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Welcome to the latest edition of the newly named WWEekly Thoughts! Each and every week, I’ll take a look back at the previous week of WWE television and give my thoughts and observations on some of the happenings on each of WWE’s shows. So without further ado, let’s head back to last Monday to get started.
Monday Night Raw: 6/8/2009
So Batista comes out and says that he did what he did at Extreme Rules for all the people who are sick of Randy Orton, at which point Orton and his goons come out and gang beat him, putting him on the shelf for months. Is this supposed to be some kind of metaphor for what Vince McMahon thinks about people who don’t like Randy Orton? Not that Vince is known for writing thinly veiled shots at his antagonists into his shows or anything, but it seems a little coincidental, wouldn’t you say? And was the whole title win really just done to work the smarts? I thought Russo was working for the competition.
I have to say it, watching a Kelly Kelly vs Maryse match was going to be painful enough to watch as it is, but did WWE really have to twist the knife by putting Mickie James in the announce booth as well? I mean, was Mae Young unavailable to do a postmatch striptease or something? I’m just surprised that putting Mickie and Michael Cole in the same broadcast booth didn’t result in some kind of black hole of suckitude that forever engulfed the entire arena.
If WWE really wanted to get a great tag partner for Brian Kendrick, they need look no farther than Jamie Noble. I’ll overlook the ludicrous logic that could result in a situation where Noble drops a fall to Santino Marella, and instead say that they’re two amazing, yet vastly underutilized workers who have a TON of charisma that WWE refuses to tap into, and if they were on either of the other brands, a team with these two would be great.
I’m a bit torn on the MVP-Matt Hardy match from this past week. On the one hand, I think it’s great that MVP is finally, seemingly getting some kind of main event push on the least likely show for anyone new to be added to the main event mix. On the other hand, the feud that to a lot of people was the best of 2007 has been completely disregarded as this is now the second time in like three weeks that MVP has squashed Matt in under five minutes with seemingly no effort. It’s like going back in time to when bookers in one company would purposely destroy stuff bookers from another company did for whatever reason, except that the same kind of crap goes on between the three brands IN THE SAME COMPANY. I understand if WWE doesn’t want to pay any respect whatsoever to any form of wrestling history that won’t sell them DVDs, but can’t they even respect their own past history from like two years ago?
I loved the Vickie Farewell Segment, because it’s exactly what we expected all along and for once, refreshingly, we actually got what we expected and it was great. Edge came off like a sleazy player, which is perfect for his character, and Vickie was hilarious with the way she freaked out over the whole thing. It was the perfect ending to the whole Vickie-Edge storyline, and a perfect way to write Vickie out and leave a storyline open if she ever decides to return, where she could come back and go after Edge for ruining her life and self esteem.
The Official WWE Logic that says that challenging somebody and them not answering somehow results in a win for you reminds me a lot of when I was a kid and I’d get beat up at school, and would come home and pull out my action figures and I’d pretend the toy me was beating up the toy guy who beat me up at school. In other words, in much the same way that I would get my revenge in a private venue in which my antagonists would have no chance at defending themselves, Vince McMahon has made WWE his own private action figure arena where he can toss out empty challenges that he knows won’t be answered so he can feel like a big man. This logic has also carried over into wrestling storylines, and that’s how we wind up with angles like Randy Orton challenging Batista when he’s miles away at a hospital. Then again, we’re talking about a business where Hulk Hogan can take a tire iron to the knee, walk back to the arena, and successfully defend his title against Ric Flair, so maybe I’m the one who’s out to lunch.
ECW On Sci-Fi: 6/9/2009
Poor Tommy Dreamer, even now that he’s the ECW Champion the poor guy still gets treated like a jobber by sitting out of the TV main event after going through a table. I’m sorry, isn’t the guy who nearly killed himself on like a daily basis in the original ECW? WWE certainly has an interesting way of booking what are theoretically meant to be inspirational storylines.
I have to admit, I was impressed at how good Tony Atlas looked against Evan Bourne. No, he wasn’t zipping around like a 20 year old, but Tony was never a spot monkey even in his prime, and even though the guy’s got to be in his mid to late 50s by now, he still looked like he could go, and looked in a hell of a lot better condition to be wrestling than Flair has for years. And another thing: normally when retired wrestlers show up and are booked to look like they’re even money with today’s stars, it’s a little difficult to take seriously, but in Atlas’ case it didn’t seem far-fetched at all for him to be dominating a little guy like Bourne.
