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Hey folks, since I'm actually making an effort to watch WWE TV these days so I'm not totally lost in the ROH bubble, I decided to try and do a WWE TV thoughts column. Here's the first edition, hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy watching Vince take out his frustrations on actors impersonating his nemeses!
Monday Night Raw
First of all, I think the thing with Vince McMahon and the guy from the Nuggets was the greatest thing on WWE TV this week. Why, you ask? Because it meant I got to fast forward through like a half hour of Raw, and since I fast forwarded through all the entrances, commercials, and recap packages as well, I got through Raw in about twenty minutes this week! Hey Vince, anytime you want to hook me up like this, it's all good!
By the way, I liked how the heels in the main event tag match were all wearing Nuggets jerseys. That was so funny I forgot to laugh. I have to say though, I don't understand what it is about Vince that he needs everybody to wear a shirt to be identifiable. Like how every year at the draft, everyone's wearing a t-shirt to let people know what brand they're on (even though they show no such brand spirit the other 51 weeks of the year), and if you go even further back to the InVasion, you had guys wearing WWF and WCW t-shirts so Vince, and presumably the fans, could tell them apart. I fully expect that if I ever got the chance to go to Titan Towers and walk around, everyone would be wearing t-shirts that say things like “Accounting†and “Facilitiesâ€. I blame this all on the NWO doing the two factions with the white and black and the red and black, if it weren't for them I don't know if the idea would have ever popped into Vince's head to begin with.
One other thing about that ten man tag, I think it's great to see Jerry Lawler out there, because he's a guy who's either the same age or maybe a couple of years older than Flair, yet he looks at least ten years younger than him, and when he wrestles he doesn't look anywhere near as broken down and decrepit as Flair was looking the last few years. Flair got pretty embarrassing to watch the last four or five years of his career, but Lawler still moves around pretty good in there. Good for him.
Speaking of guys in surprisingly good shape, I noticed what great shape Goldust has gotten himself into, especially compared to a year, year and a half ago in TNA when he was as big as a house. Dustin is a guy who, if you go back about fifteen years in WCW, was pegged as THE next big superstar. He was given a good, strong run with the US Title and was often in the main event mix as well, and even after he got bounced from there, he was able to recover and put something even better together as Goldust in 1995-97. From there though, it seems like he's just never been able to hit that stride again, and he's been one of those guys who's been in and out of the national eye for the last ten years, and has never stuck around anywhere long enough to regain that momentum. He's either 40 at this point or close to it, and unfortunately it seems to me that the door to superstardom closed for Dustin a long time ago and he realized it and gave up caring. The fact that he's gotten in such great shape hopefully means he's not ready to throw in the towel yet because even if he's never going to be the main event star that he was expected to be back in the day (and don't think that kind of pressure can't crack a guy), he still has a lot of valuable years left in the business if he keeps his head in the game.
So Ken Kennedy has been released...released. Can't say I'm surprised, in fact I think the most surprising thing about it is that it took this long. He's a guy that got chance after chance, and I don't know how bad he hurt himself, or how bad he hurt Orton on Raw, or whether he just pissed the wrong person off, but it looks like he just lost life number nine. At least now that he's gone he won't be putting his foot in his mouth in any more interviews, though I think if he ends up in TNA or on the indies, putting his foot in his mouth would make the greatest finishing move. And speaking of Orton, does he realize when he's cutting promos that Raw is only a two hour program? Seriously, save Orton's promos for the three hour specials because they seem to go on FOREVER.
ECW On Sci-Fi
First of all, I think they should change the name of this show to Tuesday Night ECW. I figure since Monday Night Raw wasn't enough and they also had to have Friday Night Smackdown, ECW ought to follow suit if it truly wants to be on the same level. My suspicion on this whole thing is that they put the day of the week in the name of the show so Vince knows what night it's on. I think he's so busy trying to do anything but promote wrestling that he needs subtle reminders to actually watch his core business for a change.
You know, Vladimir Kozlov really isn't as bad as people make him out to be. No, he's not Eddy Guerrero by any stretch of the imagination, but he's got a really imposing look, some nice throws, and a couple cool high impact moves. He's fine if you keep him in short squashes, and I don't think that's a knock on him when you consider that Goldberg became the biggest homegrown star in WCW's history on little more than short squashes, a few high impact moves, and very little else. There's a correct way to book Kozlov, they just haven't hit on it yet. Maybe spending 6-8 months squashing people in ECW will be a good start.
Case in point: Mark Henry, who looked like a million bucks this week against Evan Bourne. From the moment he was signed, everybody thought the WWF was out of their minds for giving him as much money as they did, and nobody ever saw anything in him. Everyone thought he was a plodding, boring worker, but he survived through the first few years of standing in the back of the crowd in the Nation Of Domination, he survived Sammy the transvestite, he survived Mae Young and the Hand, and everbody figured that once his contract was up in 2006, he'd hit the bricks because he'd gotten the money nobody thought he deserved. Instead, he stuck around and has become one of the biggest, most respected heels in the company. I'm not saying Kozlov will still be around in twelve years and at Henry's level, but we shouldn't write him off just yet.
