The MeeThinks Friday FREAKThinks: 10.31.08

Posted by John Meehan on 10.31.2008

Election insanity and Halloween hijinx lurk within -- enter if you dare!



Welcome back and HAPPY HALLOWEEN, all! Plenty of reason to celebrate this week for all sorts of reasons. Today's Halloween (which means FREE BURRITOS at Chipotle), Sunday is the Pats/Colts game, Tuesday is FREE Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream and the Presidential Election (more on that in a bit), and Wednesday is the biggest celebration of them all...

Guy Fawkes Day

Meehan's Birthday, Bitches!!!

Remember, remember the fifth of November! And do feel free to shower Mee with your gifts and appreciation accordingly. I'll gladly accept paypal donations, eCards, gift certificates, you name it ;-) Or, if you happen to be in the Washington, DC area over this Halloween weekend, you can just feel free to stop Mee and my roommates over amid our all Hallow's Eve hijinx and wish your favorite Friday news columnist a hap, hap, happiest of birthdays in person. Even though the Batman theme is likely to be all the rage this year, our little gallery of rogues should be easy to spot, should you feel so inclined. We're a traveling troupe of Batfreaks, for crissakes!



First, there's Alfred the Butler and the Boy Wonder, Robin.



And here's yours truly (right) with my good friend Jonny as Two Face.

So here's to a killer Halloween wherever you may be, and here's hopin' we run into you some place in the city, eh?

Oh right, wrestling news time!





In this feature, we'll make a quick note of those mini-news story items that have either already been covered in greater detail by other writers, or that haven't quite yet materialized into full-blown mega stories of their own. In either case, these items seem to warrant a brief mention nonetheless so that we can keep better tabs on what all's developing (and -- in theory -- end up with a better perspective in the long run) along the way.

The Doghouse: Performers who've landed in hot water over the past week.
Paul London's Last Name (RAW) - The "London" last name was given to WWE diva Layla this week.

Notes: Paul London hasn't been seen on WWE television since July 21, when he wrestled a losing effort against one half of Shawn Michael's nemesis duo of Chris Jericho and Lance Cade. After the match in which London received a pretty sound (kayfabe) beating, he was admonished for remaining loyal to his former mentor in HBK (rather than defecting to Jericho's camp, as had former Shawn Michaels' protege Lance Cade). This was the last time wrestling fans would see Paul London on WWE programming this year, as he has not been featured in a televised segment in well over three months' time.

This week, Paul's surname ("London") was given to William Regal's valet Layla (formerly known as "Layla El"), likely in order to reinforce the duo's pronouncedly British roots. It is a well documented fact that WWE does not like to confuse their fans/dillute their branding efforts by showcasing two separate talents with similar-sounding names (see: Garrison "Lance" Cade, Matt Sydal Evan Bourne, etc.), and so one can't help but wonder what Layla's newfound moniker now means for the future WWE prospects of the former tag team champion who shares her name. Hate to say it, but three months off of television and a reassigned last name usually translates to being "wished well in future endeavours."

---

The Debuts: New and/or newly returning performers of the past week.
Scott Steiner (TNA) - Returned to action and joined the Main Event Mafia

Notes: Good to see Steiner back in action, and he is a naturally charismatic "bully" who should fit seamlessly into TNA's current crop of legendary main event rulebreakers. This is his second major injury in as many years, however, and so obvious questions now arise as to whether or not Big Poppa Pump will be anything more than a short-term addition to the TNA roster from here on out. Moreover, with Sting already working a limited schedule, Angle reportedly mulling a full-on departure from the TNA ranks, and with Nash and now Steiner each playing similarly reduced in-ring roles on account of their age and history of injuries, one has to wonder just how long the Main Event Mafia can remain intact.

---

The Departures: Obituaries and/or performers whose contracts have ended this week.
Special Delivery Jones (unsigned) - Passed away on Sunday after suffering a stroke. He was 63.
Gabe Sapolsky (ROH) - Released as head booker of Ring Of Honor wrestling.

Notes: This week, the professional wrestling community mourns the loss of Conrad Efraim, better known by his WWF alias of "Special Delivery" or "S.D. Jones." A career babyface, Efraim was a well-recognized WWF enhancement talent throughout much of the company's earliest period of success, often doing battle against resident behemoths like King Kong Bundy or teaming with future Hall of Famers like Tony Atlas and Andre The Giant. In fact, SD Jones was such a mainstay in the early years of Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation that this grappler was immortalized with not one but *two* separate variants in WWF's tremendously popular LJN Superstars action figure line -- being depicted both in red attire as well as in the much-rarer Hawaiian shirt paint scheme.

According to WWE's web release, Efraim passed away in his native Antigua, West Indies on Sunday afternoon. He was 63.

