The Wrestling News Experience: 08.06.12

Monday, August 6th, 2012

From 411Mania’s Canadian offices in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, this is The Wrestling News Experience, with Stephen Randle!

A Mission To Civilize

Good morning, and welcome to the Experience. I’m Stephen Randle, and I am the voice of a generation. I don’t particularly know what generation, but what the hell, I might as well be the voice of one. And since I’m not actually speaking, I guess I’m more of a poorly-formatted Word document of a generation. And isn’t that generation so very lucky to have me.

Moving on.

Last week, somewhere in between the recaps and Tout videos, CM Punk calmly and rationally explained his actions against The Rock at Raw 1000. But he’s fighting John Cena, so boo, dammit! Anyway, as a result of Punk’s actions during a #1 Contender match, he will defend the WWE Title against both Cena and Big Show in a Triple Threat match at SummerSlam. This week, how will CM Punk react to a AJ’s decision to force him into a match that is not favourable for the WWE Champion?

I don’t know if you noticed, but at some point in the past couple weeks, Chris Jericho became a good guy, as he continues to feud with Dolph Ziggler over whether or not he still has his “touch”. And somehow Kane did too, inserting himself into the increasingly unbalanced Daniel Bryan’s business. You know what I’m thinking? Tag team match, playa!

I actually don’t have any information on whether or not that match is booked, but it screams for a Teddy Long Booking Decision.

Meanwhile, Alberto Del Rio’s assertion that he won’t wrestle until SummerSlam lasted all of five minutes on Smackdown, thanks to GM Booker T. Will the Mexican Aristocrat attempt a similar power play again tonight?

Plus, with singles wins over both of the tag champions, it looks like the Prime Time Players may have earned themselves another shot at the tag titles. Will they try and force the issue this evening?

And, if there’s time, we’ll deal with the Intercontinental, US, and Divas titles, as well as obligatory matches for Brodus Clay, Heath Slater, and Ryback. But there probably won’t be time for all of that, we’ve only got three hours and we still haven’t mentioned recap videos of Brock Lesnar vs Triple H! Tune in tonight for Raw, where hopefully there won’t be another fire!

Three Hourzzz…Huh? What? I’m Awake!

Okay, we had the angry version of this on the podcast, but it’s a week later and I’m sure I’ve calmed down enough to be a perfectly rational human being about three hour Raws. I mean, last week’s Raw wasn’t that bad, was it?

The answer is “no”. Things actually did happen on Raw. CM Punk opened the show with a good promo. Chris Jericho essentially “officially” turned face and continued feuding with Dolph Ziggler, which, for me, is a match that I’m anticipating. Daniel Bryan went nuts and started seeing Charlie Sheen behind everything, so he’s finally seeing the Matrix for what it is. And setting aside AW’s little bon mot, the tag division was once again featured, something that backstage sources who totally aren’t the same ones trying to feed us fake news every week have said that there is a real push behind in Creative, to the point that some NXT guys may get the call to be in tag teams on the main show sooner rather than later. And hey, given what’s going on with the other midcard belts, the tag champions should be happy that they’re getting real TV time. Plus, there was a decent main event match, even if it did feature The Big Show pulling out his “Best of Restholds” playbook for the evening. And although I was upset that CM Punk failed to pull the commentary blazer out of mothballs, he did manage to completely school the two bickering idiots, which led to moments like Jerry Lawler trying to explain why Punk is totally correct in saying that the WWE Champion should be the focus of the show, without actually admitting that Punk is totally correct and WWE has completely dropped the ball on remembering that fact.

