The MeeThinks Friday FreeThinks: 04.25.08

Hey all, and welcome back to your regularly scheduled week-end dose of intrawebz’ ‘rasslin optimism. After a CRAZY week of full-on Papal Visit action (you try working for the one and only US university that the Holy Father is visiting in what might well be his entire life, and YOU see how much “free time” and computer access you have!) — I’m glad to be back in the saddle and doing what I do best: making smarmy comments on the internet!

Huzzah!

I keed, I keed.

But seriously — let’s get to the news.

Smackdown! Writer Michael Hayes Suspended
WWE Creative Staffer Benched for 60 Days After Particularly Inflammatory Remark

We won’t delve too far into *what*, exactly, this former Freebird may or may not have said to a certain African American Smackdown Strongest Man (hey, I wasn’t there. Don’t ask Mee to repeat something particularly libelous if I didn’t even hear it in the first place!) — but the bottom line is that Hayes has reportedly been benched by the WWE honchos for 60 days solid after being heard to have uttered some seriously meanspirited smacktalk in the direction of a fellow WWE employee.

MeeThinks? Absolutely the right move on WWE’s part.

Major boneheaded move on Hayes’ part, as it only further serves to reinforce the “good old boys” stereotype that ‘rasslin promoters are really no more than a bunch of angry rednecks with a racist chip on their shoulders. The GOOD news, however, is that in spite of the fact that this sort of stereotype not only exists but pretty much continues to live on as one of the “dirty little secrets” of the professional wrestling industry, the WWE brass (who could have just as easily swept this one under the rug without so much as a word and nobody would have been the wiser) ultimately stepped up and disciplined the guy for his behavior — sending a welcome and powerful message both inside of the company and beyond that racism simply isn’t going to be taken lightly in this day and age.

(This, of course, would probably be the part where a less scrupled writer would then proceed to bust out a string of photos depicting some of WWE’s *least* shining moments in the field of “wrestling gimmicks sprung from ridiculously insensitive ethnic and cultural stereotypes)

Mr. Fuji, sneaky fella from the Orient
The Iron Sheik, flag-waving uberbaddie
Nikolai Volkov, groggy Soviet expat
Saba Simba, spear-throwing jungle man
Revrend Slick, fried chicken eating “Jive Soul Bro”
Koko B. Ware, complete with Frankie the Parrot
Outback Jack, Australlian diplomat
Sergeant Slaughter, Iraqi Sympathizer
Irwin R. Schyster, Taxman with a real shitty surname
Kamala, the Ugandan Giant
Goldust, raging homosexual
The Nation of Domination, “By Any Means Necessary”
Los Boriquas, Puerto Rican Street Gang
The Godfather, Pimp
The Full Blooded Italians, WWE’s own “wise guyz”
Mordecai, religious tolerance personified
Muhammad Hassan, Detroit’s favorite terrorist son
Armando Estrada, Cuban cigar afficianado
Mark Henry, “Smackdown’s Silverback”
Umaga, 21st century Samoan savage
Carlito Carribean Cool, smart-assed beach bum
Kofi Kingston, reggae sensation

And the list goes on…

But the point?

There’s a fine line between an onscreen “gimmick” that plays on cultural misgivings (even if they’re the lowest common denominator) for the sake of a wrestling angle and an offscreen grudge that specifically targets people of other races. More importantly, there’s a big problem with a head honcho going about and spewing out overtly racist crap, which is just as mindless as it is malicious. As a public company, it is not only good to see WWE addressing this issue head-on (reports indicate Hayes will be forced to undergo sensitivity training upon his return) — it is also long overdue.

Rhaka Khan in the TNA Doghouse
New Knockout Too Lazy to Sign Trading Cards

In your no-brainer pick for bonehead of the week, TNA Knockout Rhaka Khan recently ran afoul of her employers’ good graces when she failed to sign a stack of TNA trading cards bearing her image. The deal was basically that each performer had to personally sit down and put their John-or-Jane Hancocks to a roughly 1,000 trading cards that sported their picture. Total work involved? Hour, maybe two, TOPS.

Instead?

