wrestling / Columns
411 Fact or Fiction 08.01.13: Small Guys, Stacy, Beards, More
Hi, hello & welcome to 411 Fact or Fiction! I’m Steve Cook and it’s been quite the week in the world of professional wrestling. Jim Ross informed us that undersized talent can succeed in WWE, which is the opposite of public perception. WWE apparently wants Stacy Keibler to come back because she’ll bring in new fans. Daniel Bryan will be getting a corporate makeover to become more acceptable as a WWE Champion. WWE Total Divas premiered Sunday night. TNA released Jesse Sorensen, but a new guy that looks & sounds like Low Ki is debuting tonight. Dixie Carter’s attempt to answer questions from Twitter followers ended in disaster. Steel Cage Warfare aired this past weekend & Ring of Honor is officially rid of SCUM.
I’ve invited of 411’s most tenured writers to discuss these topics. Introducing first, the author of the Wrestling News Experience, Stephen Randle!
His opponent is news reporting extraordinaire Jeremy Thomas!
1. Undersized talent can succeed in WWE.
Stephen Randle: FACT/. Can and has. And no, I’m not just referring to Daniel Bryan. Heck, CM Punk isn’t the largest guy in the world either, but if you want me to go further back, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero managed to succeed for a period, and back before that, there were Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart, none of them the biggest dog in the fight. It’s true that Vince’s fetish for big men and portrayal of WWE as a “Land of Giants” means that a larger wrestler will get more chances than a smaller one might, with more leeway to screw up, in the end, no matter what size you are, if you can prove to Vince that you can make him money, you can succeed. Proving it, though, and getting that chance, that’s the trick.
Jeremy Thomas: FACT. I think it’s a proven fact over the years that undersized talent CAN succeed in the company. Now they certainly have a more difficult time than oversized talent and get less chances, but we’ve seen people rise to the top on a fairly regular basis if they have the right combination of talent, look, fan support and perseverance. Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Daniel Bryan, Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero, Jeff Hardy…these are all guys considered “small” who have made it to the main event and become fixtures, even if some of them didn’t (or haven’t yet) become household names. It will always be harder, but it can happen.
Score: 1 for 1
2. Stacy Keibler would bring new fans to WWE programming if she was brought back.
Stephen Randle: FICTION. I fall back on what should be WWE’s mantra every time they think that bringing back old talent will bring back lapsed fans: if The Rock, at the current height of his movie-stardom, can barely move the needle on ratings and buyrates, then there is nobody currently available to WWE who can come back in and bring back fans. It’s a sad fact, but the sooner they learn it, the sooner they’ll stop looking to the past for answers and try something new.
Jeremy Thomas: FICTION. To start with, we should commend Stacy Keibler on doing what few other Divas have accomplished, which is become someone who is referred to by mainstream media as more than a “former wrestler.” As much as we love our Trish Stratuses, our Litas, our Maryses and so on and as much as they’ve had success in other ventures, they will always be nothing more than ex-WWE stars which is the media’s way to pigeon-hole them. Between Dancing With the Stars, her relationship with Clooney, her stints on sitcoms and other such work, Stacy has managed to break out of that mold and she seems about as likely to be referred to as a former cheerleader as a former wrestler.
Now, that being said, do I think she’d bring new fans in? No. Fans of DWTS are either watching WWE or have no desire to; they’re not going to be enticed by the third-place finalist from seven years ago. She hasn’t made enough of in her career to bring in viewers on her own. However, she would bring old viewers back to WWE programming, at least in the short-term. There are old WWE fans who would certainly turn in to watch for a little bit if Miss Stacy came back. That being said? Never gonna happen because WWE needs Stacy far more than Stacy needs WWE, and she’s got a regular gig with her Lifetime show now. But it would be a fun nostalgia return, to be sure.
Score: 2 for 2
3. Daniel Bryan’s corporate makeover will result in his beard being shaved.
Stephen Randle: FICTION. Although a trim is a possibility, I can’t imagine him going fully clean-shaven or even a close shave without a heel turn being involved. He’s got that unique look going for him, plus a new t-shirt promoting the beard, and I imagine if WWE wanted it changed, it would have been done by now.
Jeremy Thomas: FICTION. D-Bry’s beard is part of his gimmick at this point. I could conceivably see it being trimmed, but I don’t see it being shaved. The guy looks like a little kid when he doesn’t have the facial hair and I think Vince wants the main eventers to at least look like they don’t need to be carded in bars. Honestly, it wouldn’t bother me if he did shave the beard but I just don’t see a reason for it to happen.
Score: 3 for 3
4. WWE Total Divas will last more than one season.
Stephen Randle: FACT. It’s cheap to produce, apparently people are watching it, and it’s not like they have any really better ideas for the vast array of fashion models currently making up the bulk of the Divas division. Worse shows have lasted longer than Total Divas. Not that it’s a good show by any stretch of the imagination.
Jeremy Thomas: FACT. But not from my viewership. I left the channel on USA on Monday night after Raw while I finished up some stuff for the site. And while there were a couple moments that had passing interest from me, it took about fifteen minutes before I wanted to shoot my television. It’s typical reality TV which is about what I expected. Listen, I don’t need a reason to hate the Bella Twins more than I do; they’re already heels and good at being heels. Seeing them be catty, snarky egotists to everyone around them doesn’t help me hate them in a character capacity; it makes me not want to watch them in any capacity.
