaced. I need someone to explain to me with a straight face why Jim Ross and JBL couldn’t have called that show on their own. I hate three man booths anyway, but especially when one of them is completely dead, and that’s the one that gets the bulk of the talking time. There were several minutes at a time where Ross was completely silent. In no way should that be acceptable.
It is often a telltale sign that the person isn’t listening to you when they simply repeat the last thing you said before you stopped talking. JBL called Cole out on doing that a number of times at the pay-per-view. If the announcer can’t be bothered to pay attention to what is going on, why should the viewer? It is well past time to give the lead announcer role to Josh Mathews. He is young, he is good looking, he is good at what he does, and he is dedicated to always getting better and learning more. Pairing him up with Jim Ross would probably eventually turn him into a candidate for best announcer of all time. Instead, we are stuck with the out-to-lunch, weiner looking Cole.
Ryback should have won the title. You want real change? Then do something that’s really different. It’s that simple. By going back to the old Hulk Hogan formula, you will have enacted the exact kind of change needed to fit with these more kiddie friendly, PG times. Ryback seems like he’s getting over enough that you can justify putting the belt on him. And then, as the slogan goes, feed him continual opponents. Move CM Punk down the card a step, where he can help ensure that the undercards are going to be high quality enough to counter the assuredly mediocre main event matches that will be over because the champion is over, not because of the ring work. Find the balance there and go with it.
Utilize Ryback in the Hogan/Goldberg combo role that he was destined for. In the meantime, you will have shown your fanbase in one fell swoop that things are different now. This is a different kind of champion than Punk or Daniel Bryan or Cena, or really anybody in the recent past. The other important part of this equation is that he needs to hold the belt a long time. Like until at least WrestleMania long. I would even hold out until the *next* WrestleMania, but you absolutely cannot trust WWE to have anywhere near that kind of discipline and long term thought.
And when he does lose, it needs to be in a significant, impactful way. Having him at this point, in the way in which he lost, now ensures that he will never have the kind of momentum again that he had going into the show. This is a classic old school WCW move that cuts the balls off someone who was on the verge of making something happen, all to appease the status quo. It ensures that nothing will ever really change, and that no upswing will happen for the foreseeable future. But hey, we sure were swerved!
Dirty finishes. Again, in the interest of being repetitiously redundant, this has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time. WWE has it exactly backwards in how they book their matches. They put the dirty finish matches on the pay-per-views, and the clean, feud ending finishes on free television. I don’t know how much money pay-per-views are now (I, uh, forgot how much I paid for this, yeah), but it’s a lot of freaking money. And people should expect to get quality bang for their hard earned buck. Instead, we got a disqualification solely on the basis of Kane kicking everyone’s ass, and a heel ref sequence that made Nick Patrick roll over in his grave. Enough of this crap.
Put that kind of stuff on Raw if you insist on doing it at all. I dare WWE to put on a pay-per-view that consists solely of matches ending in clean, decisive finishes. They simply do not have the discipline to do that. They think that’s not entertaining enough. They think all the bells and whistles are what people tune in for, not realizing that if they did enough of everything else right, the clean finishes would be exactly what the people want and expect out of shows like this. They continue to insist on going from point A to point B by going through points C through Z first.
Or maybe I’m just too old for wrestling now.
In any event, you can read more about Keesh at thefullpint.com. You can read more about me at shamelessplug.org.
There’s a guy who gets paid to do this who brings up that wrestlers should get about three months of mandatory time off per year every couple months. What he doesn’t realize is that it’s not really adequate to just want something to happen. I want to impregnate Scarlett Johansson, but I realize that might not ever happen. What I’m saying is, you have to actually present an idea, instead of just saying something to say it. So while I’m working on the Scarlett thing, here’s a modest proposal for wrestlers getting three months off every year.
