THEN AND NOW: LOOKING AT SOME TRADITIONAL WRESTLING IDEAS THAT WWE OUGHT TO BRING BACK
By Doug Brown on 7/20/2009 11:28 AM
Thinking outside the box can be a good or bad thing depending on who is doing the thinking. WWE has over the last few weeks, months, and years been trying to do away with things that are associated with wrestling's past in order to branch out into "sports entertainment." While it is understandable that the McMahons want their product to be more mainstream, and bring back the casual fans that have drifted away after the Monday Night Wars ended, several of the steps they have taken drive long time fans like myself nuts. Don't get me wrong. There are some new ideas that I really like. I think the idea of having a different guest host on Raw each week is a great idea, and so far it has gone very well. Today, I want to look at some of the things the way they used to be done versus the way they are being done now. Since I covered the announcers and their lack of calling moves in my last column, I won't be addressing that here. On a side note, I think Michael Cole must have read that column, or someone gave him the gist of it, because he has been making more of an effort to call the moves on Raw, and I applaud him for it.
THEN: Champions were rarely ever pinned clean in non-title bouts.
NOW: Champions are pinned all the time in non-title bouts.
Just this past week, World Champion C.M. Punk, ECW Champion Tommy Dreamer, and U.S. Champion Kofi Kingston were all pinned cleanly on television. In fact on ECW, Dreamer and his #1 contender Christian were both pinned cleanly by guys that don't even have a match on the upcoming Night of Champions pay-per-view. Back in the old days when I first started watching wrestling, the champions were booked to look strong. The babyface champions racked up clean win after clean win, while the heel champions either cheated to win or got themselves intentionally counted out or disqualified. No matter which side had the belt, the champions and the challengers would win their matches going into the big shows, and by doing so, look much stronger. I can understand the mindset of why today's champions job so much. They want to create the idea that the title could change hands at anytime. However, to me, it makes the champions look weak, and it takes away from the title changes being special. Say you have a champion that loses all the time. Then, when someone beats him for the gold, no one cares. On the other hand, if you have a champion that rarely loses, when he or she finally does get beat, it makes the win seem much more important. C.M. Punk has done two straight clean jobs to John Morrison, who is not even on the PPV card. If Jeff Hardy beats him at Night of Champions, the win isn't going to come across nearly as big if Punk had actually been winning matches. The same thing goes for the ECW Title Match. How are they supposed to take Tommy Dreamer seriously as a champion when he has only had two televised wins since getting the strap at Extreme Rules and neither came on the ECW television show?
THEN: Ring Announcers gave you every wrestler's hometown, weight, and name.
NOW: Ring Announcers will on some wrestlers do the hometown and name, or the weight and name, and then on some occasions won't do any of the above.
They did away with announcing Chris Jericho as being from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, because at the time he was a babyface, and they didn't want American audiences giving him a heel reaction. Now that he is a heel again, I don't get why they have not gone back to announcing him as being from Winnipeg. I still do not get why they have never announced the Big Show as being from Aiken, South Carolina. They used to always announce Andre as being from Grenoble in the French Alps. Just about every guy, I think is back to getting their weight announced. I get why they do not announce the weights for the women. Personally, I think some of them have gotten so ridiculously skinny that I don't find them attractive anymore. You also have the occasional local jobber that does not have at anything about him announced, not even his name. Anyway, back on point, by announcing a wrestler's hometown, and weight, it helps the fans personalize more with them. I know that was true of the Texas fans with Steve Austin, of the Charlotte fans with Ric Flair, of the Canadian fans with Bret Hart, and of the British fans with Davey Boy Smith in the past. I know it is true today of the Toronto fans with Edge and Chris Jericho, the Boston fans with John Cena, the San Antonio fans with Shawn Michaels, the San Diego fans with Rey Mysterio, and the D.C. fans with Batista.
THEN: Referees were often referred to by name, and at times became part of the storyline themselves.
NOW: The referees are no longer allowed to be referred to by name.
