The Ominous Thoughts News Report 5.27.07
Posted by Sam Caplan on 05.27.2007
Coming to you live from Canada, it's my thoughts on Shawn Michaels and his recent knee surgery, the effects the recent injuries have had on WWE's main event scene, what's in my VCR, my reactions to Jim Ross's recent blogs, and more!
Greetings from Toronto, Ontario, Canada! I decided to make a little weekend road trip for Memorial Day weekend, and as it happens, I'm somewhere that doesn't even recognize Memorial Day. At least, I don't think they do. But anyway, far be it from me to deprive you fine readers of your weekly dose of...well, one of your three weekly doses...unless there's a roundtable or I fill in or something...anyway, here's the news.
The Real News
Things were pretty bleak on the news front this week. The main news is that two more WWE stars are out with injuries and have both have had surgery. The first one is Gregory Helms, who underwent neck fusion surgery this week. It's not the result of any single incident, it's just wear and tear he's taken on his neck over the years that has caught up to him, and he had to go under the knife, he'll be out for about a year. I hate to sound coldhearted, but this really doesn't matter very much. It's not like Gregory Helms has been setting the world on fire despite being the Cruiserweight Champion for over a year. His absence will have minimal impact on the creative direction of Smackdown.
The other guy who got surgery, who is a LOT more important than Gregory Helms, is Shawn Michaels. He's actually been hurting for over a year now and has needed the surgery, but put it off because he was needed to do the DX reunion angle which meant big money for him, and then once Triple H went down with the quad tear, he was needed to help carry the company as a singles star, taking Triple H's spot in the main event of Wrestlemania against John Cena. He's been making big money this whole time, which of course is the real motivation for him putting off the surgery for so long, but the knee got progressively worse until it got to the point where he needed to get out of the ring right away. They did what they did at Judgment Day to write him out, and he's been removed from all creative plans effective immediately. He underwent surgery this past week, and the surgery was successful, so we are going to see Shawn Michaels back in the ring at some point. The hope is that he'll return in time for Survivor Series, but we'll have to wait and see how well his recovery goes before anyone will be able to say for sure.
The main problem we're seeing with all these injuries is that with Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Undertaker, Ken Kennedy, King Booker, and Rey Mysterio Jr all going down to injuries, and then if you also want to throw in the recent release of Sabu and imminent departure of Rob Van Dam, WWE is really hurting for main event stars right now. They had to move Edge over to Smackdown just so they'd have a credible champion on that brand not named Batista (who word is that they definitely didn't want to give him the title back), and with him also leaving Raw, we are now subjected to the Great Khali actually being considered a worthy challenger for the WWE Title. Other than John Cena and Khali, who are the top stars on Raw? Randy Orton, who has shown himself to be unstable that nobody in their right mind would consider him for a title run? Ric Flair, who's pushing 60, is a shadow of his former self, and has been a curtain jerker, if that, for several PPVs now? For crissakes, look at ECW. We've got Vince McMahon as the champion and Bobby Lashley as the top challenger, and then after him you've got Snitsky. CM Punk and Elijah Burke are both on their way, but aren't there yet.
The good news is that Booker, Mysterio, and Triple H are all slated to return from their injuries soon, but dammit man, look at the current crop of able bodied main eventers and tell me that they shouldn't have started building people up sooner than now. Don't get me wrong, this is a G-R-E-A-T opportunity for somebody to step up and prove themselves (in much the same way Stone Cold, The Rock, and Triple H did when everyone credible left the WWF in 1997-98), but that's something they should have thought of before now so we wouldn't find ourselves in a situation where Snitsky and Khali are the healthiest contenders that come off as halfway realistic. If you go back several years, this definitely wasn't a major problem. Hell, Stone Cold went down to injury for a year, and so Rock and Triple H of course picked up most of the slack, but you also had Benoit, Jericho, Angle, Kane (when he was credible), Undertaker, and probably half a dozen other guys who could step right in. Hell, people even cared enough about Val Venis back then that you could have put him in a WWF Title match and some people would have paid to see it. But not now, who would get excited over MVP getting a title shot if they were to go down that road? Sure, he's entertaining, but he's nowhere near ready to main event. Neither are Carlito, Kenny Dykstra, Elijah, Punk, or anyone else. This is something that could have definitely been avoided if they'd planned ahead a little better.
What's In Stu's VCR?
This week, I decided to go back and check out a couple of little known PPVs that are dear to my heart for reasons even unknown to me. Here are the two PPVs which followed Wrestlemania XII, Good Friends, Better Enemies and Beware Of Dog.
Good Friends, Better Enemies
-The opening match was originally billed as being the British Bulldog against Jake "The Snake" Roberts, but when Jake got to the ring, he was served with papers from Jim Cornette's attorney Clarence Mason, barring the python from ringside. Jake responded by going after Cornette with the snake, and Cornette sold it like he had a heart attack, and then we got a funny scene with Davey Boy giving Cornette CPR while Jake brought the snake backstage. When he came back, he brought Ahmed Johnson with him, and the match turned into Jake and Ahmed against Bulldog and Owen Hart. You know, Ahmed seemed like such surefire money back then before he started getting hurt and ended up falling apart. One of the things that made Ahmed look so cool to me back then was that everything he did looked like it really hurt, and I later discovered that this was because he was a really sloppy worker and frequently really would hurt people, and he sure as hell stiffed the crap out of Owen here. Pretty standard match, and Bulldog whacked Jake in the knee with Cornette's tennis racket and put him in the worst half crab of all tikme for the submission.