Treat wrestling like a real sport. Let’s use basketball as the example for these purposes, since those knuckleheads have been in the news recently. A typical NBA season (when they’re not following up the best year in the history of their league with an extended, fan repelling lockout) runs until April, and then the playoffs culminate in June with the championship series. And then they have off until late October or November, so we’re talking about four months off for NBA players to get high and play video games.
So if we’re talking three months off (admittedly as arbitrary as any number would be, but we’ll use it as the launching point for this column), how do we structure WWE’s “season”? The first thing I can think of is that WrestleMania is still considered the biggest WWE event of the year, even in this age of de-focus on pay-per-views and more focus on television (and Twitter). So let’s say WrestleMania is where the championship is decided every year. Now let’s work backwards to get there.
This system would allow for every match to mean something, which is something a lot of people on the internet have been clamoring for for years now. I propose a point system of something like three points for every pinfall or submission victory, two points for every countout or disqualification victory, one point for a draw (time limit draw or no decision type situation), and zero points for any loss. Tiebreakers can be amount of wins first and fewest amount of losses second. Or something like that. I’m just spitballing here. The important part is that I get my ideas out.
And keep track of every win and loss, and constantly update the point totals. Show the leaderboard on the television shows. Have a page on the website that tracks everybody on the roster. Make it interactive. At some random point, the “season” ends, and it’s time for the tournament. The seedings for the tournament will be based on the points system. The finals of the tournament will be held at WrestleMania. After WrestleMania, the “season” is over, and the wrestlers get April, May and June off, and start up the next season in July.
I think this format would serve several purposes. For one, it gives everyone on the roster time to rest up, heal injuries, what have you. For another, it would make every match important, since logically you would want to win every match so you get as many points as possible so you get the best seed in the tournament you possibly can. You’d rather be facing Primo in the first round of the tournament than, say, Dolph Ziggler. Make it easy on yourself, why don’t you?
You can still make the TV shows storyline driven, to an extent. But the storylines would now be centered around gaining in the standings, gaining points, improving your status, as opposed to storylines centered around comedy that isn’t funny and belts changing hands every week.
And what about those belts? Gone. You’re wrestling for the purpose of winning the “championship” at the end of the “season.” Belts have so little meaning anymore anyway, it’s a necessary evil to get rid of them. Besides, belts don’t sell tickets anymore either. Wrestlers don’t even really sell tickets anymore, aside from maybe like John Cena and Undertaker and special appearance guys like the Rock. The WWE brand sells tickets. People go to TV tapings and live events to see “WWE,” and whatever that means to them. I would argue it would be an easy transition to a belt-less company. The people wouldn’t mind nearly as much as the purists would want you to believe.
And what about tag teams? Gone. As much of a tag team wrestling fan as I am, as much as I grew up loving Demolition and the Midnight Express and the Beverly Brothers and the Fabulous Rougeaus and Arn Anderson and whoever Arn was teaming with that week, this is another necessary evil. The past ten years have done nothing but teach fans that tag teams don’t mean anything. Every pairing these days is an afterthought, and every team is bound to break up, with the only question being when, not if.
So with everyone fighting for the goal of winning the individual championship at WrestleMania, the next logical step is getting rid of tag teams altogether. There is no reason to team with anybody anymore. Wrestling logic dictates you can’t trust that person, no matter how good of a friend they may seem to be. So let’s skip the middle man altogether here. And again, the tag belts don’t mean anything. No belt does.
So while these may seem like radical steps, I view them as totally necessary to get towards the end goal. You want a more realistic product, this is the way to do it. Everyone fighting towards a common goal, you may be “friendly” with some of your competitors but not so much that you wouldn’t try to beat them in a match if it meant gaining ground in the standings. This is how you can move wrestling towards emulating real sports, like basketball, and real competitions, like UFC events.
