Greetings conversationalists all across the fruited plain it is I your personal Harvester of Sorrow, the one and only Phantom Lord and this is the all mighty Rant Of The Week. It’s been a couple of weeks since my last column and to be honest there hasn’t been much that to write about. Yeah the WWE had their annual rape and pillage Smackdown extravaganza but other then that it’s been pretty lackluster lately. I’ll get into all that detail since there was apparently a PPV last weekend. You have to love the WWE because only they would think of running a PPV two weeks after the biggest and most expensive one of the year: especially in this economy.
Before I get to that and the eventual TNA bashing that you know and love from me, I have to talk about something that has set the entire IWC on fire and that’s the commentary of Mr. James E. Cornette.
http://jimcornette.com/Commentary.html. If you have not read this yet, please take the time to do so (don’t worry my column will still be here when you’re done). I’ve always had the up most respect for Jim Cornette and in this one commentary he nailed EVERYTHING that is wrong with wrestling right now especially with the WWE (and TNA with out naming them). I used to think that the WWE or TNA needed better writers. Hell I applied a couple of times back when I was a tad bit more cheerful. Sure my submissions probably got a good laugh before they were tossed in the shredder but hell I figured if some nitwit who wrote for a failed sitcom or two qualified to be a writer then surely me being this generations Vince Russo had to work in my favor (it’s a long story involving e-fed stuff…ah 2004 what a time). But I have to say I think Jim Cornette changed my opinion on the matter. They don’t need “writers”. They just need people who can put together a damn angle and not fuck it up.
I think this line sums it up best from that above linked commentary.
“You’ve got 3 minutes, you’re wrestling the Rock & Roll Express in Charlotte, last show there you interfered with the racket so this time they’ve asked for a cage match, and it’s for the Tag Title. Go sell me some tickets.”
Just thinking about Big Dust making money I had to dig up a pic of him from the 70’s during his Stardust era. The man set the standard for being a P.I.M.P.
I brought that up because TNA in their infinite wisdom has booked The Palace Of Auburn Hills out side of Detroit as the site for their Slammiversary pay per view. The Palace is the home of The Detroit Pistons and it is a 20,000-seat arena for basketball and is capable of holding well over that for wrestling. Of course TNA probably at the most might sell 5,000 tickets IF they are lucky and that’s going to be with most of the building tapped off. The Lockdown PPV that just occurred was reported to have sold around 3,500 tickets with another 1,000 papered for a total of 4,500. That was at Temple University in their 10,000 seat plus arena. TNA needs to really understand this concept.
Don’t try to make yourself look bigger then you are. I forget who said this but they said “it’s better to play to a full theater then to a half empty arena”. TNA should really look into that theory for when they go on the road. It would be better then having everyone sit in one section to give the illusion of a packed house. Honestly if TNA wanted to run a show in Detroit, they should have gone to Detroit and booked a show at Cobo Arena. If you want a building rich in wrestling history then in Detroit that is where you go. Anyone who remembers The Sheik’s wrestling promotion in Detroit knows how storied Cobo Arena is for Wrestling. With TNA looking to leech off history and tradition any time they can, you would think they would go for that. But I could be wrong; I mean TNA could have a strong showing and actually sell a lot of tickets for this show. It would be nice if TNA didn’t have to resort WCW lightning tricks to make an empty arena look full.
I just read this gem courtesy of the Wrestling Observer/http://www.f4wonline.com/
– As reported earlier, TNA’s next pay-per-view on the road, Slammiversary, will be taking place on June 21 at the Palace in Auburn Hills in Detroit, Michigan. The Palace in Auburn Hills is one of the largest arenas in the country and can hold an audience of 23,000 for wrestling. No one in the company is delusional to think that if the show draws a mere 5,000, it won’t be a success. While TNA probably won’t even come close to filling the arena to complete capacity, they should be fine nonetheless as The Palace has this big tarp that greatly curtains off portions of the arena. For instance, the WNBA’s Detroit Shock often have their games curtained so the arena doesn’t look too empty on television.
