The Ominous Thoughts News Report 3.18.07
Posted by Sam Caplan on 03.18.2007
Thoughts on all the WWE PPVs becoming tri-brand, why wrestling wasn't meant to work on a national scale, and a behind the scenes look at 411!
Another extra long column for you guys this week, especially since there wasn't a whole lot of actual news to go around. But let's get started with the big one.
The Real News
WWE announced this past week that all WWE PPVs going forward will feature talent from all three brands. There's a few things to think about coming out of this. The first thing is that looking back on the last few months of PPVs, it's pretty clear that they've been testing the waters with crossover matches, so it seems that they've had their eye on making this move for some time. I don't know if this is going to result in the end of the brand extension or not, but one of the main arguments I've heard over the years as to why the brand extension would not end is that they were able to expand their PPV business by having brand-exclusive shows. Now that there are not going to be brand-exclusive shows anymore, how will that affect the PPV market? In recent years, they've been able to get away with having PPVs two weeks apart by running a Raw PPV and then a Smackdown PPV, and theoretically this could prompt some of the more diehard fans to drop the money twice to see both rosters on PPV. But if we're going to be seeing the same guys on every PPV, are they going to be able to get away with, for example, doing One Night Stand, then Vengeance, then the Great American Bash at two week intervals? Furthermore, what's going to happen to One Night Stand and December To Dismember? If all the PPVs are going to feature guys from all three brands, then ONS and D2D are not going to be ECW PPVs any more than Backlash would be Raw or Smackdown.
It also seems to me that this is going to go beyond PPVs in the near future, because there has also been a significant amount of crossover on TV as well. With the unified PPVs and the guest stars continuing to appear on other shows, I have the feeling that by midyear, the brand extension will exist on paper only because there will be so much crossover that the three shows will be basically indistinguishable. I don't know if this constitutes an admission of the failure of the brand extension, but it does show a lack of confidence in the three brands to continue to draw individually. If the only difference between the rosters going forward is going to be what color t-shirt they wear, I can see this leading to some guys winding up out of jobs because, let's face it, if you have Cena, Michaels, Batista, Undertaker, Triple H (when he's healthy), Benoit, Kane, and everyone else appearing on all three shows, that's going to take up the bulk of TV time, so what does that mean to the Shannon Moores and Daivaris?
Furthermore, where does this leave ECW? At this point, I consider ECW to be the name of a TV show and nothing more. The style of the show is no different from Raw and Smackdown, but if you actually have the Raw and Smackdown guys appearing regularly, I can see them being featured more than Balls Mahoney and Matt Striker. While this would certainly help the ratings if it was integrated into Raw and Smackdown storylines (like it did when the TV show first launched last summer) and help ensure that the show stays on the air beyond the end of the contract in December, are we looking at the ECW name being shelved once more in favor of something more Titan-friendly? And what about the three World Titles? The reason for the creation of three titles is so that each roster would have a top prize to compete for, but if the rosters are for all intents and purposes reunified, do we need three World Titles? If the storylines are going to cross all three brands, are they still going to need three creative teams?
The funny thing about this little bit of news is that it raises more questions than it answers. I think it's going to be interesting to see how things shake out between now and the summer and what it'll mean to the future of the brand extension.
The Other News
WWE
As of this past Monday, Paul London and Brian Kendrick have become the fourth-longest reigning Tag Team Champions in WWE history.
While they're still quite a ways away from Demolition's record of 478 days, this is a significant accomplishment in today's WWE, especially considering that they're two guys that, if not in the situation they're in right now, would just be a couple of generic cruiserweights, totally interchangeable with Scotty 2 Hotty and Funaki. Let's hope the reign at least continues past that one year mark.
Molly Holly was backstage at the Raw house show in Guatemala, where she is currently living doing missionary work.
Putting aside for a moment what body parts I would gladly give up for a night with Molly Holly, it's too bad that the WWE landscape has changed in such a way that Molly's considerable wrestling skills are expendable when compared to the glorified strippers they've got prancing around now. She was really something, and one of the few people who could work really well as either a face or heel.
Edge suffered a fractured jaw during his MITB qualifier against Rob Van Dam and isn't expected to wrestle again until Wrestlemania.