Gabe Sapolsky was relieved of his booking duties by ROH owner Cary Silkin earlier this week. The four-time Wrestling Observer award-winner for Best Booker (2004-2007) had long been a fixture in the ROH landscape, working as the company's booker since its inception in 2002.

Word out of ROH camp is that Silkin made the decision to remove Sapolsky from his position in hopes both to move the company in a more entertainment-driven direction and to expand the ROH fanbase in order secure a television deal. Though it most certainly seems as if Sapolsky has gotten a raw deal in all of this situation, his case is certainly not unique. As is so often the case, critical praise does not always translate to ratings success (just ask my beloved "Arrested Development," or Disney's "Adventurer's Club" -- both cult favorites axed long before their time on account of their relative inability to draw a mainstream crowd), and ROH is hoping to grab a bigger piece of the wrestling fan pie by serving up a brand of entertainment that's more conventionally aligned with the type of promotions that have drawn crowds in the past. This means less complicated storylines, more conventional lines of "good versus evil," and a closer attention to individual performer's ability to portray a character with clear-cut motives for his actions. Sapolsky's booking duties have been handed over to former NWA Champion Adam Pearce.

---

The Drama: Developing scandals and/or budding backstage rumors.
RAW's Monday Night Nielsen Rating (WWE) - Company's flagship show only manages a 2.89.
John Cena (WWE) - Rappers M.O.P. have served WWE and Cena with a lawsuit alleging copyright violation.
Booker T and The Boogeyman (TNA and WWE) - kicked out of a Houston sports bar, allegedly for wearing a cross.

Notes: RAW's rating woes are covered in complete detail below.

TMZ reports that 90's rap duo M.O.P. have served WWE with a lawsuit over the former Champ's theme music. In their claim, M.O.P. allege that Cena's entrance theme "The Time is Now" borrows heavily from their song, "Ante Up." They are seeking $150,000 from Cena and WWE, and are asking that Cena's song be pulled from all future WWE broadcasts. Why this lawsuit is just making headlines now is completely beyond Mee, of course (seeing as how Cena has been using the song for just about three years' time)... but it's semi-newsworthy nonetheless, and so it's only fair to post it here.

Booker T and Marty Wright (aka The Boogeyman) met up to watch an NFL game this past Sunday at Vito's Deck House, a sports bar in Booker's native city of Houston. While seated at the bar, the two wrestlers drew the disdain of the bartender, who noticed that Wright was wearing a cross necklace around his neck and asked him to remove it or leave the premises. According to the bartender, the cross was a violation of the bar's dress code (in spite of the fact that at least two other patrons at the bar were wearing crosses at the time). When Wright and Booker refused to comply, police were called to the scene and the two wrestlers were told to vacate the premises. The other patrons wearing crosses were not instructed to do the same, but two of them walked out of the bar in protest when they saw what happened to Booker and Wright.

Booker T is scheduling a protest in hopes to raise awareness of what he believes to be the bar's discriminatory practices towards persons who express their faith. Knowing no further details at this time, it's pretty hard to find fault with Booker's case. As I see it, while the bar is private property and thus certainly well within its rights to mandate a dress code, it's still pretty sketchy to target *some* cross-wearing patrons and not others... and so the only way the bar owners can really justify their actions on this one is if Wright's cross was more of an oversized, blinged out fashion accessory than a more understated statement of faith. Not having any additional information at this time, however, I'm going to go ahead and give Booker and Marty the benefit of the doubt.

---

The Disabled List: Performers who've gone down to injury or suspension in the past week.
Evan Bourne (ECW) - injured ankle on this week's ECW broadcast

Notes: Terrible timing for an injury to Evan Bourne, as this former ROH standout is fresh off of a HUGE pay-per-view outing against the current ECW Champion, and seems to be enjoying the greatest amount of homegrown (WW)ECW success since CM Punk from some two years ago. Here's hoping that his injury turns out to be a minor one (speaking from a recent experience, torn ligaments in your ankle can wreak some serious havok on your very ability to walk -- let alone perform in a wrestling ring! -- if not treated properly from the outset).




RAW's Nielsen Rating Falls to 2.89
Company's Flagship Broadcast Dips Below 3.0 Yet Again

This week's episode of RAW only managed to draw a 2.89 Nielsen rating, which caught the attention of WWE fans (and critics) all over los intrawebs. Immediately, finger-pointing began in almost every direction, with armchair pundits placing the blame for the low rating on everything from...

the "EPIC FAIL" of the Cyber Sunday PPV (which was actually one of WWE's strongest PPV outings this year)

Chris Jericho's title loss (in spite of the fact that a good deal of these critics actually whined about him WINNING the belt in the first place)

Dave Batista's title win (since Big Dave's size, attitude and moveset have once again run him afoul of the all-important-and-ever-fickle good graces of the internet wrestling community)

But if you take a quick second to look at the bigger picture of this one-off rating debacle, MeeThinks it's pretty easy to see that this week's RAW rating actually has a whole lot less to do with Batista, Chris Jericho, and Cyber Sunday than one might imagine.