I’m just laughing at the notion that even the WNBA can out draw TNA. TNA really should consider changing the venue before it’s to late. But then again I guess when you run a company on someone else’s dime it doesn’t really matter how much money you lose on a show. In the world of wrestling that’s what they call having a money mark. Depending on whom you ask, Dixie Carter is probably the biggest one in all of wrestling right now. Not to say it’s a bad thing, but I’m sure when TNA says they are making a profit it just means they some how pulled in a few more dollars then they spent. Either way I can’t see them making any money off this show especially with how their buyrates usually are.
Before I move on, I guess I should comment on Mick Foley as TNA World Champion. While watching Lockdown, when Mick fell to the floor and was declared the winner it really was a WTF moment. No one really expected Mick to win but here he is now the TNA World Champion. It can go one of two ways for TNA. The right way would be them building up someone (Samoa Joe) to a huge match and championship run then Mick being world champion makes sense. What will probably happen is what they are building to right now and that’s a Jeff Jarrett/Mick Foley feud. I mean the Angle/Jarrett feud set TNA on fire and drew huge numbers for TNA(a point 1 increase) so Jarrett and Foley would probably double that and get TNA to the illusive 1.5 mark***
***: Note the sarcasm
It’s no secret how much I hate Jeff Jarrett the booker and driving force behind TNA. When it comes down to it, it will always be about how can he make himself look good compared to others. Jarrett the wrestler I like, but Jarrett the guy in charge I cannot stand. Yes it’s been reported that Spike TV is the reason that all the ex-WWE guys are pushed to the top, but even if that’s the case he still doesn’t have to be the top damn face in the company.
The appearance of Bobby Lashley in TNA has made me laugh though. I mean first off they have him show up to do a STERN point of the finger at everyone yet officially he is not under contract. Only TNA would have someone come in who isn’t under contract. Supposedly the whole deal is he can work for TNA in between training for his MMA stuff. Dana White of UFC said if Lashley signs with TNA he can kiss his UFC chances good bye. Honestly I don’t know why White has such an issue with Wrestling. I mean he’s borrowed so much promotion and story building wise from wrestling then he will ever admit. But his loss is someone else’s gain I suppose. Lashley has signed to fight Bob Sapp on a Strikeforce event in June.
See now if TNA should sign anyone it’s Bob Sapp. The man has everything Bobby Lashley doesn’t…mainly a personality, charisma, and a voice of a man of his size and not someone missing their balls.
So we’ll how long the Lashley experiment works out before he gets all pissy and leaves for some reason or another. I would imagine Lashley vs. Samoa Joe would be a pretty good match especially if they go all MMA. A match TNA wants to do is Angle vs. Lashley as it would be some sort of Greco Roman freestyle wet dream. Knowing them instead of building either match up, they would just hot shot them onto an episode of Impact.
Now if you want to talk about something in TNA that really is annoying me I give you the Knockouts division. Even before Gail Kim left it was going to hell and ever since they low-balled her out of the company it has sunken to new lows with each passing week. Angelina Sky who is by far one of the best if not THE best heel TNA has finally won the TNA Knockouts title at Lockdown. She should have honestly won the belt like a year ago but for some reason Taylor Wilde was seen as someone to build the division around. I’m not knocking Taylor because I do like her. But her whole act in TNA is so horrible. She’s basically a generic vanilla babyface and they don’t really have her do anything.
What really annoyed me is apparently they have released Roxxi (Nikki Roxx). That just shows you how clueless TNA really is when they let someone as good as Roxxi go. Last month she and Rhaka Khan got into a huge fight because Roxxi felt Rhaka was working to stiff (i.e. not knowing what she was doing) so they both got unofficial 60 suspensions. Well now it appears since he contract is up they just won’t renew it. If I were running TNA, Roxxi would have a job for damn near life especially after going along with that bullshit loser gets their head shaved ladder match. Reports are TNA complains about not having someone who can fill the Gail Kim role well HELLO SHE’S RIGHT THERE. Well in my last column I said ODB was the one they were looking for, well the truth is between her and Roxxi either one could be the top face TNA craves.