-Now it's time for a match between two totally normal people, as Goldust defends the Intercontinental Title against the Ultimate Warrior. Well, at least Goldust becomes normal when the cameras are off. Actually, there was no match. Goldust clearly had a knee injury, as he hobbled to the ring and had his knee heavily taped up, so what we got instead was this weird segment where Warrior hit the ring and chased Goldust and company off, then put on Goldust's wig and started smoking Marlena's cigar. Goldust was all pissed off about this on the floor, even going so far as to grab the mic and tell the crowd that he would come out there and kiss each and every one of them if they didn't shut up. Warrior decided to try and make friends with Goldust, so he set up Marlena's director's chair and invited them into the ring. Goldust and Marlena hesitantly entered, but to their surprise Warrior gave Marlena her cigar back and put Goldust's robe on for him. Goldust sat in the director's chair and they started passing around the cigar and taking smokes, but instead of passing the J on to Goldust, he rubbed it on his hand and burned him. As Goldust recoiled in pain, Warrior clotheslined him out of the chair and the ref finally rang the bell to start the match. Goldust immediately rolled out of the ring and got counted out, and the entire official match probably only lasted the ten seconds it took the referee to count Goldust out. Afterward, Goldust's bodyguard (the former Mantaur, who only appeared this night) got in the ring and attacked Warrior, but Warrior tore his shirt off so we could all see how fat he was and then slammed him. I'm not blaming them for bait-and-switching us because Goldust was obviously injured, and I think they found a pretty fun way to fill the segment in the absence of an actual match. The entire place was chanting "faggot" at Goldust the whole time, which I'm pretty sure would be outlawed by the thought police today.
-Next we get the match which was both Vader's singles PPV debut and Razor Ramon's final TV appearance before jumping to WCW. Before watching this, I remembered it as Vader beating the crap out of him for ten minutes before beating him, but as I watched it again, I realized that Razor got in way more offense than I remember him getting. He also got in some pretty big moves like a suplex, a powerslam off the second rope, an electric chair, and he even kicked out of the Vader Bomb. Finally Razor tried for the Razor's Edge, but vader sat down on him for the pin. Goodbye Razor, see you in six years.
-Our semi-main was the Bodydonnas defending the WWF Tag Team Title against the Godwinns. For those who weren't around then, the story was that Phineas Godwinn (aka Mideon) was nearly retarded and in love with Sunny, who was your stereotypical stuck up, self-centered hot girl. Sunny was like a female at a Star Trek convention in that everything she was involved in became all about her because nobody cared about the wrestlers since she was so much hotter than any other chick in the WWF. Of course now she looks like your typical fat Jersey trash, but at the time she looked like one of the six or seven hot girls that New Jersey would show off to be like "Look, we have hot chicks and not just murders and landfills!". Anyway, totally nondescript match that the Bodydonnas won when, you guessed it, everyone got distracted by the hot girl at the Star Trek convention and one of them rolled up Henry for the win.
-Now we get the match that made the show, as Shawn Michaels defended the WWF Title against Diesel in a No Holds Barred streetfight. This was all kinds of awesome as Diesel just pounded the crap out of Michaels the whole match and Shawn looked for all the world as if he was getting fucking killed in there. You'd have never known that they were best friends in real life because Diesel really brutalized him, knocking out the ref and stealing his belt so he could whip Michaels with it, then wrapping it around his neck and hanging him over the top rope with it. Diesel tied the belt to the ropes and went outside for a chair, and while Michaels tried to free himself, Diesel just nailed him with the chair. Shortly afterward, they wound up on the floor and Diesel went for a Jackknife powerbomb, but instead of powerbombing him on the floor, he turned and dropped Michaels right through the broadcast table, which was nearly unheard of at the time. Michaels looked totally dead as Vince stood over him yelling "Let it be over, Shawn, let it be over!" But Michaels crawled out of the wreckage of the table, grabbed a fire extinguisher, and shot it right in Diesel's face. Shawn went for a superkick, but Diesel caught his foot and ripped Shawn's head off with a clothesline, then went outside the ring and grabbed former AWA World Champion Mad Dog Vachon from his seat at ringside, tore off his prosthetic leg, and went after Shawn with it. Shawn nailed Diesel and got ahold of the leg and used it to nail Diesel, then hit him with the superkick for the win. Still one of my favorite matches, and this was also Diesel's final TV appearance before heading to WCW.
Beware Of Dog
This is the infamous show where the power went out after the first match and didn't come back on until the main event, so in the meantime we were left staring at a blank screen until the power came back up and they were able to continue the show.
-The show opened with Marc Mero defeating Hunter Hearst Helmsley, who you would know today as Triple H. This was before Triple H started bulking up in the late 90s, and it's really weird to see how skinny he was before he got all freakishly muscular. Sable was at ringside for this match, with the idea that she was Helmsley's valet at Wrestlemania, but Helmsley lost and took it out on her, prompting Mero to come to the rescue. She looked much prettier here than she did when she came back in 2003 or so. Actually, by that point she kind of reminded me of one of those scary old ladies who used to be hot when she was young, but now wears fur coats and smokes those really long cigarettes. But here she was okay. There was also some really fat, ugly people in the front row, I mean we're talking really fucking fat. Anyway, Helmsley spent most of the match working over Mero's shoulder and he sold it pretty well, even remembering to keep it from allowing him to get a backslide. The end came when Helmsley went for the Pedigree, but Mero picked the legs and catapulted him into the ringpost for the win.
-Now we get an interview where Jim Cornette announces that he got Owen Hart a one night manager's license so he could be in Davey Boy Smith's corner, and then...the power dropped. There were really heavy storms in the Carolinas that day, and one of them knocked out the show's satellite feed as well as the power in the building. They did get a generator going and continued the card under a spotlight, but they weren't able to do any entrance music or anything. Just for reference, the results while the lights were off saw Goldust beat the Undertaker in a Casket Match, Yokozuna beat Vader, and Savio Vega defeated Steve Austin in a Carribean Strap Match. Luckily, the power came on just in time for the main event, so on the VHS copy of the show I have, they just made the WWF Title Match the second match on the show, which is the only time I can remember them ever doing anything like that, albeit because they were forced to.
