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THE FUN HOUSE MIRROR - ISSUE 5

Welcome back to the Fun House Mirror, where we look at a reality television show that wants to look like a MMA show but looks like a bad pro wrestling show, and look at a reality television show that wants to look like a MMA show but comes off like a good pro wrestling show.

Let's start by reviewing what qualities a "competition reality show" is supposed to have and see how NXT is keeping up:

(1) The show should have competition, specifically, on each show the contestants should be competing against each other and the results of this competition should significantly influence the outcome of the show.

Let's say that I was going to run my own reality show.  The premise is simple.  Eight people have to get from point A to point B on each show.  Now, let's say that we're g*φoing to keep track of the order that the contestants finish, but we won't use it to determine the ultimate winner or the show.  Sound good?

Now, NXT is displaying the contestant's win-loss records on the show as they come out.  However, this win-loss record doesn't seem to have anything to do with how they finish in the show.

(2) The show should have the illusion of a reasonably level playing field.

On my reality show, suppose I told two of the people on the show that they had to carry around a 100 pound knapsack and give the other six people a thirty minute head start.  Does that sound like a good idea?

On NXT you have a pro who has his henchmen beat up his rookie because the rookie won't join the pro's cult.  You also have a pro who *â””sends his regular tag partner to beat up his rookie because they have a personality conflict.

(3) The show should have the illusion of the contestants behaving spontaneously.

Now, on my reality show, suppose I told my contestants to woodenly recite lines that were written by people who were not good enough to write for other Hollywood shows.  Sound good?

On the first episode of NXT you had Daniel Bryan and Wade Barrett both addressing a live crowd in an unscripted sounding way.  The second episode had Heath Slater rather poorly responding to Carlito spitting apple in his face backstage, but at least it sounded kind of real.  After that?  Nothing, except for Bryan mumbling some off-topic bad pro wrestling dialog to the Miz, or Sheffield doing a super lame comedy gimmick with William Regal, both backstage.

This is really easy to fix.  NXT could turn this around this week by giving some of these guys a live mic and a bullet point or two.  

(4) *ñThe show should have contestants interacting with each other, with the idea that they could either help or hurt each other depending on how badly they wanted to win the game.

On NXT this week they may finally have something resembling this as Daniel Bryan teams up with fellow rookie Michael Tarver in a tag team match.  However, there was no back story as to why they teamed up.  They are just being thrown out there.

*å

One idea that the WWE could consider for the next season of NXT (because this season is so far down the toilet that rotor router couldn't find it) would be that each rookie would have to find another rookie to tag with within the first four weeks.  Each rookie could pre-record comments about the other rookies on if they would want to tag with them.

Then you could have a voting session where each rookie secretly votes for who he wants and if the other rookie votes for him then they team up.  Then in the fifth and sixth weeks have a losers advance tournament where the team that loses two straight matches leaves the competition.

Now, this idea might cause the WWE writers have a stroke because it could upset their "carefully thought out plans" cough cough if the "wrong contestants" cough cough team up.  But, this is reality television, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

(5*Γ) The show should have the contestants developing their personalities by commenting on the other characters.

On NXT there has been no instances of contestants acknowledging each other outside of the ring.  This is super baffling.  This is a show where the contestants are trying to win a (kayfabe) contract with the WWE.  Part of their potential job description should they win would be to cut promos on other wrestlers and make people believe that they have issues with these other wrestlers that must be settled in the ring.  But, so far, NONE of the rookies have issues with each other.  Or, if they do, we don't know anything about it.

And, this is the simplest thing in the world to fix.  The solution should be staring WWE in the *ⁿface since it is done all the time on TUF.  Show pre-recorded comments from the contestants about what they think of the other contestants as these other contestants are walking to the ring.  You have two guys who could easily have heat with the other wrestlers: Daniel Bryan and David Otunga.  You could get some of the other contestants over if they were allowed to cut promos against them.  But instead we have Michael Cole doing most of the promo work.  Why does he need to get over?
 

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So, will NXT find its way and start turning into an acceptable reality television show or will it continue its abysmal sinking into becoming WWE Jacked?

In the first minute of the show I think I get a foreshadowing of what this episode is going to be like.

As a quick *digression, in the anime fansubbing world some smarty pants fansubbers have come up with an amusing gimmick for adding analysis to their fansubbing: the "pantsu" counter.  This is usually implemented by showing a number in the upper corner of the screen which is incremented whenever the program shows a shot of a one of the girl character's panties (the pantsu in question).

In this show I might need a "Wrestlemania" counter to document how many times the PPV coming up this weekend is referenced by the announcers and the hosts?