Speaking of Bourne, the guy just impresses me more and more every time I see him, and I don't just say that because he's an ex-ROH guy. Sure, he impressed the hell out of me there too, but he's one of those guys that you don't know exactly what it is about him, but he's just got this talent for doing exactly the right things in all his matches. Like in this match, he worked really well as the small underdog zipping around to stay out of Henry's grasp and avoid all his big moves. He's also good at the subtle things, like the finish for the match where he springboarded off of Henry's back to make the count. He could have just run into the ring, but that spot added just that extra little touch to make him just that much more the Roadrunner to Henry's Wile E Coyote. And that double knee spot to the floor was sweet.
Do you think Teddy Hart's sitting at home every Tuesday night kicking himself for not being able to be serious enough to stay employed at WWE so he could have been part of the Hart Dynasty? These three are going to be big, mark my words. I'm also glad to see Natalya doing the talking for the group, because a)I get the feeling like Harry and TJ aren't the best promo guys in the world, and b)it gives her a reason to be there other than to stand around at ringside smiling and clapping since there are no other women's wrestlers on ECW besides herself and Katie Lea Burchill. And for the record, I loved seeing Harry pull out his father's delayed vertical suplex.
At this point I'm beyond either supporting Tommy Dreamer or wishing he'd just go away, I just kind of feel bad for him. He reminds me of that guy in every town who graduated high school years ago, but can't move on with his life and just sticks around for years and years wearing out his welcome. At first he has his crew of friends from school hanging out with him so everything's good, but as time goes by they disappear one by one and eventually, he's the only one left, nobody who's around now has any idea who he is or why anyone ever thought he was cool in the first place, and they're just wondering why this old guy's hanging around looking pathetic and needy. The school has changed too, because even though people got away with whatever they wanted back in his day, up to and including smoking, cutting class, and showing up to class wasted, nowadays the place is full of cameras, security guards, and the teachers are on constant lookout for anything even remotely amiss with the students, and also don't appreciate former students with no reason to be there hanging around. Sound much like Tommy Dreamer and ECW to you?
Friday Night Smackdown
Geez, is Mickey Rourke really STILL hanging around the wrestling business? I thought his career was revived, shouldn't he be out working on some other movie by now to distance himself from the fake stuff? Seriously Mickey, your fifteen minutes of fame were over well before you showed up at Wrestlemania for no real reason, and at this point all WWE is going to get out of acknowledging his presence in the crowd is the same groans you get when that guy who doesn't know how annoying he is comes running up to you going “HEY GUYS!†Thanks Mickey, you made a great movie that made all of us proud to be wrestling fans, now get lost before you embarrass yourself any more.
Can you tell I'm tired of Mickey Rourke's involvement in wrestling?
I took a bathroom break during the women's matches between Eve and Layla and Melina and Whoever, and I sometimes feel bad saying this but really don't, but I don't care about women's wrestling in WWE. I don't just say that because WWE has taught me not to care, but the wrestling really stinks and is totally paint by the numbers. Now, there are a few good ones like Beth, Mickie, and Natalya, but in general these girls only seem to be taught how to remember their routine, they have no psychology whatsoever, and they have no idea what to do if they blow a spot, which happens at least 2 or 3 times per match. If the guys had matches as bad as these girls, they'd get raked over the coals, but because it's the women they get a free pass. I don't get it. Good thing for me SHIMMER and the TNA Knockouts division exist so I don't have to depend on WWE. Actually, I think that about a lot of things where WWE is concerned.
Luckily for me, I did get to see a pretty good Umaga-John Morrison match. Now these are two guys I do care about and truly enjoy watching. They're both very fun wrestlers to watch, but in completely different ways. Morrison never ceases to amaze me with his athleticism, ability to always be in the right place at the right time, and apparently sizeable ROH DVD collection judging from some of the moves I see in his repertoire. Umaga, on the other hand, is a killing machine and some of the stuff he does out there looks like it could kill a guy. I was especially impressed with that pop-up fallaway slam, really smooth and looked great. Please, keep these guys on Smackdown where their athleticism can get them over!
Whether or not you think putting Haas and Benjamin back together as a team is a good idea or not, let's look at some of the positives. For one, as much as I think we'd all like to see them make it as singles stars, we need to face up to the fac that that's probably never going to happen for them, at least not in WWE. In Haas' case, he's rarely even been on TV unless he's somehow involved with Shelton, so anything that gives them something to do and gives WWE a reason to keep Haas employed is a good deal in my book. Besides, they've spent a lot of time teaming together in the past and they have a proven track record as a team that works well together, so even though it may not be ideal, it could be worse.
I love the budding tension between Edge and Chris Jericho, they're easily the two most entertaining performers in WWE right now from both a wrestling and character standpoint, and having these two vile, conniving heels go after one another at some point down the line sounds like it could be real interesting. I think it would be even better if they kept them both heels, as they both try to out-cheapshot each other and continually come up with creative ways try to put one over on one another. I know there's a philosophy in the business that heel vs heel matches don't sell, but this is 2009, you can get away with it today and I don't think it'd be worth trying to turn one of them face because you don't need to do it to make the match work.
You know, I actually thought I was going to get out of a WWE TV show without seeing a handicap match, but they got me at the last minute. It's kind of like WWE's version of Kenny dying every episode, or even Gene Gene The Dancing Machine, you know it's coming at some point every week, it's just a matter of when.
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And that'll do it for this week. You may (or may not) have noticed that I skipped Superstars, but I'm not so desperate for stuff to write about yet that I'll sink to watching shows that are two or three months away from becoming Heat. But until I do, thanks for reading and all feedback can, as usual, be sent along to stupwinsider@yahoo.com.
