The Wrestling News Experience: 03.19.07
Posted by Stephen Randle on 03.19.2007
I’m part Irish. And part Scottish. And fully Canadian. No wonder I’m drunk.
Good morning everyone, and welcome to the Experience. I'm Stephen Randle, and if you're like me and you hate dealing with drunk people, well, then you're like me and got screwed because all your alcoholic co-workers took St. Patrick's Day off, leaving you behind to tell horribly drunk people that no, they can't change the channel to the NCAA basketball game in the middle of Hockey Night in Canada. Hey, it's Leafs-Canadians AND it's the start of the shootout. Changing the channel on that is pretty much the biggest crime you can commit in Canada. Which explains a lot.
Here we go again.
Around The Horn
Big news this week, as after several years of spiralling buyrates and a decided inability to create storylines for more than two or three matches on any given single-brand PPV card, WWE has officially announced that all PPVs will now feature talent from all three brands, beginning with Backlash. On the surface, this seems like a good idea considering the company, but not when you are forced to consider… the Threatdown.
***EEOEEOEEOEOEOEOEEEOEO***
I wonder if Threatdown is trademarked? Someone find out if Colbert reads this thing.
5. See Spot. See Spot Disappear.
PPV cards are typically eight matches. Right now, you have three brands with major titles. Presumably, you'd defend these titles every PPV, but let's be more like WWE and only have 2 defended because the ECW title is just a big gold paperweight anyway. Okay, that ties up four main eventers. Now, you've got six matchups left and…roughly sixty Superstars to put on the card. Somebody's going to get left out in the cold, and you just know it's going to be those plucky cruiserweights that everyone's talking about.
4. Saturate This!
Remember, there are 16 WWE PPV's a year now, and you can be damned sure that they won't be wanting to cut off a chunk of their PPV revenue. So that means that in the summer, we have the One Night Stand - Great American Bash - Vengeance - Summerslam glut of PPVs within a two month spread, and similar situations in winter with Cyber Sunday-No Mercy-Survivor Series-December to Dismember-Armageddon-New Year's Revolution. I suppose that means you can have totally different talent on each card, but that's still a whole lot of PPVs in very little time, for a Creative team that has struggled quite often to make even the normal multi-brand PPV's enjoyable. But just in case you wanted to say it, it's best you remember that…
3. Really Fake-Looking Extensions
They will not end the brand extension. Forget it, it's not going to happen. All they're doing is going back to what they used for at least a year during the infancy of the extension: dual PPV's with each brand providing half the matches. Throw in ECW's token match or two and voila, theoretically a full card with a lot less effort. But speaking of ECW…
2. EC-Duh?
Say goodbye to the friendly confines of the Hammerstein Ballroom and the ECW vibe of the old One Night Stands, say hello to the multi-branded arena show that is the new One Night Stand, featuring heavy involvement from Raw and Smackdown talent! That's right, the PPV concept that led to the revival of the ECW brand is officially dead and buried, to the shock of approximately…six people. I'm sure they're crushed. Moving on.
And the number one threat facing this announcement of every PPV being multi-branded is…
1. The Great Khali
That's right, he could be on even more PPV's now. Fear the power of his ability to be really, really big and chop people! Gasp in awe at his size and how he chokes people, then lumbers around the ring and gives a primal yell! Don't say that you weren't warned!
Moving on.
Arnold Skaaland, former wrestling manager, passed away at the age of 82 this week. While it has been depressing reciting off the increasing number of wrestling deaths these past couple weeks, it is a little heartening to hear that they passed away at ripe old ages, having lived long, full lives after their time in the ring. All most people get to hear is about the wrestlers who lived hard and died young, because the "legitimate" news would rather talk about "the horrible steroid-infested world of pro wrestling". Well, I want to see the news stories about those wrestling legends who retired and lived for many years, because I can bet you, there's a whole lot of them too.
