PWInsiderXTRA - WWE News, Wrestling News, WWE

THE DEBUT EDITION OF THE FUN HOUSE MIRROR

Hello everyone, this is the first issue of The Fun House Mirror.  In this column I hope to follow the WWE's NXT and The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) shows and apply some completely inappropriate analysis to them.  Specifically, analyzing TUF as if it was a regional professional wrestling promotion and analyzing NXT as if it was a MMA promotion.

The reason for doing this for TUF is that TUF is hugely influenced by professional wrestling.  While they might be hitting each other in the face stiffly when they are in the octagon, outside the octagon the fighters are trying to play up their personalities in an attempt to stand out, and the editors of the show are trying to arrange the show to play up various storylines both real and artificial.  Also, TUF was heavily influence by the WWE show Tough Enough.

The reason for doing this to NXT is because it is pretty self-evident that NXT is WWE's attempt to try to capture the TUF audience.

So, let's look at the first episode of NXT, through the fun house mirror:

----------------------------------

The New Season of The Ultimate Fighter on SYFY!

It's a new season of the Ultimate Fighter and D.W. (Dana White) has a new trick up his sleeve.  Since many of the Ultimate Fighter participants have had trouble connecting to the live crowds, this season each hopeful will be paired with an established name, rather than the usual coach vs coach format.

This seems to me to be an improvement.  I never really bought into the dynamic that a fighter is supposed to bond with half the guys in the house for the first half of the season and then want to smash their faces in in the second half.  Unless they want to play up a bromance story line where two fighters didn't want to fight each other because they had already bonded as teammates.

Starting off we get a new opening that is shorter and to the point, establishing who is paired with who.

We get our first look at the fighters.  Unlike season 10 when there were way to many people who didn't look like fighters (ie the football jobbers, but also Big Country who got over huge), all eight of the guys look like they can go.

You have one guy who looks like he's doing a classic professional wrestling gimmick with the cape and the flower.  He'll probably do the snooty British stereotype.  Another guy has a cowboy hat.  No masks, though.

One of the coaches enters and both builds up and runs down his protegee, Daniel Byran.  One thing that stands out is that Daniel is short compared to his coach and the other participants.  However, the word on the street is that Daniel has some fearsome ground and pound and is a submission machine.  But, the coach, The Miz, makes it seem that Daniel is a just another boring ass wrestler (copy write by Chris Leben) with no personality.

The coach tells Daniel to go out in front of a live audience and introduce himself.

Okay, okay. It's obvious by now that this is NOT a UFC product.  How do we know?  Because D.W. is not in the first three minutes of the show.

However, this show is clearly the WWE's answer to The Ultimate Fighter, so let's play along.

The Miz says that his goal is to build up Daniel's personality.  He has some good facials.

Does the Miz's entrance music really say "I came to play and get my toupee"?

Wait, I was wrong.  D.W. is on the show.  Only he's wearing a toupee and calling himself Matt Stryker.  That's a cute MMA name, I will give him that.

Daniel cuts a decent promo burying his coach.  Maybe not as cool a promo as (Christopher) Daniels might have cut, but hey, he's only one Daniel.

Then the Miz comes out and buries his protegee, bitch slapping him at the end.  Not a good idea in my opinion.  Schoonover and Rampage had volcanic heat on TUF season 10, not because Rampage gave Schoonover a cheap shot but because Rampage verbally rode Schoonover over a protracted period of time.  Physical confrontations should have been saved for later in the season.  On the other hand, Phil Jackson and James McSweeney dished out a ton of face slaps in TUF season 10, so I can let it slide.

One thing this show doesn't explain is what the contestants are trying to do.  Are they going to eliminate their competition by making them "tap or snap"?  Are they going to have the authentic WWE experience by succeeding by kissing the ass of their mentors?  Is this baby faces vs heels?  Do the coaches get anything out of this, like a title shot or "money, money, yeah, yeah"? People need to know what these guys are trying to do before they can get emotionally involved.

Maybe Daniel really did fail.  Maybe he should have responded to the slap by cutting an angry promo or doing the Tommy Dreamer gimmick and ask Miz to slap him again.  Just standing in the ring and waiting for the Miz to walk to the back made him look passive and clue less.

Stryker does a good interview with Daniel after the break.  Daniel apparently has been listening to Paul London on how to succeed in the WWE.  It kind of undercuts Daniel as a rebel character when Stryker is hitting him over the head with the truth.

Michael Traver is next, teaming with Carlito Colon (son of wrestling legend Carlos Colon).  They do a promo package for Traver and it is a huge improvement over the usual UFC promo stuff.  Traver is not dropping the f-bomb every other word and they show some bouts that he has been in when he was in WEC cough cough FCW.

They also do a profile on Heath Slater who does the "rock star without the instruments" gimmick.  Hey, maybe I could do a rapper without the rhymes gimmick?  A philanthropist without the money gimmick?  People on the net have been making comparisons of Heath to Edge, but I wonder if Michael Hayes might also be a good comparison?