In the September 19 Friday FreeThinks, I spoke at length about the full slate of Monday Night Football games that RAW would be facing this fall. In it, I assessed the projected drawing power of each MNF game, and tried to set some reasonable expectations as to how RAW's ratings would fare accordingly. And for the past five weeks, things have pretty much gone exactly as I'd predicted, with RAW's ratings dipping a bit during "tough" weeks of football competition, and then with numbers returning to normal in those weeks where the show aired opposite an "easy" MNF counterpart. Speaking on this week's game just about a month and a half ago, I said:

Oct. 27 Indy at Tennessee - Another tough night of competition, as we're looking at two teams with a legitimate shot at the playoffs in the Colts and the Titans. It won't draw Dallas/Eagles/Pats kind of numbers, mind you... but it will draw nonetheless. WWE has Cyber Sunday the night before, but an off day from Peyton Manning is still a bigger draw than a B-level WWE PPV even on its best night.

Here we are some six weeks later, and it seems as if this week's RAW rating was hardly a surprise.

Looking forward, then --

If my predictions regarding the relative strength of the Monday Night Football schedule from last month hold true over the next few weeks (as they pretty much have done for the past six to date), then MeeThinks wrestling fans need not cue up the fat lady for her solo just yet. If an untrained (and unpaid) superfan like yours truly could have told you well over a month ago that this week's ratings dip was a long time coming, odds are good that the team of WWE honchos likely knew it too.

So relax, will ya'?

RAW's next big hurdle in the form of a Monday Night Football broadcast won't actually come until Dec. 8, when ESPN will host a contest between the Bucs and the Panthers that's likely to have playoff implications written all over it.

'Till then, we've got...

Pittsburgh at Washington (which will draw an audience, no doubt -- but last-minute election coverage and RAW's "800th Episode" special should be enough to stave off any further decline).

San Francisco at Arizona (which isn't likely to draw record fans outside of the west coast).

Cleveland at Buffalo (which will make the Browns fans come out in force, but is still a longshot for widespread national attention).

Green Bay at New Orleans (which could pull a few away from RAW's rating from the previous two weeks, but only because they're likely to be lower-rated contests themselves).

and finally...

Jacksonville at Houston (which will return things to normal)

IF (and that's one big "if") RAW can't manage to keep their ratings above a 3.0 throughout the month of November, THEN we can go ahead criticizing the product, its champion, and the overall direction of the company. Until then? Chill out, folks.




In this election season, many of wrestling's most famous personalities have already made their voices and their political affiliations heard. Ric Flair took to the campaign trail alongside former Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee. JBL has thanked the big-business-friendly congress for signing the economic bailout package. Uberheel ECW commentator Matt Striker has repeatedly reminded voters to cast their ballot for John McCain, while TNA "co-owner" Mick Foley has taken a number of potshots against the GOP candidates and encouraged fans to vote Democrat.

Since news is kinda slow this week (and since these Presidential Election thingies only pop up once every four years or so), I thought it'd make for a fun little feature to engage in some speculative guessing and mix the wacky world of professional wrestling with the equally circus-like realm of American politics. Basically, I'd like to take a few minutes to see if we can't make some educated guesses as to just how the rest of pro wrestling's most well-known personalities may well have cast their votes -- and why!

Here goes nothing:




Owen Hart - Coming from a guy who once coined the phrase "enough is enough, and it's TIME FOR A CHANGE?" Were he still alive today, it seems like a no-brainer that Owen would vote for Obama.




The Hurricane - A McCain vote to ensure "four more years of the same" should be music to Gregory Helms' ears. After all, with a Republican president in office, Hurricanes can pretty much get away with just about ANYTHING.




Evan Bourne - He's flashy! He's young! He's attractive! He's got... zero big time experience whatsoever. But I'll be damned if he isn't hella over with the crowds. And hey, the Cyber Sunday polls have him drawing a sweet 69% of the fans' support, which practically make this ECW newcomer wrestling's mirror image of Barack Obama.




Sting - What's the difference between Republican Presidential Nominee John McCain and TNA World Champion Sting? (and no, the answer isn't "lipstick"... or "facepaint," for that matter). One's a cranky old vet who doesn't know how many houses he owns, and the other's a cranky old vet who refuses to play house shows! HIYO!!!