Again, the main purpose here was to get this idea out in the open. I welcome any feedback, improvements, adjustments, whatever, you want to suggest. This is the rough idea I dreamed up, and I’m kind of excited about it and wanted to share it. Hopefully I can find enough time to make this a weekly thing, every Sunday night so people can have something to read on Monday mornings when they’re online doing whatever instead of working. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to find a job that allows online surfing during work time. I’ll have to work on that, right after I find Scarlett…
If you didn't like this week's Monday Night Raw, this picture should hopefully put things into perspective for you.
This one will be short and sweet since I’m feeling under the weather today. Kevin wanted me to do this because he’s busy with something or another else. We’re choking down Summer Slam, so they better make this count.
Triple H comes out to start the show. How long do you get to be the new COO of the company before you’re just the COO of the company? He said there were lots of changes going on in the company, what with them going from having no champion to now having two. He said they’re going to resolve that issue at Summer Slam with a match between John Cena and CM Punk to determine who the undisputed champion will be. Punk got a big pop again at the mention. Hunter said a match of that magnitude is going to need a special guest referee of equal magnitude to keep the law and order. So, of course, it’s going to be him. Stevie Wonder could have seen that coming. Ray Charles could have seen that coming. A visually impaired person who needs the assistance of eyewear in order to see things properly could have seen that coming.
In any event, Hunter then got down to the business of laying out the format of the rest of the show. We’ve got a contract signing between Punk and Cena (I’m sure that will go just swimmingly), as well as individual matches for the both of them against other dudes. Hunter said Cena’s match is first, and actually it is going to be right then and there. I love how they do that on wrestling shows, the faux surprise “let’s have a match right now!” thing. What were they going to do otherwise with that time? Just show an empty ring? Have Triple H talk longer? Before they went to break, Cena got in Hunter’s face to question the guest referee stipulation. Hunter told him no one is bigger than him, basically laying down the law there. Interesting.
Back from break, and Cena is taking on Jack Swagger. WWE forgot to fire Swagger on Black Friday a while back, and they’re going to punish him for it by making him job on television. Or something like that. I’m not reviewing the matches this week in any sort of meaningful way, if you want to know the truth of it. Besides, Swagger is not good, so it would just be a bunch of sentences saying stuff like “Swagger did something poorly” and “Swagger sold something poorly.” I just saved you some time. Cena hit the Attitude Adjustment for the victory. It was your basic John Cena match that he had every week while I was doing Smackdown reviews back in the day. I guess Swagger and Carlito are interchangeable.
Later in the show is going to be Rey Mysterio vs. The Miz. Isn’t Rey hurt? Isn’t Miz not much better off? What’s going on here? They show clips of Bret Hart vs. Curt Hennig from Summer Slam 1991, which is one of my favorite matches of all time, ostensibly to get people excited about this year’s Summer Slam. Done and doner.
Ricardo Rodriguez interrupts Scott Stanford (the broski of the forever) to introduce Alberto Del Rio. Del Rio is going to be taking on Punk tonight, and he vows to finish what he tried to start at the Money in the Bank pay-per-view. So apparently Punk is a babyface now, in that he is a babyface when he is facing heels and a heel when he is facing babyfaces. Who doesn’t think Punk is this generation’s Randy Savage, the best thing to happen to wrestling in the last 10 years? If so, harm yourself immediately.
I came up with that title at three o’clock this afternoon. See, cause it’s after the show aired? Eh? Ah, forget it.
Kevin is incapacitated this week, so I’m back here doing what I used to do every week – review Monday Night Raw for no pay whatsoever. Last week’s show lit the internet on fire in a blaze of controversy, so it will be interesting to see how this show fares in its aftermath.