I have no idea why they let Traver wrestle with gloves on.  <Tony Atlas mode> How are they going to do taped fists matches now? </Tony Atlas mode>.

I wonder if WWE is doing the right thing with Traver.  Why not have him follow the footsteps of Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Furgeson?  Why not have him play up his striking, but then say that his striking will only be effective if he can "catch up" to the other participants in his ground game?

The Michael Cole character is new for the UFC, someone who aggressively doesn't know what he is talking about, trying to stir up controversy.  Very pro wrestling if you ask me.  However, the mega-informed Josh Mathews more than makes up for Cole.

Next is Darren Young with his mentor Raven, I mean C. P. Munk, I mean C. M. Punk.  All I can say is wow.  The only thing that would have been more awesome would have been if Darren had started talking about how great Flock of Seagulls is.

I think that WWE is behind the curve a little bit.  Why not change Punk's entrance music to his ROH entrance music?  It would fit his new heel character SO much better.

"Every time Punk speaks, drink!"

Punk hits it right on the head.  Why IS he there?  What if they do the TNA gimmick of feast or famine where a coach whose protegee fails gets barred from title shots for six months, or even "fired"?

Young gets totally dissed by the show and doesn't even get a promo package.

David Otunga has a character that people should be lining up around the block to hate on.  In fact, MVP based his character on people like Otunga.  Unfortunately, he is a roid head with no skills.  I look forward to Daniel eliminating him with Cattle Mutilation or the Crucifix Elbows Storm.  Oh, wait, people are probably not going to be eliminated that way.  Damn.

"Do you know who else went to Harvard Law School?"  Yes, Chris Nowinski...

Why doesn't R-Truth modify his entrance rap to include a mention of his protegee?  Or, mention the venue?

Batista II wins in under a minute nearly killing his opponent with a some sort of botched move.  Raven, Chastity and Brian Lee show how interested they are by walking to the back without even bothering to check on Dancing Stevie Richards II.

The main event: Daniel vs Jericho.  Jericho must have been happy.  With his gimmicked boots, Jericho looks taller than Daniel even though they are really the same height.

Jericho comes out with Baron(?) Wade Barrett who indeed is channeling Lord James Blears.  Blears does a great job getting heat by rambling on and on while trying to introduce Jericho.  Jericho then does the cool heel thing and tells him to just introduce him and then acts smug.

Daniel comes out next and bumps the Miz to prevent Miz from striking his cool pose.  This was kind of mixed for me.  On the one hand shouldn't the Miz be happy that Daniel was demonstrating personality?  But on the other hand it was at the Miz's expense.

Oddly enough, you can hear the Miz coaching Daniel at ringside.  Is he a better ring man than Rampage?  Will he start calling Daniel a nickname like "titties"?  Only time will tell.

An interview during the match?  Please.  Concentrate on the action.

WOW, did they screw up that Dragon Screw leg whip or what?  Ouch!

I know that Josh Mathews isn't supposed to mention the competition, but it would have ruled if he mentioned that Daniel was in the main event of the last Dragon Gate PPV against Naruki Doi.  (And, that match was probably stiffer than most UFC fights.)

Or, maybe Josh Mathews could have said that Jericho was also very popular on the dirt sheets before he joined the WWE universe.

Damn!  Was that throw into the announce table from the dive a receipt for the miscommunication on the Dragon Screw?

But, Daniel shakes it off.  Heck, if you have matches with Takeshi Morishima you accept that pain happens.

The beat down by the Miz was ridiculously bad booking.  It would have been a lot better if Miz had merely taunted Daniel saying, "Hey, why don't you slap me now?" or "I thought you were supposed to be good and yet you tapped out?" while making crybaby motions.  That way, you could have stretched out the feud over many episodes.  If this was a shoot (cough like UFC cough) then Miz would have been fired for attacking his protegee in a non Phil Jackson face slap way.  How is Daniel supposed to work with the Miz when the Miz acts in such an unprofessional way?

Unanswered Questions:

How do you win this program?

How do you lose this program?

Why should anyone buy that the Miz and Daniels are going to co-exist now?

Should they bring in Necro Butcher to feud with Otunga just so Necro can tell Otunga that he googled him and didn't see squat about wrestling, but it Otunga googles Necro Butcher, or King of the Death Matches, and sees all the blood, guts and broken bodies, then if he has two brain cell left to rub together he's going to run all the back to Hollywood with his tail between his legs?

Did Vince Russo call the WWE and complain that the Daniels/Miz program went too fast for him?

Is that a fake tan on Darren Young?  If that's a real tan, then forget Chris Nowinski's concussion institute, the melanoma institute should be arranging for an intervention.

Are they going to recycle any ideas from the Diva 'contests'?

If they allow people to vote contestants off the show will the "smart marks" try to vote Daniel off so he can go to TNA?

Craig (Still ain't loving any locker room doors)