Rhaka Khan decided she’d be better served taking the cards back home to autograph at her convenience — and promising to ship ’em back to the company later in the week (Cost of shipping + transport = still seems like a lotta’ work to Mee). Anyhow, Rhaka couldn’t even manage to do *THAT* part right, as the cards arrived back to TNA headquarters with a random mess of mismatched signatures, AND she (or somebody else who she had fill out the cards for her instead) actually wound up misspelling her very own name in all sorts of various and unique ways throughout the set. Jeff Jarrett then made the executive decision to nix her from the set.

MeeThinks?

Dumb, dumb, DUMB move by Khan here — as she is pretty disposable on a TNA roster that is absolutely brimming with talented female performers. On the flipside, it’s an equally smart, smart, SMART move by Jeff Jarrett, who pretty much called out an employee on their half-assedness and made his company look all the more professional along the way. That is, of course, provided that he (or someone else in the TNA management team) ACTUALLY FOLLOWS UP on this line of discipline and doesn’t simply reward Khan with a high-profile role on television literally just days after she pretty much told him and his company that they’re not worth her time. Of course, with Scott Steiner in the TNA title hunt — this all remains to be seen.

Jarrett and TNA have to think about what’s best for TNA, period. And if Rhaka isn’t willing to put the company first? Then it’s pointless for them to put her anywhere NEAR the top of their priorities heap. The company only looks bush-league and second-rate if they let employees jerk them around only to continue receiving high profile exposure along the way. Say what you will about the notorious “iron fist” of the McMahon dynasty, but there is absolutely no question whatsoever who is running that ship on any given day — and employees learn quickly to straighten up and fly right, lest they find themselves in the unemployment line.

…or shortly thereafter in TNA.

Taking a stand against employee bullying might seem cold and divisive, but it’s an instrumental step if TNA is ever going to be seen as a legitimate “number two promotion” rather than an also-ran haven for the has-beens and the never-weres.

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Tomko Draws Major Heat from TNA Creative Team
International Star Skips TNA Fanfest for Show in Japan

This is the one-two punch to the Rhaka Khan story above, as former TNA tag champion Tomko likewise landed himself in hot water with his employer this week for (once again) putting his own interests before those of the company. Though Tomko’s rationale for flaking out on TNA was far more legit than his Knockout counterpart (“I have another job to do” versus “my ass is too lazy to do my job in the first place”), the fact remains that the guy put his international commitments before his TNA ones, and so the company really was left with no choice but to act accordingly.

Again, this really underscores just how seriously TNA is trying to set a precedent in their locker room these days. Though many of these stories seem easily forgotten and petty when taken one at a time (Austin Starr gets snowed out, Samoa Joe “trips over a bad push” late last year, Salinas ditches a TNA show for a porn convention, etc.) — there seems to be a pronounced trend in TNA management’s attitude that this kinda crap just ain’t gonna’ be allowed to fly.

Which is an unequivocally GOOD thing for the company (and ultimately, for all of its employees) in the long run. WCW died (among many other reasons) because the frightening majority of its performers knew that the inmates were running the asylum; backstage politics, sitting out contracts, paid suspensions, you name it. The company collapsed from the inside because they couldn’t manage to maintain a professional environment and a minimum set of work standards before it was too late.

For all of the talk of how TNA is “just like late-day WCW,” it is *very* promising to see that they’re doing the best they can not to repeat some of the biggest (and most fatal) mistakes of the past. It’s a simple question of priorities, and it is a great thing to see TNA doing whatever they can to ensure that their employees keep them in the proper order.

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Matt Morgan Pulls Out of American Gladiators
TNA Talent Wants to Stick with Wrestling

They say that news always tends to come in threes — and this one is no exception.

Earlier this month, it was announced that TNA star Matt Morgan would NOT, in fact, be taking part in the next season of American Gladiators as had initially been rumored. What we learned this week, however, is the reason *why* Morgan pulled out of the Gladiators show:

He was forced to choose which company would be his priority, and he chose TNA.

Again and again, we’re seeing that word in there (“PRIORITIES”) — and the fact that big Matt decided to put TNA first in a week where two other semi-high-profile stars chose to do just the opposite? Well, there you have it… and the guy has got to be looking like a million bucks to TNA management as a result of his decision to put them first.

This sends a great message to other TNA talents — ironically, the very name of their next major PPV event: Sacrifice. In all lines of work and in all sorts of companies around the globe, employees are simply asked to sacrifice their personal agendas, distractions, and priorities in order to perform the job their employer has asked of them. American Gladiators offered the guy a two-year deal with a six-year option (which is great work and great exposure if you can get it), but they made it clear that the only way he’d be walking out with their contract in hand was if he signed on to make *them* his priority commitment, even if it came at the cost of his wrestling career.