So, why am I going to come down hard on Raw anyway? You already know why, it’s because that was in no way a three hour show. That was a 90-minute, maybe hour-and-a-quarter if we’re generous, of original content, with the rest of the show consisting of more padding than an Eddie Murphy movie where he plays sixteen different overweight characters and wonders why he didn’t get an Oscar for Dreamgirls. But I digress. If it were just the Tout segments, I probably would have lived, because those only run for a couple minutes, and I think there were two, maybe three of them during the show. Sure, they’re lame and I wish they didn’t exist, but they’re not going away, so who am I to deny wrestling fans trying to get their fifteen seconds on Raw? But beyond that, there were the recap segments. Hey, I’m not saying that Triple H vs Brock Lesnar shouldn’t get a recap segment. I’m just saying that when you’re trying to sell a feud that you expect to main event your biggest Summer PPV, maybe you should actually have the people involved present instead of trying to make up for their absence by running the same video package three times. And it was not a short package, either, it was literally the entire segment from Raw 1000 set to music and spliced with random jump cuts. Three times. But hey, at least it was a relevant recap package and was an attempt to make up for Brock and Triple H not being there (again, it’s a stupid way to do it, but if they’re going to sign Brock to a 25-appearance clause, they’re going to have to do what they can to work around it). What I couldn’t stand was the never-ending assault of recap bumpers of things that happened “moments ago”. Every time we came back from commercial, we got a recap of what happened just before we went to commercial. At the start of the second and third hours, we got a recap of Punk’s promo that opened the first hour. Oh, and let’s not forget that there were at least three recaps of the pyro fire that happened before the show went even on the air. Look, I know it happened and it was news, but nobody was hurt, the damage was minimal, and the show even started right on time. If they hadn’t had an announcement and kept referencing it all show, I don’t think anyone would have even noticed that the sides of the entrance didn’t work or that there was no pyro for the night. Hell, I knew there’d been a fire and I didn’t even notice the lack of pyro until someone pointed it out afterwards.

Okay, I’m not an idiot, I know that moving to a three-hour Raw wasn’t suddenly going to make the matches longer and put all sorts of new faces on TV. But if you aren’t going to use an entire extra hour to add some sort of original content, why would you bother to have one? By running recaps of everything that happened, with minimal editing, you’re telling people “hey, don’t bother watching until the last half hour, we’ll just show footage of anything important that happened in the final segment before the main event anyway”. That doesn’t sound like a recipe for better ratings to me, does it?

And yes, I know Vince is technologically backwards, and the TV industry likes to pretend they don’t exist, and not everyone has them, but DVR’s do exist. And they are growing more and more popular as more people discover their power. They’re becoming so big that there are rumblings (only small ones, because network executives everywhere embrace change just as quickly as Vince) that DVR numbers should be taken into more consideration when looking at show ratings. What this means for WWE is that unlike the “olden days”, being live no longer guarantees you a captive audience that has to watch everything you put out there, including advertising bumpers and whatever filler you want to toss in to get them to look at before the main event. People everywhere are realizing that they can DVR Raw and fast-forward through all the crap they don’t want to watch, and they are taking advantage of that fact. But instead of doing things to make sure that people have to keep paying attention or they might miss something, WWE keeps booking the same stagnant show they have for years now. Without having access to any spoilers, I bet a vast number of wrestling fans could basically outline the segments for Raw tonight knowing only the current feuds and who was on TV last week. Watch, I’ll try it and we’ll see how close I get tonight.

1. Opening Promo Segment. Probably John Cena.
2. Opening match. Either CM Punk getting punished for interrupting Cena, or something involving the World title participants.
3. Video/Recap/Backstage. Probably the Lesnar-HHH package, maybe a segment in AJ’s office.
4. First hour main event. I’m betting on a mix of Jericho-Kane-Bryan-Ziggler.
5. Recap of the first hour promo, then we go backstage for another promo involving the people who were part of that promo, or referenced by that promo
6. Brodus Clay match.
7. Backstage segment leading to…
8. Randy Orton match. I don’t know why, but it feels right. If not Orton, Mysterio.
9. Video/Recap/Backstage, either a generic SummerSlam promo or a rundown of the matches set thus far.
10. Ryback squash/Divas match/Santino match – aka “the last segment before the main event that nobody pays attention to”
11. Recap of main event angle.
12. Main event, featuring either a match or another promo involving CM Punk/Cena/Show in some way. Maybe a contract signing, since they had a match last week.

