I know what your saying, what a big week in wrestling. I know, and I would really like to talk about this week. But, I have something bigger in mind. One of the best compliments I get from readers is my brutal honesty. For better or for worse, I tell it like I see it. That’s not bragging, but it’s the truth. And today I would like to tell it like I see it. You all see the WWE coming back on a rebound, and managing to keep the spark alive. I don’t. I see a desperate WWE, destined to fail if they continue down the same rocky path they’ve been down for the last two or three years. The utter ignorance of Vince McMahon has absolutely blew my mind away. This is a guy who I cheered on, yes cheered on, against Stone Cold Steve Austin in 1998 just because he was the man. He was it. He made wrestling what it is today. He took wrestling from territories, and made a nation wide phenomenon. He took wrestling programming on syndicated television, and turned it into a primetime level industry. He beat out Ted Turner with all his billions and billions of dollars, and took down the almighty World Championship Wrestling. What a long way to fall for Vincent Kennedy McMahon. Vince is off his rocker now. I’m not kidding you. Don’t believe me? Just take a look for yourself.
Look at the current title picture. You have the WWE title held by John Cena. Cena who many see as a horrible and sloppy wrestler. I personally do as well. He’s greener then baby poop in the ring, and frankly is sloppy. Want a example? Go look at his first match on RAW with Muhammad Hassan. Or his matches with JBL. His move set is the same thing match for match, week for week. His promos are alright. Though I get the sense he’s trying to top The Rock in the humor department, which can’t be done. I must admit his promos have gotten better since the poop jokes, and rapping. But he’s still no Terry Funk on the microphone. Not by a long shot. Then you have Batista as World champion. No offense Batista, but give it up. To revamp a JBL line your build like Tarzan, but you wrestle like Jane. Power and strength are your game, well, so what? Wasn’t power and strength all the hype Goldberg had. And see where it got him. One year of being over, and a downward spiral from there. If you ask me calling Batista and John Cena your companies champion is a disgrace to the company, and to the roster that work so hard to put the brands over. You’ve got all this great talent from Chris Jericho to Shawn Michaels to Kurt Angle to even Christian. Yes, Christian. I hate Captain Charisma, but give me him over Batista or John Cena any day of the week. Sure, their over. But so is Viscera. Are you going to give him the World title too? Moving down the row, look at the mid card. Orlando Jordan is perhaps the worst United States champion of all time. He’s rarely seen, rarely used, and he rarely defends his title outside of Velocity. So much for SmackDown’s number two title huh? The Intercontinental title field isn’t nearly as bad, but it certainly isn’t impressive. Neither brands got a real solid tag team division. Well, RAW could, if they would show their tag teams faces on RAW once in a while. Instead their shoved to the sideline, but oh talent less diva bimbos can take up a good chunk of your WRESTLING show. Smooth booking, excuse me “creative writing.“ On SmackDown, I fail to see a tag team division. You’ve got MNM, MNM, oh….and MNM. Now Joey Mercury and Johnny Nitro are impressive, but I don’t know if their impressive enough to carry a whole division (sarcasm.) Women’s division, what women’s division? Trish is injuried, Lita is preoccupied. That leaves Christy and Victoria. And since Vengeance neither has really wrestled. Cruiserweight division could be ok, if WWE would push the Mexicools better as a singles competitor group with the wrestlers fighting in more one on one matches instead of six mans. Otherwise, with Scotty 2 Hotty and Funaki, besides London it’s a whose who of underused jobbers.
You don’t like my opinion? You don’t believe me? Go back, and read above. I didn’t stutter. I didn’t print anything untrue. Folks, this is the WWE’s whole roster and their divisions in a nut shell. Their World champions aren’t anything to gloat about, their mid card divisions are often misused and underrated, women’s division is MIA, tag team division wrestling in the WWE is like expecting boobs in gay porno, and the Cruiserweight division is bound to be a division WWE does nothing with. Speaking from past experience of seeing what they’ve done with it. I’m not lying. This is it folks. This is the World Wrestling Entertainment. This is the company I grew up watching as a kid. The company I loved as a young wrestling fan. And this is how they crap on the fans? Ignorance. Arrogance. Losing focus of what the fans want.