I would be willing to guess that the counter of how many times the rookies are asked about what Wrestlemania means to them will stay stuck at zero, because it would make too much sense to ask the rookies about this.

So, we start off with a tag team match which brings out Heath Slater to team with Justin Gabriel.  Will Heath be the Robert Gibson to Justin's Ricky Morton?

Their opponents are Skip Sheffield and Wade Barrett.  Wait, didn't Wade just beat Skip last week?  Oh, wait, it mus*╘t be okay because Wade must "respect" Skip because Wade and Chris Jericho didn't beat down Skip's butt last week after he lost.

However, a little birdy is whispering in my ear that dues, blues, and agony might be is Skip's immediate future because Regal is the only pro that comes out and Regal hates Skip's ample guts.  If Skip's team loses I would expect a two on one rudo beat down.

Regal is styling and profiling this week.  I don't understand why Regal's ring attire is so stupid looking when the guy knows how to dress fashionably.

"NXT BIGGEST THING" on his trunks?  Umm, does Skip really watch WWE wrestling?  How many guys on WWE television use their butt as a billboard?  Does Skip think this is innovative?  Was he inspired by Danny Doring's trunks?  Maybe they could work this into an angle where if Skip loses a match he has to rock someone else's message on his butt the next week?  You could have "Kick me" or "Back" as possible messages.

Wow, are they explaini**ng what criteria the pros will be using to evaluate the rookies?  "Win-loss record, strength of opponents, work ethic, and "it" factor".  Too bad they aren't explaining what the ramifications of the vote are.  Oh, yeah, there probably aren't any ramifications since no one is going to get eliminated.

Skip's delayed face first suplex was impressive.

Heath picks up the win for his team after Wade tries to interfere and front kicks his own partner by mistake.

No rudo beat down after this match, which has me pretty flabbergasted.  Although, Regal's chemistry with Wade and the disgusted look on his face after the match does have a lot of foreshadowing value so I can't complain.  A good match with Gabriel doing his typical good job as the baby face in peril.  How*µever, after a hot tag the baby face should have sparks coming out of his butt which I didn't see out of Slater, but there is a storyline reason for this, that Christian wants to calm him down.  Wade also did a good job as a condescending heel who thinks he is above his partner.

(For those who are morbid like me, watch closely at the 10 minute point.  Justin looks like he wants to do some sort of flying body press but Wade is too far away so Gabriel jumps off the rope, lands on his feet, and then drills Wade with a forearm to the face.  Reports from PWI say that Wade broke his nose in this match and as soon as Gabriel hits him Wade falls down and holds his nose and is not seen on camera afterwards.  This might have been the reason for no rudo beat down.)

Wow, what is WRONG with WWE(1)?  We do NOT need to see repeats of the wrestlers promotional packages.  This is two weeks in a row.

Wow, what is WRONG with WWE(2)?  We have a recap of Shawn vs Undertaker for Wrestlemania and the DON*ü'T get comments from Daniel Bryan?

Wow, what is WRONG with WWE(3)?  See the first one.

Dang, what is happening here.  The decline of this show is now way below Jacked.  Four segments in a row with NOTHING new about NXT and we're only on episode five?  This show is wearing out my fast forward button.

So, let's see here.  A WWE program goes 20+ minutes straight with only Wrestlemania promos and recycled NXT promo packages.  While I approve of limiting the live wrestling on the show to two segments, I am baffled that the WWE couldn't have had some Wrestlemania focused interviews.  How hard would it be to stick a mic in one of the rookies face and ask "what does Wrestlemania mean to you?"

The sad thing is that Vincent Kennedy Micromanagement probably wrote the whole show by himself.  And, he's not likely to fire himself.

However, they do show a super cool package showing the Miz and *â•šDavid Otunga styling and profiling at a museum opening.  Otunga gives his opinion on why he should win instead of Daniel Byran.  At least they get to number (5) on the list earlier in this article!  This package will do way more to get Otunga over than his wrestling will ever do.  So, why couldn't they have had this segment, along with a similar segment on another rookie, on earlier replacing the reruns of the introductory promo packages?

Reaction interviews, day in the life videos, and training in the gym videos, there's a ton of stuff that they can do.  Stop boring us with repeats!

So, now were are ready for a second match and it's team "party like a rock star", David Otunga and Darren Young going against Daniel Bryan and Michael Tarver, two dudes who you probably don't want to get into a real fight with.

For some reason, the straight edge flock comes down with Darren, but Darren understandably does not want anything to do with them after the rudo b*eat down of last week.

No sign of K-Kwick so at least our ears are spared listening to another identical rendition of his theme song.

