I’m not one to whinge (if you knew me personally you’d be spitting your drink out through your nose with laughter right about now) but the cathartic process of stating and analysing the things that you dislike about a certain subject can be as productive and revealing as listing the things that you do like. Plus, it gives you the perfect opportunity to be bitchy and unpleasant for no better reason that making yourself feel better. Now I’m not going to take the low road so this column won’t be just a list of my least favourite current wrestlers (Heidenreich, Snitsky, Maven) nor will it be a chance for me to air all my grievances against Vince McMahon and the way in which he chooses to conduct his dirty business (not THAT dirty business) but I was hoping that this would be a chance for me to wipe my vitriolic slate clean and approach any new ideas the WWE has to throw at us with open arms. Of course, if you believe that then the first thing I hate is gullibility. And optimism. And yoghurt (damn, lost my train of thought for a second there). Those of you who have read my columns before (hello to the three of you) know my liking for paragraph headers but that would generalise my gripes into too large a concept so I will dispense with them today. It’s not necessarily the ideas I dislike, it’s the way in which they are used.
I’ve got to start somewhere so I’ll begin with the heel/face divide. It’s not the fact that we have bad guys and good guys that bothers me, that’s been around as long as storytelling, but I find the way that it is applied to wrestling can be confusing and obstructive. Ever since Hogan turned heel in WCW and Stone Cold became the ultimate anti-hero we have been led to believe that the lines between good and bad have been blurred so much as to be non-existent. Whilst it is true that the face no longer has to be a virtuous white knight and the heel isn’t the only one who cheats to win, the division of those we ‘cheer’ and those we ‘boo’ is stronger than ever and the word ‘tweener’ describes a wrestler in short-term transition rather than someone who falls between the two points of a storyline. Wouldn’t it be exciting if everyone on the roster was a tweener? All feuds would become possible and the fans could choose to like (for example) Orton if he was fighting HHH but boo him next week when he fights Batista; all this done without going through the lengthy act of turning someone over the period of months for (occasionally) logical reasons. I know that we already have the right to condemn or condone at our whim but the forcing of the divide has at times led to the audience feeling like they are disconnected from the process; demonstrated by the fans reluctance to accept Eddie Guerrero as a heel last year and Orton’s recent failure to climb the company mountain as a face. The best way for the WWE to rectify this is to tone down a superstar’s initial gimmick, shove them through the curtain with their blessing and their backing and watch carefully. We’ll let them know what works and what doesn’t and then they can play on that over time. Eventually they’ll be left with a roster full of believable athletes whose feuds are interchangeable. Bad news is you could kiss goodbye to the classic Survivor Series matches of four heels against four faces, but I never liked those anyway.
That was fun, I think I’ll have a go at reality television now, specifically WWE Tough Enough and the recent Raw Diva Search competition. If anybody thinks that these mainstream media friendly concepts are an attempt to replace or equal the way in which WWE superstars have been selected in the past (feeder promotions, poaching rival’s talent) then you need to change your brain because the battery is dead. Out of the three series and one weekly segment of Tough Enough only two performers are regularly appearing on WWE tv (Maven and Jackie Gayda) and they are lower/mid card at best. So if it’s not the threat of a roster made up entirely of Tough Enough greenhorns or being bitter that they didn’t pay their dues like the other 98% of the staff, what is it I don’t like? Simple, protection. When the competition is won, promotional concerns dictate that the WWE use this marketing opportunity to its fullest, parading the winner on a major show and knowing that, in terms of the company, it doesn’t matter if they sink or swim. It took Miss Jackie over a year to recover from a few blown spots on Raw, mistakes that could have been covered and worked on if they’d happened on an OVW show in front of a small crowd. Hopefully we’ll see Daniel Puder on our screens again, I just hope it’s when he’s been the big fish in a small pond long enough to be able to live up to his undoubted potential.
It’s a little different for the new breed of Raw Divas. At time of writing, not one has been asked to wrestle a semi-proper match and it doesn’t even seem to be that crucial if they can convey a convincing emotion or talk without sounding as pink as a bubble-gum commercial, so they’re not over-stretched as performers. If anything, that’s what I hate. Apart from Christy whose main talent appears to be an inability to either walk straight or keep her clothes on, they’ve been required to do very little and this gives them almost no chance to stand out from the pack. I’m not suggesting that, given more air-time, they’ll automatically blossom into future champions or as consummate a professional as Sunny appeared to be but, with a few exceptions, most of the established WWE divas came from either a modelling or a fitness background including the best all-round female wrestling personality in history, Trish Stratus; and we all remember how bad she was at everything when she first started. I’m not saying cut them some slack. I am saying that in a year or two when there’s maybe one of them left and they’ve become a comfortable speaker or even managed a few basic wrestling moves, it might have been worth the effort. But don’t quote me on that.
