wrestling / Columns
411 Fact or Fiction 11.28.13: Title vs. Title at TLC, Reigns Survivor Series Performance, AAA Challenging TNA, More
Welcome back to the latest edition of 411 Fact or Fiction, Wrestling Edition! Stuff happened, people loved/hated it and let everyone else know. I pick through the interesting/not so interesting tidbits and then make 411 staff members discuss them for your pleasure. Battling this week: first off, the man 411 readers love to hate, Mr. Justin Watry! He faces off with the man behind the Side Russian News Sweep, Mr. Chris Pilkington! Lets get to work…
1. The booking of a World Title vs. WWE Title match at the TLC PPV feels very rushed.
Chris Pilkington: FACT In my opinion, three weeks is too short a build for any match that you’re trying to position as a historic main event. Up until this Monday’s edition of Raw, nothing on television or PPV had even hinted at this match being a possibility. The crowd reaction towards the announcement was lukewarm at best and you can’t really blame them. Surely, if you want to maximize the impact of a match like this, a little more foreshadowing and interaction between the combatants is essential. There are only two episodes of Raw and three episodes of Smackdown between now and TLC. It is of course conceivable that WWE have something up their sleeve to really build up some major momentum on those broadcasts but recent history would imply that this is unlikely. What’s more likely is both men holding their title’s aloft while The Authority try and remember if they’re good guys or villains. The crux of the matter is whether this match is even what we think it is. Steph and Hunter were very careful not to mention the word unification (as was Larry when writing these questions) and I could easily see both men leaving TLC with a title, if not the one they entered with. If that’s the case, then this feud could easily extend into January at The Rumble or even WrestleMania 30, where the real unification match could take place.
Justin Watry: FICTION At first glance, the answer is fact. After thinking about it, the actual answer is fiction. Here are four reasons why I have no issues with this taking place at TLC next month. First, the wording of the match was not exactly specific. Who says there will truly be a unification of both titles? Randy Orton could easily grab his title, while John Cena takes down his own. There! Both retain, and life moves on. Until it is written in stone what the rules are, I am not going to jump the gun. Secondly, there is a precedent already set for this situation. Back in late 2001, WWE had two champions. Instead of dragging it out to WrestleMania, a tournament was held the following month (December) at Vengeance resulting in Chris Jericho winning. No long build or huge hype – just throw the belts on somebody. Thirdly, I think the fans care more about having just ONE major title than WWE does. How many do we see champion vs. champion matches on television? A lot. Maybe the company feels it is not a huge pay-per-view draw. Finally, The WWE Championship is in a league of its own. You can’t tell me with a straight face a “World Title for WWE Title” mega showdown at WM XXX is some huge selling point. It’s not. Sadly, the belts are not even close to being equal in this day and age. That is just the truth.
Score: 0 for 1
2. WWE’s booking of Roman Reigns at the Survivor Series was a great way to begin his rumored push.
Chris Pilkington: FACT Reigns pretty much swept the boards in the weeks Wrestler of the Week column and with very good reason. I completely agree that his booking at Survivor Series was amazing. He is the only male competitor to eliminate four men in a Survivor Series match (Aja Kong is the only woman with four eliminations stat fans!) and the reaction he received shows that WWE are right to put so much stock in this young man. I would argue, however, that the booking of Reigns has been great throughout his WWE career. The Survivor Series booking is merely a continuation of that rather than the start of a new push, but his performance on Sunday night cemented many people’s assumptions that Roman Reigns is the Shield member with the most break out potential.
Justin Watry: FACT Ah, rumored push. Gotta love those two words! I would argue that his ‘rumored push’ started one year ago when he debuted. The Shield has feuded with CM Punk, Ryback, Sheamus, Randy Orton, Big Show, Daniel Bryan, The Undertaker, Kane, and other in their first 12 months on television. Um yeah, I would say they have been keeping the big man strong. Now, assuming this topic pertains to a single’s run, then I do say fact. All three members of The Shield will get their turn. Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose will get a spotlight to shine. Right now, it is about Roman Reigns. Being the sole survivor on Sunday night was a great start.
