The Wrestling News Experience: 12.02.13

Monday, December 2nd, 2013

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

Your Experience May Vary

Good morning everyone, and welcome to the Experience. I am Stephen Randle, and I’m a Steam Sale addict. Why did I even buy Final Fantasy VII? Sure, it was only four bucks, but I already beat it over a decade ago, and I have it on my PS3 anyway. I blame it on having the knowledge that my in-laws grabbed me a PS4 on Black Friday, but I don’t actually have it yet, and the knowledge may be driving me mad. All I want to do is play Assassin’s Creed IV, is that so wrong?

Moving on.

Last week, because why the hell not, Triple H announced that WWE Champion Randy Orton will face World Heavyweight Champion John Cena in a TLC Match at TLC, with the assumption being that one man will hold both belts when the PPV ends. Of course, not everyone sees it going down that way, but we’ll get to that. For the moment, let’s pretend that in a few weeks, we may indeed have a single Undisputed Champion for the first time in over a decade.

Meanwhile, the team of Daniel Bryan and CM Punk appears to have been short-lived, as Bryan found himself carried off by The Wyatt Family, while Punk was sidetracked by a Shield ambush. Whatever their status after those attacks, it’s clear that both men will face overwhelming odds against two of the strongest forces in WWE.

Plus, Intercontinental Champion Big E Langston appears to have found a partner in being really big and strong in the returning Mark Henry, as both men have formed what can only be considered one of the most dominant teams to ever grace professional wrestling. Presumably, we’ll get a better idea of their future once they’re done disposing of Curtis Axel and Ryback.

Also, presumably the Divas will attempt to wrestle again, Antonio Cesaro will look to Swing someone for a really long time, and we’ll see if Brodus Clay is really turning heel because Xavier Woods stole his theme music, tonight on Raw!

One Fail To A Finish

So, a unification match for the WWE and World Titles. Funny, I feel like we went through this almost exactly eleven years ago. Of course, at that time, WWE was reeling after massively punting their big “can’t miss” summer angle that they’d been forced to cut short once they booked the entire thing into oblivion and refused to pull the trigger on several hot talents in favour of sticking by their tried-and-true main eventers. But this time…um…well, the match will be a TLC match instead of a one-night tournament, so that’s different.

Anyway, perhaps the biggest problem with this unification match is that nobody actually believes it’s actually going to happen. Somehow, WWE has presented a match between two of their biggest stars, for the ultimate prize, in a gimmick that basically requires there to be a definitive finish, and nearly everyone’s first reaction is…”How are they going to screw us out of this one?”

To be fair, WWE has basically done it to themselves. At Summerslam, Triple H screwed Daniel Bryan out of the WWE Title. At Night of Champions, Daniel Bryan won the WWE Title and was screwed out of it in a Dusty Finish on Raw. Payback ended in a No Contest when Big Show knocked out everyone involved in the match. At Hell in a Cell, Shawn Michaels screwed Daniel Bryan out of the WWE Title. And at Survivor Series last week, The Authority distracted Big Show long enough to cost him his WWE Title shot as well. Gee, I can’t imagine why people are predicting that the obvious finish for TLC is to have a finish that doesn’t actually unify the titles. Throw in the rumours that WWE has changed plans for the company’s direction literally on a weekly basis, right up until hours before they went with a unification match on Raw, and it’s really, very hard to have faith that WWE is really planning to follow through on the stipulation.

Plus, I mean, when you get right down to it, either they’re planning a screwy finish, or they really are planning to unify both their World titles on one of their lowest-bought PPVs with only three weeks of build. Neither one is really a smart idea, but only one of them lets them have another unification match later, when they really want to do it and aren’t just panic-booking a PPV. Of course, the paying customers get screwed over, but all WWE cares about right now is getting their TV contract renewed for big bucks, so I guess who cares?

However, this does tie into our next item of business…

Shadow Of A Doubt

So, on Saturday night on the Co-operative Multiplayer podcast (which you should totally listen to), during a rare period of going off on a tangent unrelated to video games, 411 Staffer Daniel Anderson asked a very pointed question about WWE’s current direction: Given that it seems like they may indeed have completely abandoned their big angle of the summer, that being Daniel Bryan vs The Authority (with special guest WWE Champion Randy Orton), seemingly underlined by John Cena somehow trying to convince us that the audience is chanting for Daniel Bryan because they want him to stand up to The Authority, have we reached a point, after several years of WWE messing up and pulling the plug on their summer angles, where we can no longer give them the benefit of the doubt when they try big summer angles, or even big angles of any sort, in the future?

Well, let’s look at their past record:

– We already covered the WCW Invasion, which was practically a guaranteed money-maker that could have sustained them for years to come, which they tanked practically out of the gate, nearly recovered by adding ECW to the mix, and then proceeded to screw up again almost immediately, resulting in the entire thing being mercy-killed only a few months after it began.

