Greetings conversationalists all across the fruited plain it is I your personal Harvester of Sorrow the one and only Phantom Lord and this is my Rant Of The Week. As always I am coming to you from the urban slum that is the Rotten Apple core of Brooklyn, New York and I am convinced the WWE is trying to get me to stop watching Monday Night RAW. After last Monday’s more then uninspired program I am very closing to reaching my limit where I say the hell with it. But before I get to all of that, there’s plenty of other news to get to.
First off I want to send out my thoughts and prayers to the family and friends of Mitsuharu Misawa. I’m sure most of you by now have seen the tragic event that took place at Pro Wrestling NOAH’s show in Hiroshima, Japan. Misawa was in a tag match and took what is a very common move in Japan, the backdrop suplex onto the head and something freakish like a one in a billion chance occurred and it caused his heart to stop. Official reports have it that his head was pretty much internally decapitated from the impact. Whatever the case you can only hope it was quick and painless and there was no suffering. Misawa’s wake was held last Friday with over 100 in attendance and a private funeral was held on Saturday.
I will be honest and say I was never a big fan of Misawa’s work. Yeah sure he was a good wrestler, but I never quite understood why some people put him on a pedestal as this mythical figure that always had amazing matches. Sure in the early to mid 90’s he probably had a string of great matches…some even legendary if you buy into the whole five star system. But for me I just never got it. Perhaps some day I’ll get a comp of his greatest matches and maybe I will change my opinion on his status but for now it is what it is. One thing is for certain though, having seen some of his matches from the last couple of years it was clear the guy was burned out and in bad shape. But since NOAH is his company he kept charging forward because he felt it was his responsibility to carry the company on his shoulders. When NOAH lost its TV deal earlier this year that pressure probably increased ten fold and the stresses he probably felt were unimaginable. All we as fans should really ask is that wherever he is now that he is as peace. Japanese wrestling will survive though. It’s always managed to over come adversity and this will be no exception.
See for me personally, I wish it were sort of like the old days where the NWA or AWA World Champion would go over to Japan and defend the title and it would be treated as a huge deal. TNA to a point is doing that sort of thing with the working exchange with New Japan, but that’s more of a “hey you put our guys over and maybe we’ll do the same for you” kind of deal.
Speaking of TNA, they apparently had a PPV this weekend. Slammiversary took place just outside Detroit at The Palace Of Auburn Hills. Now aside from that cruel joke of TNA thinking for a moment they could come close to filling a third of an arena that size much less the whole thing, you have to admire TNA and how they go out of their way to get people to say the hell with it.
When watching TNA I really feel like I am living in a time warp or perhaps the time line it self shifted and we’re back to the year 2000 because I know I’ve seen all of this happen before in a little place called Dubbya See Dubbya. For those of you who don’t know (and I’m guessing that’s a lot if TNA’s rumored PPV Buyrates are true), at the Slammiversary PPV they had their King Of The Mountain Match. Actually they had two matches (Suicide won for some reason but why put Chris Sabin or Alex Shelley over in their hometown or anything). But the world title one I was somewhat looking forward to because I wanted to see Mick Foley win the match so he could continue his awesome power trip angle and if he could pull off defending the belt only once a year. Mick really has been on a role the last few months and he dug up some testicular fortitude once again and took some bumps that he really has no business doing at this point of his career. I’ll admit I marked out for the Superfly Elbow off the top of the Dr. Who-esq Penalty box they had.
The finish however left me confused and angry. Samoa Joe and Kurt Angle were climbing the ladder when all of a sudden Joe stops and hands Angle the belt allowing him to win. Afterwards the Main Event Mafia comes out onto the stage to applaud to a job well done.
Mike Patton has the right idea, pour me a double
Jim Cornette said it’s no wonder WWE writers like Michael Hayes become full blown alcoholics when they have to work for someone like Vince. Well if you try to follow TNA and expect logic and reason to be used you might as well pour yourself one and keep them coming.
Samoa Joe is one of my favorite wrestlers. So when they started doing this Nation of Violence thing it was somewhat interesting. Granted TNA had ruined Joe’s character numerous times so what could a restart hurt? They build up that Joe wants to take out The Main Event Mafia and a mystery person is advising him. This person has ordered Joe to take The Mafia out. So far so good right? Well leave it to TNA to build all of that up only to say HEY LETS PULL A FAST ONE ON EVERYONE.
Lets ruin something that was working with Mick Foley and do a 180 and go back to the Main Event Mafia angle. I like the Main Event Mafia, I really do. Kevin Nash is one of my all time favorites. Scott Steiner always makes for fun television. Booker T is great when he’s switching on and off between Idi Amin and any number of old wrestling announcers. Kurt Angle is probably the best wrestler in TNA and batshit insane which is always a fun combination. And finally we have Sting who I have always loved as a wrestler. Sting when he feels like putting his working shoes on can out do just about anyone.