Like I said above, their focus on what the fans want has drastically changed. And with that, the viewership of the WWE has drastically changed. As well as the kind of viewers that watch their product. That fact was shown to a T a few weeks back. Imagine this. It’s Monday Night RAW. The flagship broadcast of the WWE. You have a amazing night. Absolutely amazing, and this is coming from the guy whose bashing WWE here. Kurt Angle and Ric Flair put on a wrestling clinic in the ring. Hulk Hogan makes a shocking return. And oh, the RAW Diva Search is back. Out of these three segments (and/or matches) which do you expect to draw the highest rating? I know what your thinking. Angle and Flair. The match was off the hook. Incredible. Your wrong. Or how about Hulk Hogan’s return. It has to be that. Hogan’s the biggest star this business has ever seen. Wrong again. It was the talent less, overused, and overpaid (meaning the winner getting the quarter million dollar contract) bimbos of the RAW Diva Search. Now this must be shocking you, but it doesn’t shock me. After all, when you have years and years of entertainment over real wrestling what can you expect? I mean honestly. Everything from necrophilia, terrorism, gay marriage, playing the race card, retards, people who stutter, oh and even the boogey man. This is Sports Entertainment. Sports being the keyword before entertainment. Sports meaning the athleticism and psychology of the wrestling. And entertainment meaning the storylines and cheesy acting that comes along with it. WWE has done a 360 turn making it Entertainment Sports, putting storylines often before their wrestling. And lets be honest, wrestling fans come to wrestling shows for well…wrestling! The storylines are the storylines, and they build the matches. But WWE has taken that way out of hand as well.
Still aren’t taking my word for it? I don’t expect you too. While above, some of that was opinion, a lot of it was cold hard fact. Even then, I’ll do you one better. I’ll take the words right out of the people who know this situation best. Former WWE wrestlers and employees who know the business, love the business, and live the business. You may spit on my opinion, and claim I’m just a unpaid columnist hack. But you can’t run away from people who know this business ten times more then you “smarks” will ever know. Charlie Haas said in a recent interview after being fired, that the WWE creative team are idiots. Well, in not so many words. He gives a example in which WWE had him “sleep” with Miss Jackie and Dawn Marie making him look like a bad guy and a heel, only to reverse him back to being a face again a month later. Does WWE not think these things through? Guess not. Three weeks ago Nova was Simon Dean, last week he was Nova, and this week he’s Simon Dean again. Man, his flipping and flopping makes John Kerry look like the most consistent man in America. WWE creative is in over there heads obviously. Their overpaid Hollywood writers who WWE hires, and then they shell out ideas like this RAW Diva Search and turning Nicks Dinsmore into a retard just because they can’t get him over with his wrestling ability alone. How about Triple H’s political power. Randy Orton won the World championship at SummerSlam, only to lose it a month later to Triple H. You honestly don’t think Triple H had anything to do with that? Orton was failing at first, but give him some time. He would have fell into his groove. Instead Triple H swooped in, took the title, and ruined any chances of Orton ever playing a effective face. That he was one in the first place. The Outlaw sums it up best when he says Triple H is someone who will stab you in the back. Triple H was the one who had Outlaw, as Billy Gunn, pushed to the sidelines. Having one guy like Triple H having that much slack, as well as being one of your companies biggest main eventers, is a desperate problem. In a interview with Joe Bachman, a columnist buddy of mine, Raven was asked to sum up his WWE experience in one word: it sucked. Why did it suck? Because of the backstage politics of the WWE, and the horrible notion that you have to be on certain peoples good side in the locker room to get anywhere. The Hollywood writers shouldn’t have that much slack, especially when their popping out storylines like this Hassan terrorist angle. Triple H shouldn’t have that much slack, especially with WWE’s own fan base complaining about him being in the spotlight so much. Don’t believe Raven? Or Outlaw? Or Haas? Or even recently fired WWE writer Patrice O’ Neal who exposed the fact wrestlers kiss up the writers knowing that they with, their thick skulls and horrible wrestling knowledge, have their futures in the palm of their hand and with the movement of a ink pen? When then maybe you’ll believe someone by the name of Spike Dudley….
