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WALKING THE AISLE: WHILE I’VE BEEN GONE

After a long sabbatical to get several personal things in order, I’m finally back to take a look at several things that I’ve observed in wrestling for the past three or so weeks.  As usual, you can send me feedback if you’d like at ncattles@gmail.com.  A lot of thoughts flying through my head, so let’s get on with it…

1) ROH was beginning to gain some steam with their more recent shows, since I had somewhat panned their start.  Unfortunately just as I was getting into it more, I moved and my new area doesn’t offer Verizon Fios or Directv.  Needless to say, no HDNet equals no ROH.  But, I do hope one day my local cable provider will offer the channel, because ROH had given me reason to watch their program.

2) One problem in my eyes that has persisted in WWE for at least a couple years now is the vanilla like transformation that heels receive when they turn face.  In return, the new face comes across as uncomfortable, somewhat blah, and is left pandering to the crowd in hopes of garnering those all-important pops.  One of the shining examples is John Cena, who I believe became public enemy #1 to most male fans older than fifteen, when his edgy rap character was scrapped for a superhero in jean shorts that constantly clamored for approval.  Now personally, I’m a fan of Cena, but it’s obvious his overall popularity with anyone other than women and kids took a major blow once he became full-fledged face. 

The latest two examples of this phenomenon were MVP and John Morrison.  Now don’t get me wrong, I like both guys.  However, MVP’s edge is gone.  When he lost his US Title to Kofi Kingston a few weeks back all MVP did was stand at the top of the ramp with the, “Aw shucks, I guess Kofi got me this time” grin.  I’m not saying that MVP needed to beat the young Kingston to a bloody pulp after the loss, but he could’ve at least showed a bit of disappointment and desire for a one-on-one rematch for what he thought was his title. 

As far as Morrison is concerned, he has mostly abandoned his sharp wit and cocky antics for a guy who is left to get over with his athletics.  Luckily for Morrison he’s a great athlete and most likely could and will get over because of his in-ring work, however, it’s somewhat boring to watch the face version of the former ECW Champion.  His commentary a few weeks back was downright painful.  You could tell he wanted to send a crack Shelton Benjamin’s way, but had been stripped of his strongest out of ring attributes and didn’t really know what to say when talking about Benjamin.

Now I understand the basics of wrestling character psychology and am aware that faces for the most part need to do things justly.  This doesn’t mean, however, that they need to be bland and smiley for 90% of their television appearances.  It’s my opinion that Vince McMahon and the writers need to realize why these two heels were gaining some face momentum in the first place.  Their original gimmicks had begun to resonate and even though you do need to tweak their personalities a bit for babyface purposes, you don’t need to create flat characters.  If these two are given some leeway with their personalities, there’s no doubt in my mind they’ll both be headliners sooner rather than later.

3) The final segment of Raw with Ric Flair and Randy Orton prior to Extreme Rules was some of the worst scripted stuff I’ve seen in a while.  It begins with the badass heel WWE Champion getting mostly manhandled by a 60+ retired Ric Flair.  Yes, I loved Flair for a long time, but his time should no longer be devoted to handling the WWE Champion on the number one rated program.  I know you could say that Orton was “jumped” from behind, but c’mon.  Orton is a former Marine who’s about thirty years Flair’s junior and you’re telling me that a shove from behind into a garage door that had plenty of give is going to knock the champ dizzy?

If that wasn’t bad enough, the WWE decided that their young bull of a champion Randy Orton would need help from his two minions – Dibiase and Rhodes.  So, first your champ gets beat up by a 60+ retired wrestler and only escapes further embarrassment because two other guys helped him.  If you thought this segment couldn’t get worse, well, you were wrong!

Once Orton gets Flair in the cage, we are treated to Cody Rhodes having no earthly idea how to lock the cage.  You could literally hear Dibiase or someone off camera telling Rhodes how to lock the cage up.  So, if you’re keeping track, so far Orton looks like a chump and Rhodes looks like a guy who couldn’t do basic arithmetic growing up.  But wait, just like a good infomercial, there’s more!

Down comes Batista to save the day, right?  Well, not exactly.  Dibiase and Rhodes can’t do anything to bother the “Animal”, so they’re once again loser non-factors.  That’s about par for the course for The Legacy, but this is where the segment really pooped itself.  Dave Batista is the huge and powerful face that is about to witness his best friend Ric Flair get his butt handed to him, so what’s he do?  Does he rip the door off the hinges?  No.  Does he attack the lock with a chair or sledgehammer (HHH gimmick infringement aside) and loosen it so he can get in?  Um, no.  Well, then the face must be able to figure this out and climb over the cage to stop Orton from putting Flair out of his misery?  Nope.  Batista stands outside the cage as if there’s an unknown force field surrounding the steel that he couldn’t possibly penetrate or climb over and watches Orton punt Flair in the head.

So, let’s recap what this segment managed to do.  This segment made your #1 heel champion on Raw look like he couldn’t beat up a 60+ year-old man on his own.  Made wrestling fans everywhere ask, how many members of Legacy does it take to lock a steel cage door?  And to cap it all off, this wonderful ten or so minutes made your #1 babyface contender to the WWE Championship look like a complete and utter imbecile.  Now that’s a bad segment.

4) My final thought this time around is simple:  Friday Night Smackdown is the best wrestling show on television right now.  Hands down.  The feuds seem fresh and wrestling is at the foundation of practically every show.  There are endless possibilities with the talent on this program, including a heel champion CM Punk (if they go that route).  By the way, after the Vicki/Edge segment last night and the recent Jericho/Edge mike battles, are we on the verge of a face Edge?  Hopefully they don’t give him the Cena/MVP/Morrison treatment.  Anyway, this show has me every week.  It’s been that good.

Well, I had plenty of other stuff to rattle off in this article, but it’s running a bit long and I don’t want to overstay my welcome.  I hope this list of four has caused some food for thought and I look forward to your feedback at ncattles@gmail.com.  Until next time…