411 Fact or Fiction 11.3.11: Rock & Cena Team, Daniel Bryan’s Beard, Muppets, More

Hi, hello & welcome to 411 Fact or Fiction! I’m Steve Cook, and it’s been quite a week in the world of wrestling. Raw made the John Cena/Rock team official, lots of champions lost non-title matches, and there were Muppets! Meanwhile, Daniel Bryan is growing his beard out until Wrestle Mania & the Michael Cole Challenge got bumped from Raw because there was too much stuff going on. Over in the Impact Zone, Eric & Garrett Bischoff continued their issue, but Hulk Hogan was nowhere to be seen. Viacom bought Bellator Fighting Championships and plans to integrate their brand more with Impact Wrestling.

Our two participants today are Wrestling Zone regulars. First of all, a man that can often be found in the Wrestler of the Week column & up until early this year was the compiler of the Top 5 & Buy or Sell columns…Michael Bauer!

His opponent covers everything from WWE to Japan in the Ring Crew Reviews…give it up for Jack Bramma!

Questions were sent out Monday.

Participants were told to expect WWE & TNA-related questions.

1. The Rock wrestling at Survivor Series takes away from the specialness of his match with John Cena at WrestleMania.

Michael Bauer: FICTION. This would be fact if this match was taking place at the Royal Rumble or anytime closer. However, doing this match a good four months before they meet one on one is not a problem. To me, it would be like saying if the Undertaker came back to have one feud, it would eliminate the specialness of him coming back to try for 20-0 at WrestleMania. That line of thought would be considered insane and so is this. The last time The Rock had a match was over six years ago and he still come bring it. So what’s wrong with having him compete four months early? Not to mention, it could also give us some closure on The Miz taking shots at The Rock before WrestleMania this year, which is something we never really got.

Jack Bramma: FICTION. This is borderline but I’m going to come down on the side of fiction. I don’t think Rock will see much ring time in the match. I suspect he’ll be standing on the apron and MIGHT get a few minutes of a spine on the pine, People’s Elbow and Rock Bottom to take it home for the faces, but he’ll hardly be working a full match. Honestly, I think the WWE is just a little bit guilty about selling another PPV based largely on the Rock just doing a guest appearance without wrestling like they did at Wrestlemania especially with the sour taste the ending of that show left in a lot of fan’s mouths.

But there’s other factors to be considered as well. Who’s to say that the Rock will still be healthy and able to work Wrestlemania? I hope that he will be but with buyrates leveling off if not dropping, the WWE needs to pull all the rabbits out of hats that they can now to do business. Plus unlike bringing CM Punk back too soon, this Rock-Cena pairing isn’t the conclusion to their story and everyone knows it. This match will end up being a giant advertisement for the granddaddy of them all. Last, as selfish as it sounds, I’m a fan and I want to see Rock now and I’m sure I’m not the only one. I don’t want to watch taped youtube promos from his house in Miami or wait til April. I want to see Rock and want to see him wrestle and will pay to see it and that’s about as simple of a business model as you can get.

Score: 1 for 1

2. The Muppets ruled it on Raw.

Michael Bauer: FACT. I have been a Muppets fan, but I went into the show thinking it would totally corny and have no real humor at all. So, like most people who enjoy Monday Night Football, I didn’t watch. Boy, was I wrong for doing that. Having the Muppets around was pure comedy gold on a show that is full of terrible humor and boring storylines. I mean, even the Muppets old men admitted it. I know they were there to be themselves, but they were totally right. The show did suck and nothing is worse than listening to Michael Cole. And to think, they only hear him when he has the microphone, not for the full two hours. But at the top of the list has to be Sheamus and Beeker having a mini family reunion. I mean, talk about clever. Granted, it wasn’t perfect, but they definitely ruled. Of course, if you ask my 13 year old brother, he would say it was missing their Muppets performing Queen, but that’s another story.

Jack Bramma: FACT. I don’t care if I’m the only one who thinks this way (although based on various reactions to the show I’m not). The Muppets are and always have been FANTASTIC. If you need any more evidence of how great the Muppets can be, just look at their rendition of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody from a couple of years ago or the initial teaser to their movie that was a mock trailer of a rom-com. Still, there was enough awesomeness on this week’s RAW to keep them in my good graces for a long time. Everything with Beaker was the highlight of the show, especially the interaction with Sheamus and Christian. Monster taking over the ring bell, everything down the line was a lot of fun.

But even if we take things from the opposite perspective, that the Muppets aren’t cool and never were or just weren’t very good that night. The episode of RAW as a whole was lackluster so the Muppets rocked it by default.