– Lest we forget, Randy Orton wasn’t always an 11-time champion, and his first World title win happened at SummerSlam, leading to an angle where he was…kicked out of Evolution, lost the title immediately back to Triple H, and had his face turn undermined so quickly that he was written out of a planned Mania rematch to regain the belt, and in fact was turned back heel by then in order to save the character.

– The Nexus, a potentially game-changing angle featuring the first NXT graduating class, floundered practically out of the gate when (somewhat ironically, in hindsight) Daniel Bryan was fired for choking Justin Roberts with his own tie during the incredibly hot opening angle. Without Bryan to carry the stable from the wrestling side of things, the rest of the crew essentially became flunkies for Wade Barrett, who failed to win the WWE Championship in multiple tries despite having an entire stable behind him, then forced John Cena to join the group in a move that made them look even more incompetent by failing to restrict Cena’s actions in any way, to the point that Cena was anti-climactically kicked out of the group and the stable reshuffled under the leadership of CM Punk, where it limped along to minor effect until it was dissolved due to their leader abandoning them to start…

– The Summer of Punk. Yes, Punk survived the ordeal and went on to become one of the longest reigning WWE Champions of all time, but that reign was not the one that started when he beat John Cena and took off with the belt at Money in the Bank. No, his Summer of Punk reign ended ingloriously only one month after his historic moment, when Punk was screwed out of the belt by none other than…Kevin Nash. Punk would never actually get revenge on Nash, who, it turned out, was not medically cleared to compete at the time, and who ended up transitioning into a feud with Triple H instead. Throw in the part where WWE rushed the entire angle from the get-go, having an entire title tournament inside of a week, and then having John Cena challenge and defeat the tournament winner that same night to become WWE Champion, only to have Punk return moments later, and you have a recipe for a company-changing angle tanking in near-record time. As I said, Punk would win the title back from Del Rio at Survivor Series, but even then, he was no longer treated as the big deal he was during the summer, and his 434-day reign would only main event two PPVs over that span: a meaningless TLC defense against lame duck challengers Del Rio and Miz, and the Royal Rumble match against Rock where he lost the title.

So, here we are again, with Daniel Bryan shuffled off to the midcard to play with the Wyatts while the “big boys” get to fight for the titles in the main events, his storyline about being an underdog battling against overwhelming odds turning out to have an ending that basically says “don’t bother, because in the end you can’t beat them”. Sure, there’s still a slim chance that they’ve just put it on hold until they can build to a WrestleMania rematch after Bryan wins the Rumble, but given that CM Punk seems to have put himself in The Authority’s crosshairs, it looks like a different former indy darling might have been earmarked for that particular honour. And hey, good for Punk, but that doesn’t erase how horribly WWE botched Daniel Bryan’s push over the last few months.

And now we return to the question: should WWE continue to get the benefit of the doubt? The next time they try to run a big angle, should we have faith that it might actually get paid off in a way that will benefit anyone besides the usual, tired, stale suspects?

I have to be honest, at this point, they’ve made it really, really hard to continue to believe in them.

HOT: Smackdown (Hour Two) One hour, twelve men, essentially one match (with three parts), all of it awesome. It’s kind of funny, they keep using these guys (and Daniel Bryan) for their big main event matches, but for some reason, none of them are currently in the actual main event. And by “funny”, I mean” what the hell, WWE”.

NOT: Smackdown (Hour One) Because nothing says “funny” like “Titus O’Neil projectile vomits a whole bunch”. And by “funny”, I mean…wait, we already did that.

HOT: El Torito Is anyone really shocked that the mini dressed as a bull is the only thing that’s actually good about Los Matadores? Hell, they’re still putting Finlay’s leprechaun on TV, despite a) losing Finlay and b) not actually looking like a leprechaun for years.

NOT: Curtis Axel So, after he’s done being part of Ryback’s punishment tour as his partner in jobbing, what name does Curtis get to come back as for his third kick at the can? All I know is that it’s too bad they wasted awesome entrance music on him.

HOT: Renee Young Seriously, how did she end up practically everywhere in WWE? She’s a mainstay on the JBL and Cole show, she’s on regular commentary on NXT, and she does pretty much every interview segment on Raw and Smackdown. I can only imagine that she’ll be GM of one of shows by the end of 2014. By 2016, she might own WWE.

NOT: WWE Divas Division It was a match so terrible that they just had to do it again on Raw, and the results were essentially just as ugly. I know people are digging the concept of AJ and Tamina as Shawn and Diesel, but are you really looking forward to the eventual matches? Seriously?

HOT: Brodus Clay Clay finally gets relevant for a second, answering the immediate question I had on Monday: why the hell wouldn’t he be mad that Xavier Woods stole his entrance music, routine, and dancers? Those are basically all he has now!

NOT: The Miz Well, the heel turn that wasn’t certainly led to an incredibly painful segment on Raw that wouldn’t have made sense on Live With Michael and Kelly, let alone a wrestling show. But hey, at least he’s…got no definable direction!

