Takin' A Mulligan 8.29.09: The Politics of Dancing - Circa Immediately

Posted by Chris Remington on 08.29.2009

It is all about ooooooo feeling good!



Jumpin' On the Gun

I get letters...The Great Capt. Smooth does his best Ed Hockuli impersonation in clarifying a previous week's call:

Gun, it's not 5 minutes, 3 times a week. It's 3 minutes, 5 times a week. Just kidding. Also, I don't think of toilet seats when having sex, but I do hope that her ass is clean, because if it's not, I'll need to think of an escape plan.

After consulting with the rules committee and a group discussion between 411's version of The Varsity Club…the ruling is:



The result of this play isn't just a walk off but a loss of down. We add our own twists here at 411; it is called authoritative license.

Smooth gets on last week's topic:

As far as the Hardys go, I agree, it was pretty dumb to split them up like that. They were pretty damn good together and could have been an all time great tag team. I also liked how each one had a certain mood they were in. Matt was the calm brother, while Jeff was a bit more out there. Jim Ross described them best, "Jeff provides the sizzle, but Matt drives the steak.". You know what makes them great though? It's that even as singles wrestlers, each has managed to make their own name. I wonder if thirty years from now, if any Hardy kids are in wrestling, might we see a Legacy 2.0 with a Cena or Edge offspring?

I have a problem with the whole "offspring stable" ideas that continue to float about. Why can't a worker just be who they are without endless references to their "legendary" parent? While you dream of offspring from Cena and Edge, we all know that the world waits for the McMahon-Hemsley offspring. I expect 5 years old should be the right time to spring the child upon us. Giving the HHH booking stroke, expect the kid to win the first Chutes and Ladders match for the unification of the World Titles in 2013.

Socko aka Steve Cook (Varsity Club Member) finds the time to put down the jack and coke! After reading his column this week, I had no idea how he has time for commenting and gathering those wonderful pictures:

Holy crap, an MOTG reference. That chick claimed to be my sister but I haven't heard from her in years. I always figured she'd hook up with Hallsy or Harvey Birdman.

And yes, the Hardyz were broken up way too soon. See, that's an on-topic comment!

I believe Hallsy and MOTGies might have been as well. I know Tyler and I were. What?

Good time for this –


Eubanks continues to no sell me like I am Booker T facing off against HHH. He doesn't even link my column in his, of course, neither does Cook. Add Lansdell with his ability to channel Rob Deer in his analysis and you really have this effect:



I digress! Been a long rough week.

Marty appreciates that I read Csonka's news updates and more importantly the comments:

Hey that's my comment you posted, cool.

Someone once told me that plagiarism was the sincerest form of flattery. I am glad I could make your day.

Marty and a couple of Guest make up this week's column. We are going to do a bit of a departure from the normal format where I monologue only. After reading me though, please read some of my favorite writers at the site as well.

Weyer and Ben Piper give you a balancing act of insight and flair. We all know you have to be Fair to Flair, just to be Fair because he is Flair. Right?

The Address



No, Enrique hasn't invaded this column. However as I think of the bulk of the three solid comments this week, I think of Hillary Clinton and how her vision of a good walk was spoiled in 2008. In order allow me to repost the comments that will spur on the remainder of this column.

Marty continues after his moment in the sun with stating:

…but yeah there is a reason that every attempt at a Hardy feud has fallen flat. It seems like WWE is trying to recreate the greatness that was Bret and Owen, but it's not going to work because Matt and Jeff aren't near the level those two were. Honestly I think the Hardy's should be on separate brands with no attempt at a feud. Matt could up his game more that way while Jeff takes his hiatus.

While I mulled this over…Guest 6201, if that is your real name spouted:
Couldn't disagree more ... this would only benefit matt as I don't see him as anything other than upper-mid card at best. Jeff on the other hand is now a bonafided main-eventer selling gazillions in merchandise and out popping 99% of the roster. Add the fact that the tag scene is as dead as a dodo, there really isn't any teams out there I'd like to see the Hardy's feud.

While I was thinking of something witty and cool in regards to merchandising and the WWE, I got hit with this from the former poster's relative, Guest 3744:

I agree, I think they should never have broken them up. They were very good together. They might not have been the level of Bret and Owen, but come on; they never had a good chance to be. I believe if they would have had some greater competition, and better booking, then we would have seen advancement to the next level. The main problem with all that is there really is not any in the tag teams of wrestling today. Sure from time to time they will put 2 main-eventers together and call them a tag team, but come on already, why do that? We should have tag teams that are teams, not 2 wrestlers they just don't know what to do with at the moment, so they put them together. Jericho and Big Show for example. If you compare them to the Hardy's there really is not that much of a difference. Jericho is like Jeff, more out there, Big Show is more like Matt, kind of slow, but gets the job done in the end. Why not feud them for the unified tag titles? Either way you look at it would be a good match, and a chance to test them. Any way, great column Gun!

How do I know they are related? I had to correct feud in both of the original posts and they used main-eventer in the same way. If 3744 had dropped the "bonafided" bomb, they would be officially husband and wife!