One of the great things about not being on Raw is that young talents aren’t booked to look like punk jobbers when thrown in the ring with longer-tenured stars. As a result, the Hart Dynasty looked great this week against Christian and Swagger and actually picked up a pinfall win, which is something that would NEVER happen on Raw. Do you think those two would catch a fall on Orton or Batista? Right, me neither. Hopefully WWE realizes how crazy talented both guys are and have them on ECW as part of a conscious effort to keep them isolated and let them develop instead of just throwing them to the wolves on Raw. I’m probably wrong about that, but they’re in the right place right now and they’re as much main event now as the three guys in the title picture.
Friday Night Smackdown: 6/12/2009
I don’t think Punk should clearly be either a face of a heel right now. Don’t get me wrong, I hope this ends with him going full blown heel because he’s a mega awesome heel, but I think for a while he ought to straddle the fence and play Hardy and Edge against one another just so he seems even that much more diabolical and selfish once he finally does the full turn. As I said earlier, younger guys have a better shot at getting over when they’re not on Raw, so hopefully in the “Smackdown Safe Zoneâ€, Punk will have a more productive run as the champion than he did last year on Smackdown. If they really want to do something fun, once he turns heel they could have some babyface come out and remind him that he got through all his title defenses in his first reign by luck, and then have him continue winning by luck and copious amounts of cheating. This way you create a guy the fans truly hate and also think is beatable, and much like Flair or Honky Tonk Man in the 80s, fans will be interested because each time he defends the title, they’re sure that he’s going to lose this time…except that he won’t.
I don’t know why these things pop into my head, but I was watching the Khali-Ziggler match and thinking about how cool it would be if Khali pulled out a shooting star press one of these days. It’ll never happen, but wouldn’t it pop the crowd big time if he did?
Unlike the Raw women’s match, my fiancé was sitting in the room while I was watching Smackdown and asked me what the difference was between this and SHIMMER, and I got to explain that SHIMMER focuses on the wrestling rather than WWE just having hot chicks do the three moves they know and everyone pretends like they’re good wrestlers because of it. I also explained that SHIMMER attracts women who want to be wrestlers, while WWE attracts (with some exceptions) dancers and models who see WWE as TV exposure and a nice paycheck and even though they have to learn to “wrestle†they’re mostly just expected to look hot, and it’s just something they’re looking to do for now instead of making a career out of it. All you fans who get stuck for words when trying to explain this concept can feel free to steal that one.
I don’t know where people got this crazy idea that Ron Killings is a good wrestler or somehow deserving of a better push than he’s gotten, but he’s really not that great as I see it. Yeah, he’s an athletic guy and the splits and jumping stuff looks cool, but do athletics and rapping skills really make him a top guy? Like, can anyone picture him carrying a lesser talent to a 30 minute main event? Because that’s what main eventers are expected to do. I’m not going to act like the ability to chain wrestle or throw pretty suplexes is a priority to WWE head honchos because you and I both know they’re not, but this guy has nothing except a few flashy moves and midcard charisma. I’m not saying he sucks because there are guys out there who are way less fun to watch than Killings, but he belongs where he is right now.
I have a hard time reconciling the current Chris Jericho with the Jerichoholics guy he was in the 90s because even though he’s the same guy, they’re two completely different characters and he’s one of the few guys who have managed to pull off two such different personas as successfully as he has. The only other guy who really springs to mind at the moment is Steve Austin with the Stunning Steve and Stone Cold Steve personas. Even though the “old Jericho†didn’t quite work out when he first came back, I think they needed to do it to contrast him from the new character in order for the “new Jericho†to get over properly. Maybe I’m giving WWE too much credit, but it’s good that it worked out the way it did.
It’s too bad in general that Jeff Hardy is leaving WWE, but I especially think so when watching Hardy-Edge matches because these guys work great together, and this could have been one of those classic on again, off again feuds that can help carry WWE for years, much like Austin-Undertaker did during the Attitude Era. In fact, I think WWE fans in general are a lot more accepting of Hardy as a main eventer than John Cena, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the merch sales are comparable as well. Hardy’s going to be a real loss if he does end up going.
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That’s it for this week, thanks for reading and feel free to shoot me an email with any comments or questions you might have, I’d love to do a letters section at the beginning of each edition of WWEekly Thoughts, but I need the input from you folks to make it happen. So get to writing, and I’ll see you all next week!
Stuart Carapola can be reached at stupwinsider@yahoo.com.