-Speaking of the WWF Title Match, Shawn Michaels defended the title against Davey Boy Smith, who had been alleging that Michaels had been making advances at his wife, Diana Hart Smith, and in fact had Clarence Mason serve him with papers for attempted alienation of affection right before the match. I always thought Davey Boy was underrated as a worker, and that you could especially count on him to have a good match if he was facing Shawn or one of the Harts. However, though the match started strong and they did the spot where Shawn gets him in a short armscissors and Davey Boy lifts him up with one arm, the match really slowed down around the middle and never quite picked back up. The match had the German Suplex spot as the ending, where Shawn slipped out of the Bulldog's powerslam and gave him a German Suplex, but all four shoulders were down. Even though 90% of the people think this makes the match a draw, I've always maintained that a finish like this means that both men were pinned, and since the champion did get his shoulders pinned to the mat for three, that means he lost and should be made to give up the title even if it doesn't go to the other guy. Just to irk me, WWF President Gorilla Monsoon comes to ringside and announces the result that I think is wrong, that the match is a draw, and pending a rematch Michaels remains the WWF Champion.
-Okay, so the WWF realized that they were in the midst of a major crisis with a shitload of people who had bought the PPV, but missed half of it because of the weather. Sure, it wasn't really their fault and they're usually 100% overprepared for PPVs, but shit happens, and when this shit happened, it was on the WWF to make it up to the people who bought the show and the PPV carriers who received thousands of angry phone calls over the situation. So two nights after the original PPV broadcast, they turned what was originally supposed to be just a regular TV taping and, at GREAT expense, set up a second PPV broadcast which would first air the two matches from the first night, and then "re-do" the three matches that were dropped from the original broadcast when the satellite feed went down. And so here we go with Beware Of Dog 2, as they called it.
-The first makeup match saw Stone Cold Steve Austin taking on Savio Vega in a Caribbean Strap Match, and if I misspelled Caribbean, blame it on the Canadian lady sitting behind me at Starbucks who I turned around and asked, because she told me that's how they spell it in Canada, and that was good enough for me. So anyway, they acknowledged that Austin had lost the original match, and on the episode of Raw which was sandwiched by the two PPVs, Ted Dibiase said that if Austin didn't win this match, he would forfeit his career in the WWF. So now we get the rematch, and the key things to know are as follows:
1. I have an intense dislike for Savio Vega because I always thought he was overpushed and undertalented.
2. I hate Strap Matches because they're really boring and all have the exact same ending.
3. Stone Cold Steve Austin was the most boring wrestler on the planet when Ted Dibiase was his manager.
So right away we're not off to a good start, and though they did get in a few good licks with the strap, it was just the same boring, repetitive stuff you see in all these matches, and it had the predictible ending where Austin walks the corners and tags each of them with Savio walking behind him tagging each one as well, then before they get to the fourth turnbuckle they get into a tug of war and Austin, in trying to tug his way to the fourth corner, accidentally yanks Savio into the corner and hands him the match. The cool twist is that on the next episode of Raw, Austin insinuated that he threw the match on purpose to get rid of Dibiase, and then went and beat Savio totally clean in the King Of The Ring tournament.
-Up next is a SWERVE, as Yokozuna took on Vader (who did not have his Big Van with him). Now, if you remember from six paragraphs ago, Yokozuna defeated Vader in the original match, but in this redo Vader went over. This was actually kind of a sad match to watch because Yokozuna and Vader were the monster heel World Champions of the WWF and WCW, respectively, in 1993 and a lot of people had a lot of fun fantasy booking a match between them. By 1996, Yokozuna was in a decline and was also in the doghouse because of his weight, and it was pretty sad to see Vader go over on Yokozuna and make him look bad because you knew Yokozuna was on his way out. And he was, too, he would be suspended in late 1996 when his weight just got too out of control and never returned. Vader put him away with the Vader Bomb en route to main eventing Summerslam against Shawn Michaels.
-And now the final match of the evening, as Goldust defended the Intercontinental Title against the Undertaker in a Casket Match. I don't know how the original match went, but this match saw the Undertaker basically beat the crap out of Goldust, but when he went to put Goldust into the casket, out popped Mankind, who the Undertaker had been feuding with. Mankind caught Undertaker with the Mandible Claw, put him in the casket, and closed the lid to give the win to Goldust. This would lead to a match the following month at King Of The Ring which everyone expected Undertaker to win easily, but in fact Mankind beat him pretty convincingly.
* * *
Neither show meant much in the long run and nothing really important happened, but the Michaels-Diesel match was really good, and Beware Of Dog was an interesting opportunity to see how the WWF dealt with a situation which you can be 1000% certain they've since gone out of their way to ensure will never happen again.
Ross's Roundup
Time for my weekly analysis of Jim Ross's blogs, which are usually done once or twice a week and can be found on his website at www.jrsbarbq.com.
The King's commentary has received a lot of response; are folks just now recognizing that Jerry is not the antagonist he was years ago when he first started doing commentary for the WWE? This is simply an organic sort of thing that over the years Jerry has continued to become a popular superstar in the WWE, just as he has been in Memphis for decades. Jerry and I don't always agree and sometimes those arguments spill onto the air, which is often times entertaining-or so some say. We like the occasional fireworks. However, neither of us wants to get into some sort of staged bad guy/good guy formula for commentary, as that is not where our hearts are and it comes off as contrived. We never discuss what we are going to say beforehand backstage and instead rely on our instincts, for better or for worse, to help us entertain you. For both of us, the less info we know about a given broadcast, the better. I do plenty of prep on the wrestlers, but usually on their backgrounds or recent match histories, etc. If neither of us don't do anything more than simply say "hello" to the superstars competing on Raw or a PPV prior to the event, we are happy as we both like to be surprised by what we see.