I’m actually scared to think about how correct it might be. On the bright side, WWE has proven in the past that if enough Internet fans predict it, they’ll change things up just to screw with us. I dare you, WWE. Do it!

SAVE_US.JBL

With Booker T getting promoted out of the commentary booth and Smackdown’s team now consisting of the Most Annoying Man In The World and his smaller, weaker, less offensive twin, the rumours are flying that WWE will need to bring someone to fill the void left by Booker. Of course, I remember when everyone said three-man booths were just death, but I agree that the Mathews-Cole team is just too bland, mostly because even if Cole acts like a dick, Josh will never call him on it because let’s face it, he’s a weenie. Fortunately, there is a man whose return to the Smackdown booth would probably improve it by roughly 193%, and as luck would have it, he’s been stirring the pot about a potential return to that very spot from the minute that Booker vacataed the chair. I’m talking, of course, about JBL. As a wrestler, he’s no good, but I don’t think anyone will argue that on commentary, he brought the right amount of smarts, charisma, and the ability to make Cole shut the hell up that we could all enjoy and appreciate. Plus, he managed to be a heel commentator who could make heels look good without making the faces look like pussies, which is something that Michael Cole still can’t figure out. And he was a three-dimensional guy, which meant that just because, say, The Miz is a heel, doesn’t mean JBL liked him, and he also wouldn’t hesitate to point out when he liked what a face was doing. That’s what “shades of gray” is supposed to mean, not “everyone’s a dickhead, but we like some of them”.

Hell, put JBL on Raw and send the increasingly useless King out to pasture instead. I guarantee people would stop FFWDing through segments if they thought there was a chance JBL might say something interesting. Then, you pull William Regal out of NXT and put him on Smackdown. Voila! We’re all happy! Well, as happy as we can be with Cole still on commentary, but with Bradshaw one on show and Regal on the other, I can virtually guarantee he’d be on his best behaviour.

It’s such a simple change, and it could indeed change a whole lot about how WWE’s shows are appreciated. Do it now, Vince. What have you got to lose?

– WrestleMania 28’s final numbers are out, and it is the second-biggest domestically-bought PPV in WWE history, behind WrestleMania…23? That still blows me away. I mean, 23’s a forgotten classic, but I can’t imagine anyone would think it had that title. I would have picked at least half a dozen Attitude Era shows, plus Mania XX and XXV, before even considering it, and at that point I’d just be listing WrestleManias starting from the most recent and working backwards until I hit it.

– CM Punk changed his hairstyle! Alert the presses! Wait, I am the presses. And I don’t care.

– AJ Styles wants to retire at 40. Hopefully by then he’ll be done feuding with Christopher Daniels.

– Oh for the love of…Randy Orton will be starring in a 12 Rounds sequel. No word on which Die Hard script this one will be ripping off, but this one doesn’t even have the guy who became Littlefinger in it, so it’s got no chance at all of being any good.

– WWE may be looking into another Saturday morning show, because (AM Raw/Mania/Livewire/Experience) gets such good ratings and people totally remember it exists.

– WWE also thinks that Jinder Mahal has the potential to be a top heel in the company, which is why he’s getting the mini-feud with Ryback and probably why he’s getting a whole lot of TV time for being a jobber and also why he’s in the NXT Title tournament. Apparently he’s supposed to be the eventual replacement for Khali in WWE’s India promotions, but unless he grows another foot taller or gets himself a wacky manager who teaches him to love women, I don’t see it going as well as they hope.

– WWE has delayed making any announcements on WWE Network until the end of next quarter. It’s entirely happening, though. At least, they spent a couple million dollars on it last quarter, so, you know, they totally had to pay for something. That proves it exists, right?