To break the tension, Vito will be appearing in the next edition of Playgirl magazine, which is quite a step down from Shawn Michaels, I'd say. Also, do women buy pornographic magazines anywhere near the level of men? I'm just mildly curious, please don't try and send me actual numbers.
And on the heels of my joking about wrestling and NASCAR last week, apparently WWE is diving into everyone's favourite left-turning "sport" with both feet, as John Cena is set to appear on an ABC celebrity NASCAR racing show, airing in June. Hopefully before he takes on the oval, Cena picks up some driving tips from Bob "Spark Plug" Holly. At this point, I wonder if Bob's more bitter about being given that gimmick, or abandoning it before NASCAR started becoming this weird nationally televised "phenomenon"?
Okay, I've tried to be nice…well, not really, but still, it has to be said. You're watching cars turn left for four hours. What the hell is wrong with people?
According to the Observer (via my minions who read it for me), Melina's WrestleMania match with Mickie James may determine her future with the company, as she's been in consistently hot water for nearly a year now, and has continued to work sloppily with little care for her opponent, showing no improvement, and been a pain in the ass backstage as well. Gee, who knew that throwing gobs of money at supermodels and putting them in front of arenas full of people and large TV audiences would give them delusions of grandeur? I think the real question is, has the Tough Enough curse finally caught up to Johnny Nitro?
Ricky Steamboat lives again, as apparently he's finally settled with his ex-wife and can once again call himself by the ring name he used for many years. Which is news to people like me who grew up in the age of kayfabe and often forget that he isn't actually named Ricky Steamboat.
And before I leave this segment, MTV has pulled the finale of Wrestling Society X, putting the final bullet in the the lame horse that was its first and only season on the network that brought us Punk'd. I still haven't forgiven them for that.
The Injury Bug Bites
Inactive List as of 03.12.07
WWE
- Beth Phoenix, RAW, out indefinitely as of June 6 (jaw)
- Candice Michelle, RAW, day-to-day (broken nose)
- Chris Jericho, out indefinitely (kayfabe, fired)
- Mark Henry, SD!, out 6-8 months as of July 15th (patella)
- Michelle McCool, SD!, out indefinitely (enlarged kidney and electrolyte imbalance)
- Paul Burchill, SD!, out indefinitely as of May 29 (shoulder)
- Rey Mysterio, SD!, out indefinitely as of October 2006 (knee surgery)
- Triple H, RAW, out 4-6 months as of January 7 (torn quadriceps)
TNA
No major injuries.
Transactions
- Edge, RAW, working through injury (broken jaw)
Which makes it quite impressive that he still manages to carry the entire promo load for his team. Edge also reportedly requires surgery on a bursar sack following WrestleMania, so look for him to be out for a couple months after the big show. Probably when Orton turns on him. Oh wait, that's for later. Forget what I said.
- Rene Dupree, ECW, out indefinitely as of March 2007 (Wellness)
Well, that explains why La Resistance disappeared again. For more reasons why this is mildly funny, keep reading!
- Scott Steiner, TNA, day-to-day as of March 11 (leg injury)
Okay, hands up, who though Steiner would be the one injured in that match? Anyone?
- The Rock, RAW, made special appearance on March 12th Raw
The only bad thing about Rock's appearance was the realization, once the euphoria died off, that WWE will probably never, ever luck into another talent like him again. Aww, I depressed myself again.
One Year Ago This Experience
Originally posted 03.20.06, and Saturday Night's Main Event made me mark out like a small child. Unfortunately, I seemed to have been the only one.
And here's why Dupree's suspension is funny: one year ago, WWE signed him (and the Basham Brothers, that went well) to a new contract, which was widely questioned due to the fact it was looking like he'd possibly never set foot in a ring again. Wow, hindsight really is 20/20.
Also, Eric Young died. And then revived ten minutes later. Because he's Canadian and thus immune to surgical complications. Why do you think they had to have Robert Roode as his nemesis, despite Roode's complete lack of personality? Only another Canadian can truly defeated a Canadian.