While I was personally highly entertained by the old, antagonistic Jerry Lawler (especially when watching those two PPVs this week), I understand that the business has changed since 1996 and that today's fans are more in tune with today's King. As for not knowing what's going to happen ahead of time, I think there's some good and some bad to that. Obviously, it's easier to appear more genuinely surprised by something when you really are surprised, but the flip side is that if you don't know the direction something's going to go, there is the possibility that somebody's going to have an inappropriate reaction and say something that doesn't fall in the direction the storyline is planned to go.
I do think that the volume of pay-per-views available to fans is challenging for anyone to purchase them all. I am sure some do, but I can also easily see that some folks financially can't afford the volume of PPV's that are available on such a regular basis. One a month is a tough hill to climb and time will tell if the current number of pay-per-views will remain. This sort of thing is always about what the market will bear and that matter will be addressed as time goes on.
Translation: WWE is totally milking their fans for everything they've got and I'm not at liberty to come out and say so in as many words if I don't want to get humiliated on TV again.
Some of you have evaluated the sale of Crockett's NWA Wrestling library to the WWE and accurately mentioning the UWF being a part of the Crockett list of assets that the WWE now owns in its massive and ever growing library. However, Mid South Wrestling was NOT a part of that particular sale, even though the UWF was. Bill Watts' former wife, Ene and her children, own the Mid South Library and are planning on releasing a DVD series of some of the best moments from that great territory.
I've been hearing that the former Mrs Watts has been planning to do this for years, but it never seems to have happened. For what it's worth, Kevin Von Erich tried to do the same thing with the World Class library, but for whatever reason (and I'm not sure this is a reflection on sales figures) he decided that he'd be better off selling the library (and his family legacy) to the McMahons.
I endorse the box sets of complete seasons of TV programming, but I am not sure I am in the majority. For instance, I would love to see the complete "season" of Raw, let's say from 1999, etc. Same goes for the Clash of Champions series from the TBS days. I do know the WWE is thoroughly evaluating and strategizing on the countless ways to use their library, which seems to grow on a regular basis.
I would absolutely think that box sets of both the Clash Of The Champions and Saturday Night's Main Event series would be great and totally doable, but doing box sets of Raw or Smackdown or whatever is a little unrealistic. Think about it, you've got 52 or so two hour programs, so if you started trying to release year-by-year box sets on DVD sets, it would start to get a little unwieldy, wouldn't it? As great as I thought the shows were, I think they'd be better off releasing a smaller "Best of 1998" or whatever box set so we can see all the stuff with Austin, DX, the Nation, and whatever else without sitting through a million crappy Los Boricuas matches.
Some have enquired why I don't refer to certain matters from the past, such as DVD interviews, etc. by using the term WWF instead of the using the term WWE. There is no particular reason, but to avoid any potential legal B.S. down the road, I just stick with what the company is today and that is WWE. I have not forgotten the WWF or the WWWF for that matter. Legal issues with the World Wildlife Fund just seem to have reconditioned me on this matter. Personally, I thought the Fund's law suit was laughable.
I think differently, and granted I'm not conditioned to do it as part of my job, but I'll refer to the company by whatever it was called at the time of whatever it is I'm talking about. For example, you're never going to catch me referring to Randy Savage as a former WWE Champion, it just doesn't sound right. Whatever though, everyone will know what you're talking about no matter what you call it.
I have been asked to comment on a variety of situations where wrestlers have been released from the WWE or other companies, especially in recent weeks. From my experience, no one involved in this process enjoys it. It is never a good day when someone loses their job. Trust me, as I have been on both sides of the coin on this matter. For anyone to surmise that people in management enjoy making others' lives miserable is borderline ignorant. Releasing talent is somewhat of a subjective thing at times, and is a judgment call in many instances. Sometimes the releasing of talent is long past due and inevitable and usually is a group decision to a large degree. I have had the task of releasing wrestlers who were probably provided too many "second chances" in hindsight, but even though these aforementioned wrestlers needed to leave, it did not make it any easier. There are usually good reasons for talent being released, including the talent being unhappy and "wanting out." Dismissals are somewhat like injuries, in that when the roster changes, it gives others the opportunity to "run with the ball." Here again lies another misconception - that management TOTALLY controls who "steps up" and who doesn't. "Stepping up" is a personal choice and if more young talents would do things when they are in the ring to distinguish themselves, we would not be receiving the same questions over and over about why "wrestler X" is "being held back." Wrestlers are on the road 51 weeks a year with most of those events not televised. Wrestlers have many chances to step up and "steal the show" at these events, plus conduct themselves as a professional during these tours. Does that mean that wrestling management hasn't missed on some talents? Of course not. That has happened many times in the past and will continue in the future. People in management are human too, and can make mistakes. I know I have, but I can honestly say if a talent does consistently good work, regularly overachieves, noticeably improves in the ring and on the mic and conducts one's self as a professional, that good things happen more often than not. With today's alarming lack of depth in quality main event level talent, there has been no better time in my career for young wrestlers, many of whom would not even have been on the deeper, more talent friendly main rosters of a generation or two ago, their best chance to move up the ladder and into main event-land. Yes, it is a "team" effort, as to the development of superstar main event level wrestlers, but too often management is given all the blame for a wrestler not being featured.