– And recently “quit before he was demoted” former Executive Vice President of Talent Relations turned road agent Johnny Ace was promoted as appearing on WWE’s Australia tour as recently as last week. I think I join all wrestling fans in hoping he gets eaten by a koala.

999. AW Yes, it’s been such a weird week that we’re bringing back the Anti-Power Rankings! And in case you’re wondering how much Linda’s Senate campaign has cut the balls off WWE, I can recall many times previous where somebody on Raw has said something off the cuff that was in just as poor taste as AW did on Raw and nobody ever apologized, let alone in the immediately following segment. Oh, and thanks, AW, for making sure that they put an even tighter leash on extemporizing during promos. Maybe you should just stick to yelling “Come on, guys!” after all.

998. WWE Divas Well, the Divas Champion hasn’t wrestled in an actual match (bikini battle royals notwithstanding) since the PPV, and they promoted the only Diva who was actually getting over to a non-wrestling role. Strange how that keeps happening. When the entire division is holding its breath for the return of Kelly Kelly, there are bigger issues than even Sara Del Rey can fix.

997. TNA TV Title Speaking of champions not being on TV, Devon has defended the TV title once on Impact in the past month. I wouldn’t make a big deal about it if it hadn’t been one of Hogan’s big “tentpole” ideas that were supposed to change Impact for the better. Of course, it could be worse…

996. WWE US Title …the title could be around the waist of Alberto Del Rio’s personal jobber. Look, I appreciate Santino’s work as much as the next guy, but couldn’t he be the same comedy guy who’s really over without having a title around his waist? At this point, the Internet Championship is more valuable, because there’s actually somebody who wants to bother taking it from Ryder.

995. AJ Styles Oh, AJ, you deserve so much better than what you’re getting. I was willing to see where this soap opera headed, but if it’s going to involve twenty-minute baby showers for no reason that somebody forgot to write a punchline to, then I think we need to mercy kill the whole thing, and fast.

994. Sakamoto Continuing on our list of managers who can’t catch a break, Sakamoto gets shoved out of the way, stands at ringside, then gets blamed for Tensai losing and gets beat up. And he hasn’t got any semblance of personality, so there isn’t even any real sympathy for the guy. If Albert ever manages to tweak his gimmick right out of being Japanese, Sakamoto’s going to disappear without a whimper.

993. Drew McIntyre Boy, we all sure did think that whole “firing” angle with Teddy Long leading up to WrestleMania was going to go somewhere, didn’t we? Now Drew’s not even the guy leading the gang of jobbers against Kane and Undertaker, hell, he’s not even the guy getting a mini-feud with Ryback, he’s the guy who’s fallen all the way down to NXT. I mean, he beat Seth Rollins, but Rollins is in the NXT Title tournament now, and Drew is…um…

992. Gunner Not that I ever really saw anything in this guy, but he went from a hotly-pushed prospect to the guy who’s going to lose to Chavo “I couldn’t even beat a midget once in three hundred matches” Guerrero in a filler match on PPV. Did losing to Garrett Bischoff sap all his mighty powers or something?

991. Raw Pyro Guy Hey, some wrestlers scrape and claw their entire lives to get a single segment and six replays of their work on Raw. All this guy had to do was light the set on fire accidentally. At least, they’re saying it was an accident, I just think the show was fifteen minutes short and he was the only one with an idea on how to fill time.

990. X-Pac Dude, you got upstaged in conditioning by Billy Gunn, the man who can’t breathe at full capacity after walking briskly. Now they’re talking about Gunn wrestling a comeback match and you don’t even qualify for the weight class for the alleged new cruiserweight show. Okay, that was pretty harsh.