ODB continues to be so insanely over but they have her reduced to just doing comedy bits for some reason. The stuff with her and Cody Deener is pretty damn funny, but as much as Angelina should have been Knockouts champion way before now so should have been ODB. TNA really just needs to beg Scott D’Amore to come back because at least he had a damn clue with what he was doing with the division.
One recent addition is Mexican star Sarah Stock who was brought in because again TNA is looking for someone to be the new Gail Kim. A lot of fans of her were excited to hear she was coming to TNA and then we get this tidbit of joy.
TNA newcomer Sarah Stock was a huge disappointment in her debut for the promotion last week. The company brought her in from Mexico with the idea of making her the top female babyface in the promotion and having her work with Awesome Kong in hopes of revitalizing the women’s division. On April 21, Stock worked a match with Kong prior to the Impact taping and many backstage felt the match was terrible. Many felt her offense looked weak as the soft Mexican women’s style of wrestling doesn’t translate well in the United States. She worked a bit better the next night with Taylor Wilde, but the feeling was that her offense was still weak.
Credit to www.f4wonline.com
So basically she disappointed them because she wrestled as she always wrestles and it wasn’t to their liking. Great idea sticking her in a match with Awesome Kong whose whole thing is to DESTROY her opponents. This would be sort of like if the WWE signed some huge locator (say Mistico) and then booked him against The Great Khali for his first match. Of course he would look like crap and it’s understandable to see why Stock probably did in their eyes. I would hope they just put her against someone where she can show case her style instead of just throwing her out to the wolves right off the bat.
I think I’m done with the TNA bashing because if I go on there is a good chance I might start pulling out my hair. TNA and their ineptitude do that to me.
We flip sides and go to the WWE and two weeks after that draft thing and a PPV that was booked by throwing darts at a board, the rosters are now in place and finally THE FOUNDATION OF THE WWE CAN BE SHAKEN TO ITS CORE.
Ok it wasn’t anything like that but at least Smackdown got its damn World title back. You have to love how basically the World Title and the WWE title were on RAW because as we know, RAW is more important in the grand scheme of the mind of Vince McMahon. What it really came down to was both John Cena and Triple H have to be champion and since there is no middle ground and they BOTH have to be champion at some point, they just said the hell with the brands and had them more or less on the same shows.
At Backlash last week (yes there was a PPV believe it or not), Edge and Cena had a damn fine match if it were being played on Smackdown vs. RAW. I had to laugh several times because in a normal last man standing match it would have been over, but since we have to suspend our belief in reality for this Cena kept over coming the odds. Edge also did the same, but I can’t fault him. He’s not booked as Superman and Captain America at the same time. What did make us laugh was the finish of the match where John Cena was chokeslamed into a giant spotlight on the side of the stage. Explosions and fire galore as John Cena goes down because he couldn’t answer the 10 count. You would think the Conchairto on the stage would be enough, but oh not when dealing with SUPER CENA.
It made for a cool visual but once again we had to suspend our belief of reality because if it were a legit spotlight, John Cena would not only have been sliced and diced by the glass but he would have been extra crispy from the 7000-watt bulb. You have to love pro wrestling. Only in the WWE can you get away with attempted murder like it’s no big thing. Now had Cena been kept off TV for a few weeks it would have been all-good. But instead they have to have him do his best Hulk Hogan impersonation after Earthquake squashed the hell out of him and he stumbles out at the end of RAW to cost The Big Show a shot at the title. See this is the reason why people (meaning the male demo) are starting to hate Cena. Sure the women and kids love him, but we men can’t fucking stand him and his never say die attitude.
Of course I’m just bitter that The Big Show isn’t World Champion. The guy has been on a huge fucking roll and it’s a shame he’s falling back into the mix. He should have won the World Title at Wrestlemania and it would have solved more then a few headaches. Plus it would have continued what would have been a really awesome Edge/Vickie/Show love triangle.