We start with the new Raw belt on display, shades of the WrestleMania 4 tournament. All we needed was Robin Leach to read a pretentious proclamation before the match began. I really hate the way Justin Roberts strains some words out like he’s taking a gigantic dump. I’m sure someone in management told him to do it. Cole and Lawler introduce the show and say it’s right to the action as we’re going to start things off with Rey Mysterio vs. The Miz for the Raw Title. They show the entire lockerroom watching backstage. I’m loving this; it’s being treated like a big deal, and they’re guaranteeing a champion by putting the match on first and letting it go as long as it needs to. Cole puts over the tournament and the guys’ backgrounds like he’s good ol’ JR or something. (That’s post-show-watching foreshadowing, folks.) “If Rey Mysterio walked on water, you’d say, ‘Oh look, Mysterio can’t swim!’” – Jerry Lawler to Michael Cole.
We come back from break with Lawler taking a shot at the Obama-Boehner political debate that was going on tonight. They trade nearfalls and Miz becomes frustrated, which culminates in an almost Christian-like temper tantrum after a close two count. Miz blocks a 619 and hits a sitout powerbomb for a two count. “Miz looks like a Greek statue with that flower on his dick.” – Becky, in regards to Miz’s terrible trunks. Mysterio finally hits the 619 and top rope splash to win the match and the title. This was a great TV show match.
Miz attacks during the post-match celebration and lays out Mysterio. Alberto Del Rio’s music hits and he comes out with the briefcase, indicating he’s going to claim his title match right now while Mysterio is down and out. However, he takes too long to get to the ring, and Mysterio catches him with a dive to the outside. Del Rio retreats while vowing Mysterio hasn’t seen the last of him.
They come back from break showing Mysterio receiving a standing ovation from the boys in the back, who then shower him with champagne. Cena gets up in his face, but then shakes his hand and pats him on the back. Josh Mathews interviews Mysterio, who talks about his family and how much this win means to him. They then show clips of last week’s show ending angle with Triple H and Vince McMahon and advertise that Hunter will be doing a State of the WWE Address later on in the show.
We come back from break with clips of Dolph Ziggler beating Kofi Kingston at the Capital Punishment PPV to win the United States Title. This sets up Ziggler (with Vickie Guerrero in his corner) taking on Evan Bourne. I love Zigglers’ “I Am Perfection” shirt. The font is very reminiscent of what they used for the WrestleMania 2 graphics. I’m all full of old WrestleMania references in this review, as you will see. Vickie is a heat machine at ringside. Evan’s selling is top notch. He is absolutely this generation’s Ricky Morton, and I hope WWE understands what a gift they have with him. Bourne hits a frankensteiner off the top for a two count. He misses a 450 splash and Ziggler takes control, locking in a sleeper hold for the victory. “Follow that!” Ziggler challenges. Great charisma. They then show a clip of Kofi beating Del Rio last week to set up this week’s rematch.
Every USA Network show is exactly the same. Have you noticed this? I can’t wait to see Vincent D’Onofrio star in this week’s Burn Notice. Or… wait… uh…
We’re back with a wacky backstage segment featuring some schmuck carrying around a pack of Keystone Light like he’s Buck Zumhofe with the stereo. Oh, it’s Keith Stone. Whatever. In any event, Eve complains to him that the Bella Twins always take advantage of the fact that they are identical to do sneaky switches behind the ref’s back and basically cheat for a living. Stone solves this problem by using magic markers to draw an arm sleeve tattoo on Nikki in a quick cutaway scene. There was no follow up to this whatsoever, so I have no idea what the point of it was, other than to try to get Dusty Giebink to commit suicide.
Maryse and Melina are already in the ring, so you just know this match is going to end up going well for them. They’re taking on Kelly Kelly and Eve tonight. Maryse carries herself like she’s hotness. Lawler again takes a shot at the political speech. They should be careful that these knocks aren’t advertising the thing, you know? Eve is basically dressed like a Los Angeles Lakers cheerleader tonight. She also has huge knockers, so there’s that. Maryse actually hits a stinkface at some point in the match. Melina tags in and stinks up one side and down the other. Man, is she terrible. The match devolves into a four way brawl. Kelly hits the fameasser for the win. Everything not involving Melina was decent for women’s fare. They show R-Truth talking *at* (not to) Triple H backstage to hype up the State of the WWE Address.