However, I’m just one man, and the ratings speak for themselves. I loathe E! (outside of The Soup), but they have the reality format down pat. Total Divas brought in 1.34 million viewers for a 0.7 rating in the 18-49 demo. I’m not trying to denigrate TNA, but that demo rating beats what TNA pulls in. Hell, that demo rating is comparable to what Smackdown pulls in (even if the overall viewership is less). All networks ever really look at is the 18-49 demo, because that’s the age group that advertisers want. So unless the show takes a serious ratings dive, it will in fact go on as long as E! and WWE want it to.
Score: 4 for 4
SWITCH!
5. TNA’s release of Jesse Sorensen was a mistake.
Jeremy Thomas: FACT. Let me be clear here: from a business standpoint it was a decision that had to be made. There are a lot of reasons for this; Sorensen was being paid a lot more than someone in his position was making and TNA seriously needs to cut costs. They had spent a ton of money taking care of him and gone out of their way to make sure that Sorensen was supported and being allowed to make a living after his neck injury, for what was essentially a few days of work a month. Sorensen wanted to get back in the ring also, which would have been a huge potential liability for the company and there was always the chance he would figure out a way to do independent bookings (remember, TNA lets their talent do that) while under TNA’s employ which, if he was re-injured, would then come back on the company. So I truly believe it was a decision they struggled with and ultimately felt they had to make.
Now that we have that out of the way, I have to say that the amount of negative publicity they’ve gained for doing so probably outweighs any financial problems. Listen, Dixie Carter said that Sorensen “would have a job for life.” And a lot of people, especially in the days where corporations are viewed in particularly negative lights, are taking that seriously. Unfortunately, that quote is haunting Dixie big time now (more on what’s haunting Dixie next question!). This steamrolled into a collision of bad press that combined with all the talent cut news to paint TNA as a company coming apart at the seams, and so while I think that it was a decision that TNA felt they had to make for their own welfare, the timing was piss-poor and should have been made at a later date, if at all.
Stephen Randle: FACT. It was a terrible PR move that they justified with the most callous of phrases. You don’t fire injured talent that had their career and nearly their life end live on your company’s PPV. You restructure their deal to fit within the finances of the company, you offer him a different position, you make any of a half a hundred different attempts to fix your financial problems without making Sorenson take the hit. Worse yet, it will affect wrestler morale, because if that’s how they treat injured talent, would you particularly feel good about putting your body on the line for them?
Score: 5 for 5
6. Twitter wrestling fans went too far with their usage of #AskDixie.
Jeremy Thomas: FICTION. It’s freaking Twitter, man. My perspective on what is considered “too far” for fans to say on social networking hit its limits when Justin Bieber fans were sending death threats en masse to Selena Gomez for loving on their boy, or when video game misogynists replied to a reasonable observation about how few female video game protagonists there were in the next-gen consoles with rape threats and worse. I didn’t read every Tweet or even a majority of them, but I read a few and most of them were funny and certainly not violent, racist, misogynist or homophobic. That’s what I consider to be “crossing the line.” Dixie should have known better than to open up a Q&A in the middle of the company’s worst press in months and while I don’t think the IWC did anything smart to endear itself to the wrestling industry here, I don’t think anyone should be surprised, either.
Stephen Randle: FICTION. I mean, I wish the Internet wasn’t the cesspool it is at some times, but the fact of the matter is that it absolutely is a wretched hive of scum and villainy (although to be fair, it does have great moments of compassion as well), and if you let the Internet to ask you questions on an unfiltered, open forum like Twitter, at least 90% of what you’re going to get is going to be some combination of rude, mean, crude, or just irrelevant. The trick is to ignore all that and just focus on the 10% that actually want to use this opportunity to ask real questions.
Score: 6 for 6
7. The mystery man entering TNA on August 1 will be Low Ki.
Jeremy Thomas: FICTION. I have no idea who it will be, but I have serious doubts that it is Low Ki. The company would need to be putting a certain amount of faith in someone they’re building an angle around like this, and while we can joke about TNA’s talent decisions it is different to push certain people after they’ve been part of the company a while than it is to bring people in with big angles. Low Ki has a tendency to blow off what he’s doing and his attitude is not particularly renowned. I wouldn’t be upset if it was, but I just don’t see this being the guy.
Stephen Randle: FICTION. Well, the voice (and the ears) certainly look like it could be him, although there’s definitely some voice modulation at play. I just can’t help but feel that this seems like a waste if the pay-off is Low Ki, who is a decent wrestler with a past in TNA, but who I also don’t see as a really big deal to have coming in. Plus, where would he fit in, given that the main event is all about Aces and Eights and Main Event Mafia, and the rest of the relevant card is locked up in the BFG Series? As to who else it might be, I honestly don’t have a clue, but what the hell, I’ll take a chance and say it’s not Low Ki.
Score: 7 for 7
8. SCUM disbanding will lead to better times for Ring of Honor.
Jeremy Thomas: FICTION. Ring of Honor needs something more than a stable disbanding to lead it to better times. Between its long-suffering technical problems, the general decline of storylines, the ill will being extended by fans these days and myriad other issues, one simple stable dissolution won’t turn things around. The company needs a series of continued and constant creative decisions that go over well and give fans a reason to tune in. We wrestling watchers are a cynical lot and we know by now that one potentially-good creative move means nothing; it takes several in a row before we’re ready to forgive and forget. That’s what ROH will need to get to greener pastures.
Stephen Randle: FICTION. As far as I can tell, Ring of Honor is treading water, if not quite circling the drain, and breaking up SCUM will lead to storyline options, but I can’t see it being the magic ingredient that suddenly makes Ring of Honor an ascendant promotion again.
Final Score: 8 for 8
Stephen & Jeremy agree on everything in the universe! To be fair, these were kind of softball questions. Do you agree with them? Let us know down in the comment section, and we’ll be back next week with more Fact or Fiction!