Rough week for jaw injuries...first Jimmy Rave, now Edge.
Arnold Skaaland, manager of former WWWF World Champions Bruno Sammartino and Bob Backlund, has passed away at the age of 82.
I really wish I'd kept my mouth shut when I made an offhand remark about the possibility of a slew of wrestling deaths in the coming months, because like four or five people have died since then. In all fairness, though, most of the deaths we've seen in recent weeks have been of old men dying of relatively natural causes. Still, it's incredibly depressing to see so many prominent names passing away in rapid succession like this.
TNA
The Lockdown PPV in St Louis is expected to be headlined by a Wargames-style match.
As it should be, as a card comprised entirely of cage matches needs a special gimmick on top. Right now, it's obviously looking to be Christian, Tomko, and Steiner on one side and Angle and Joe on the other, though it remains to be seen who they will each be filling out their teams with. That is, unless you want to read the spoilers.
Scott Steiner appeared to have injured his leg in his match with Kurt Angle at Destination X.
I have a feeling we would have heard about it by now if it was serious, but the last thing either of these guys need is more injuries.
Many of the people ordering the PPV had issues because of the change in Daylight Savings Time and didn't get to see it until an hour into the show.
This has actually been causing a lot of problems for people whose computers weren't patched, and that doesn't even count the fact that people are going to have to manually update the clocks on their VCRs now. Fortunately it's not something TNA did wrong, it was just one of those things that happened and it's unfortunate that it happened on PPV day. But wouldn't it have been funny if it happened on the night of Wrestlemania?
Everything Else
"Big Cat" Ernie Ladd passed away last weekend at the age of 68 after a long battle with cancer.
While I'll admit that I'm not very knowledgeable about Ladd's career, I do know that he was a close friend of Bill Watts, and was heavily pushed in the Mid-South region as one of the first black headliners in the territory, the symbolism of which is probably lost on a lot of today's audience who don't realize that there was still a lot of racial tension down in Louisiana back in those days. He was also said to be a real sweetheart outside the ring who was well liked by most who met him. Condolensces go out to the Ladd family.
Why Wrestling Is Not Designed To Work Nationwide
A lot of people lament the fact that WWE is the only national company, and are really hoping for TNA to get their act together so that they can become serious competition to WWE and become a true national force. While I agree that competition is good in the general sense because it forces both (or all) parties involved to work harder to put on a better product to beat the other guy out, I think it's funny that nobody stops to think that wrestling isn't a business that was designed to work on a national or worldwide scale. Aside from Bischoff's hot run in 1996-7 with WCW, Vince McMahon is the only person to have done it successfully, and there's a reason for it.
Actually, there's lots of reasons. One of the great things about the territorial days is that each region had a different style, allowing journeyman wrestlers to learn several different styles and become more complete workers. One of the reasons for this is that the same stuff doesn't appeal to all audiences, and Jim Cornette has mentioned that when he was working with the Midnight Express in the 80s, he'd take something that got a ton of heat in one territory and try it in another and get no reaction just because it's a different crowd. That's one of the problems with the way WWE does things now, they take their one style and shove it down the throats of everybody they perform for. While they do draw an impressive number of viewers and live fans, there are less people overall watching wrestling now than there were prior to the WWF's national expansion in the 80s, and I'm sure a big reason for that is that they're not giving the fans the product they want to see, and in more than just a creative sense. This has also led to a homogenization of the indy style, as you have a lot of indy workers doing basically the same thing because they think it's what WWE wants to see.
But perhaps the bigger knock on the idea of a "national company" is the cycling of talent. Wrestlers would cycle in and out of the various territories quite a lot in the old days, and it wasn't just so they could travel the country and learn different styles. The fact is that the talent would be cycled in and out so that they wouldn't get stale. Let's think about this, how many times did we see Steve Austin vs Undertaker in the Attitude Era? The only reason we don't see it now is because Austin's retired, otherwise it would probably still be a PPV main event at least once a year and also an undercard match here and there. Austin, Rock, Triple H, and the Undertaker all fought each other so many times, both on PPV and free TV, that it got really stale after a while no matter how good the matches themselves were. This is one of the benefits of being in a company at the level of ROH (or, in its day, ECW), and that's that they're in a position where they have good exposure and are generally known to put on entertaining matches and angles, but except for a few guys, the talent doesn't stick around for too long because if they're halfway decent, they'll get snapped up by WWE or WCW/TNA. This forces ROH/ECW to bring in new talent to replace the departed stars and build them up. In fact, ROH and ECW are the closest thing to old school territories that we've seen since the demise of World Class.