During the break, Becky points out the genius of Hunter marrying Stephanie. Apparently she doesn’t believe in True Love.
Hunter comes out for his State of the Union address as Cole points out last week it was announced he’s taking over for Vince as the head of day to day operations of the company. Beck points out it’s like when Michael took over for Don Corleone in the Godfather. Hunter is even dressed like a mob boss here. Hunter gives dap to Vince to start things off. He says he’s here to talk about the future of the company, and congratulates Mysterio on his title win. He says Rey has agreed to defend the belt in a second title match here tonight against John Cena, since Cena was cheated out of the rematch he deserved by Vince.
Hunter then switches gears and says he’s re-hired someone the fans have been clamoring for for some time now. Everybody thinks it’s CM Punk, but it ends up being Jim Ross, I’m sure much to Eric Nelson’s glee. Lawler embraces Ross as Cole looks like Hunter just ran over his new kitty 37 times with a Hummer. Cole throws down his headset and grabs a microphone. He says Hunter said this was supposed to be about the future, but Jim Ross is the walking dead. He says he’s been a company man since WrestleMania, doing everything they asked him to do, but he will not commentate along with Ross. Hunter looks nonplussed in the ring during this rant. Cole gets in Ross’ face, saying he’s spent his entire WWE career kissing Vince McMahon’s ass, so it makes sense that now that Hunter is in charge, Ross would kiss his ass. “The only thing bigger than your ego is your gut!” Hunter politely asks if Cole is finished, and then says his first inclination was to outright fire Cole and replace him with Ross. He said that was a logistical impossibility, however, due to the terms in Cole’s contract. Therefore, he is giving Cole the rest of the show off, and he has until Friday Night Smackdown to make up his mind on what his future holds. If he no shows the Smackdown taping, it will be considered a breach of contract and Cole will be future endeavored. If he shows up, everything will be as normal, just with Ross calling Raw from now on. Cole changes his tune immediately, saying he wants to keep his job and sits back down at the announce booth. Hunter says Cole must have misunderstood him, because he said he’s given Cole the night off from announcing. However, he better get to the back and get changed, because he’s got a match coming up next. He says if Cole refuses to do the match, it will again be considered a breach of contract and he will be fired. He said he left Cole some wrestling gear in the back, so he has no excuses.
As Cole is storming out of the scene angrily, R-Truth appears to confront Hunter. He says it’s out with the old and in with the new and he digs that. He starts talking to himself. This is a great gimmick. He tells Hunter that Little Jimmy cost him his match at Capital Punishment, and spiders and heights cost him his match at the Money in the Bank PPV. He asks Hunter what he’s going to do to end the vast conspiracy that exists against him. Hunter starts talking to himself as a way of mocking Truth. This is the type of stuff Hunter is still funny at. “Man, you crazy!” “I know, it’s like I’m insane!” “You might be a game, but I ain’t playing!” As Truth is walking off, Hunter stops him and announces that he has re-signed another guy, and this guy wants a piece of Truth. Cue John Morrison. Morrison and Truth brawl all over ringside and Morrison hits the Starship Pain to end the segment. Good stuff, because it wasn’t just 20 minutes of Hunter talking about himself. They accomplished a bunch of stuff in this segment and none of it was “get over Hunter,” really.
Back from break with Cole coming out dressed like Triple H and spitting the water for cheap comedy. I guess they can’t get that completely out of their systems yet. “I forgot about those ugly tattoos,” Jim Ross truths. Zack Ryder is announced as his opponent. Fans are actually chanting Ryder’s name. The match is over so quick I still had my head down writing the above couple sentences. I hope this is the start of some type of TV push for Ryder.
They show clips from last week’s Kofi vs. ADR match to set up this week’s rematch. Ricardo Rodriguez is out there to introduce Del Rio. All is right with the world. Kofi hits a sloppy non-fruit rollup (oh yeah). Del Rio retreats as they cut to a quick break.
