wrestling / Columns
411 Fact or Fiction 05.17.12: Over The Limit Main Event, Authority Figures, More
Hi, hello & welcome to 411 Fact or Fiction! I’m Steve Cook, and it’s been another eventful week in the world of professional wrestling. WWE is building towards their Over the Limit PPV event on Sunday, and much of the talk about the show surrounds John Cena & John Laurinitas. Big Johnny was pretty busy this week, but he still found time to humiliate the Big Show and wish him well in his future endeavors. AJ tried to wish CM Punk good luck in his upcoming match with Daniel Bryan, but the Punker was not exactly receptive. In matters outside of the WWE Universe, John Cena got divorced. Will it affect his popularity? TNA had a successful Sacrifice PPV event where Austin Aries defeated Bully Ray to solidify himself as a threat to TNA’s larger wrestlers. AJ Styles had a good match with Kurt Angle, but Daniels & Kazarian had already put a damper on his week by revealing the big secret they’d been promising for months on Impact. Perhaps having the best week of anybody was Kevin Steen, who won the ROH World Championship! Too bad some people had difficulty watching it.
This week we’re also posing a question suggested by a reader! If you’d like to suggest questions for Fact or Fiction feel free to e-mail me at [email protected] . If they’re good, interesting or completely ridiculous, they may appear in the column!
I’ve invited two fine gentlemen to discuss these topics. First of all, a man making his Fact or Fiction debut. He writes the historical column “Going Broadway” every Tuesday here on the 411…say hello to William Renken!
His opponent is making his second appearance in this column and has a big advantage over most of us on this website when it comes to wrestling analysis…he’s actually in the business! Please welcome independent wrestling announcer Chris Methods!
1. John Cena vs. John Laurinitas will be the main event at Over The Limit.
William Renken: FACT. Of course it will be. I don’t see how it won’t considering he even main evented Elimination Chamber with Kane during their mediocre storyline. And pretty much every RAW leading up to Over The Limit has ended with a Cena and Laurinaitis segment already. With the exception of Royal Rumble, Cena has been in the main event of every pay per view in 2012. Don’t see the trend ending.
Chris Methods: FACT. As has been the trend of 2012, we will finish a wrestling Pay Per View without a title match. While this should be maddening for wrestling purists, the IWC should take this as a blessing on two fronts. Firstly, if you hate Cena as much as the internet tells me you do, you can easily beat the traffic out of the front door by skipping the main event. Secondly, with TWO Heavyweight Championships, which title do you give the last spot on the show to? I almost feel that by having Cena main every show without either title, it makes the titles more on an equal level.
Score: 1 for 1
2. The angle with Big Show getting fired will help him get more over.
William Renken: FACT. I think everyone has suspected it by now, but Show will probably be doing the reluctant heel turn and attacking John Cena at Over The Limit to get his job back. The “any superstar will be fired if they interfere” declaration all but put the writing on the wall. Truth is, it would be a refreshing change for Show, since his primary function has been to get over World Heavyweight champions Mark Henry and Daniel Bryan for the past year. And before then he was just playing the heavy in tag teams with The Miz and Chris Jericho. I know for the kids it’s great to see the wide smiling Big Show come out and put his cap on them, touch foreheads and all of that crap, but I think older fans want something a little more and this storyline presents at least the potential for something better for Show in the way of a heel turn.
Chris Methods: FICTION. While Monday Night Raw was a great showing of the fans getting behind Show, will there be ANY heat for an eventual heel turn, if that is where we are heading? How many times has Big Show gotten good to great momentum only to have the WWE change course midstream? If this all ends up with Show helping Ace at Over The Limit, he and Lord Tensai will be presented in the same light as Big Johnny’s muscle. That is not what I would call more over.
Score: 1 for 2
3. AJ will side with Daniel Bryan against CM Punk.
William Renken: FACT. Since this is hopefully going to be part one of a longer feud with Punk and Bryan leading up to Summerslam, it seems likely that this match at Over The Limit would end with some sort of interference. The spot with Punk and AJ in the back on RAW seems to put AJ back in Bryan’s corner after Punk turned her away without a blink of an eye. I do think it would cheapen an otherwise great pay per view match between the two, but AJ siding with Bryan seems likely for now. It would be cool if she helped Bryan win the belt, and he still discarded her.
Chris Methods: FACT. Cook, do you put any effort into these questions? I want to challenge you to Fact or Fiction sometime. Onto the question, if this were real life, AJ would of course side with “Lady Killer” Punk. There is nary a Diva he has yet to bed. However why would AJ take the time to change herself from meek to crazy if she wasn’t doing it to impress Daniel Bryan? It would be like me learning how to dance to impress a beautiful woman, going to a club to meet up with her, and deciding to go home with the tranny with the tattoos sitting in the corner, because herm was standing there.
Score: 2 for 3
4. John Cena’s divorce will not affect his popularity with the WWE Universe.
William Renken: FACT. Cena’s popularity with young fans and teenagers will not be affected by this. The older fans who carry on the “Cena Sucks” chant after every “Let’s Go Cena” aren’t going to be liking him anytime soon anyway. They might have a little more to make fun of with Cena and his fans, but they already disliked him before this anyway. Steve Austin divorced multiple times during his big run, and The Rock did the same in 2007. In neither case was their popularity affected. Of course, Cena holds a different image as a role model to kids, but if this past Monday was any indication, none of his fans seemed to care about the divorce news.
Chris Methods: FICTION. The actual WWE fan has no knowledge of the divorce. The average WWE fan does not care about the day to day livelihood of the superstars they follow. The only potential backlash that could happen from this is females whom watch TMZ will see him as a single male they can lust over, and may give wrestling a chance. I know that sounds like a stretch, but I have seen it happen in other forms of media.
