The Way I C It 10.01.07: Keep RoH-llin RoH-llin RoH-llin

Welcome to October, boys and girls! Wow, where has the year gone? Before you know it, we’ll be wading through Christmas decorations on one side and Halloween stuff on the other just to get to the Electronics section. Which reminds me: There is absolutely nothing in the world that compares with watching TLC I, II and III on a 52″ screen. Which I just bought. YEAH BWOIS!

So what do we have this week? The IWC has gone Jericho-mad, TNA has gone to sleep, Hogan has gone off his head, WWE has gone back to proven commodities, and I’ve gone to bat for Ring of Hono(u)r’s current position in the wrestling world, and what they need to do to improve it. Presuming they want to.

The Way I C RoH
Ring of Honour is widely considered by the IWC to be the number 3 promotion in the country right now. I have a minor quibble with that statement, and it centres on the criteria used for determining the size of a promotion. Let’s start by comparing some achievements in the wrestling world, and see where RoH stands in comparison to the alleged number 2.

Question	TNA	RoH
International shows?	No	Yes
Profitable?	No	Yes
Pay Per Views?	Yes	Yes
National TV deal?	Yes	No
True World Title?	No	Yes

It’s not looking great for TNA, huh? On this evidence, they look like a glorified indy. Consider that of the current champions in WWE, only Candace, Cena, Batista and the Redneck Dervish are not RoH alumni. Of the 3 TNA belts, one is held by an RoH alum (Lethal). With rumours swirling about a possible TV slot for RoH and everything that would mean, TNA’s stay at the number 2 slot might be short-lived. If they’ve even deserved it recently.

Match quality clearly goes to RoH over TNA. I think if you calculated an average star rating for the year’s TNA and RoH shows, weighted to allow for the fact that TNA does more shows, it’s likely to be a significant advantage to RoH. Even having lost Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels, Colt Cabana and Homicide this year, as well as Austin Aries and Bryan Danielson for most of the year, they have put on great matches. TNA has also had some standout matches this year, notably the first Angle-Joe match and the Storm-Harris encounters, but they have been few and far between. The Briscoes have had as many or more by themselves!

They minimise the use of sports entertainment, but when they do choose to use an angle, it’s done well. The recent Project 161 angle was masterfully put together (see Ari’s older columns for more) and is being used in a smaller way for the SAVEUS_222 campaign (see below). The Lacey-Jimmy Jacobs angle was a great example of how a long feud can be kept interesting, and the payoff was insane. TNA, of course, is being booked by Vince Russo. This means lots of childish skits, easily guessed swerves, run-in finishes, and hotshotting of titles. Russo is responsible for some of the best AND worst moments in the last 10 years of wrestling. However, he seems to have run out of good stuff.

It’s pretty easily defended, then, that RoH is at least on a par with TNA in every aspect except national exposure, and they’re getting there. How do RoH take the next step? Well, there’s a couple of things:

1. Get on TV Cary Silkin, one of RoH’s owners, has been quoted as saying he only wants a TV deal if it’s national. In order to prove they are better than TNA, they need that exposure. Pay Per Views are great, but the hype for them is not visible enough. They won’t draw the numbers WWE does, but they will pull enough to profit as long as they don’t change their product to be like the other 2.

2. Make some names They’ve started doing this on the PPVs, with Danielson, Castagnoli, McGuinness, the Briscoes, Aries and Strong. Like I said above, though, they need more visible hype for these PPVs to make the names stick. A WWE talent exchange would pull the trick perfectly, something akin to what happened with ECW back in the day. Of course, that was the result of a loan, so let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. This point, however, could be achieved by point number 3…

3. Steal back what they made Some of the most visible names in TNA, and a couple of up-and-comers in WWE, were made in TNA: Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Homicide, Alex Shelley, CM Punk, Senshi/Low Ki, Colt Cabana, Jay Lethal, Christopher Daniels…with the exception of Cabana and possibly Shelley, the average wrestling fan knows these names and will pay to see them. With the exception of Punk and maybe Lethal, I would be surprised if any of these guys is happy with the position on the card in which they find themselves. Homicide made comments on his mySpace when TNA pulled their talent from RoH about coming back. Styles has been relegated to Christian’s bitch. Daniels is stuck in a 3-man stable and had a push killed with no payoff against Sting. Low Ki is in the same stable and doing nothing. Cabana is in developmental, despite being an established performer with skills and mic ability all ready to display, and a built-in feud with Punk. Homicide and Shelley are wrestling filler matches. Joe is the bridesmaid, but never the bride. Bringing these guys in, some or all of them, would be a huge coup and would undoubtedly swing the balance to RoH.