Back from break and Del Rio has taken control of the match. Kofi hits a high crossbody for a two count. He then hits the boom drop or whatever the piss they’re calling it. He takes too long to hit a kick of some description and Del Rio hits the old Cactus Jack double arm DDT. Kofi counters a roll through with one of his own (shades of Bret vs. Owen from WrestleMania 10 – see, I told you!), but Del Rio grabs the ropes. Del Rio finally locks on the cross armbreaker for the submission victory. Not a bad match.
Back from break, they advertise Rey vs. Cena for the belt, but first Josh Mathews interviews the Miz backstage. Miz says he can’t believe Cena has a title match after almost being fired last week. He said Vince had the right idea, but Hunter came in and ruined things. He says Cena caused this whole mess to begin with by losing the title to He Who Shall Not Be Mentioned. He says it’s a shame that the face of the company now is a man who does not even show his face, but rather hides it behind a mask. He gets in a cheap plug for his appearance on the George Lopez Show, coming up Wednesday. So did I, just there. He says Hunter’s reign thus far has been a huge mistake.
All my neighbors mowed their lawns today. I mean, I’m unemployed, so days of the week mean absolutely nothing to me, but I still mow my lawn on the weekend, just because it seems like a very weekendy thing to do. You know, you just have more time on the weekend to do things like that. I wonder why everyone in this neighborhood chose Monday afternoon as designated lawn mowing time. Seems bizarre to me.
We come back from break and learn that ugly chicks dig Cena. He really is the new Shawn Michaels. Cena and Mysterio fist bump before the match as Ross points out they are not allowed to refer to CM Punk by name on the air. (He did it without saying his name, of course. Although, it would have been funny if he was like, “I’m not allowed to say CM Punk. Oh shit!”) Back and forth action to start. Lawler points out that Cena might have the advantage here since Mysterio has had to wrestle once already tonight. Nice touch. Mysterio gets a DDT in for a two count. Cena locks in an STF but Rey gets to the ropes. Cena counters a 619 with a powerslam for two. Cena hits the five knuckle shuffle and goes for the F-U but Rey counters it.
Bunch of counters time! Rey locks in the STF. Cena powers out of it with one leg, which looks awesome. Rey hits the 619 but takes too long to attempt the top rope splash and Cena gets his knees up. Rey tries for the frankensteiner but Cena counters it with a powerbomb. Cena gets a near fall with a top rope fameasser that I think fooled the crowd. Rey counters the F-U, Cena counters the 619, and hits the F-U to win the title. Rey looked good in losing there. Cena and Rey embrace and then Cena celebrates with the title. Wait a minute, though. What’s that music?
Cue CM Punk coming to the ring! Punk gets into the ring for a face-off with Cena. The crowd gave Punk a huge reaction when he came out. Sort of like, “YAY! I’m so glad he’s back… wait a minute, I’m supposed to hate him! BOO!” Cena holds up his belt to a big reaction. Punk holds up his belt to an even bigger reaction. This is where the show ends. We’re left to ponder whether Punk is the third guy Hunter re-signed since taking control of the company, or if he just showed up on his own accord. And if he is back in the fold, will this set up a title-for-title match with Cena? If so, when? SummerSlam? This is exactly what a good wrestling television show should do. Another strong thumbs up from me here.
I have been conditioned to believe that everything involving a Hardy brother right now is a work. A rib. A con. A ruse. An implement used to pull the wool over people’s eyes. Not kosher. You get the general idea. So when I saw Jason Powell post this yesterday afternoon, I read it with a jaundiced eye, to be sure:
TNA officials came close to pulling Jeff Hardy from Sunday’s TNA Final Resolution pay-per-view. At one point, there was concern amongst TNA management that Hardy was in no condition to perform. There was talk of making an announcement that Hardy was injured, and that he was being stripped of the TNA Title.
