Some house-keeping issues before I get to this week’s column. First, you should be noticing that certain pages on this site are changing over to our new design. Please send me some feedback on the new design – we anticipate that the new design will be fully functional by September 1st and that there will be no service interruptions during the change-over period.
Second, my last column advocated 5 easy steps to fix ECW. WWE has listened to none of them – I’d like to think that I win this round since the ECW product is becoming less and less watchable.
Third and finally, I like to go over my column archive and pull up previous columns that are written on the same date as existing columns. Eight years ago today (that’s ridiculous) I wrote a column about FOX Sports trying to enter the wrestling business. The former WCW employee who was my major “inside contact” at the time informed most of the information in that quick little article. As I re-read it, I noticed that I mentioned the old AWF and CBS. If you folks never saw that show, then you don’t know the definition of low-quality video production! Great talent, poor visuals. I also mention that Rupert Murdoch’s plan was to run 5, live half-hour shows each week. Ha ha ha ha!!! That would have bombed royally! By the way, I was going to be a Senior in high school when I wrote this column, which means I was probably working my ass of training for the upcoming football season (in which we were state champions…).
And seven years ago (an equally disgusting amount of time in the internet wrestling world) I wrote a column about then-Governor Jesse Ventura’s decision to referee at the upcoming SummerSlam event in Minnesota. That’s another quick read (apparently I had no time to write back then, which is funny because I would kill to have all of the free time back that I once had). I still believe that Governor Ventura made the right decision in refereeing that match because, quite frankly, the media were going to lambast him anyway. Now about Ventura’s recent claims of this country needing a wrestler in the White House in 2008…I’m not so sure about that!
Maybe I should get to my column now?
So given the fact that ECW has pretty much become a toned-up WWE, I had to quench my need for watching something different via looking for another fighting show to watch. UFC? Nah – the “Ultimate Fighter” show is cool to watch, but I’m not really down for watching that the same way I would be down for watching old ECW DVDs. Old ECW DVDs? Nah – I’d rather see something that I haven’t seen before. So what was I to do?
Well, I saw the beginning of Rhino’s promo on the internet the other day and how he started bashing ECW and Vince McMahon. At first I thought, “Lame attempt at ratings.” And then I saw the pouch in his hand and immediately I thought of Medusa dumping the WWE Women’s Championship in the garbage on WCW Nitro (yeah, that worked out well, huh Medusa? LOL!), so my interest was piqued – and it looked like I had a new show to watch!
Last night I watched my first TNA Impact! show. I was a little annoyed at the end of the show because it was only an hour long, but I guess that they have to work within Spike TV’s limits. The show began with Rhino going nuts on Vince McMahon and the new ECW in a segment that I believe ran too long. He went on about how Douglas, Raven, the Dudleys, and he were the heart and soul of the old ECW and that he was confused how you could start a new ECW without the last World and Television Champion. All in all, I think it was an extremely low class promo and it really did nothing for me other than start the night off really bad. I was watching TNA to get AWAY from the new ECW…
Then there was Norman Smiley, who I haven’t seen in ages. He was funny! And this gigantic Abyss character just annihilated him and then Road Dogg and Billy Gunn came out (I think they call themselves the James Gang) to try to get Abyss on their team for the upcoming PPV. I’m pretty sure that ECW’s Sinister Minister was floating around ringside, too. All I really remember from the segment were the great chants of “DX Rejects” being hurled at Dogg and Gunn. Hilarious!
And I don’t know if you guys know this, but Christy Hemme is their “Miz” on Impact. So she was giving promos for the upcoming segments before the commercial breaks and you know what? She’s pretty damn hot! Sting said some words, but it was really boring so I didn’t really pay attention.
Then Shane Douglas was shown training the Naturals. That looked like a great tag team, so hopefully I get to see more of them. And Shane Douglas was as good giving the promo as ever. That man has talent – I wonder why he doesn’t wrestle any more…maybe he’s injured or something.
A couple of little guys came out next and one had a belt on. I didn’t really pay attention to the match, so I can’t really comment on it. Nothing really impressive to pay attention to on my end.
The next thing I remember was watching the NWA Tag Team Champions, Styles and Daniels, taking on some “Eye Spy” team or something. Dude, Styles and Daniels are ridiculous. They are the best wrestlers that I’ve seen in a long time. And, being a big WWE fan I hate to say thing, thank God they’re not in WWE. I could only imagine the cheerleader, vampire, mentally-challenged, or whatever gimmick that those writers would have given these two guys while they jobbed out to Jean Paul Levesque. I could watch AJ Styles wrestle all day – he’s that good. For me, these two guys made up for the mess that was the Rhino promo.
Let’s see what happened next…I think the Dudley Boyz took on some Canadians and beat them up and down the ring and that was it. I also remember seeing a Raven and Larry Zybsyko promo for some hair vs. hair match. I don’t see what it would matter if Zybysko lost because he’s damn near bald anyway, but whatever.
The show was a good alternative to the new ECW, it really was. I was pleasantly suprised and I’m telling you, after watching Daniels and Styles, I’m thinking of getting their PPV! Of course, I’ve never ordered a PPV and I have no idea how much it would cost, but chances are that I can get it much cheaper at the video store online about a month after it airs. I also looked at the card and I really don’t know some of the wrestlers and something about watching Scott Steiner and Jeff Jarrett in the main event with Sting and Christian makes me not so excited.
In any event, good job to TNA for putting on a different show that had great wrestling, but was really marred by the completely inappropriate Rhino promo at the beginning of the show. Here’s hoping that they focus less on what we all already know is a crappy product and show off more of what they have that ECW does not have – great wrestling!
