The Wrestling Doctor 04.22.08: Watch Out, Knockouts

Posted by W.S. Thomason on 04.21.2008

TNA needs to get busy tying up the Knockouts…and not in the way that you are hoping.

THE WRESTLING DOCTOR: THE PRESCRIPTION FOR WHAT AILS

Welcome to The Wrestling Doctor, a new weekly feature where the troubles of professional wrestling will be thoroughly examined and then offered a practical prescription. You may not agree with the assessment, but hopefully the column will open up a new dialogue on the state the business that consumes far too much of our time.

THE SECOND OPINION
A blurb-centered review of reader responses to last week's column!

It seems that everyone wants a better tag team scene in the WWE. A lot of interesting pairings were suggested, but a common one was Elijah Burke and Shelton Benjamin. I had this team in my original column but cut it prior to publishing, out of hope for one more serious singles run for Benjamin. With MVP and Mr. Kennedy leading the pack of those most likely to be the top heels of the future, I will not hold my breath…

…Burke may be the most under-used talent in the entire WWE. Despite his fabulous mic skills, solid work rate, and the ability to draw genuine heat, he has become a jobber-to-the-potential-stars-of-the-future (JTTPSOTF) when he himself is one of the brightest of that grouping. Burke has never really been given a fair opportunity to shine outside of the ECW New Breed angle, so a tag team pairing for him would be a golden opportunity. Burke could carry anyone on a team, even Mark Henry, but I will be as bold as to suggest John Morrison. Burke can do the talking, and their combined ring skills would make for some fantastic double team maneuvers and overall matches, even with lackluster opponents. Drop The Miz, tack on Burke, and let the tag teams flourish…

…Adroit reader Wayne made the great suggestion of putting the tag team scene in the capable hands of Arn Anderson. Anderson's knowledge of tag team wrestling in particular and fundamentals overall would raise the game of everyone involved…

…Steveo thinks that London and Kendrick should fully adopt their IWC Hooligans nickname and vandalize opponents, lockers and personal property. I like it a lot…

…A slip up for me on the purely British pedigree of D.H. Smith…

…Matt P wants to see Lance Cade and Chris Harris form The Redneck Wrecking Crew. Great idea, especially since neither of those guys is getting anywhere near the top of the singles ladder (or any ladder with that gut The Wildcat is sporting)…

…The sub-text of a lot of tag team suggestions is that no one wants to see more Chuck Palumbo vs. Jaime Noble. Why ever not?...

…ECWFan suggested putting the tag belts on Beth Phoenix and Nattie Neidhart, which may not be as outlandish as you may first think. I love smooth transitions…

This week I will address a potential difficulty for a promotion instead of analyzing a current problem in the debut of a feature called…

PREVENTATIVE MEDICINE
This column is due each week prior to the conclusion of Raw, so issues raised by that program will be eight days behind. That caveat aside, I tremendously enjoyed the women's title match between Beth Phoenix and Mickie James on Raw from London. The match was a classic contest of contradicting styles pitting the power of Phoenix against the savvy and speed of James. The back story of James' failure to defeat Phoenix on multiple occasions made this bout the most compelling women's storyline since the James-Trish Stratus angle of two years ago. There were no Playboy Bunnies involved, no suggestions of lesbian infatuation, and the segment was given adequate television time. Neither competitor was introduced until after both had entered the ring, creating a big match feel. Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler focused their commentary almost exclusively on the action in lieu of hyping other matches on the show or the upcoming PPV. Lawler refrained from his usual lewd remarks. The ladies worked hard, and Mickie's win was a satisfying conclusion to some excellent in-ring storytelling. Simply put, the match was treated like a serious wrestling contest for a major championship. It was fantastic. It was wonderful. It was what women's wrestling in the WWE should be.

And TNA should be sweating worse than Big Daddy V at a Weight Watchers Convention.

As I was watching the Phoenix-James match, I could not help but think back to a Monday Night Raw shortly after Wrestlemania XII when The British Bulldog put Ahmed Johnson through a table. No one remembers this attack now – as evidenced by the fact that finding an accurate confirmation of the date has been near impossible (I believe it was the March 25 episode) – but at the time it got remarkable attention, particularly from the main stream newspaper columnists who covered wrestling until the blossoming of the IWC. WCW experimented with tables during Sabu's disastrous run with the company in the fall of 1995, and Public Enemy used them sparingly following their early 1996 debut, but for the most part tables were absent from the major companies until 1997. The WWF had a few violent brawls in 1995 and had already introduced Goldust to much controversy, but the company was still promoting a very family-friendly product at the time of the Bulldog-Johnson incident, so the use of a table on free television was both a sudden break from that image and a significant portent of the future. Later in the month, the classic Michaels-Diesel no-holds-barred match at In Your House: Best Friends, Better Enemies would introduce a more physically demanding style to the company which would be cemented by the arrival of Mick Foley and the rise of his Mankind character. The fall of 1996 saw Steve Austin viciously attack Brian Pillman's legitimately injured ankle, ransack a TV studio, and then terrorize Pillman and his wife at their home in the infamous "gun incident."