Score: 2 for 2

3. You were heartbroken over the Michael Cole Challenge being bumped from Raw.

Michael Bauer: FICTION. A MILLION TIMES FICITION! Less Michael Cole spewing his crap is always a positive. I mean, seriously, how much longer is the fucking feud with Michael Cole and Jim Ross going to go? Is it going to take JR to die before Cole stops taking shots at him every single fucking week? This is one of the biggest reasons that I have such a distain for wrestling in general right now, so please, don’t bump it to next week. Bump it to never and make every true wrestling fan happy.

Jack Bramma: FICTION. I really want to like Michael Cole as an overbearing ass on commentary. I REALLY try but more than anything else, I just want him to go away. I just can’t get on board with him as the voice of the WWE. For every time, he’s smartly playing a heel and bringing up unfair things for them or exposing Booker’s inadequacies as a color man, there’s 10 times more incidents where he’s putting himself over or just generally being the biggest channel changer in the business. Call me crazy as well, but I seriously don’t think an announcer feud on Twitter is the best move to sell a television show or a wrestling PPV. I’d be very surprised if this is the last we hear of Cole even if he loses.

Score: 3 for 3

4. You don’t like it when champions constantly lose non-title matches.

Michael Bauer: FICTION. If a champion doesn’t lose to anyone, how do you ever build credible challengers? Sure, I wouldn’t have Dolph lose to Ryder, beat him when the title is on the line, and then lose to him again, but how else can we give Ryder another title shot? Oh, did we also forget that Survivor Series is in New York City, which is pretty much Ryder’s home town since Nassau Coliseum is a shit hole? Hmm… nice setup WWE.

As for the Tag Team champs losing left and right, I actually can believe this one a bit more. Air Boom is a cool name, but they are a thrown together tag team that maybe teamed up twice before winning the belts. Of course they won’t be winning all the time, but I think they just need to pick one real challenger and stick with it, rather than give us multiple options.

Jack Bramma: FACT. For me, the key word is “constantly.” I think used sparingly or even occasionally a non-title match to put over a contender can be a VERY effective, but eventually you run into a point of diminishing returns where the build to your challenger is not worth the credibility lost to your champ. Because essentially, when you’re champion, you have an added layer and responsibility of credibility to maintain. You’re not just representing yourself; you’re representing the company as a whole and the belt. This is why so many people are upset about TNA having Jeff Hardy and Kurt Angle as world champs while also having legal troubles: they aren’t just embarrassing themselves (although they are), they are also embarrassing the company. Similarly, when you lose as champ in a nontitle match, the wrestler is losing some overness but so is the belt as a prop; while when a contender loses, he might lose some heat but the belt can actually gain importance in the process especially if the challenger put up a valiant effort.

Score: 3 for 4

SWITCH!

5. You will grow your beard out to support Daniel Bryan.

Jack Bramma: FICTION. I like Bryan Danielson a lot. He and Punk are my favorite guys to come out of the indies and I think, when given the opportunities, he’s far and away the best technical wrestler in the United States and maybe the world. But even with all those being true, I don’t see how me or anyone else for that matter growing out a beard will help him. As evidenced by the Ryder push recently, the WWE will listen if forced to, but the fans were chanting, making signs, using his catchphrases, etc. Put another way, the fans were doing things that were easily linked and connected with Ryder to support him and the WWE could see this. However, if Danielson were able to motivate an army of people to demonstrate some grassroots support and they all started growing Manson beards, wouldn’t you just write them off as needing a shave or having Icelandic Viking ancestors?

Michael Bauer: FICTION. Look, I am the biggest Daniel “Bryan Danielson” Bryan mark of the 411 staff, past, present and probably future, but not even I would do this for two reasons. One, the fan base growing beard concept is the dumbest thing I personally have ever seen. The New York Rangers fans did it during the playoffs last year and I don’t think they won a game. What if Bryan said he would only change his underwear after he won the title, would you follow him with that also? Seriously, this type of “team bonding” should be left for the team, or in this case, Bryan. Secondly, I’ve grown a beard before. It is the itchiest part of the body when growing and possibly the most unclean part as well. So, if I wanted the quality of life for those around me to drop, I could do it, but I don’t think so.

Score: 4 for 5

6. Impact got lower ratings this week because Hulk Hogan wasn’t on the show.

Jack Bramma: FICTION. I think wrestling fans as a group as always way too quick to react to the ratings. Week to week is too small of a sample size to draw any overarching trends about whether or not something is working much less drawing in fans. I always loved how people seem to have the built in excuses for why ratings are down (NFL, World Series, NBA Playoffs, College Football, Presidential Debates, American Idol, Sweeps, etc.) but when wrestling is doing well and the ratings are up, everyone stops talking about that other stuff. It’s also based on the assumption that all of these programs are drawing from the same audience pool rather than quality increasing the total viewership instead of causing people to change the channel.