I think that new memo about not allowing the referees to be mentioned by name is just beyond stupid. Those guys are out on the road, away from the families just as much as the wrestlers are, and it is a disservice to them that are not allowed be called by name anymore. They are only to be referred to as "the referee." This is essentially telling them that they are not important, and that is a bad message to send. The referee could be an effective tool for drawing heat. Just look at Nick Patrick when he worked for the NWO, or Earl Hebner after the Montreal Screwjob, or Tommy Young in the original NWA when fans thought he was on the Horsemen payroll. I remember a famous angle in World Class where Kerry Von Erich lost their World Title to Iceman King Parsons when the lights mysteriously went out during the match. They would then flicker just enough to see the Freebirds slip into the ring, and attack. When the lights came back up, Iceman was covering Kerry, and the referee counted the pin and awarded him the belt. I forget which World Class official it was, but in the weeks after the match, he was greeted with chants of "Kill the referee!" every time he came out.
THEN: Each company had at least a dozen tag teams on their roster.
NOW: For three brands, WWE has only three tag teams.
Tag team wrestling used to be a big thing in the mid-80's and early 90's. If you get the new Allied Powers DVD, you can find out just how great and popular tag team wrestling used to be. I was watching the AWA Marathon on ESPN Classic this past Saturday, and happened to catch a great old school tag team match featuring the Rock "n" Roll Express vs. the Nasty Boys from 1988. Then, I sadly was reminded about the current status of the tag team division today. They broke up the Colons way too soon. This team has been great for Carlito both in his ring work and his attitude. It also helped to get Primo over with the fans. I don't know what it ended up being, but when I voted in the poll here at PWI, over 85% of the fans agreed that the Colons should have stayed together. Back in 1988, they had a ten team Survivor Series match that included the Powers of Pain, the Rockers, the Young Stallions, the Hart Foundation, the British Bulldogs, Demolition, the Rougeau Brothers, the Conquistadors, the Bolsheviks, and the Brain Busters. Nearly 21 years later, the only tag teams left are Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibiase, Cryme Tyme, and the Hart Dynasty, and they've been teasing tension with Dibiase and Legacy. It is not that they don't have viable tag team options. Jesse and Festus were a good duo, but were inexplicably shipped off to separate rosters. The same could be said for Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder. I still haven't figured out why they are pushing Ryder in his new "Woo Woo Woo Guy" gimmick. It may be quite possibly the lamest thing since Aldo Montoya and his jock strap/mask. I was enjoying Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin's reunion. Althought they only won one match, they were both wrestling their tails off, but now Benjamin is on ECW, and Haas has gone MIA. I am really surprised that when they called Sheamus up that they didn't pair him with Finlay and/or Hornswoggle. Should they ever bring D.J. Gabriel back, how about dropping the dancing thing, and pairing him up with William Regal and the Burchills to create a new British faction in ECW? They could have left Goldust on Raw, and called up Brett Dibiase from FCW for Rhodes and Dibiase versus Rhodes and Dibiase or the Rhodes Brothers against the Dibiase Brothers.
THEN: Every wrestler's finishing move had a name.
NOW: Most finishers have become a "There's his move."
This is just supreme laziness on the part of the creative team. How can they bring in a guy, and then not have a name for his finishing move? Or worse yet, the announcers do not even call it? So many times, the finishers are referred to as a "What-a-maneuver," a "There's-his-move," or lately "Vintage (insert wrestler's name here)." I know the bosses don't like bogging their audience down with the little things, but they ought to at least let the announcers call the finishing move. The rare times they do come up with names, not all of them are home runs. Everyone here knows that I am a huge John Cena mark, but I have to admit I am not crazy about the "Attitude Adjustment" name. It is not a bad name, but it is just not a really good one either. When they first were mentioning about changing the name of the F-U, I kind of liked idea of calling it "the Throwback." It was simple, effective, and fit with his character. WWE is also big into naming finishers after their wrestlers, like the Batista Bomb, the Khali Bomb, the Air Bourne, the Knox Out, the Kendrick, and the Show Stopper. I tend to like names that are more in tune with their characters like Sweet Chin Music, the Trouble in Paradise, the Codebreaker, the Kill Switch, and the RKO. Then, there are guys like Vladimir Kozlov that still have yet to receive a name for their finishing moves, or Jack Swagger that gets his move named by default. By that I mean they have not come up with a creative name, so they just call it what it is, a gutwrench powerbomb.
I realize that we are living in modern times, and that some of my thinking might be considered dinosaur-like. Things that applied back then, do not necessarily apply now. While there is the natural inclination to throw out the old and bring in the new, I think WWE would be better served to go back to into their extensive archives and look at aspects of the past. There were a lot of ideas that were used back then to help the business achieve success, and rather than moving away from these concepts, I think they would be better off re-embracing them. It will make for a much better presentation, and in the end isn't that what we all want?