HOT: Curry Man Yes, this international sensation has made his return to TNA. Could we see a reformation of the Prince Justice Brotherhood? I actually don’t care, but you can’t help but love Curry Man. I wonder how he’ll get fired this time.

NOT: Dolph Ziggler On one hand, probably not the best career move to take a shot at your situation by wearing a Zack Ryder shirt in some sort of silent protest on Raw. On the other hand, nothing underlines how badly Zack Ryder got screwed out of a deserved push when other wrestlers use him as the example for when they’re getting dicked over.

Inactive List as of 11.25.13

WWE

– Christian, out indefinitely as of September 2nd (concussion)
– Evan Bourne, out indefinitely as of March 19th, 2012 (foot)
– Sheamus, out 4-6 months as of August 5th (torn labrum)

TNA

– Zema Ion, out indefinitely as of May 17th (appendectomy)

Transactions

– Curry Man, TNA, returned to action on November 28th Impact

– Zema Ion, TNA, returned to television on November 28th Impact

WWE Champion: Randy Orton
– 36 day reign, defeated Daniel Bryan on October 27th (Hell in a Cell PPV) to win the vacant title
– Next title defense: vs John Cena, TLC Match, TLC PPV

World Heavyweight Champion: John Cena
– 36 day reign, defeated Alberto Del Rio on October 27th (Hell in a Cell PPV)
– Next title defense: vs Randy Orton, TLC Match, TLC PPV

WWE Intercontinental Champion: Big E Langston
– 14 day reign, defeated Curtis Axel on November 18th (Raw)

WWE United States Champion: Dean Ambrose
– 190 day reign, defeated Kofi Kingston on May 19th (Extreme Rules PPV)

WWE Tag Team Champions: Cody Rhodes and Goldust
– 49 day reign, defeated The Shield on October 14th (Raw)

WWE Divas’ Champion: AJ Lee
– 169 day reign, defeated Kaitlyn on June 16th (Payback PPV)

WWE NXT Champion: Bo Dallas
– 173 day reign, defeated Big E Langston on June 5th (NXT)

WWE NXT Tag Team Champions: The Ascension
– 54 day reign, defeated Corey Graves and Adrian Neville on October 2nd NXT

WWE NXT Women’s Champion: Paige
– 131 day reign, defeated Emma on July 24th NXT to become inaugural Champion

NOTE: NXT Title reigns only count what has aired on TV, not when changes occur at tapings.

TNA Heavyweight Champion: VACANT
– title vacated by Dixie Carter when AJ Styles left the promotion as Champion

TNA World Tag Team Champions: The BroMans
– 43 day reign, defeated James Storm and Gunner on October 20th (Bound For Glory PPV)

TNA X-Division Champion: Chris Sabin
– 43 day reign, defeated former champion Manik, Jeff Hardy, Samoa Joe, and Austin Aries in an Ultimate X Match on October 20th (Bound For Glory PPV)

TNA Television Champion: Abyss
– 183 day reign, defeated Devon on June 2nd (Slammiversary PPV)

TNA Knockouts Champion: Gail Kim
– 43 day reign, defeated former champion ODB and Brooke Tessmacher in a Triple Threat Match on October 20th (Bound For Glory PPV)

De Marco has The World’s Most Dangerous Column.

Acero has The Wrestling 5&1.

Harder has The Professional 3.

Wojcik has TNA Impact Rankings.

Dino has Smart Marks.

This week on After Dark, I mock the very foundation of the concept of a unification match, Divas in wrestling matches, WWE booking in general, and just generally get irritated with WWE’s plans (or lack thereof) for the future.

And on the newest Co-op Multi, we continue to examine the fallout from Console Launch Weekends, including theories on the launch lineup that could have been. Plus, we talk about Assassin’s Creed IV, Hearthstone, Diablo III, video game movies on the way, and all sorts of things you could buy on Steam!

One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 **COMING SOON**
Stealth, Inc.
The Last of Us
Call of Juarez: Gunslinger
Marvel Heroes
Hakuoki: Warriors of the Shinsengumi
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon
Dragon Fantasy: Book One
Guacamelee!
BioShock Infinite
Dead or Alive 5 Plus
Generation of Chaos 6: Pandora’s Reflection
Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken
Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
Earth Defense Force 2017 Portable

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

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That’s our show, I will be back next week. Also, don’t forget 4PC in the Games Zone on Wednesday, and the TWNE After Dark podcast on Wednesday, airing live at around 11 pm EsT on Spreaker.com, posted on 411 shortly thereafter. Plus, Co-op Multiplayer, now on Saturdays at midnight EST.

Here it is, your Moment of Buddy.

All Buddy Wants For Christmas
Are More Stuffed Toys

Those aren’t even his, and the dog will not be pleased to find out.

Have a good one, and always be a fan.