So the question is, who steps up during crunch time? I wish I knew. Several wrestlers-and I perceive this to be a positive-have the ability. These talented young talents need to understand they can't remain at status quo and must do positive things to distinguish themselves in and out of the ring. It really boils down to common sense, confidence, effort, and honestly, self promotion. Wrestlers lying back and waiting for others to come to them and give them a boost make me think these particular wrestlers have found their "comfort zone" and don't want to venture into the deep end of the pool. Please don't travel down the road that these "under utilized" wrestlers probably feel "beaten down" and have a "sense of hopelessness." "Poor them," as Tony Soprano would say. We all encounter challenges in our professional and personal lives and how we deal with them is the measure of a man. I have personally had ample opportunities to throw my hands up and walk away from wrestling after being dealt some not so playable or winnable hands. The only place that would have gotten me is on my couch and out of the business I love. I came to the WWE as their 3rd team announcer, even though I was the #1 guy at WCW for quite some time. Only because the beloved Gorilla Monsoon was ill, did I get the assignment to work Wrestlemania 9. Was I content to stay out of the starting lineup? Hell no! But I made the most of the opportunity that came my way. None of these young talents should get discouraged. Now is the time for talent to show what they can do. Hopefully they will spend more time looking for solutions to their situations rather than exploring excuses as to why they are not in main events.
I think Jim makes some great points here. Wrestling is just like any other job, in that they're going to appreciate it if you're doing a really good job at what you're already doing, but if you want to get ahead you have to take it upon yourself to try and stand out instead of waiting around for somebody to look at you and say "Hey, he's really good at keeping the status quo!" and expect to get moved up based on that. Just to pick a name, it's all well and good that we think Shelton Benjamin is an awesome worker, but he can't be elevated on that alone because there's a ton of workers who are at least as good as him. There's other things that need to be done before somebody will stand out to management, and though I'm not sure what they are because I don't work in the business, obviously Shelton hasn't done them and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that they've tried to help him advance in those areas and it just hasn't happened, and that's why he's been mired at the bottom of the card for the last couple of years.
We have also gotten many comments about adding more titles, i.e. the European and Hardcore Titles. I still remain firm in my belief that the WWE has PLENTY of titles and adding more would not be a good thing. That's my personal opinion and it may differ from yours, but too much of anything in wrestling is not good.
I think they could actually stand to get ride of a couple of titles, but I'm not talking about the Women's Title or the Cruiserweight Title, I'm thinking they should unify the World Titles. Face it, it's one big brand now with three different touring groups. It's like 1987 again except with a formally instituted division of the talent rosters. In fact, if you took all three titles and put them on, say, John Cena, then you could have him as the top champion with Edge, Batista, Lashley, hell, even Khali and Randy Orton all chasing him and suddenly, we've got a whole bunch of credible challengers to the title instead of three totally watered down main event scenes.
Some have asked about commentary styles and what some fans like and don't like. Calgary's announcer Ed Whalen was cited for not calling the moves, but for demonstrating passion and conviction. Some fans get too wrapped up in the cute names for holds, in my opinion. The reasons for using certain holds, how they are executed, why they were used, the effect the hold or maneuver had on the opponent, and how the maneuver may affect the outcome of the match is more important than ID'ing every single hold with a name. Wrestling organizations are much more into their announcers being storytellers, much akin to what is done in boxing, the NFL, etc. I started out as a pure play-by-play man, but as society changed as it relates to the need for more info, etc., our announcing styles also changed. I loved doing the original style of play-by-play, but I also love what we do now, especially when a match is attached with ample emotion with a strong, personal issue involved.
Agreed. Even in the more workrate-oriented promotions like ECW and ROH, the announcers don't just focus on calling all the holds, there is always the need to be able to tell a story even when the focus is on the wrestling. In fact, if you look at some of the best announcers of all time, such as Jim Ross, Gorilla Monsoon, even Tony Schiavone in his pre-greatest-whatever-of-all-time phase, they all threw in a healthy amount of storytelling with their play-by-play instead of doing just straight-up move-naming or, the opposite extreme, straight up storytelling, which is what Michael Cole does, and very badly I might add.
Readers are right that Rey Mysterio lost a "loser leaves" match on Smackdown several months ago. Does that mean Rey will become a Monday Night Raw regular? I'm for it and we will all know in time, as Rey is scheduled to be 100% healthy soon. What if Rey went to ECW??
If Rey went to ECW...well, I'd love to see the matches he'd have with Punk and Elijah, but other than that I think he'd be permanently stuck a level below Lashley and probably Snitsky as well.
Finally, many have inquired about the possible return of Chris Jericho to the WWE. As I have mentioned before I think this is simply a personal decision Chris needs to make, because even this old Okie can figure out that the WWE could use a reinvigorated superstar like Chris Jericho, as could any similar organization. If the playing field is level and Chris is comfortable in all aspects of his potential return, I think Chris will pull the trigger and come back to the WWE. As we have said here before, if all the i's can be dotted and the t's crossed to Chris' satisfaction, I think there is a better than a 50/50 chance of Jericho returning to the WWE this year. He's one talented son of a gun.
There's been a lot of talk about this lately, and it's been acknowledged that there have been talks recently. I think that if they were going to bring Jericho back, now would be a prefect time to do it and bring him in as a main eventer. He's even got a built-in storyline, as John Cena cost him his career in WWE, so if they can find a way around that angle (or if they choose to just disregard it entirely, which is far more likely), then you've got your Summerslam main event right there. If they're just going to bring him back and have him go back to carrying the IC Title around and trading wins and losses with Carlito or whoever, then I don't think there's any point in bringing him back, and I don't think he'd want to come back to that anyway.
I LOVE FEEDBACK!!!