Speaking of the world title match, I have no interest in seeing Randy Orton vs. BATISTIAMA. Since I have joined the 21st century and finally have a DVR, I ended up falling asleep during the second hour of RAW. After the amazing Orton/MVP match I lost all interest. Batista as an even bigger bland baby face then Cena does nothing for me. I only wish DVR worked for live recording so you could fast forward through the stuff you don’t want to see. They’ve done Orton and Batista to death so I can’t imagine this feud being any more different then it was before. I thought the whole point of the draft was to shake things up and liven it up. On Smackdown yeah there are some interesting matches to be had now, but on RAW it’s going to be the same old same old.
On to another topic of humor and interest, there was a Vince McMahon’s stockholder meeting the other day where we got some great delusions of grander from Vince. Usually Linda does these things, but you can see right through her bullshit. With Vince you know your going to get a show.
Here are the more interesting tidbits I believe courtesy of Pro Wrestling Insider (if not it’s one of them).
* Vince McMahon said that he is not interested in running an MMA promotion.
This mean’s Vince isn’t dumb enough to go up against Dana White and his friends from Las Vegas. Plus the last time Vince started a new company it got run into the ground. To be fair, the XFL could have worked but it was more about Vince feeding his ego and less about competing with the NFL.
* Vince McMahon said that WWE is looking into creating a Wednesday night TV program. He feels that it would not be overexposure due to the huge number of TV stations available & that being on TV every weeknight would make it easier for the fans to follow along with the storylines or catch up if they miss any of the TV shows.
No it wouldn’t. It would make it even more confusing to have a show on five nights a week. As it is the storylines are dull and predictable and most of the time make no sense. So I can only imagine what it would be like if the brain trust had another night of programming to deal with.
* Donna Goldsmith said that WWE has major marketing plans for Summerslam 2009, including a huge party leading into the event. Vince McMahon predicted that Summerslam 2009 will sell out.
Well no kidding it will sell out. The show is scheduled to be in Los Angeles at The Staples Center and for the most part the WWE always has a good turn out there.
* Donna Goldsmith said that WWE has upcoming meetings with the USA Network & CNN regarding marketing.
Aside from corporate reasons, I don’t know why they would want to do anything with CNN. Fox News trounces CNN in the ratings and as much as some people in the WWE would hate to admit it that Fox News viewing NASCAR watching population IS the WWE Universe (well a good portion of it anyway). If the WWE wants attention, just get Glenn Beck to do an angle with them. Depending on your point of view he would be hands down either the biggest face or heel they would ever have.
* Vince McMahon said that Playboy wanted to work with WWE again this year, but Vince turned down the offer because of WWE’s new “PG environment”.
Fuck TV PG, I mean seriously. There’s a lot you can do with “PG” in this day and age but they need to realize that. You can have blood, you can have violence, and you can have a diva in Playboy. It’s not like it’s Hustler or Penthouse. Melina or Mickie James in Playboy would be a license to print money for them. But I really can’t wait for all those fucking kids who are the reason John Cena merchandise sells so much to grow up. Once those kids hit puberty, we’ll get Attitude 2.0 and before you know it, Vince will be peddling sex to kids again just like the good old days. But TNA, seriously be calling Playboy right now. The Beautiful People in Playboy would make you more money then you could ever imagine.
* Vince McMahon announced that WWE has signed a deal with Pepsi.
I have no problem with this as I enjoy Pepsi. I just wish that Pepsi Throwback stuff would find it’s way around here.
* Vince McMahon said that WWE was planning a tour of China, but ran into some problems. He feels that China will be a big part of WWE’s future.
By problems he means the Chinese Government. What you need to understand is to play in China; you have to follow their rules. They told The Rolling Stones what songs to play so I can only imagine what they would have told Vince could be done if the WWE did a show there. Me personally I wouldn’t go to China. Don’t let the whole we embrace capitalism thing fool you. You can never trust a Commie. But money is money and I’m sure in the end at some point in the next five years, we will see a Monday Night RAW from Hong Kong or Shanghai.
