The Wrestling Bard 11.15.08: Going on Safari...

Posted by Aaron Hubbard on 11.15.2008

It's "Animal" season, and the Bard is going hunting for Batista.



I do not want to take up too much of your time to talk about Eddie, but I would like to use this forum to voice what Eddie meant to me.

Eddie Guerrero is my favorite wrestler of all time, bar none. He is not the best wrestler of all time. Ric Flair, Lou Thesz, Shawn Michaels, Steve Austin, Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi and a few others are better in-ring workers that had more of an impact on the business. Eddie might make it into an unbiased top thirty list, but I doubt he would make it into a top twenty. However, I have never cared more about another wrestler than Eddie.

Eddie was a great in-ring performer. He could use a variety of styles, from mat wrestling to puroresu to lucha libre to brawling and even power wrestling if his opponent was small enough. Guerrero also prided himself on his workrate and he was a master of psychology. However, what separates Eddie from other workers like Bret or Chris was that he made me smile. I loved to watch Eddie, I loved seeing the passion he put into his work, I loved to watch him cheat, and I loved to listen to him on the stick. When it came to connecting with me, few have been as successful as Eddie. Off the top of my head, Flair, Bryan Danielson and Kobashi are the only ones that come to mind.

I didn't always cheer Eddie. In my younger days, I booed him because of villainy in WCW. When I played No Mercy, the computer controlled Eddie was the object of my spite. I hated the smirk and I hated his taunts. He was just such an annoying twerp that I wanted to beat him up. And of course, I would get angry and lose my focus, and Eddie would sneak out a victory. Art imitates life, I guess. But I was excited to see him return in 2002, and I followed his career for the next four years as he rose through the Smackdown! ranks, winning the tag titles with Chavo, becoming the WWE's first United States Champion, and eventually, defeating Brock Lesnar for the WWE Title at No Way Out. To this day, that remains my biggest personal mark-out moment. Unlike certain other events from around the same time, that moment will never be tarnished.

The story of Eddie's recovery from drug addiction inspired me. It was that story that helped me choose several life-changing decisions. Eddie passed away on November 13, 2005, a day after I turned sixteen. Because of that, I'll never forget it. Every year as I look forward to my birthday, I look forward to celebrating the life of my favorite wrestler. I miss him dearly, and I truly believe that wrestling hasn't been the same since his passing. But rather than focus on the negative, I choose to be happy that I was touched by a man who, by all accounts, was one of the greatest men, both personally and professionally, to ever lace a pair of boots.

Onto Your Regularly Scheduled Column...

Some of you might have noticed that my column did not appear last week. This was due to technical difficulties that I blame on Sarah Palin's private temper tantrum after Obama won. In all seriousness, my laptop spontaneously stopped working an hour after Obama won, and the connection on my family desktop left a lot to be diserid, so I never got it posted. Anyway, one brief note of interest...

* For those who skipped the Eddie Guerrero session or were not able to decipher the obvious, my birthday was this last Wednesday, and I am now 19!

And the Winner is....

Barack Obama.

Actually, I am of course talking about the votes from you guys on the "Best Monster" column from two weeks ago. Here are the results, out of 28 votes, which do not include MP's, Capt. Smooth's, or the BOMB's, since they decided that Beast Wars, a strangely offensive comment, and ranting about some stupid comment from an anonymous internet troll were more important that having a vote. In all seriouness, Smooth, glad you and I enjoy Beast Wars, great show. MP, if you missed my response, I meant no offense, to you or any of those that contributed to allowing us to vote. You may thank whoever you want without offending me. And BOMB, don't feed the trolls, it's not worth the headache. Oh...anyway...back to the votes.

Actually, I couldn't bother recounting them, because I already did it when I tried to post my column last week, and I'm too lazy to do it again. Yes I'm cheating, but as Eddie would say, at least I'm honest about it!

Umaga was third, Abyss was second, Undertaker took fourth just from write-in votes. Awesome Kong and the Shark also got write-in votes, and thankfully, The Boogeyman and Khali were squashed worse than John McCain in the electoral college. So, with 10 out of the 28 votes, our winner was...



While I wasn't OVERLY surprised, it was a mild shock that somebody who the IWC seems to collectively hate on would win this thing. My personal pick is Umaga, because he still has all the monster traits (scary, doesn't speak English, is a heel) and is a great worker for his size, but I like Kane too. I was one of the few who was really looking forward to Kane vs. Edge at GAB '07, but Edge had to get injured, and we got the World Title Reign of the Great Khali. Now, I like Khali, in small doses. LIke squashing Eugene. In fact, I would probably give a Vince Russo/Great Khali match ***** on entertainment value. But he didn't need to be anywhere near a World Title.

Ask Aaron

Remember, you can ask my opinion on anything in the comments section, so long as we avoid the trifecta of Religion-Politics-Benoit.

A couple of guys took me on my offer. JLAJRC was apparantly in a negative mood with these trio of questions.

Since you need a question, what is the worst match you've ever seen? How about worst wrestler/character? Worst angle/story?