Here's some feedback that's a few weeks old, but stuff I wanted to respond to nevertheless. First, from Eric J Luckwald:
What I've never understood is why, if Undertaker and Kane can summon the
forces of electricity and fire, respectively, they don't use those
powers to actually win the matches. Why wait until after you've been put
in a grave to produce a lightning bolt? Wouldn't it be better to use that
lightning bolt to fight off the guy who's trying to put you in the grave?
Why ignite the ringposts when you're in the ring by yourself? Wouldn't it
be effective to do that when your opponent is on the top rope and is about
to leap onto you? As stupid as the Papa Shango gimmick was, he at least
used his voodoo to hex his opponent and win matches.
And what the hell is with that urn? Sometimes it contained green fog,
other times it was ashes, and one time it was a flashlight.
I'm looking forward to your next column on wrestling logic. I'm not sure
what you'll be addressing, but the thing that I have always hated is the
invisible cameraman. Is he there or isn't he? In some skits, the
wrestlers address the cameraman by dragging him along or talking to the
camera. In others, they have private conversations that no one would ever
have in front of a camera. What makes matters worse is when they cut away
from a private conversation to another wrestler watching the scene on a
television himself. I could understand if there was a hidden camera like
GTV, but the cameraman clearly has to be standing in the middle of the
room.
Anyway, that's enough ranting for now. Keep up the good work.
See, this isn't the stuff we're supposed to think about, but the idea of Kane waiting for some dummy to go up top and then incinerating him with fire from the ring post is an amusing one indeed. Good show.
From Mel:
Just wanted to say that I enjoyed the article That Was Then Vol. 1. I started remembering that Undertaker scenario.I was younger, and admittedly, enraptured by all of the "effects". I was a HUGE Undertaker mark at the time and was actually caught up in the "Undertaker spottings". Hell, "I" was even looking for him.LoL So was his return the angle with Dibiase? My memory gets a little fuzzy here as I remember The Million Dollar Man and the whole "I have my own Taker" angle. It was pretty good in my opinion, as we Taker fans would rather have a very good imitation of the Taker than no Taker at all. And the MDM is the man regardless. So did I remember that return angle correctly or no?
Being as how I like the "odd" characters in the WWFE, I LOVE the Boogeyman character. I haven't seen much straight wrestling from him, though I hear he REALLY sucks. I like the subtleties of the character and the overall production values behind it. The shit is brilliant. The worms are like a cherry on top. Watching him do that shit when you're drunk is REALLY hilarious. I started walking around my job and shaking and spazzing to mess with certain females there. I was just wondering your thoughts on The Boogeyman.
By the way, I scared the "non-wrestling watching folks" shitless when I did that. The alka seltzers and foaming out the mouth was an entirely different story altogether. LOL
Yep, the Million Dollar Man angle was the way he returned at Summerslam 94. Definitely look for that one in a future edition of Wrestling Logic. As for the Boogeyman, you're right, he really, REALLY sucks. It looks like he stiffs the crap out of everybody, but I honestly believe it's because he never really learned how to wrestle. Don't expect to see much in the way of straight wrestling from him because, quite frankly, I don't think he knows how to do straight wrestling. I can only imagine what you must do for a living if you're able to walk around spazzing like the Boogeyman and go after chicks and get away with it, especially if you're throwing in Alka Seltzer. You are a truly twisted man, Mel.
Arron Pegg takes issue with my thoughts on the Hogan match in Memphis. As usual with multi-paragraph letters (this one coming in at about one sentence per paragraph), I'll take it piece by piece:
To Stuart Carapola
Your article is full of shit. If you going to diss anyone or anything get your facts right.
Ooooh, this isn't getting off to a good start.
The match itself was about 15 minutes with 4 mins worth of entrances and around a 4 minute pose after the match coming to around a 23-24 minute main event.
It was a typical Big man match. 3 Lockups, first two Hogan being thrown back than Hogan providing resistance. There was a choke slam by Big show. A hulk up and big boot over the top rope. Chair shots. Body slam and Leg Drop. 123.
That doesn't sound like much of a match to me, actually, especially if it really took them 15 minutes to do all eight of those moves. That actually sounds like a really crappy match the way you describe it.
No 1 Hogan could of pulled out when Lawler did. But he didn't he stuck by Corey Maclin. Now I respect your right to your opinion even though I don't agree but if you going to bash Hogan about a ten minute match and saying he half arsed it etc, than at least Bash Lawler for fucking Memphis over. You may say well it was Vince that pulled Lawler and sure if I was lawler I wouldn't want to be fired either but it shows Lawler was irresponsible for not inquiring whether or not he was able to wrestle than leaving the show in a lurch.
Lawler didn't fuck anyone over. He was all for the match, it was the big company he works for when he's not in Memphis that fucked Memphis over. Lawler wrestles regularly when he's not announcing Raw, and strangely WWE never had a problem with it until Hogan happened to be on one of those shows. Funny, that.
Your a Hogan hater, and for some in journalism to have such a one sided view will get you no where, so start looking at all the facts and than write your article.
You know what's funny, a few months before Wrestlemania 23, I wrote a column where I looked at all the facts and fantasy booked the rumored Hogan vs Austin match for Wrestlemania 23. That match obviously never happened, but I picked Hogan to go over, and you would not believe the flood of emails I got calling me all kinds of names and basically telling me that my opinion doesn't count because I'm a dirty rotten Hogan lover. Seriously, I got the kind of reaction usually reserved for child molestors, but then for all the emails I got about that, I still get emails from people coming from the complete opposite direction when I discuss stuff like this. And you're right, my one-sided views have gotten me nowhere, I'm just one of the most visible writers on the entire fucking site.