Score: 2 for 4
SWITCH!
5. An authority figure having an on-air role is essential to a wrestling program.
Question suggested by Fact or Fiction reader John
Chris Methods: FACT. In 2012 at least. If you would have asked me this even ten years ago, it would have been an easy FICTION. However today’s television product has made it imperative to have some form of an authority figure. I will always love the Teddy Long school of staying in the background over the Ralph St. Laurinitas way of inserting himself into almost EVERY aspect of the show, especially the main event. However the fans need a cohesive reason for matches to take place and storylines need to be steered in any which direction. The days of WCW Saturday Night where guys just walked from the ring and cut a promo declaring what the next feud would be are dead and gone sadly.
William Renken: FACT. You can put on any wrestling program on television, and you can go to independent promotions across the country and in almost all of them you are going to find some kind of commissioner, president, executive, or whatever. Even before the Monday Night Wars era, WWE and WCW had on-air authority figures that grounded the mega heels from running amok by enforcing company rules or putting stipulations on matches to prevent cheating. Then with the Monday Night Wars era, we saw on-air authority figures swing to the other side by helping the heels and becoming an even bigger obstacle for the headlining face of the company. Vince McMahon as Mr. McMahon became the perfect mold for such a character and for years since, it’s become a staple of professional wrestling. When it’s put together right, and you have someone who can carry on well on the microphone, it can make for great programming. It brings out the base instinct that everyone can relate to: you hate your boss. Simple as that.
Score: 3 for 5
6. Austin Aries would be a believable contender for the TNA World Title against Bobby Roode.
Chris Methods: FACT. Austin Aries, the man whom my son is named after meeting my wife at a Ring of Honor show, is a diamond in the rough. While the easy answer would be to discuss how the rest of TNA lacks credible contenders, I will discuss why Austin is a perfect fit. If you want to show Bobby RRROOOOOOOOO as a monster, Aries can survive a full on trashing without losing too much. If you want to keep Roode as a weaselly conniving Champion, it would increase Austin’s stock. If you want a man who can put on a classic with Roode to increase BOTH men’s value to pure wrestling fans, Double A is your guy. Austin Star and the Bully Ray storyline has proven that Austin Aires can entertain on a main event level.
William Renken: FICTION. I’m not basing this on the match they would potentially have. It’s based purely on the fact that pretty much everyone is waiting for Storm to come back and take the belt off of Roode. Any other match Roode has until then, although probably high quality, will end with him keeping the belt. Therefore, there’s just not as much believability in even Aries vs. Roode. I remember when Triple H put the WWE Title against Tazz when he temporarily regained the ECW World Title after defeating Mike Awesome. When Tazz and Hunter squared off on Smackdown, you wanted to believe that Tazz would beat Triple H in the champion vs. champion match, but in the back of your head you knew there was no way that would happen because The Rock was only opponent who could potentially unseat Triple H.
Score: 3 for 6
7. The AJ Styles “secret” angle was a huge waste of TV time.
Chris Methods: FICTION. “Secret” storyline or Creative has nothing for you? Give TNA massive credit for doing anything they can to get AJ Styles on our televisions and into our lives. Is the storyline insipid or intelligence insulting? Possibly,however, it is no worse then How I Met Your Mother teasing the Ted and Robin relationship for years, even though you know that can’t be the end game. The ride is the sometimes more enjoyable then the destination. As long as it leads to having matches, which is the point of Pro Wrestling, you can find some reason for this feud. SIDENOTE: What red blooded male can blame AJ on that one?
William Renken: FACT. I’m not adamant on this, but I wasn’t enthralled enough to give it a pass. WWE did this stunt with John Cena and Eve, and it never materialized into anything and seemed to leave the young Cena fanbase very confused. With AJ, everyone knows the guy is extremely religious, and he has the tattoos of his kids on his arm. He just looks extremely uncomfortable being a part of this storyline. And when you advertise a “big secret,” you have to deliver a hell of a payoff. I remember feeling the same disappointment when the Higher Power was revealed to be Vince McMahon back during the Corporate Ministry storyline of 1999 instead of Jake Roberts.
Score: 3 for 7
8. Kevin Steen being ROH Champion will help the company through the disaster that has been their attempts at iPPV.
Chris Methods: FICTION. With production skills not seen since the days of the Five Iron Frenzy Kickstarter show, Ring of Honor has screwed the pooch. How many people who ordered the show gave up before the stream started to work? How many of those people found out that Steen won before getting to watch it? Better then that, which have you heard the IWC (the target market for IPPV) talk about more? Steen or the technical issues? So word of mouth has killed any chance they have to fix this. Why Ring Of Honor didn’t hire Gabe and WWN or especially Pancoast and Hybrident.tv is beyond me. Say what you will about CZW (which is usually based off of old stereotypes) they put together IPPV’s with almost flawlessly. I hope Ring of Honor survives this, however mark my words, it will not.
William Renken: FACT. Kevin Steen winning the World Title was a great move, and his promo afterwards was a perfect depiction of what the fans are going to get as their World Champion. With all of the damage control they’re having to do with ippv misfires with the media and their fanbase, a game changing World Champion will be exactly what the company needs to keep watching the weekly show, going to live shows, and then hopefully to a revamped ippv set up. I don’t want to be pessimistic because I like the ROH product, but there is a breaking point for everyone and some are just not going to comeback after Border Wars.
Final Score: 3 for 8
Lots of disagreement always makes for an interesting column, and I thought both men did a great job of explaining their viewpoints! Methods even took a shot at me and compared CM Punk to a transsexual in the same question, so he definitely brought his A game. Who did you agree with more? How do you feel about these various topics? Let us know in the comment section! Thanks to William & Chris for participating, and we’ll be back next week with more 411 Fact or Fiction!