The Way I C Save Us 222
I hate hot-button issues. I normally try to avoid speculating on stuff like this without as many facts as possible. But I had to weigh in on this video. First, it is remarkably similar to the Project 161 angle that RoH just worked, only on a smaller scale: hidden links on wwe.com, the ad worked into WWE programming in a way that you don’t really know if it’s worked (of course it is, but some people think in kayfabe still), and no official mention of it anywhere. We’ve got speculation for everything from Jericho, The Hart Foundation, Sid Vicious, Shelton Benjamin, Billy Gunn, Gail Kim, Cyber Sunday…even Byers pretending he cares enough to make an argument for Charlie Haas. I presume it was a sarcastic attempt to prove what my own personal opinion is on the matter: you can make hints like the ones we’ve seen fit almost any scenario if you really try. There’s just too many possibilities and open-ended flirts to make an educated guess. Here are a few possibilities, followed of course by my opinions on each.

Chris Jericho This would be a [DDP start] GOOD thing [DDP end]. Jericho can be a top-level talent, either as face or heel, he is a known entity, doesn’t look like a jacked-up steroid monkey, can bring the funny, and can go in the ring. Or at least he could. We know talks have been happening, we know he has a book coming out, and we all hope the stars align to make it happen.

Renewed push for current star This is another distinct possibility, but only if coupled with a gimmick change, which kind of necessitates some off-air time. It wouldn’t be the worst way to work this angle, but frankly anything other than Jericho is going to be seen as a letdown. Unless the Rock is swerving the entire world. And he isn’t.

Cyber Sunday If this was WWE’s original plan, I can guarantee you that somebody got fired over it, and the company is now scrambling to find a way to make this video fit someone or something. Or to try and erase it from our memories. It’s a bit of a stretch to say this was the idea, but it’s the kind of boneheaded blunder they’ve made before…

Other returning starsThe names being bandied about are all bad ideas. Nobody wants to see more old has-beens and never-will-bes coming back to the product. It could be someone of whom we have yet to think, like, oh I don’t know, Chris Kanyon and a stable of religious zealots like Don Callis tried once, which fits nicely with the Save Us part, but I doubt it.

Début of a new star/stable The major strike against this idea is that this type of promo vignette is normally reserved for faces we would recognise. If they hype a début in this fashion, then when the on-air début happens there is 0 pop because nobody recognises the guy, we’re into negative heat territory already. The Hart Foundation COULD work here if introduced by Anvil (who?) or preferably Bret, but a lot of people have no idea who any of them are. Hell, a lot of WWE’s fans today have no idea who Anvil is!

Complete flub Also known as “It’s me Austin! It was me all along!” from the Higher Power angle a few years ago. Wow, scary thought: That’s almost 10 years ago, and the only people left on air from that angle are Vince and Taker. For those of you wondering what the hell I’m on about, there was an angle a while ago where Shane and Taker had formed the Corporate Ministry and kidnapped Stephanie to marry her to Taker. Austin, at the behest of a distraught Vince McMahon, tried to save her. The Taker kept babbling about a Higher Power, and a lot of people wondered about whom he was talking. Then, at the end of Raw one week, the Corporate Ministry cornered Austin in the ring, beat him down, and tied him in the ropes. The Higher Power came down to the ring and showed his face to Austin, then we went off the air. The IWC exploded in speculation, everyone from Ted DiBiase to Owen Hart (who was dead by this time) was suggested with some degree of proof. It the end, Vince was revealed as the Higher Power in the most anticlimactic swerve of all time Why do I get the feeling Magnus is going to kill me for this?). There was a thought at the time that the original payoff for the angle fell through, and they were left scrambling for an answer. This is the worst possible way to pay this Save Us angle off, and I pray to Gotch that they don’t have to.

Once again though, it’s another fine mess they’ve gotten themselves into. Anyone but Jericho is going to be a huge let down for the average fan. If it is Jericho, they won’t get the knee-jerk explosive pop that Shawn Michaels got when teasing Bret’s music in Montreal before SummerSlam 2005. The long-term benefits will outweigh that, but the big reveal won’t draw the ratings spike they’re hoping for, as something is bound to leak out before then. They’re not as good at keeping secrets as TNA is, which brings me to..