But as good as these guys are together, somehow TNA has managed to make them all seem like a joke and the Mafia as a whole while considered to be the top heels in the company in reality are just an after thought and show filler. So why they put the belt back on Angle is a mystery. Why they had Samoa Joe helped him is a bigger mystery and if I don’t take TNA off my DVR after all this that will be the biggest mystery of all.
Speaking of which, I read the spoilers for this weeks Impact (relax I won’t give anything away) and I think I’m going to delete Impact off the old schedule. Joe joining the Mafia MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE. God I hate Jeff Jarrett, everything wrong with TNA is his fault. Russo is only scripting what he’s told to script but it is his formula that drives us all nuts.
Of course the spoilers for next weeks show look pretty damn good so go figure. There’s TNA for you. It’s all going to end with Jarrett as world champion at some point anyway.
Moving along before I have an aneurysm, over the course of the last week we saw what might have been the lamest attempt at publicity by the WWE in ages. I say lame not in the sense that it was bad but lame because there was no hype for it what so ever. Last week out of the blue they decide to fill the GM spot on RAW. Since RAW was in Charlotte and it was a big three hour show (for some reason) everyone assumed Ric Flair would be named Raw GM. Come the day of the event, Flair was spotted at the arena and tons of sites posted spoilers that Flair would be named the new GM of RAW. Well it came to the show and they teased an announcement from Vince. They eventually get to it and Vince announces that he has sold Monday Night RAW and Donald Trump is the new owner.
It made no sense what so ever. Why did Vince sell RAW? How much money could have been offered to get Vince to sell RAW?
Well the reason for this half assed angle is USA is desperate to win the ratings war against TNT. No it isn’t RAW vs. Nitro but RAW vs. The Closer. TNT has The Closer and Saving Grace as its aces. USA’s best shows by far are Burn Notice and their new one Royal Pains. As good as they are ratings wise I believe The Closer and Saving Grace beat USA rather easily on most weeks.
So they do this because they want to up the ratings. You have to love how fickle Vince really is. Just because all of this wasn’t on the front page of the New York Times and the lead stories on Access Hollywood and stuff he says fuck it.
Credit to http://www.f4wonline.com
As of early this weekend, the script for last night’s WWE Monday Night Raw was not finished and the belief is that the decision to kill the angle of Donald Trump as the new owner of Raw was likely a last-minute situation reports The Figure Four Weekly Newsletter. The original Trump storyline was scheduled to go much longer than one week, although the general feedback among mostly everyone in WWE was said to be negative about it in the first place. The announcement of Trump “buying” the show last week also didn’t help matters as it didn’t get the reaction Vince McMahon was said to be expecting.
The obvious goal with the storyline was an attempt to get some press, although very few media outlets picked up on the story last week and those that did ended up looking bad when they reported it as fact. This forced WWE and USA to issue an apology press release later in the week. Another problem was that after the mess that was created last week among the media, the company again hoped they would get picked up when it was announced that Trump was providing a full ticket refund to everyone attending the show last night in Green Bay. Of course almost no one picked up the story except for local media. The line right now is that WWE ended up buying themselves $230,000 worth of publicity and it probably wasn’t worth it in the end.
I’ve always made fun of WWE creative being like a bunch of trained monkeys on typewriters (which for the most part they are). But I do not know how anyone can work for Vince under these conditions. Its no wonder the WWE can’t do anything more then two weeks in advance like this little PPV they are having this weekend.
While watching RAW I have to admit I was interested in seeing where the Trump thing went. They did the whole commercial free thing and then earlier in the day Trump announces he has “bought” all the tickets from the show which would allow everyone in attendance who bought a ticket to get a full refund. I do like Donald Trump. I think if there is anyone in business you should pattern yourself after it is him. Donald also is not stupid. He wouldn’t have got involved with this unless it was good for him so the fact Vince got all pissy just because it wasn’t getting main stream press is mind numbing.
I saw this quote from WWE International President Andrew Whitaker and I think it only reinforces my above theory that the WWE really believes their own hype.
WWE Studios: “The success proves that there is an immense appetite from our fans to see their favourite WWE Superstars undertaking movie roles for their enjoyment, either in cinemas or on DVD. It has also highlighted some exceptional talent among several WWE Superstars for applying their acting skills to the big screen.”