Inactive List as of 07.30.12

WWE Raw

– David Otunga, out indefinitely as of July 7th (movie)
– Evan Bourne, out indefinitely as of March 19th (foot)
– Kelly Kelly, out indefinitely as of June 5th (R&R)

WWE SmackDown

– Mark Henry, out indefinitely as of May 1st (surgery)
– Ted Dibiase, out indefinitely as of March 7th (ankle)
– The Great Khali, out until November as of July 24th (surgery)
– Wade Barrett, out 3-4 months as of Februrary 20th (dislocated elbow)

WWE NXT

– Bray Wyatt, out six months as of July 4th (torn pectoral)

TNA

– Chris Sabin, out 6-9 months as of June 14th (ACL)
– Jesse Sorenson, out at least one year as of February 12th (spine)
– Sonjay Dutt, out 6-8 weeks as of July 8th (shoulder)

Transactions

– Big E. Langston, NXT, made NXT debut on August 2nd NXT

– Booker T, SD!, named Smackdown General Manager

– Teddy Long, SD!, named Senior Assistant to the SD General Manager

– Wade Barrett, SD!, returned to limited action on house shows

WWE

WWE Champion: CM Punk
– 260 day reign, defeated Alberto Del Rio on November 20th (Survivor Series PPV)
– Next title defense: vs John Cena and The Big Show, SummerSlam

World Heavyweight Champion: Sheamus
– 127 day reign, defeated Daniel Bryan on April 1st (WrestleMania XXVIII)
– Next title defense: vs Alberto Del Rio, SummerSlam

WWE Intercontinental Champion: The Miz
– 14 day reign, defeated Christian on July 23rd (Raw 1000)

WWE United States Champion: Santino Marella
– 154 day reign, defeated Jack Swagger on March 5th (Raw)

WWE Tag Team Champions: Kofi Kingston and R-Truth
– 98 day reign, defeated Epico and Primo on April 30th (Raw)

WWE Divas’ Champion: Layla
– 99 day reign, defeated Nikki Bella on April 29th (Extreme Rules PPV)

TNA

TNA Heavyweight Champion: Austin Aries
– 29 day reign, defeated Bobby Roode on July 8th (Destination X PPV)
– Next title defense: vs Bobby Roode, Hardcore Justice PPV

TNA Tag Team Champions: Christopher Daniels and Kazarian
– 39 day reign, defeated Kurt Angle and AJ Styles on June 28th Impact

TNA X-Division Champion: Zema Ion
– 29 day reign, defeated Kenny King, Mason Andrews, and Sonjay Dutt in an Ultimate X Match on July 8th to claim the vacant title (Destination X PPV)
– Next title defense: vs Kenny King, Hardcode Justice PPV

TNA Knockouts Champion: Miss Tessmacher
– 57 day reign, defeated Gail Kim on June 9th (Slammiversary PPV)
– Next title defense: vs Madison Rayne, Hardcore Justice PPV

TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champions: ODB and Eric Young
– 151 day reign, defeated Gail Kim and Madison Rayne on March 8th (Impact)

TNA Television Champion: Devon
– 141 day reign, defeated Robbie E on March 18th (Victory Road PPV)

De Marco has The Wrestling 5&1.

Larry has All The King’s Men.

Rutherford has The Wrestling Sandwich.

Sarnecky has The Piledriver Report.

And the latest episode of TWNE After Dark features my thoughts on the obvious problems with Raw 1000, a tale of two new GMs, and a look at WWE’s financial numbers the day before they were officially released! And, because it seems like I get more listeners when I mention this, things definitely take a turn for the angry! Click on the banner to access the entire TWNE After Dark library!

Also, don’t forget to join the TWNE After Dark a Facebook group.

411 will have live coverage of Raw tonight starting at 8 pm EDT.

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That’s our show, That Damned Cook is in tomorrow, I will be back next week. Plus, don’t forget to look for me this Wednesday in the Games Zone for Four Player Co-op, and the TWNE After Dark podcast at 10 pm EDT this Wednesday!

Here it is, your Moment of Buddy

Due To Buddy Hiding Behind The Couch So I Couldn’t Get A Picture,
This Week, The Part Of Buddy Will Be Played By Oreo.

Have a good one, and always be a fan.