The Way I C The T

YAWN.

Bound for Glory is their biggest PPV of the year. They have 0 build to any of the matches on last week’s Impact, which will generate 0 buys. Now I can understand them wanting to build to some matches for next week’s 2-hour show, but you can’t sacrifice the PPV for that, even if Spike is putting you under crazy pressure to earn your second hour.

Despite my apathy and well-documented dislike for TNA, I will be watching the 2 hour première. Why? Well, mainly because I want to see if they really can put on a good show with logical booking when they have 2 hours, meaning less gang-bang clusterfuck run-ins, fewer throw-away matches, more X-Division focus, and some concentration on the huge potential their original stars have.

How much could TNA pop their PPV buys by having Joe-Angle V on the first 2-hour show, giving Joe the belt, and making Christian-Joe the title bout? Angle-Sting should not need to be about the strap.

Russo is booking TNA. There is a growing rumour that Styles, Joe, Daniels, Killings and other “home-grown” talent is growing dissatisfied. Russo loves to reuse ideas, loves to turn shoots into angles, and has been known to book off message boards. Could we see a return of Millionaire’s Club vs New Blood? It’d make me watch, if it was done right.

The Motor/Murder City Machine Guns certainly mailed in their Impact match, which is surprising given that Shelley and Rave have worked together a lot in RoH and should have been able to do more. I like Lance Hoyt, his performance in the God-awful Reverse Battle Royale was the only good thing about it. Sabin and Shelley are not looking like happy bunnies.

The Way I C The E

Feedback!!! From Rob:

Hey dude – good article.
Wanted to comment on the Teddy Long scenario – and as I’m also a County fan, decided I’d send my thoughts to you (in my case that’s Notts, not Derby, but hey, I think we share a common view on a certain team who play in red).
I wasn’t watching that closely, but I think Vicki Guerrero was in the ring during the wedding cerimony, and if she was, isn’t having someone fake a heart attack a few feet away from her just unbelievably crass?

She was, and it is. Not to mention the revelation that it was a prescription drug overdose (Brian Adams’ ghost on line 1), and the whole Ho Train thing. Some of my colleagues want to take the view that the angle is sending the message that drugs are bad, but Viagra is a legal drug and has legitimate applications.

With Cena and Batista at the top, WWE feels like a holding pattern, with their main stars on each brand holding titles and not looking likely to lose them in the next defence. Khali should not get the belt back so quickly, but losing his speciality match is going to make him look pathetic. Orton is unlikely to win with the whole steroid thing.

So ECW is making Burke the #1 contender, probably, and he has already lost to Punk a few times. Then Big Daddy V owns Punk to end the show. Forgive me if I don’t buy the Punk/Burke rematch as being a credible threat to the title.

Although it was a comment relating to the wrestling world in general, I’m going to address it here. Good old Terry, aka Hulk Hogan, has shot off from the mouth again, this time suggesting on Bubba the Love Sponge’s show that Vince is worried about TNA as competition and is desperately scrambling for viewers to stay ahead, and that TNA is putting on great matches and shows.

Where to start? First, the idea that Hogan knows Vince “better than anyone” is ludicrous and not even worth examining further. Marginally less ludicrous but still very very funny is the idea that not only are TNA putting on better matches, but that Hogan would know a good wrestling match from a kick in the head. TNA’s TV matches are almost all under 5 minutes, and the rare one that does beak that limit is often ruined by a clusterfuck finish. Even the dream matches they’ve given away on free TV have been blah at best. On PPV they can and do crack *** fairly often, but nobody watches their PPVs, so I would be surprised if Vince cares. TNA has the potential to put on some amazing matches, but they just…don’t.

Vince is, I believe, “panicked” about ratings. But not due to TNA. People just aren’t watching as much right now. The reasons have been explained to death on this site and others, so no need to rehash that ground. Suffice it to say that it’s not TNA that is causing a slump in WWE’s numbers. They barely have enough to beat ECW.

Wow that went longer than I thought this week. Next week, I’ll talk about music and wrestling. So, until next week, keep your pimp hand strong, support your favourite 411 authors, and send feedback! Lots of it!

Lansdellicious – Out.