Is Bryan's gimmick that his is a pathological thief of other people's heat so he has to interrupt the walk to the ring of people who are supposed to be "helping" him?  VKM is portraying Bryan as such a chicken poop heel that soon Bryan will have a red Mohawk.

But, will C. M. Punk warm up to Bryan the same way that Regal has warmed up to Barrett?  Maybe Bryan thinks being straight-edge is manly?

I think that Punk's gimmick on this show is that he doesn't respect the show or the other participants (and, can you blame him?) so he's out there for his own amusement only.

Here's an idea: why not show vignettes on the rookies getting haircuts instead of just talking about them?

The rodos win after Bryan and Tarver are shown to be not on the same page.

So, twenty bazillon references to Wrestlemania, no rudo beat downs, only one new package featuring two rookies, (cough cough) I **mean Otunga and Miz, who can't wrestle.  And, the only reason that this promotional package came about was because the WWE writers wish that they had Otunga's life instead of their own.

So, what will they do next week?  Will they finally start showing reaction videos?  Will the rookies cut promos on each other?  Will the coaches go over their evaluations of other rookies?  Or, will we be treated to four repeats of promo packages that we have already seen?  And, how will the show react to Wade Barrett's broken nose?  After all, any fool can write a show, but it takes a writer to be able to react and adjust when the unexpected happens.

But, so far, WWE NXT has put a bright spotlight on one thing: the utter arrogance and incompetence of WWE management.  Whenever the WWE has gone outs**ide of their own little bubble, like the WBF or the XFL, the initial episode shows promise and then the project collapses.  This is because (in my opinion) the WWE wants to do all of the writing for these shows in house rather than hiring people who have successfully done projects like this in the past.

And, speaking of successful reality television shows, we are only one week away from hearing "another hit is landed" in the opening theme of The Ultimate Fighter television show.

This week, lets look at a typica*l episode of TUF and see what they are doing that the WWE is not doing (but should be doing).

A typical show might start off (after a recap) with the two teams of fighters lined up and the coach with the controlling coin (specifically, the coach whose team has the fighter who won the previous week) announcing the fight that will take place at the end of this episode.

From there, you get reaction interviews with the other fighters who give their predictions on who is going to win and why.

Then, you might go to the house where all of the fighters stay together.  Usually there will be footage of people acting drunk, or people explaining why other fighters are difficult to live with.  In some episode you might see one team conspire to play some stupid prank on the the other team.

Or, instead of the house, you might go to the training facility where people are shown training.  From here you might get reaction videos explaining why they think one of their teammates is too clumsy a person to train with or one of*â–“ their teammates does not have a good training ethic.

(Now, one thing that needs to be kept in mind is that all of the footage is shot in six weeks and the show runs more than twice as long.  So, while on television things might appear to be happening in real time, often times there will be tells tipping us off when things were shot out of sequence.  The easiest tell is the fact that many of the fighters will shave their heads right before they fight.  So, you could have a reaction interview with some one who has hair even though they had already shaved it off earlier in the season.)

Then, you might also have some confrontation between the two coaches to try to build up heat for their PPV fight.

Towards the end of the show they have a fight in the Octagon.  Before the fight begins you will typically have host of the show, UFC owner Dana White (DW) give his analysis and predictions for the fight.  One source of humor during these *â”´fights is watching how consistently incorrect DW's predictions and analysis turn out to be.  There are no announcers for the fights and during the fight you only hear the coaches outside of the cage yelling instructions.  Another source of humor during these fights is counting the number of times a fighter ignores his coach's instructions.  At the end of the fight one of the fighters is eliminated from the contest.  In addition to this, the other fighter might also be eliminated from the contest by virtue of being too injured.

After the fight, and in between rounds, you get reaction interviews from fighters, coaches and even from DW.

At the end of the show the winning team is shown having a strategy discussion and then they will line up the teams for next week's fight announcement and end the show on a cliff hanger (which they often spoil during the next week previews).

What really jumps out from this description?  The fact that they have react*â•“ion interviews going on all the time.  Now, NXT is shot live before the Smackdown taping.  However, that would not prevent Striker from getting live reaction interviews from the rookies.  Or, if the writers think that this is too risky, then since this is A SCRIPTED SHOW, you could pre-tape fake reaction interviews and use the ones that are good.  Or, as a third alternative, you could have a match, then immediately after the match simultaneously tape reaction interviews from all the rookies not involved in the match while commercials and RAW recap videos are playing and then run any of the interviews that turned out well.

Without developing characters, a reality television show has no reason to exist.  And, without interviews, how are you going to develop these characters?

Next week the NFL to the WWE's XFL returns and all of NXT's faults are going to be put into sharp relief.  Not that TUF will be perfect, but I predict it will blow NXT out of the water next week.