And just on one last note. The man has a crippled back, neck, a fake hip and two dodgy knees and he still put on a show and that's all that counts. Give the man credit where credit is due and in this case credit is due.
You know, if he's really in that bad of shape as you describe (which he's not), then he has no business being in the ring. Believe me, he's not doing anyone any favors by hobbling to the ring and working even looser than he did in his day. I'll give him credit for not knowing when to give it up and for not realizing that he's nowhere near the star he used to be and thinks he still is. I'll give him credit for using his alleged star power to try and hold Vince McMahon up for more money that he's not worth. But that's all I'll give him credit for.
(Dont get pissy this is not a personal attack on you as a person its an attack on the article and the mind set your writing it from)
Okay, I'll just put you calling me a Hogan hater aside since that doesn't sound anything like a personal attack. What's wrong with the mindset I wrote that from? What, like Hogan's never been known to halfass something when he wasn't getting his way? I love it when people whose facts are all wrong write me bitching about me having my own facts mixed up. Write me back when you have something worth my time, kid.
Just because I'm feeling especially masochistic today, here's more from Matthew Alan Roberts:
I suppose I should start by thanking you for printing my feed back. Your responses to it were impolite and inaccurate, but you did acknowledge my feed back. Here are my responses to the inaccuracies in your response to my comments. I do not expect these remarks to do any good because I am sure you will not change your mind or admit to being wrong, so you do not need to bother printing this feed back.
Come on, could that be any more obvious a plea for me to print this and argue with you more? Well, you get your wish, let's hear what snippets of wisdom I am going to be lucky enough to glean from your latest contribution.
1. What may or may not go on at legal gambling establishments has no impact on the crimes Disco Inferno committed and it is a logical fallacy to use that red herring to try to deflect attention away from the real issue. If you paid proper attention to the news reports on the situation (such as http://www.wrestlingobserver.com/wo/news/headlines/default.asp?aID=19209) you would know Disco Inferno and others from the raid face drug charges (hardcore drugs, not a joint or 2) in addition to their commercial gambling charges (not just misdemeanor illegal gambling charges for having a small, friendly, game of poker). You would also note that several suspects face weapons charges too (I suppose you think those were just being used for noise makers during the game, not murder or anything). You are of the mistaken belief that since you can not see the immediate negative effects of an illegal activity there must be none, but law enforcement and the government know better, which is why we as a society empower them to make and enforce these laws, so I will side with the experts on this.
Glenn Gilberti: Menace To Society. I couldn't help but chuckle when you called the guns noisemakers. That painted a very funny picture in my head. You make me laugh, Mister Roberts! Actually, now that we're moving past the seedy underbelly of Disco Inferno's personal life, there's a whole lot of other things you wrote that I couldn't help but laugh at.
2. You clearly do not have any understanding of the contracts McMahon's non wrestling talent (trainers, announcers, et cetera) such as Dreamer, Coach, Lawler, Snow, et cetera have so I will explain it to you. Non wrestling talent is allowed to work occasional non McMahon dates with prior permission from the head of talent relations as long as those dates do not conflict with their responsibilities to McMahon and are not deemed to be competition to McMahon and / or his broadcast partners. Talent is often pulled from shows they did not receive prior official permission to appear on, which may be televised or used by competition for their own purposes. This means Lawler just can not appear on any show he wants (hence how part time trainer Robert Gibson was legally also pulled from the Memphis show) and Lawler knew that, which is why he started doing all this behind Vince's back (read some of the news reports on it and you will learn that happened).
You're absolutely right, Lawler totally did this behind Vince's back, because it's ridiculous to think that news of Hogan wrestling Lawler in Memphis might have ever gotten back to Vince. Seriously, how could anything like that ever happen? Perish the thought, that Lawler is such a sneak and he almost pulled one over on old Vince until someone blew the whistle on him at the last minute.
I just laugh at your attempts to paint Cory Macklin as the wrestling Gandhi who is an innocent victim that only promotes wrestling events for spiritual enlightenment, not money. If you knew wrestling, you would know the Macklin types of wrestling are all out to make a buck like anyone else and they all dream of being Vince McMahon (nobody goes into being in any business to be poor). Macklin (like many other greedy, mark, promoters before him) bought into Hogan's line of bull that this failed Memphis show was going to finally make Macklin rich and famous (his wrestling career thus far had been a miserable flop) by leading to world wide exposure on VH1 and an international tour. Hogan and that really offensive jerk the Big Slow (he is still a slave to me) came through, ruined television ratings, acted like asses, did no business, obliterated Macklin's relationship with Lawler / McMahon, made a big check for themselves, and left Macklin to pick up the remnants of the dreams and promotion Macklin's foolishness and greed ruined.
Boy, talk about totally overstating a situation and making yourself sound like a dick in the process. When did I ever paint Cory Macklin as some kind of saint? The guy is a wrestling promoter, and the whole idea behind wrestling as I understand it is to draw people to your product. Actually, that's kind of the idea of just about any business out there, and I think that running Macklin down the way you're doing makes me think that you've just got something against promoters in general or were just looking for something to fill a paragraph with. And Jesus Christ, what's all this shit about dreams and a promotion being ruined by foolishness and greed? Are you like some kind of failed drama author or something?
3. Oh, I see where you're coming from: you are 1 of those anti McMahon marks who will never give the greatest wrestling promoter ever any credit for anything and who lets personal markings cloud his views. The fact that you can ignore both the commercial success the Dudley Boys had in the WWF, much less their legacy of awesome matches in the WWF (I guess you never bothered watching those little TLC matches) invalidates you as a wrestling columnist and self professed wrestling expert. In their last WWF appearance, the Dudley Boys were in terrific shape and worked a magnificent main event match on a wildly successful pay per view, but then they listened to the anti McMahon forces like you and decided to be big fishes in a small pond, which led them to the minor league (TNA) and becoming the fat washed up duds they are today. If you understood the history of wrestlers using title belts from 1 federation on a competitor's television show from Ric Flair in the WWF to Mike Awesome in WCW you would understand the legalities of the situation and that legal action is likely.