The Rock - Close your eyes while watching an Obama speech and I *dare* you to tell Mee that the guy's voice doesn't bear an uncanny resemblance to The People's Champion. Couple that with their shared mixed racial heritage and Hollywood crossover superstardom, and Rocky's gotta' be an Obama man.




Chris Jericho - When the ever charismatic Chris Jericho returned to WWE last year, he promised that he had come back to "Save_Us." Now that the cocky Canadian-born superstar has made good on his promise by adding another World Title reign to his resume, it seems only fitting that he'd cast his vote for someone else with a Messiah Complex in hopes that they too might fare half as well. Chalk another one up for Barack Obama.




Hulk Hogan - Even though he's gone on record in support of Barack Obama, MeeThinks the self-proclaimed "Real American" would be hard-pressed to vote against a military vet like Johnny Mac. Throw in the fact that the Hulkster has a long history of making sure that the grizzled old veteran uses his political clout to squash the up-and-comer, and it's pretty clear that Hulkamania is Runnin Wild for John McCain.




Kevin Nash - Big Sexy is a toss-up. On the one hand, he's just as bad as The Hulkster in making sure that the old guy comes away with the win (which would favor McCain). But then again, it's no big secret that Nash "doesn't do jobs" -- which seems to gel nicely with Barack's "spread the wealth around" approach to economic prosperity.




Issaac Yankem, DDS - Could a wrestling dentist *ever* bring himself to vote against a candidate who once so famously lead a crowd in a rousing chorus of "Drill Baby, Drill!"? Yankem's vote is a surefire win for the GOP.




Abyss - While both men's bodies will forever bear the scars of their past battles, TNA's monster has a fondness for torture, while GOP Presidential Nominee John McCain is vehemently opposed to it. By default, then, Abyss has no choice but to vote for Obama.




Rob Van Dam - Though niether candidate has gone so far as to support the legalization of medical marijuana, Barack Obama has been "blunt" about his recreational drug use as a teen, which should make him the "best bud" of Mr. Monday Night himself, "R"ob's "V"oting "D"emocrat.




TL Hopper - In a world where blue collar superstars are so quickly forgotten, pro wrestling toilet bowl handyman TL Hopper suddenly finds his line of work at the forefront of the American political discourse. Thanks in large part to his potty-plunging-pal "Joe The Plumber," a vote from TL Hopper is a lock for the GOP come Tuesday.




Booker T - The TNA Legends Champion may well be proud of his black heritage, but he also has never shied away from an opportunity to teach the young bucks some RESPECT by keeping the old guard at the top of the pecking order. In a close race, I'll say that Booker sticks with the M(cC)ain Event Mafia.




Pat Patterson - Patterson is Canadian, and so it seems as if the first-ever Intercontinental Champion might just have to sit this year's election out. But then again, perhaps John McCain is Patterson's best bet. After all, he's friendly to naturalized citizens, and ladies always love a man in uniform.




Samoa Joe - Barack Obama has this former TNA World Champion's vote in the bag. Why, you ask? Little known fact: Samoa Joe is a secret Muslim too.




Snitsky - "It wasn't my fault" and accidental ringside abortions just ain't gonna' fly if McCain is elected and Roe v. Wade is overturned. On the flipside, I'm pretty sure "inadvertantly induced miscarriage" is fully protected under the Freedom of Choice act that Obama has sworn he will sign into law.




Rhyno - The War Machine probably can't help but find himself compelled to vote for the GOP ticket in this year's election. Because just like Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, he's pretty much been reduced to a one-line soundbyte of a sideshow attraction, and his career is going nowhere.




Vladimir Kozlov - Even though McCain's "tough on terror" approach has earned him the ire of citizens in the former Soviet Union, word has it that The Russian Nightmare will indeed be voting for the GOP ticket all the same -- mainly because Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin is "practically [his] next door neighbor."




Santino Marella - If you take the word of internet fanboys across the globe, you might well find yourself believing that the Milan Miracle may be The Greatest Intercontinental Champion of All The Times and indeed well on his way to becoming Champion of the Planet Earth. But can he walk on water? Make blind men see and deaf men hear? Barack Obama sure can! Just ask *his* diehard fans and they'll tell you!




Christian Cage - Funny how life imitates art, as Christian now finds himself at a crossroads. Side with the veterans or stick with the upstarts? Either way, his vote (much like yours!) could very well change the face of history as we know it.


In all seriousness, WHOEVER you vote for, GET OUT AND VOTE!!!




And With That, I'm Outta' Here

That'll do it for Mee for the next seven days. Until next time, enjoy a crazy week of full on celebrations, trick or treat the hell out of a neighborhood near you, get to those polls early next Tuesday morning, and always stay positive.



Happy Halloween!

- Meehan

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