Credit to interview with IndianTelevision.com
I’m wondering where the success part is. If the box office numbers are any indication and the movie sales and rental numbers are then I would hardly call things a success. For me personally I don’t want to see my favorite WWE stars doing movies. Can some of them probably pull off being in a movie? Of course they could. But when its part of the same cookie cutter formula stuff the WWE churns out all the time its not going to work. I’ve only seen two of their movies so far. See No Evil (which I thought was a great comedy) and The Condemned. See No Evil was just about up there with most of the current SAW type horror movies to come out in the last few years. The only thing I didn’t like and I’m sure my fellow Ron Paul supporter and Libertarian in solidarity Kane didn’t like was how stupid they made him look in promoting the movie. He had to be Kane all the time. It wasn’t Glen Jacobs, it was Kane. Kane had to show up to his own movie premiere in his wrestling attire. How the WWE ever expects to be taken seriously with this stuff I’ll never know.
The Condemned in my mind was pretty good. The only downside to it was the horrible marketing the movie had. That’s another problem the WWE has. Just because you plaster ads for the damn movie all over the show does not mean we will go see it. The more I saw stuff on WWE television for 12 Rounds the less I wanted to see it. Then again I did like the movie the first time I saw it when it was called Die Hard With A Vengeance.
What Vince needs to understand is that the WWE will never get mainstream press. The only way they get mainstream press is if God forbid something bad happens. They won’t get press for publicity stunts, their horrible movies, and B list Celebes showing up in the crowd or something. None of that will get them the attention they think they deserve. The WWE is seen as a joke and just like Mickey Rourke found out, being associated with them could be seen doing something career risking rather then something worth while.
So when I said the WWE is tempting me to stop watching RAW I wasn’t kidding. When it comes to RAW its either very great and memorable or very lame and forgettable. To be honest as much as I like Randy Orton I am growing sick and tired of his never-ending feud with Triple H. The Trump thing wouldn’t have been so bad if they didn’t shift right back to the traditional McMahon revenge plot that I’m sure they have a blank template for when they write scripts. If they were smart since Orton won they should have it as Triple H never gets another title shot. This way instead of having the same main event over and over it would be a chance for dare I say something fresh. But there is about a zero percent chance of that happening anytime soon.
The Trump thing as out of the blue as it happened was somewhat fresh. Granted the whole thing was going to be a way for Vince to get his win back against Donald so they were even, but it would have been fun leading up to that. As I said before I honestly don’t know how the WWE functions with Vince at the helm. Yeah he’s been extremely successful at most of everything he’s done (or really lucky depending on your point of view). What I can’t figure out is how do they ever expect anyone to get hooked into the shows if he is constantly changing things on a whim just because it’s his mood at that moment.
It’s because of stuff like this that I can’t believe they are actually running a PPV this weekend. Think about this for a minute and just see if it makes any sense what so ever.
Beginning on May 17th there was the Judgment Day PPV. Then on June 7th there was “Extreme Rules”. Finally we come to June 28th and The “don’t call it Great American” Bash. In a span of seven weeks there have been three pay per views and at $39.95 a pop ($119.85 not including taxes and cable fees). In this economy that is insanity but what makes it all worse is for the most part all of it was the same usual WWE format of build something up quick and be done with it. It would have made much more sense to cancel one of these three if they must have a PPV a month then to run all three. I can’t see how it’s possible to build up meaningful storylines when you are basically resetting yourself every few weeks. It’s widely known that the WWE very rarely plans anything out months in advance. Well they do but only for the main event feuds, the rest of the show is just filler material to be honest.
And with the topic of filler material we come to The Bash. First things first it will always be The Great American Bash. You know it’s funny but the WWE is changing PPV names left and right and adding gimmicks to them (all submission, all hell in a cell) and I find it funny that they didn’t change this name outright to one of those. Apparently it wouldn’t work to well to have The Great American Bash in say Calgary or any other foreign country so that’s why they shortened it to The Bash. I mean if this is the case then they should have just brought back Bash At The Beach. All you need for a set there is some sand, a couple aero pools, and the diva’s lounging around in bikinis…
Oh wait in the new TV PG environment we can’t have the diva’s in Bikini’s now can we.
Well back to The Bash. With The Bash there were only three matches I wanted to see. Rey vs. Jericho, Punk vs. Hardy, and Cena vs. The Miz. The rest of the show for all intensive purposes was filler material. Well I shouldn’t say the entire rest of the show. At least ECW got 20 minutes to open the show and Tommy Dreamer retained the title so there was at least that (and with Tommy as ECW champion, ECW on my DVR schedule will continue).