In fact, though it might not have seemed like it at the time, the departure of Samoa Joe from ROH was probably one of the best things to happen to ROH in quite a while. Joe had been around since almost the beginning and had faced everyone and done everything there was to do in ROH and, even though he loves working there, his act was getting very repetitive, especially given that he couldn't be pushed to any titles because of the likelihood of what eventually happened: he was asked to leave by TNA. In fact, Gabe Sapolsky has gone on record as saying that Joe was getting increasingly difficult to book because he had been around so long. But now he's gone, and so is Bryan Danielson for the time being, albeit due to injury. That leaves two huge holes in ROH's main event scene, and gives upper midcarders like Roderick Strong, Chris Hero, and Matt Sydal a big opportunity to move up and prove themselves as viable main eventers. Them moving up to the main event leaves open midcard slots for the curtain jerkers to move up, making room for more curtain jerkers, and so on. The likelihood of Austin Aries, Homicide, and Christopher Daniels being pulled soon means that more spots will open up.
This is something that could still be going on nationwide but for WWE's concept of a national company. Though a second national company would provide a similar opportunity to showcase different styles and cycle talent, they'd only be going to a different channel instead of totally disappearing from the radar of the other company's fanbase, which is what needs to happen. Yes, WWE has raised the public visibility of wrestling nationally, but at what cost to the product itself?
Things I Think About When I'm Not Writing About Wrestling
When I was on my way into work Thursday morning, I was thinking about how you see hitchhikers holding signs that say things like "California or Bust" or "New York or Bust" or whatever, and I got to wondering exactly where this Bust place is. It does seem to be a pretty popular choice of destination. Plus, there's probably not many hitchhikers you look at and say "Hey, I feel safe giving this guy a ride!" so you figure that Bust must have a pretty impressive population and we would have therefore heard of it. I was telling the receptionist at my job about it and she said "You know, now that I think about it, I haven't seen a hitchhiker in years." to which I replied, "That's because they're all in Bust!"
These are the kinds of things I think about before I've had my coffee.
So after my theorizing on the mythical Bust, I decided to cut through all the supposing and just look it up. I checked all 50 states and there is no town or city in the United States called Bust. I wasn't sure what to make of this at first, but came up with several possibilities:
1)Much like Shangri-La, Bust is a mythical place that has been passed down through the years in transient legend and, much like nirvana to the Buddhists, is seen more as a spiritual achievement than a physical destination.
2)It's a code word for gay sex hookups. It has long been suggested (most notably by George Carlin in Dogma) that while willing drivers are thought to pick up hitchhikers out of the goodness of their own heart, it's more commonly (and covertly) done in exchange for sexual favors.
3)Hitchhikers with "(destination) or Bust" signs are not actually hitchhikers, but voyeur out for a cheap thrill. I have uncovered rumors that a local radio station in the mid-south ran a radio promotion once where people use these signs and women who are in on the gag will flash their breasts (or bust) at them. It's thought to be an offshoot of Opie & Anthony's WOW promotion.
4)It's a threat, as in "Give me a fucking ride or I'll bust you up."
5)It's drug lingo, where it's proposed that you are taken to your destination or, if that's not possible, to somewhere nearby where you can procure some drugs. Hence "getting a lift."
I plan to do more research into this "Bust", but I felt it fair to warn everyone that there is more to this hitchhiking thing than meets the eye.
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Every day when I get on the train, the first thing it passes through after leaving the station is a series of graveyards, of which my town has about seven. But it occured to me that if people keep dying, we're eventually going to start running out of room to bury them. So I was thinking about ways to rectify this problem, and I came up with two options. The first one was to tell people to stop dying, but I doubt they'd listen. This brings me to my other idea: from now on, everyone should rent graves on a subscription basis.