Replacement main events were discussed and they were planning to go with an alternate main event at one point. However, the original main event of Hardy vs. Matt Morgan with Mr. Anderson as the special referee was back on as of last check.
Everyone’s immediate instinct is to get all up in arms when they read something like that. How could TNA let him perform under these conditions? They should fire him for being so unprofessional!
The problem with this logic is that this kind of thing has been TNA’s M.O. for a long time now. WWE released Kurt Angle because he was in such bad condition, they didn’t want him to die in a WWE ring. Desmond Wolfe failed a WWE physical so badly that they wouldn’t even consider signing him to a contract. They handed him to TNA, so unconcerned were they about losing him as a prospect.
So this really shouldn’t be anything new, work or shoot. But I hesitated on posting something about it until today because I wanted to read about (couldn’t be bothered to actually watch the show live, mind you – making me exactly like almost every other fan of professional wrestling) exactly what happened on the show and whether he wrestled or not. And, of course, he did. He wrestled a 12 minute main event title match against Matt Morgan, who obviously deserves much better than that, and is likely just counting down the days on his contract until he can go back to WWE and become a star.
As I indicated before, I figured it was a work from the beginning. Like in any good murder mystery, you have to look for the person ultimately responsible. In this case, you have to realize that Vince Russo still books TNA. Against all better judgment, all sense of reason and common sense, it’s still Vince Russo who is responsible for TNA’s murders. Let’s examine that more closely for a minute, shall we.
People can get in for free at the Orlando Fairgrounds. So there is no way to judge whether their booking is effective in getting people to pay money to come to the live events. The same amount of people every month watch their PPVs. Most people who view their PPVs opt to do so less than legally online. Apparently only people without an internet connection are willing to pay to see the product on pay-per-view. So that’s not the best way to gauge the product either.
The bottom line here is that there exists no system of checks and balances to show whether Vince Russo is doing a good job or not. I mean, I don’t know how to cook worth a damn, but I can tell you when you just burned your soufflé. But if you want statistics to back that up, I come up woefully short. If TNA does anything well, it’s keeping you from knowing just how not well things are going.
So back to Jeff Hardy. He’s looking at serving prison time for drugs, so when you hear something like “in no condition to perform” you automatically think he’s up to his old tricks. And whether it’s a work or a shoot, it’s a sad situation because no one is able to say, “Well, wait a minute, that doesn’t make sense!” Because it does. It’s perfectly plausible that Jeff Hardy would show up to any given show higher than ten kites stacked on top of eleven kites, being flown by Kevin DiFrango.
In a true professional wrestling organization, well run with discipline and accountability, Jeff Hardy would never have been booked in a main event World Title match at a PPV in the first place. He probably wouldn’t be employed. Once again, I go back to the example Bill Watts gave in his RF Video shoot interview. In 1995, when Shawn Michaels, Sean Waltman and Davey Boy Smith got beat up by a bunch of Marines in a bar that time, that’s three guys who should have been fired on the spot. They were drunk and hopped up on whatever, and they got beat up and made to look bad to boot. Which, in turn, makes the company look bad. It doesn’t matter if these are top guys or not, what they did was profoundly stupid and unprofessional, and you can’t be having that in your company. You need to send the message that it is unacceptable.
In TNA, there is no such accountability. They are willing to hire people with drug addictions, pain killer addictions, people so broken down they can’t even pass a basic physical examination. And you can’t argue that they can’t afford to lose Hardy because he’s too important to the company. We’ve already established here that they have no business model for financial success. They can’t even market him properly; the top babyface in all of wrestling in 2009 is now being utilized as a heel, thus potentially castrating his ability to sell merchandise.
So I refuse to get all up in arms about whether he really was in no condition to perform (Powell’s suggestion that he must have “slept it off” before going out to wrestle is wholly laughable here), because the problem isn’t with Jeff Hardy. Jeff Hardy is simply doing what he always does: get high, have fun, mess around, be a big kid. It’s the company’s fault here. They are sending him the message that it is perfectly okay to behave in that manner. No repercussions will follow. He’s a former WWE superstar, and that’s all that really matters to TNA anyway.