Spike Dudley said it best. He summed it all up for you: The WWE is a sinking ship. Cursed by owning 100% of the industry. Yes you heard him right. He said WWE is a sinking ship. Why? Because it owns 100% of the industry. Well, Spike was right, and somewhat wrong. WWE doesn’t own all of the industry. After all, it doesn’t own T-N-A. This is my lead in for Total Nonstop Action wrestling. Seeing the industry without a alternative has hurt the business to a large degree. I’ve written plenty of pieces proclaiming TNA as the alternative, and I’ve written plenty of TNA preaching’s. Today I’m not going to preach that gospel. I’ve proven anything I need to prove about TNA wrestling in the past. This isn’t a TNA butt kissing festival, nor is it a time to plug TNA wrestling and it’s product (I‘ll save that for the end of my column.) What you read above is my opinion, along with fact, about why wrestling needs a alternative. Why wrestling becomes desperate without a alternative. Look at the up hill climb WWE went through against World Championship Wrestling, and look how strong it made them. Only to see the business go down hill without anything else to turn to as a alternative. For anything, I hope this opens your eyes today to see the fact that their are other products besides WWE. I hope you’ll watch TNA wrestling. With it’s crisp but meaningful storylines, and emphasis on real wrestling. A tag team division that is passable, a X division that is used properly and appreciated, and a Heavyweight division based on talent over size or flavor of the month appeal. Even if you don’t like TNA wrestling, their are other options. Ring Of Honor. Combat Zone Wrestling. Japanese wrestling. Independent federations. The list goes on, and on. I’m a WWE fan, and I always will be to a certain degree. But their are other brands out there. Their are other faces in the wrestling world out there. There are other alternatives to the same old, same old at the World Wrestling Entertainment. I hope you realize that, appreciate that, and accept that. Their are alternatives, and their going to become stronger then you think really soon…..
What would a column be without a cheap plug? As many of you know, tonight a certain wrestling company presents a Pay-Per-View. That’s right, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling presents No Surrender LIVE this Sunday. The card is stacked, and I for one am excited. Abyss and Raven, who are TNA’s two most underrated wrestlers, are finally getting their spot in the sun. And Raven will be defending his title for the first time in a No Surrender Dog Collar match for the NWA World Championship. It should be bloody, it should be brutal, and folks you do not want to miss it. Also on the card is “The Phenomenal” AJ Styles and Sean Waltman one on one. I’m not a big fan of Waltman, but I must admit this match should be most interesting. Especially with the prospect of Jerry Lynn as referee. Also in action, Christopher Daniels who in my opinion has been a stellar X division champion will defend against Team Canada captain Petey Williams. Williams has to prove Daniels wrong, especially after he called him a “one trick pony.” Americas Most Wanted as well as Michael Shane& Alex Shelley will lock horns, a four way Super X qualifier will take place, Outlaw and Monty Brown take on 3 Live Krew’s Ron Killings and Konnan in a No DQ match. Rhino has already been announced for the show. The prospect of Matt Hardy showing up is still being talked about. Plus so much more. It’s live TONIGHT, I have it pre-ordered, and I’m ready to see this puppy go down.
Till next time…..
Have A Nice Day, The Wright Way!
E-Mail: wrightideacolumn@yahoo.com
AIM: PhenomenalJordon