By all accounts Rey and Jericho stole the show once again as Rey won the Intercontinental title. Later in the night though they ruined what had been a good build up for The Colons vs. Priceless and stuck Edge/Jericho in and they ended up winning the tag titles because Vince for some reason is interjecting himself onto Smackdown and getting on Teddy Long’s case about the show not being good enough. I’m guessing since Smackdown is blowing away RAW quality wise Vince in his mind…well I don’t know what the hell goes through his mind anymore. It just probably pisses him off that Smackdown has the better show between the two.
The CM Punk/Jeff Hardy feud has been brewing nicely as Punk continues to come closer to going heel with each passing week. Tonight he pulled the Terry Funk “MAH EYE…CACTUS MAH EYE” bit to perfection after putting his foot under the bottom rope to rob Hardy of a win. Jeff Hardy going batshit insane after the match was a nice touch as you can tell Punk continuing to pull fast ones on him has finally got to him. I would like to see them in some sort of match that hasn’t been done before or at least in a long time. Perhaps an Ironman match or maybe a 2 out of 3 falls match. Just something that hasn’t been done in a while because the usual WWE feud enders (ladder, cage, ect) have been done to death.
The only other match I had interest in seeing was John Cena vs. The Miz and even though it went down exactly how I knew it would I had a small glimmer of hope that maybe just maybe they wouldn’t bury The Miz. Maybe they would see they have someone who could be a new break out star for them and maybe he wouldn’t have to suffer the five moves of doom, the lame fireman’s carry, and the even lamer STF. John Cena is their new Hulk Hogan; I get and understand that. But Hulk Hogan needed a foil. Someone needs to be Piper or Savage to Hogan. The Miz as building that steam and he was getting that momentum and what do they do? They fucking bury and squash him in just about five minutes.
I find it funny anytime I read that the WWE is looking to create new stars and anytime they get the chance to all they do is shoot themselves in the foot and make the guy look weak.
I’ll give them some credit though. On RAW tonight they managed to salvage The Miz and have him look good rather then what happened last night. It probably makes more sense since more people will have watched RAW then The Bash, but I still say a fluke win of some sort against Cena would have done more for The Miz then just looking good against him.
Speaking of RAW, it was nice to see they had an unannounced trade deal (note the sarcasm). This one really made no sense for them to have it as “Oh by the way, before Trump sold back there were a bunch of trades”. You would think they would have announced this last week on Smackdown or something just to give it the illusion they aren’t throwing darts at a board when doing this stuff.
For those of you wondering who went where, here is the official trade list from the WWE.
Moving to the Raw roster:
Gail Kim
Alicia Fox
Jack Swagger
Evan Bourne
Mark Henry
Moving to the SmackDown roster:
Matt Hardy
Finlay
The Hart Dynasty – David Hart Smith, Tyson Kidd & Natalya
Moving to the ECW roster:
Shelton Benjamin
Goldust
William Regal
Brie & Nikki Bella
So as you can see almost the entire ECW roster has gotten moved to RAW and Smackdown. But on the plus side Goldust, Regal, and Shelton are going to ECW and as long as Tommy is still champion I’ll keep watching. But I love when they do this sort of stuff to “shake things up”. It defeats the purpose of the draft they had only a couple of months ago. But on the plus side at least Smackdown didn’t lose anyone big which is usually the case in these things.
One thing I wanted to get to before I end what is now officially the longest damn column I’ve ever written is Michelle McCool winning the Women’s title. She is officially the first woman to win the Women’s and Diva’s championships. Why in God’s name do they continue to forsake us with The Undertaker’s old lady? If she could play a convincing heel I wouldn’t care but her whole gimmick is “Hey you know who my man is so WHAEVAH”.
I mean seriously that is her whole gimmick. While it hasn’t been said on television she comes off as someone who shall we say flaunts the fact that she is where she is because of whom she is with. What makes things more interesting and conspiratorial to me is the fact Gail Kim is now on RAW. Gee what a coincidence that McCool wins the belt and the one chick that could outshine her on every angle ends up being traded to the other show.
Then again this is probably good for Gail. The black hole of women’s wrestling won’t bury her and she can lay claim to being the first eventual Knockouts and Divas champion. One thing I didn’t realize while reading the trades is now Natalya is back on Smackdown. Perhaps someday she can avenge that loss to McCool at last years Great American Bash.
Before I go I have to say it amused the hell out of me to see the end of RAW tonight. Did I really see Mizark Henry pin Randy Orton clean in the middle of the ring? Am I to believe the WWE is going to be giving Mark Henry a face push? If there was anything to cap an end to this maddening week from Trump leaving after one night to this then Mark Henry pinning Randy Orton in the middle of the ring would be it.
There’s also Cena vs. Triple H next week with the winner facing Orton at the end of the month.
So much for trying to make things new and fresh.
On that note I am done with this monstrosity of a column. 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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