Morgan said no, and so he was forced to sacrifice the cushy NBC deal along the way. But in doing so, the guy made it clear that professional wrestling was where his heart truly lied — and he may well have scored himself an immeasurable mark of goodwill in the industry for the long haul as a result. Nicely done on his part, and nicely done for TNA that somebody actively chose *THEM* as a priority rather than a backup plan, for once. Everyone walks away looking all the more professional in the end.

RVD’s Wife Diagnosed with Colon Cancer
Former WWE Star Encourages Everyone to Get Screened and Stay Safe

Scary and most unfortunate news from Rob Van Dam’s corner of the world wide web this week, as the former WWE and ECW Champion recently learned that his wife Sonya had been diagnosed with colon cancer. Anyone who’s ever encountered a health or cancer scare knows that this type of thing is always guaranteed to throw you for a loop, and so it’s encouraging to see that Van Dam appears to be doing everything he can in order to support his bride throughout this process. I’ve made my share of RVD jokes in the past and ragged pretty hard on the guy for failing to put his priorities in order, but this is some serious stuff — and so it is an unequivocally “good” thing to see him putting his family first. Here’s hoping that the two of them have some sort of medical insurance put away for this sort of thing, as that is often a real problem with “independently contracted” performers who’ve made their careers in professional wrestling.

In a related note, RVD closed his latest blog entry with a quick comment on his current contractual and career status, saying:

“This will soon be a thing of the past. Sonya is amazingly strong and ready to fight.

This will be a squash match!

Anyone wondering what we’re up to…it’s this. Nothing else matters.”

On behalf of myself and the rest of the 411 team, here’s pulling for both of these folks in what has to be a tremendously difficult time.

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Ultimate Warrior to Make In-Ring Return
Legendary WWF Persona will Return to Action for NWE in June

Even though he’s a few years older and currently sporting a look that is probably more reminiscent of “Ultimate high school principal” than “Ultimate Warrior” (seriously, Jim — suspenders under a sport coat? Come on now, buddy…) the one and only Ultimate one has officially announced his intent to return to active competition in the industry that once made him so famous. And love him or hate him, it’s pretty hard to deny that the Ultimate Warrior is probably one of THE (long sounding “eee”) most controversial and talked about professional wrestlers of the modern era. His politics may be whacky, and his beef with the WWE brass is stuff of legend — but the guy is an absolute pro at keeping his name in the mix (even if it’s often for the wrong reasons).

So mark your calendars, Spaniards.

The Founding Father of Destrucity is scheduled to challenge NWE Champion Orlando Jordan in the proud capital city of Spain in just a little under two months from today — which probably means we’ll soon be seeing the facepaint and tassels once more.

That said, of course —

The man’s greatest asset has always been the sheer over-the-top intensity of the Ultimate Warrior persona, and so it will be interesting to see what all he will be able to recapture the crowd’s imagination now that he’s:

a) no longer as musclebound as he once was
b) no longer sporting his “wildman” hairdo
c) no longer allowed to enter the ring to his trademark WWE theme music
d) just shy of turning 49 years of age

For curiosity value alone, however, all eyes seem to be shifting to Espana to see what all The Ultimate One can do at this stage in his career. Naturally, a strong showing (and a professional one at that, which is always a toss-up when dealing with the Warrior) could really go a long way in silencing at least the most vocal of the man’s detractors — and inevitably, this might just give rise to a fresh new batch of “Warrior to Sign with Major US Wrestling Promotion” rumors in the weeks to come. Not saying that it’s *going* to happen (or even that it *should*), mind you — just saying that it could.

Needless to say, it’s probably a good call to file this one under “more to come” for now, and to stay tuned (“Same Warrior Time, Same Warrior Channel”) as this story develops.

And With That, I’m Outta’ Here

That’ll do it for Mee this week. Thanks again for reading, and a huge thanks to everyone (Dustin, Larry, etc.) who stepped up big in my absence last Friday. Big WWE pay-per-view this weekend, so enjoy the show, and always stay positive.

– Meehan

The National Domestic Violence Hotline : [phone]-SAFE.