The Wrestling Fan's Experience
Well, readers, I'm sorry to say this, but last week's Experience was the last one in my mailbag. That brings the grand total of Experiences I've printed to 25, which is quite impressive, to say the least. And the feature is not over, not yet, anyway. I want to keep printing your Experiences, so I'm going to keep exhorting you for your submissions until it becomes apparent that nobody else has anything they want to share. In the meantime, I'm working on some new questions to try to jumpstart the submissions again. But for now, it's the old standbys.
1. Why I am a wrestling fan.
2. How I got into pro wrestling.
Send your best response to one or both of those statements, and I'll print it right here in this section! Hey, 25 other people did it over the last year, so you won't be alone. In fact, you'll be part of a cool select group, the people who got their Experiences printed in the best damned Monday news report on the entire Internet. So get busy, and remember, the next Experience could be yours!
From the glowing box, Byers has the last episode aired of WSX, Small has Heat, Borchardt and Furious have Smackdown, Byers and Larry have Impact, and Dunn gets his Destination X, ECW, and Raw Breakdowns in late, but at least they're good.
Over in Music, Mitch Michaels has a feature on the Music of WrestleMania, and he begged for a plug. He also paid in cash.
Louis Jones (from Waterloo) wants my thoughts on the outcome of the Money in the Bank match. Well, it's not the roundtable, but I use that for clever quips instead anyway, so let's go through it logically. First, eliminate Jeff and Matt Hardy, for the obvious reasons. Then, take out King Booker; he was fun for the last year, but his push is over. Finlay's out too, no matter how much we like him, he won't be solo main-eventing a PPV anytime soon. That leaves us with Edge, Orton, Kennedy, and Punk. Edge is probably having surgery after Mania, and all signs point to him and Orton turning on each other during this match. Presumably, this will either cost both of them the title shot, allowing Punk or Kennedy to grab it, or Orton will do the deed and win the shot, creating a summer program with Cena that's been on hold for so many years. So, I have to pick Orton to win, with Punk as my dark horse candidate, and Kennedy coming in a distant third. I want to pick Kennedy outright, since he's probably most deserving at this point, but he spent last year losing to Taker a bunch, and the last couple months lost a couple shots against Lashley and Batista, and I don't think they'll put him against Cena on Raw, so there's nowhere for him to go with the shot.
And BILLGOLDBERG97 wanted to discuss the "Goldberg to TNA" rumours that fly around every once in a while. He also sent similar e-mails to a bunch of other writers (that's right, we talk), but I've got time, so we'll address the nonsense that is Goldberg in TNA.
Bottom line, never going to happen. TNA can't afford him (especially when you consider he likely won't have any continuous effect on ratings), and wouldn't offer him the creative control he'd ask for. Plus, if you want to go for other reasons, I've been under the impression that Russo never cared for Goldberg from the start, and definitely wouldn't book him correctly anyway. TNA needs to focus on making their own big star, in the form of Samoa Joe. They can't do that if they keep sidelining his push to make way for yet another "big signing" to grab the spotlight for a couple months.
And One To Go On
411 will have live coverage of Raw tonight starting at 9 pm EDT. That's my column, before I go, let's check in with Larry Csonka, for a look at tomorrow's Your News, My Views. Larry?
Hello, Randle. I can't help but notice that we were opponents in Fact or Fiction this past week.
Yes, indeed we were.
As we have been many times in the past.
That's true, we have faced off several times.
Randle?
Yes?
I kicked your ass at Fact or Fiction again.
You know, I usually let this go, because I'm secure with my masculinity-
You shouldn't be.
-but this time, I'm forced to point out that you essentially agreed with me on every question.
That doesn't mean anything, I expressed my thoughts much better than you did.
Larry, in one instance, you directly quoted me and used it as your answer.
I feel it was the italicization of your answer that made it that much better, and therefore it counts as a point for me.
But-
Kicked your ass, Randle.
But-
Better luck next time.
Thanks, Larry. Larry Csonka, ladies and gentlemen. I'm out of here, I'll be back next week.