I'll take these questions in reverse order. The worst angle/story I can think of off the top of my head was the Kane/Lita/Snitsky saga. I tend to hate storylines that are controversial just to be controversial (HLA, Katie Vick, Eddie is Dominic's father, Vince McMahon vs. God, etc.), but I will forgive it if the matches are worth it. However, as somebody who has both a sibling and an uncle who died at a very, VERY young age (the sibling was never born), I really couldn't find the entertainment value in this storyline. Add in the atrocious matches (although I did think the chain match at Taboo Tuesday was solid if completely unspectacular) and you have my least favorite angle of all time.

As for worst character, I will ignore most of the indy goofs that have no discernable characther and instead focus on actual "characters". If you watch the Bret Hart DVD, there is a brief section on his feud with "The Stomper", which has to be the dumbest gimmick I've ever heard of. The worst wrestler I've ever seen is easy: Jorge Gonzalez also known as El Gigante and the Giant Gonzales. The guy could barely move, much less wrestle.

Worst match....well, with all of the plethora of terrible matches, some which I find perversely entertaining, it was hard to nail it down. I'm excluding all diva and midgit matches simply because those are entertaining on some level even if the wrestling is lackluster. So here's the most BORING match I've ever seen...



And to make up for that atrocity...





And now, a certain ecwfan wanted to know what I thought about Batista as World Champion. Fortunately, Chris Jericho would make history by winning the World Title back in a Cage Match, so it wasn't something to really complain about, but it makes me wonder WHY he won it in the first place. However, it did make me think about Batista in general, so I wrote the following essay about "The Animal" as a response to him.

Put the Animal Out of Our Misery

David Batista is one of professional wrestling's most recognizable stars of the last five years. "The Animal" has dominated the World Heavyweight title scene since 2005, either as the champion or as the perpetual number one contender. I cannot deny that he is popular with the kids and moves a lot of merchandise. However, as a man who likes to see actual talent, it is beyond me what exactly it is about Batista that makes him so popular. As far as I can see, Batista has nothing to offer as a character, a wrestler, or an employee.

One of the most important parts of a wrestler is that wrestler's "gimmick", or character that he or she portrays. Batista does not seem to have a gimmick aside from generic big man that is either a good guy or bad guy. He is "intense", and he has an adrenaline pumping entrance, but that didn't make Ultimate Warrior or Psycho Sid popular with the "smart" wrestling fans. We saw them as shallow characters with no depth, and Batista falls in that category. This might be forgivable if he was a gifted speaker, but his microphone skills leave a lot to be desired. Aside from the tattoos and his Polynesian ancestry, there is nothing to distinguish him from Sid in the gimmick department.

The similarities between Sid, Warrior and Batista don't just extend to their gimmicks, but also their ring work. John Cena is often greeted with chants of "You can't wrestle", but why isn't Dave taunted with the same chant? Most of his offense if focused on punches, clotheslines, a spear, a spinebuster, and a Batista Bomb. Granted, he has a nice collection of slams that he uses in longer matches, and he occasionally shows that he knows how to work a body part, but these are the exceptions, not the rule. His offense is boring, generic, predictable, and often sloppy.

Recently, the internet has been abuzz with the story that Batista only received another World Title reign, however brief, because he was whining about his "spot" in the company. Let's forget that Batista has been at or near the top of the card since 2005 and the only thing to justify that push is the pop he receives when he enters the arena, or that he had three other World Title reigns and clean victories over Triple H, Eddie Guerrero, Shawn Michaels, and, oh yeah, THE UNDERTAKER to his credit. How is allowing a spoiled brat to get his way by whining good for business? What kind of message does that send to the boys in the back? If most of us complained about our "spot" at our jobs, especially with the lack of effort that Dave has shown over the last year, we would not be getting a promotion.

That lack of effort is my biggest pet peeve. Talent is great, but it has always taken second place to passion, at least in my book. Say what you will about John Cena's technical skills, but you can't deny that he lives the business. Batista seems like he doesn't care most of the time. Unless he is wrestling someone like Shawn or Taker or Cena, he probably won't bother to have the best match that he can. He just goes through the motions, hits his spots, and picks up his paycheck, and it is for that reason, among the other good ones, that I will never be a fan of "The Animal". Batista, please retire and put the rest of us out of our misery.

Since I've been rather negative this week, I'm going to return to my postive self next week with an article that relates my "Art Appreciation" Class to Professional Wrestling. But right now, here's the return of KUDOS!

Kudos of the Last Two Weeks

5. Kudos to Paul London for gaining his wrestling freedom, and hopefully, he will head back to ROH.
4. Kudos to Nigel McGuiness, who has cemented his place as one of the top champions in ROH history. Who will defeat Nigel? If I were to armchair book, it would be Roderick Strong, who would have an Austin Arie's like run before losing to Tyler Black, who will have spent the majority of Strong's reign feuding with Jimmy Jacobs.
3. Kudos to Finlay, who got to have an excellent match with Matt Hardy in front of his European fans. It wasn't as good as Bourne/Chavo, but it was one of the Top 5 Free ECW Matches this year.
2. Kudos to Sting, who made it past a month while still holding the TNA World Title.
1. Kudos to Chris Jericho for winning the World Title and having a great match with Shawn on RAW.

Have a good week, and if you haven't yet, check out ROH Driven. God, or whoever you worship, or myself if you don't worship anyone, bless.