Because for as long as TNA exists, it does not exist to make money. It does not exist to get good television ratings. It does not exist to sell a bunch of pay-per-views. It exists as somebody’s vanity project, a chance for them to rub elbows with superstars and get their face on TV. And after all, isn’t that what’s really important?
Uhhh, let's see... one... uhhh... what comes after one??
Even if WWE doesn’t think Matt Striker is absolutely terrible at his job (which, in no uncertain terms, he is), he should be fired anyway for his boring, self important, Mick Foleyesque rant against the internet this past Friday on Smackdown. Shut the fuck up and call the match, you goddamn imbecile.
By the way, “Go away and leave the big stuff to the pros” is ten words, not two, you fucking penisless cunt. I hope you die. – Dusty, who is wearing dress pants and not jogging pants
I figure if I post their picture, you might be able to get the reference. Sledgehammer of reference.
The rain: Man, it sure was raining a lot this past weekend. If you get a chance, ask Jeremy Maes about it. Better still, ask him where he was while he was being rained upon. You know, for conversation sake.
Michael Cole: So it occurred to me watching Summer Slam last night that Michael Cole would make the perfect manager. I’m always complaining about the lack of managers in wrestling these days (the dancing, no penis buffoon Runjin Singh does not count, btw) and I think that Michael Cole transitioning into a managerial role would be the perfect WWE way to make managers digestable again to the viewing public.
Cole has been awesome lately in his ongoing saga anti-Bryan Danielson and pro-The Miz. I know that this isn’t exactly a new concept since I was championing Cole to be the mouthpiece of Nexus back when that angle first started, but I’m going to beat the horse until it’s dead, because it’s a legit good idea.
The problem is that who would replace Cole as commentator on Raw? Sure, you could beg Jim Ross to come back, but a more likely scenario would be for them to place Matt Striker in there full-time opposite Jerry Lawler, an idea which gives me severe gas because Striker is fucking terrible and doesn’t deserve to be bagging old lady’s groceries at Piggly Wiggly, let alone announcing the biggest wrestling show on television. Obviously, more thought would have to go into this.
Speaking of heartburn: The finish to the Team WWE vs. Team Nexus match gave me a triple bypass. What I would have done is, after Jericho and Edge get eliminated, have them lay out Cena on the floor. Cena gets rolled back in, gets the bejeezus kicked out of him by the three remaining Nexus members, and then have him get counted out. That way, he gets eliminated in a way where he keep every last shred of credibility he has, since that’s apparently so important to him, while he still gets eliminated, which was the best thing to do for business.
So that would leave Danielson against Heath Slater, Justin Gabriel and Wade Barrett. From there, you have Danielson eliminate Slater and Gabriel, before losing to Barrett because he’s tired and the odds were against him. That way, Cena stays strong since he has a reasonable excuse for getting eliminated, Danielson gets built up to the max and has a plausible excuse for getting eliminated, and Barrett looks super strong by getting a PPV main event win. So then, Cena can seek revenge on Jericho and Edge, and Danielson can go after Barrett.
Meanwhile, it’s about time to pare the Nexus group down to four or five members. Seven is too many for a group of wrestlers, and I’m sure you can think of at least two pieces of dead weight in that group anyway. Slim them down to five members and keep them strong going into the Survivor Series, which should be the absolute next time they all team up together in a match. WWE likes having seven on seven and six on six matches or whatever, but that needs to stop immediately. It is old and it is dead.
Other things: TNA has some of the ugliest fans in wrestling history. I know I’m no sunshine and lollipops over here, but I’m also not parking myself in the front row facing the hard camera every single week on national television, you know? Enough is enough here.
Shannon Moore is perhaps the worst wrestler in the history of professional wrestling.