Am I the only one who lets out a groan when the ref gets bumped thesedays? Or when two wrestlers touch feet on the floor at the same time at the end of a battle royale? What about cheap disqualifications or double count-outs? You must have noticed how the referee magically becomes deaf, blind or both when he is distracted from the action. Far be it for me to propose that these tried and tested booking ideas don’t work, they do, I’d just prefer it if they could be used a bit more sparingly, especially in big match situations. Also, if these tired ideas stay unchanged because the construct of a wrestling match is the same, then change that. Some Mexican wrestling has two referees, one heel and one face, while most Japanese matches exercise a 20-second count-out period. What about no-disqualification for all matches? Or a two-count for a pinfall? Or all tag matches under tornado rules? Just ideas that probably wouldn’t work but you know what I mean. The only real change of note over the last five years has been the six-sided ring in TNA but even that doesn’t prevent a lot of the same old, over-used angles being utilised. Of course, that would need to be some miracle panacea with Dusty Rhodes holding the pen.
I don’t like unpopular wrestlers getting cold pushes (for those ‘smart’ fans out there, don’t agree yet because I just made that expression up). There is a difference between heel heat and just being disliked by the fans and Vince should never confuse the two because it doesn’t work, until now. Big Boss Man, Nathan Jones, Heidenreich, Maven, Scott Steiner and Big Show have all been the recipients of pushes that have exceeded their abilities and been against the genuine wishes of the paying audience. Presumably the idea is that in the absence of any real contenders these fundamentally unappealing characters will garner a respectable amount of jeering making it appear as though they are worthy heels. It may even be the case that a truly successful heel has to be more attractive and enticing than their good guy counterparts judging by the fact that one-dimensional dullards like Luger and Shamrock both received decent support during their face title challenges. JBL is the exception. Even I gave Bradshaw little chance of succeeding as a decent heel, let alone a long term champion, but the only thing that prevents him from being seen as a worthy belt holder over the last year is his backstage bully image and his nazi antics in Germany which were rewarded by WWE rather than just unpunished.
There are too many PPV’s. When I started watching there were four supercards a year and that meant there was a five month gap between Wrestlemania and Summerslam without a three-hour show between them. This allowed for ample time to build main events slowly and stage ‘dream’ matches at nearly every other PPV. Go back even further to the days when Hogan was in his prime and you had a year between PPV title defences. Both the Royal Rumble and Survivor Series supercards contained no major singles matches, because the top guys in the company were in the respective specialist matches, and Summerslam was usually the showcase for a tag match involving Hogan and his number two (Savage, Beefcake) against the top heel and the latest monster (Andre, Zeus). Now there’s a PPV every month, sometimes two, and we’ve seen the matches before on Raw or Smackdown or we know that, despite the hype for the not-to-be-missed stipulation, it will probably be anti-climactic or not enforced at all. Six a year would be about right by my reckoning. Granted the WWE would lose money in adopting this idea (so it won’t happen) but it would benefit loyal wrestling fans who would see more meaningful matches with better preparation and all this for half the cost. See, I’m thinking of you.
I hate injuries, especially seeing as I’ve broken more bones than Foley in my lifetime. I hate the censorship we have to endure here in the UK, although the live Raw on Mondays has assuaged that grumble slightly. I hate the price of DVD’s over here (Wrestlemania XX 3-disc; USA $31.46, UK $46.60 eq). I hate it when they oversell importance, “This is the biggest match in Raw history”, let us decide that. I hate what drugs did to Sunny. I hate stupid merchandise and poorly designed tee-shirts. I hate bland metal/rock intro music. I hated HLA. I hate foam fingers. I hate good signs because I can’t seem to come up with any. I hated all of Rikishi’s gimmicks. I hate that American arenas are tarped off yet UK shows sell out in seconds. I hate magic wrestling powder thrown in people’s eyes. I hated every King of the Ring except the first one. I hate the Kurt Angle Invitational. I hate Molly Holly’s short hair. I hate queuing at events. I hate Cena’s finishing move. I hate fans that jump the barrier. I hate that we never got to know Russ Haas. I hate mistakes. I hate PPV under-runs. I hate signs that say ‘I HATE SIGNS’. I hate more time spent on Divas than Cruiserweights. I hate you. Well no, I don’t hate you. I love you. No, really I do. Can anyone else hear a loud ringing noise? I’m going for a lie down. I hate lying down (I can’t stop!).
Lee