Score: 1 for 2
3. By booking so many repeat matches, the post PPV editions of Raw are giving you less of a reason to buy WWE PPVs.
Chris Pilkington: FICTION Repeat PPV matches on Raw have happened for years and I really don’t think that you can blame them for any perceived lack of interest in the PPV’s themselves. I think that, as WWE viewers, we’ve already been programmed to expect these kind of watered down PPV editions of Raw. In fact, if you break it down, the only actual repeat match was the Divas elimination match and I don’t think many people bought the PPV for that match in particular. The six-man tag featured competitors from the Survivor match, but five of the six competitors have been competing against each other on Raw and PPV for months. Axel and Ryback vs. Henry and Langston was used to establish the return of Mizark and dominance of Langston. The Wyatts vs. Punk and Bryan was more about the post match shenanigans than the match itself. Yes, it is somewhat lazy booking, but you also can’t just reset the company after every PPV. There needs to be continuation and evolution of story lines and this is one of the most tried and trusted ways of doing just that.
Justin Watry: FICTION I want to say fact, but at last check, I can’t tell the future. There is no crystal ball in front of me. Until a time machine is invented, nobody else knows what will happen on Raw the night after a pay-per-view either. If you start assuming rematches will take place, you are going to miss out on a bunch of matches. You never know what is coming next. We saw The Rock vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin for the WWE Championship inside a steel cage the night after WrestleMania X-7. I didn’t hear complaining then. Oh right, Attitude Era time period…things were amazing then but suck now. Is that it? I agree that wrestling companies have far too many ‘big’ matches on free television, but that has nothing to do with any PPV purchase. If a huge main event is set and the build is right, they will get my money. If not, then so be it. It just has nothing to do with any fear or ASSUMPTION that it will take place the next night as well.
Score: 2 for 3
4. Dixie Carter is correct when she says that TNA used Hulk Hogan too much on TV.
Chris Pilkington: FICTION If you’re paying somebody the kind of money that Hogan was receiving, if you’ve got a man on your roster with a proven track record in generating interest, why wouldn’t you use him as much as possible? Hulk Hogan wasn’t used too much on TV. Certainly he was misused at times and he shouldn’t have been so exposed in long, rambling promos on every show but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t have been used. Hogan has always been at his best when he’s been at his most culturally relevant. He dominated the Rock and Wrestling era and his heel turn in WCW helped revolutionize the industry. Conversely, he’s been at his worst when he’s played it safe and played the hits. His early WCW career was terrible and his WWE nostalgia run became very old very quickly. The same applies here to TNA. If Hogan had been convinced to step out of his comfort zone then he could have been amazing for TNA and their television output no matter how much television time he was given.
Justin Watry: FACT Dixie Carter is correct. Hey, there is first for everything, right? *insert your own joke here* However, she should not have stopped with Hulk Hogan. Name Sting. Name Kurt Angle. Name nearly every other legend ever brought into TNA Impact Wrestling. Special attractions appear rarely – that is what makes then SPECIAL attractions. If The Undertaker wrestled every month, it would not mean anything. If Brock Lesnar was on Raw every week, his mystique goes away in a hurry. He is a special attraction and is treated as such. Seeing Kurt Angle every Thursday night and wrestling semi-regularly lessened the effect every time. Sting, Hogan, and all these guy should show up before the big pay-per-views and wrestle when the story line calls for it.
Score: 2 for 4
SWITCH!
5. Paying upwards of $12,000 for a WrestleMania front row seat is completely crazy.
Justin Watry : FICTION If WWE could charge $100,000 per ticket and they sold out every year, guess what? They would do that as well. It is simply supply and demand. As long as fans out there to shell out big bucks, the company are well within their rights. I won’t cal anybody crazy for what they spend their money on. I am sure some would call what each and every one of YOU spend your money on “crazy.” It would be quite hypocritical to turn around and now blast someone else for what they choose to spend their money on. If that is some wrestling front row tickets, have fun!
Chris Pilkington : FICTION Let me start by saying that I would never pay this much money for a ticket to see anything. I get annoyed because the price of a ticket to my local promotion has gone up from 9 pounds sterling to about 15 pounds over the last year, so 12 grand is an absolute impossibility to me anyway. With that being said, I would never call somebody crazy for spending that kind of money to sit front row at WrestleMania. If somebody has the money and the inclination then go for it. Value is relative.
Score: 3 for 5
6. You are excited that WWE is reportedly releasing an Best of WCW PPV Matches DVD.
Justin Watry : FICTION I am basing this off the idea of actually buying the DVD. Not downloading it. Not stealing it. Not anything illegal. Since that is my criteria, the answer is fiction. I have purchased two wrestling DVD sets throughout all of 2013. That is it. Yet another release of old WCW footage does not do it for me. If anything, they should be releasing the wacky and wild moments from WCW. They may have already done that in the past – could be wrong though. Trying to dress up WCW and claim it was something more than it was is not my cup of tea. Sorry.