And here we go again, I can't even go from one letter to another without the perception of my meaning being misinterpreted in two totally different ways. The last guy had me as an anti-Hogan prick who was just towing the WWE company line, and now I'm an anti-McMahon mark. Wonderful. As for the Dudleys, I've always thought they were way overrated, and nothing's going to change that, especially when I turn on Impact three nights ago and actually listen to the Steiners read off their resume of accomplishments, next to which the Dudleys had nothing. Okay, sure, they were in the TLC matches, but they weren't the ones who made that match. It was the Hardyz and Edge & Christian who did all the work there, and the most the Dudleys did was take a couple of big bumps. The others were doing that and a whole lot more, so don't tell me that the TLC matches were all about the Dudleys. And they didn't go to TNA because they were listening to anti-McMahon marks like me on the internet, they did it because they were sick of the road schedule and were burned out by the politics, and are, by all accounts, much happier now in TNA.
It does make me angry when people such as yourself take every difference of opinion personally, particularly when you have no facts to back up your claims. Do not worry; I will not bother you with any of my feed back again since it upsets you so. There are plenty of more pleasant and knowledgeable people to converse with about wrestling who can better deal with criticism and multiple view points. It is a shame you had to ruin what was other wise a very fine column with such viciousness towards those who do not mark for whatever you claim as truth.
I'm not taking anything personally, especially from somebody who has nothing better to do than sit there and write four paragraphs to some guy on the internet every week pointing out every little thing you think you can peripherally misinterpret just enough to bitch. Believe me, I'm not losing any sleep whatsoever over your emails, and you can feel free to write me as much as you want because, quite frankly, you're such a fucking moron that your letters make wonderful column fodder. I'll be more than happy to ruin as many otherwise (one word by the way) find columns with viciousness towards those like you who do not mark for whatever I claim as truth. Congratulations, Matthew, you've exposed me.
Mike Sexton lightens the mood around here:
Nice article I enjoyed it. I like Hennig in AWA with Scott Hall as a tag team.It is sad he and Rude best friends dying so young they are both missed in industry today.
This was in reference to the article about Curt Hennig gutting it out through Summerslam 91 against Bret Hart. Thanks Mike, and you're right, it is a real drag to look at old tapes of them together and realize that they're both dead now. What a fucking bummer.
Ryan Holiday wants to chime in with his thoughts on the ROH PPV:
I just wanted to drop you a quick note saying that I loved your latest column, particularly regarding the ROH PPV situation. I felt that you were right on the money and nobody else could have said it better. I've been a ROHbot for a long, long time and I was a little nervous to hear the news about the PPVs. Like everyone else, the fate of ECW flashed in front of my eyes. Also, like you, the more I learned about the situation, the better I felt.
The one line in your whole column that really hit me was when you considered it the beginning of the end of your fly-by-night, cult promotion. That's exactly how I felt. In my town, I was the only ROH fan and my friends became fans because of me. I felt like ROH was MY promotion. MY secret gold mine of wrestling goodness. Now, those days are seemingly numbered and I have mixed emotions. I want ROH to be as big as they can be. That's the whole point of the game, right? On the other hand, the wrestling snob in me wishes they would still stay underground. I'm sure old-time ECW fans felt the same way.
Hopefully, in ten years, Shane McMahon isn't the new ROH champion.
Yeah, I know what you mean about ROH being YOUR promotion. In a business where you're often the only wrestling fan period in your entire town, being an ROH fan makes it even more your thing and your thing alone, and when everybody finds out about it it ruins the special feeling it gave you when you were the only one who even knew what ROH stands for. I'm not at all bothered by ROH "going mainstream" or "selling out" or anything ridiculous like that, but ROH is hitting that next plateau and it's never turning back.
And by the way, the thought of Shane McMahon as the ROH World Champion is truly the picture of an oppresive future against which all else pales.
We Got Links Out The Ass
Larry's back with the latest edition of his recently renamed, yet always awesome megahit, Wrestling's 3R's.
Zac Calhoun takes a close look at the United States Title in The Ripple Effect.
Sat & Uncle Trunx discuss the Ric Flair-Carlito feud in High Road/Low Road.
Your new favorite column and mine, Buy Or Sell, returns for WEEK EIGHT, as Bayani Domingo and Sam Berman give their viewpoints on a number of topics concerning Pro Wrestling Guerrilla.
Ari sneaks in at the last minute with this week's dose of ROH MaDdNeSs in Column Of Honor.
And for those who missed them, I'm always more than happy to pimp my other columns. In That Was Then, I take a year-by-year look at the Undertaker's undefeated streak at Wrestlemania and give my thoughts, then in Friendly Competition, I mark out over the Steiners-Team 3D promo from Impact...and talk about other stuff, too.
* * *
And I'm done for this week, it's time to go find myself some more of that fine Canadian beer! Seriously, LaBatt Ice is like the best stuff ever. Oh, and one other thing: the REAL Canadians I'm interacting with here in Toronto are 10000000000000000000000000% cooler than those dicks in Quebec, and they're all more than happy to agree with me on that. I've always said that I've never met an English-speaking Canadian I didn't like, and I have to recommend that if you ever get the chance to go to Toronto, do it, because in addition to just being a great city in general, everyone here is just way cool and so awesome to talk to.
So with that, I'm outta here. I'll see you all on Friday with the next edition of That Was Then. Until then, thanks for reading and have a great week.