All of these events significantly pre-date the Austin-Bret Hart "I Quit" match at Wrestlemania XIII which ushered in the Attitude Era. What appeared to be a sudden and rash break with the WWF of the past had not occurred over night. The company had been slowly weaving its new style into the already existing fabric of the promotion for well over a year before most people realized that it was happening.

The World Wrestling Federation's initial experiment with a more extreme style was a desperate reaction to the pressure of the Monday Night Wars. But the response was classic Vince McMahon, in that he did one of the things that he has always superbly done: he adapted the ideas of another promotion to fit his personal vision.

By 1996 McMahon was beginning to co-opt the style of Paul Heyman's ECW, which had gained tremendous national notoriety in 1995. Sabu was the darling of the wrestling magazine and newsletter scene that year, ranked #5 in the Pro Wrestling Illustrated 500 and declared to be the likely difference maker in the emerging Monday Night Wars. ECW was changing the North American wrestling style, but most peripheral viewers of the company in the mid-nineties only saw an emphasis on excessive violence that was embodied through the use of large foreign objects, most notably tables.

The spring of 1996 should be seen as a watershed period because the WWF ceased to borrow from the spirit of ECW and began to openly employ the perceived symbol of extreme wrestling: the table. Monday Nitro edged out Raw in the ratings during this period, and ECW experienced one of its most financially and creatively rewarding periods, but the WWF took the first major steps in conquering both companies by flushing extreme through its sports entertainment filter. The television standards of the Turner / Time-Warner conglomerate meant that WCW could never effectively counter such a move, but that company's death had many more causes better suited for another discussion. ECW, however, bore the brunt of the WWF's stylistic change. The WWF took defining elements of the ECW product and made them more palatable for the average viewer, thus pulling the ring out from under Heyman and company. ECW could not reach a wider audience because its style was no longer unique; McMahon had already brought it to the broader market with brighter lights and a bigger budget.

TNA is currently looking at the spring of 1996. The serious approach suddenly given by the WWE to a women's division that has featured lingerie pillow fights, water balloon battles, bra and panties bouts, and pudding matches is not a booking hiccup. TNA's flash success with its Knockouts division has turned heads in Stanford. The Phoenix-James match last Monday is the first warning that the WWE is looking to co-opt the style of the Knockouts and neutralize an area where TNA has a distinct advantage. Do not forget that Nattie Neidhart made her not-so-coincidental debut on the previous Smackdown.

Many readers will scoff at the idea of a more serious women's division within the WWE. Others will claim that the Phoenix-James bout was just one match. Even more will assert that the WWE will never change the direction of its profitable Divas product. Parallel arguments were made twelve years ago, often by those in powerful positions within other companies who refused to believe that the cartoonish World Wrestling Federation would ever deviate from its successful family-focused formula.

TNA has a chance to preserve the uniqueness of its Knockouts experiment, but the company must act quickly. Like many professions – especially athletic ones – female wrestlers make significantly less than their male counterparts. TNA has a great opportunity to make its Knockouts roster more of a financial priority as a way of keeping the ladies in Orlando. Paul Heyman did not have the monetary resources to stop the WWE from slowly draining away his talent and elements of his product. However, WCW sat atop enormous fiscal reserves, yet they could not stop the WWE from luring away their future stars and co-opting ideas like the NWO into Degeneration X. I do not believe that a stand-alone Knockouts show would be a successful move for TNA, but they need to continue to make the Knockouts division a booking priority by devoting significant television time to creating compelling storylines. The real TNA management has shown significant lapses of judgment in dealing with the contracts of its workers, so they need to be sure that the Knockouts around whom the division is built are locked down in comfortable deals. Most importantly, TNA must do what neither ECW nor WCW did in 1996: they need to realize what is happening to them right now. By the time that most viewers have noticed more Beth Phoenix and less Kelly Kelly, it will already be too late.