The Bad Shot

The above picture was a topic of debate for a couple of days this year. Some looked at it and saw our President checking out some candy. Others saw it and claimed that the picture wasn't representative of the first theory and it was only clipped to bring shame to the person holding the office. IMO, I have no idea. It looks like the President is copping a glance at some arse; but maybe saw something flying through the air and just happened to look like he was checking her out.

Last week's column was more than just a viewpoint on The Hardy's and how I feel they have been poorly executed since their initial split. It was deeper than that. It was more of an indictment toward how tag team wrestling is booked under the WWE banner. Even when you have MOTY caliber events between solidly developed and refined teams in The Hardy's, E&C and The Dudley's, Vince feels the need to break up good things just to keep himself in character of being – Vince. While I would argue that Vince is the greatest heel in the history of wrestling, some of that viewpoint is my own bitterness toward his booking of tag team wrestling in the WWE.

The Bad Shot here is constantly tinkering with formulas that have worked well, with no direction in the future. Change isn't always good, change is just change. It is a lot like the picture above, it is subject to debate with no clear conclusion. The only conclusion that you can draw from the picture is that the Obama team sure didn't like this event in his presidency-taking place. It drew away from the goal of the administration and caused people to think this or that about the president. I believe changing a good thing just because you think it is time to change it – without any direction for the future – is the worst shot of all.

The counter argument here is that Jeff has been successful in singles and Matt only benefits while he is tagging with Jeff. I respectfully disagree. You can draw that conclusion if you want but the sum of the whole outweighs the parts. Successes are sometimes sacrificed for the good of the team. The team is the WWE in this example. I believe The Hardy's success in the company and from a marketing standpoint would be stronger if they remained together than apart. The other downfall from either Hardy in single's action is that you it is harder to be a "spot" wrestler in singles than it is in a tag team. Add to that the need for the WWE to turn one of them heel, which takes away the "Ricky Morton" face in peril effect that hides no offensive skills outside of high spots, and you have a less enjoyable and cohesive booking as a result.

The Summerslam match with Punk doesn't count as a traditional match either, for you Jeff Hardy single lovers out there. It was the ultimate in spot fest garbage matches. These matches hide or mask at least one worker's inability to work an engaging solid traditional match. For instance, Mick Foley grew as a legend working these types of matches. Mick Foley's legend didn't grow because he was a real wrestler in the ring. He was a common man spot monkey or guerrilla in his case. The matches were booked to hide his shortcomings in the ring. Foley was so good on the mic that you had to get him in the mix and make him upper crust on the card but to see him work traditional matches was just painful.

Bending over backwards for talents like Foley is the exception, not the rule. Either Hardy, solo, is no Mick Foley.

Execution Of The Mulligan


Somehow, we have to come together on this issue. The value of teaming has a purpose in the grand scheme of the program. The tossing of teams is just fruitless in the long run because we just wait for another tossing of the salad, so to speak. Having teams like The Dudley's, The Steiners, Harlem Heat, American's Most Wanted or The Hardy's sets the bar in whatever federation they belong to. We need benchmarks in life. Benchmarks create goals and criteria. Benchmarks make the earth rotate on its axis and cause the seasons to come and go with regularity.

Somewhere along the way, organizations have focused more on the worker than the audience. I don't know exactly where the blame lies in this area but I have my suspicions. The booking in ECW was so radical that it gave the worker more individual license than ever before. While some herald Heyman's trust of his workers, I am not sure the end result really was beneficial to wrestling as a whole. WCW latched onto this booking theory and it wasn't long before the wrestlers were running the company and turning it into an asylum. They took the ball given to them and ran with it off the playing field. Other wrestlers were jealous of this and either wanted to go to WCW or wanting more flexibility in their character development. Organizations were forced to take more risk to put on a good show in the present while looking toward the future. The WWE introduced "Attitude" approximately the same time that WCW was beginning to lose control and you had a more edgy, individual dominant product on the airwaves.

After the WCW collapse, then you saw the Right to Censor become less of a spoof and more of a reality. Character development seemed to stall (which probably lead to stronger tag teams thinking about it) and scripted promos were mandatory. Now with WWE being the kingpin and holding the only profitable hammer in the US, workers were less concerned with creativity and more concerned with pleasing the only employer that paid a fair rate. Rogue feds sprung up, which allowed the style of the late 90s but the pay and the recognition kept them out of the main loop. ROH and even TNA became the "Denny's" restaurant of wrestling, you didn't go to either of them on purpose, you ended up there when the reservation only restaurant "WWE" didn't have a place for you.

TNA has popped through the wall a bit recently but they are still no match marketing and exposure wise compared to the WWE. TNA did humor some of us purest with some of the best tag action in the past 6 years, while catering to the extreme crowd with the X-Division. TNA is far from a perfect template to regain stability in the booking though but they have enough sense to keep at least 2 to 4 steady tag teams on their roster as benchmarks in the federation.

This is all I really ask and this is all you should ask for as well.

Back to The Hardy's; their value is best in the tag team circles. As a team, they have more individuality than they would as individuals. They are compliments, just like a good marriage of 2 individuals, who become one – so they can still be comfortable as who they are. The relationship between the product and the consumer needs to have the same vibe to be successful.

I believe the audience has a better marriage with The Hardy's as a team than as individuals.



This horse has gotten its last beating from me. Until Next Week, "I am your champion"

Chris "The Gun" Remington