* Vince McMahon said that WWE is considering canceling it’s tour of Mexico in late May due to the swine flu outbreak. He also announced a Mexican tour for October of 2009.
God I love this Swine Flu stuff I really do. A friend of mine said and I quote “when you see people dropping dead in mass around you, then you can worry. Until then stop fucking worrying you pussy”. But yeah this Swine Flu stuff is more over hype and fear mongering then anything else. Go to Mexico and expand on the Hispanic market. Just take the usual precautions (don’t drink the water) and things will be fine.
* Vince McMahon partially blamed the decline of pay-per-view buys on more fans choosing to watch pay-per-views with each other rather than individually ordering the pay-per-views.
This one is my favorite note of the whole meeting. It has nothing to do with PPV’s being thrown together at the last minute or them costing way to much or even most of the time them having no reason for us to order. It must be people watching together in groups instead of individually. If I were a stock holder I would call Vince on that one. That is such a bullshit answer and he knows it and everyone in the WWE knows it. PPV buyrates are down for the same reason TNA can’t get them to go up. They give us no reason to order them and at $39.95 and in this economy I don’t see that changing.
* A shareholder asked if “Mr. McMahon” could be the person who ends the Undertaker’s Wrestlemania undefeated streak. Vince McMahon said that him ending the streak would probably anger a lot of people, so it’s unlikely to happen.
Translation: OH YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT WILL HAPPEN.
* Vince McMahon said that him appearing in a movie would be a bad idea due to his lack of patience & time.
See now this is just stupid. Vince craves mainstream attention and Vince as an evil executive would be like the easiest movie in the world for him to do. All they would have to do is film him during the day and they would be set. Apparently the WWE says they have made a staggering $6 million dollar profit on their movies. See that’s not to good in the long run. They need to stop making these stupid John Cena has to rescue his kidnapped wife movies and do comedies or something. Hell since they seem to be so eager to lure Women in why not a romantic movie of some sort. Put the divas to some good use if you won’t do Playboy.
* Vince McMahon said that holding Wrestlemania overseas would be difficult because it would have to air live in North America. He mentioned that Summerslam 1992 from London, England aired in North America on a tape delay & it ended up being a bad business decision.
I can’t fault him for this especially with Internet spoilers in this day and age. But it would be amazing to see Wrestlemania outside North America say from London or Paris. But just because you won’t do Wrestlemania doesn’t mean you can’t do one of the other PPV’s in Europe.
Before I go, a lot of people are talking about the MVP/Sherri Sheppard deal from Smackdown the other night. Basically she has the hots for him and they set up a date and he’s supposed to be on The View in return for Sheppard being on Smackdown. Some people do not understand just how big this show is. If this works out right, MVP could become a HUGE star for the WWE. We’re talking new Rock levels to counter Orton as the new Austin. The WWE is desperate for main stream attention and MVP might be able to do it for them. It would be funny if MVP could get them the kind of attention that they only wished John Cena could. But hey there’s always the next WWE Film: THE FIREMAN.
John Cena is a (insert city) fireman and a serial arsonist kidnaps his wife and he must race through challenging infernos to save her and his city before they both burn…
Yeah it’s just not the same with out Don LaFontaine doing it.
On that note I am done for this week. Thank God I have the DVR so I can tape RAW and watch 24 for once. Plus Orton vs. Shane, yeah I’ll be fast forwarding through that one. So until next time take care and remember someone has to give you this information and it DAMN well has got to be me.
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I think you’re spot-on with your thoughts regarding the shareholders meeting. Someone really should have called BS on the “watching PPV’s as groups” line.
And just to pick your brain… which venture would prove to be more successful after all was said and done: the XFL or a Vince-run MMA promotion (a what-if scenario). 😀
The XFL was, in its own way, successful. I mean look, the company received much higher ratings than the NHL. The difference is that McMahon tried to take on the NFL and accepted a prime time slot on NBC. He should have taken a Sunday afternoon slot on UPN and flew beneath the radar like the Arena Football League was doing. The XFL would have made money hand over fist.