Chris Pilkington : FICTION As a UK resident, I didn’t really have much access to WCW growing up. When a UK broadcaster did start showing WCW, I was such a WWF die hard that I didn’t pay too much attention at the time. I’ve since become somewhat retroactively fascinated by WCW but, even so, the best of WCW PPV matches isn’t something I can get overly excited about. I’m really not that into any of the WWE DVD’s that focus on matches. For better or worse, there is such easy access on Youtube and through the WWE’s own on demand service that I really don’t see the point.
I much prefer the career retrospective and things like the Monday Night War and recent 50 Years of WWE DVD’s. I like to hear the story behind the matches and the personalities of certain individuals rather than just another compendium of matches. There are so many great stories that still haven’t been told on DVD, putting out a best PPV matches set just seems a little lazy.
Score: 4 for 6
7. TNA running a four of four-elimination tag team match on Thursday’s Impact is a mistake, mainly due to the fact that it will come just days after the Survivor Series PPV.
Justin Watry : FACT I wrote about this extensively in my weekly “Truth & Lies” column for those of you out there who have not read it yet. That baby is released every Wednesday night and usually gets buried somewhere underneath all of the other posts. In any event, one thing I always stress about TNA is focusing on…well, TNA! Do not mention WCW. Do not have ECW reunion shows with Tommy Dreamer. Definitely do not name drop WWE or subtly have a Survivor Series tag match take place on Thanksgiving. It is not even subtle either. Just so blatant without a care in the world. Just do the ridiculous turkey suit gimmick, get your laughs in, and have a ball. At least that is your own abomination. TNA needs to just stick to their own wrestling history, not other companies.
Chris Pilkington : FICTION It makes perfect sense. Survivor Series was originally billed as a Thanksgiving tradition, more specifically, the elimination tag matches at those events. For several years now, the elimination matches at Survivor Series have become an afterthought, culminating in this years Survivor tag matches being included only one week prior to the show itself. Everything that was unique about the Survivor Series PPV has been watered down to the point where it’s hardly fitting to carry on using the name itself. Enter TNA, who are currently trying to win back some of the good will that has once been afforded them by people like us. Now TNA have, in the past, tried to position themselves as an alternative to WWE. They have also, at times, positioned themselves as a direct competitor. If the people running the company nowadays are smart, and I have no reason to believe they aren’t, then in my opinion they should position themselves somewhere in between those two stances. Why not try and show wrestling fans that they are willing to learn from the mistakes of other companies and try and improve on their own ideas?
Certain fans, myself included, love the Survivor Series concept. It’s a concept that WWE seem keen to distance themselves from, however, if the last few years of booking the show are anything to go by. It’s the perfect opportunity for TNA to swoop in and say that they understand our frustrations and actually want to do something about it. I only wish that TNA had been a bit more proactive here, either by promoting their 4 on 4 match more aggressively, having more of these matches on the card or even having the match on the Impact before Survivor Series. Wrestling companies have attempted this kind of counter-promoting for years and it can and has worked wonders in the past. TNA should certainly give it a go. They have nothing at all to lose and could potentially gain a few fans in the process.
Score: 4 for 7
8. AAA will debut on US TV in 2014 via the El Ray Network. Within a year, you expect them to be in heavy competition with TNA for the #2 company in the US.
Justin Watry : FICTION Is this a joke? Even though TNA is a distant, distant, distant, distant, and nearly invisible number two company in the United States, AAA is still even behind them (in the US remember). The fact that I have no idea what the El Ray Network only furthers my point. I wish AAA well in this adventure, but my guess is it will only lead to minor success. Mexico and the United States are two totally different ball games. However, I will happily be proven wrong in 12 months. If they gain some momentum and can get a nice TV deal, who knows? Again, please prove me wrong. Anything is better than TNA at this point…
Chris Pilkington : FACT Fact for a couple of reasons. I fully expect AAA to give their show a huge push in the US market as I think they need to come out aggressively to create some momentum. They’ll have the novelty factor of a new company (at least in terms of US television exposure) which should help generate interest. I know that I’d love to watch AAA with English commentary. Also, I think there are plenty of signs that indicate the TNA will be spending a lot of 2014 expanding their share of international markets. They’ve recently signed a multi year deal with Nippon Television in Japan and they’re continuing their strong growth in the UK, filming their first ever International PPV in Manchester, England in January. This International growth could, hypothetically, come at a slight cost to their share of the domestic market if AAA pursue it as aggressively as I expect.
Score: 4 for 8
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