Here's how I look at it: when people are buried, how many people even really go visit their decaying bodies with any regularity? Immediate family, close friends, but that's about it. Eventually they're going to be gone too, and all you're left with is a stone covering a buried body that decayed years ago taking up space that could be recycled for more current cadavers. So what you can do instead is the same thing they do in the razorblade business: give away the razors and charge out the ass for the blades. What I mean is that they can significantly ease the strain of people's final expenses by making the coffin and funeral relatively cheap, but charge a yearly fee to keep the body in the cemetary. This way, the cemetaries continue to make good money on a more regular basis instead of a one-and-done deal like they do now. Then, when the people who would actually visit the grave die and are therefore unable to pay the subscription fee on the grave that only they were visiting, the gravesite can then be recycled for more recent stiffs. This would also save on all those little graveyards filled with people from the 19th century that are just there because they can't really get rid of them.
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You're all familiar with the Billy Joel song Captain Jack, right? Right. Well, I was listening to it this afternoon, and I heard the famous line: "Captain Jack will get you high tonight, and take you to your special island."
First of all, I didn't know I had a special island. Even if I did, I definitely would not let some guy named "Captain Jack" get me high and take me there. That just sounds like a recipe for disaster.
BEHIND THE SCENES AT 411!!!
It may not be apparent to the average reader how much of a team effort 411Mania really is. For just about every big project here, such as the Wrestlemania feature we're running every day this month, we'll open it up to anybody who wants to get involved and everybody has the chance to contribute. One such team effort is the monthly TNA conference call. We'll find out who is on the call that month and then we'll all throw in potential questions, and then the person running things (ie Csonka) will pick a question or series of questions which will then be posed to the interview subject, such as last week's call with AJ Styles when we got to ask three or four questions.
Well, you might recall a couple of months ago that TNA announcer Don West was the monthly guest. You have no idea how hard it was to come up with decent questions to ask this guy. I mean seriously, how could anyone expect Don West of all people to have anything interesting to talk about? But you have to work with what you're given, and so I devised a substantial list of questions to pose to Don, and not a one of them was chosen. Listen, they may not be the best questions of all time, but look who we're supposed to talk to here. Anyway, here's what I came up with for Don West:
-Who the fuck thought you would make an interesting person to put on the monthly conference call?
-Was David Young not available?
-Can you think of anything that would be worth asking you? Because I can't.
-If we come up with good questions for, say, Samoa Joe, can you call him and ask? We'll wait.
-What does it say about the current state of professional wrestling when you've spent more time in televised physical confrontations in the last five years than Dean Malenko has?
-What kinds of tips would you have for Michael Cole to become a better announcer?
-Were you ever under consideration to become Robert Roode's manager?
-In light of AJ and Daniels getting pulled from ROH in 2004, is there any chance that TNA might pull you from QVC broadcasts in the near future? If so, does QVC have anybody else lined up to sell Mark McGwire rookie cards?
-When you were being taken to the hospital after being attacked by Kurt Angle, did Steve Austin hijack the ambulance?
-In today's wrestling landscape, it's highly unlikely to ever see WWE and TNA do a joint card. Is there similar politics in the world of televised sales, or is there a possibility of a QVC-HSN crossover somewhere down the line?
-Can I have Dixie Carter's phone number?
-How do you feel about the fact that Miss Brooks was willing to suck Eric Young's dick before yours?
Believe me when I say that this list took quite a lot of time to put together. For those of you who think that I ONLY write three columns a week which go live on three consecutive days, think again. I pour my ASS into this site and, while my thoughts might not necessarily always be used in a situation such as this, the important thing is that I contribute. Or at least I used to...for some reason all my questions for TNA conference calls since Don West mysteriously get blocked when I try to post them in the staff forum. I've been meaning to ask Larry about that, but he's been really busy with this Wrestlemania Roundtable thing, so maybe I'll catch up with him next month...just in time for the next conference call!
Ari's in with the most honorable column around, Column Of Honor.
Finally, it's SELF PIMPING TIME! I look back at the Austin-Michaels match from Wrestlemania 14 in That Was Then and then it's all about ECW and TNA in Friendly Competition.
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Well, that's it for me this week. I'll be back next week for MORE OF THE SAME. Until then, this is "Weekend Warrior" Stuart Carapola wishing you a good week.