But all of that aside, Hogan isn’t a draw in 2011, at least not a measurable one. If you look at the ratings for several shows, weeks, even months out from Bound for Glory, TNA has had steady ratings in the 0.9 to 1.2 range with Hogan on many of those shows as well producing no noticeable trend much less an increase. But suddenly TNA pops a 1.3 after their biggest show of the year with one of their best angles in recent memory (Roode’s quest to win the belt) and suddenly Hogan is the savior again. Hell, if TNA’s ratings DIDN’T increase after their biggest show of the year, I’d say they and Bound for Glory failed to generate the necessary amount of attention. Even if you look at this week’s rating, the show started off well and quickly went downhill. If forced to draw a conclusion on such a small sample size, I’d say the problem isn’t Hogan being absent; it’s the same problem it always is: not producing compelling storylines and quality wrestling on a consistent basis.

Michael Bauer: FICTION. Nobody should have been caring about Hulk Hogan anyway, so that can’t be it. I have plenty of theories for why they got lower ratings. Here are some of them:

They got lower ratings because James Storm is champion now, not Robert Roode.
They got lower ratings because of a little thing called spoilers, that showed Samoa Joe was worthy of a #1 contenders match, despite being treated like trash for the last two years.
They got lower ratings because of no Kurt Angle.
They got lower ratings because Bischoff vs Garrett took up way too much time.
They got lower ratings because of a little thing called the World Series, which had an EPIC game six that night, quite possibly the best World Series game ever.

I could go on and on, but you get the point.

Score: 5 for 6

7. You are interested in Eric Bischoff’s feud with his son Garrett.

Jack Bramma: FICTION. To my understanding, this was introduced the night of Bound for Glory. It wasn’t in the lead up to the Sting-Hogan match at all, it was just randomly inserted in a back room conversation to artificially create more drama. Worse than that because they convinced themselves on doing a Hogan face turn in defeat exactly like at WM XVIII, this added bit of exposition was the only way for the finish of Bischoff and Immortal coming down and interfering to complete the face turn to make any sense. Basically, it was a throw away line in a segment on a PPV that had already been sold that has now snowballed into a weeks-long father vs son rivalry. Bischoff is usually a good sport about taking his medicine in the payoff to these things but I just don’t care very much one way or another. As long as somehow this doesn’t lead to duping Flair into supporting Garret only for him to doublecross Flair and end with him getting his ass beat by Bischoff and sons for old time’s sake, I think it’ll be OK.

Michael Bauer: FICTION. Granted, I’m not interested in TNA at all anyway, so that is part of the equation. But also, why should I want to see Eric Bischoff fight anyone at his age, especially his son? The only good that could ever come out of this feud is Garrett getting his start in the wrestling business without paying his dues, going through the independent scene, or leading the really tough life that many of the best do before having a true chance at stardom. Of course, that is assuming that Garrett is worth it.

Score: 6 for 7

8. TNA cross-promoting with Bellator Fighting Championships is a good idea.

Jack Bramma: FACT. If reversed I might say this is a bad idea for Bellator since they seem to be on the verge of mainstream coverage after being bought by Viacom and I’m not sure professional wrestling associations help that. But is this a good move for TNA? Absolutely, how does interpromotional work with a legitimate and related sport hurt TNA? This isn’t the same as bringing in Pacman Jones or Hermie Sadler from completely unrelated fields. There’s a segment of the population that believes that MMA is pro wrestling and vice versa and while there is a stigma, it only hurts the legitimate one while helping the worked one.

Michael Bauer: FACT. I think any cross-promotion that doesn’t bury one side or the other is always a good idea. As they say, “Any publicity is good publicity.” I don’t think it would lead to anything, but the old adage should hold true here, as long as neither side is doing this to just bury the other.

Final Score: 7 for 8

Michael & Jack tie the high score since the Cook Regime has taken over this column. They both love the Muppets, so they‘re all right by me….even if I’m a tad disappointed that they won’t grow beards to support Daniel Bryan. You need to make sacrifices to get what you want, and if growing a beard is what it takes to get Bryan that World Championship, I’m ok with that. Anywho, hanks to Jack & Michael for taking part, and thanks to everybody reading! For Michael Bauer & Jack Bramma, this is Steve Cook saying thanks for joining us, and come back next week for more Fact or Fiction!

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