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 Rant Of The Week. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the world of wrestling so you can imagine I will have plenty to say. First summer is officially here and the Big Apple is the Baked Apple right now. Summer is here and good lord is it hot.
First off congratulations are in order to Brock Lesnar as he defeated Shane Carwin by submission (yes you read that right) to become the UNDISPUTED UFC Heavyweight Champion of the world. It was a hell of a fight as Carwin beat the living shit out of Brock in the first round, but since Shane hasn’t gone past the first round in any fight Brock may have gambled with the biggest game of rope a dope ever. Shane was clearly gassed and Brock got a take down and eventually he locked in an arm choke. Shane Carwin tapped just as his head started going from red to purple.
For a minute, Dana White probably was biting his nails as Brock was getting the bejesus beaten out of him. Brock is the UFC’s golden boy and for a couple of minutes in round one it looked like karma was coming back to Dana for mocking Strikeforce after Fedor’s loss last week. But all is well in the UFC as Brock is back. He recovered from an illness that almost killed him and he reclaimed his throne. See now that is what we call compelling television. I guarantee Vince McMahon was probably watching the PPV or has by this point because he knows even though he claims there is no competition (ITS TWO DIFFERENT THINGS DAMN IT), UFC is the reason all the adult male fans are leaving wrestling in droves. Well that and booking things for kids and watering everything down to the point where even the most die hard of fans says this is stupid.
But Vince will never buy that. The people that kiss his ass under him will continue to say “Oh well its two different audiences…no need to worry about those 1 Million buys boss”. It’s amazing how even a bad throw away UFC PPV out does most WWE PPV’s by a wide margin. The WWE’s solution to everything being bland is MORE GIMMICKS. Another cookie cutter PPV is coming up this time in the form of Money In The Bank. I guess the train wreck spot at Wrestlemania is now gone for the guys who would otherwise never get on the PPV because the WWE has decided to do a PPV with not one but TWO in the same night.
Does the word burnout not even mean anything to these people? A match that was actually interesting and worth the wait till Wrestlemania now will happen twice in one night. It’s no wonder no one actually orders PPV’s anymore. They keep jacking up the price but not the effort in making one want to actually pay to see it.
Paul Heyman gave a pretty good interview to Fight Magazine after the Lesnar/Carwin fight where he noted that Pro Wrestling fans are now UFC fans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDOcy7GlhYQ
UFC is the WWE and Strikeforce is TNA. UFC is the multi million-dollar giant and Strikeforce is the well-funded yet seemingly inept competition. UFC has the dominant place in the market and Strikeforce is doing everything they can to get a foot in the door. He said in another interview with www.mmafighting.com that UFC did more PPV buys domestically then all of Professional Wrestling did world wide. It’s not hard to understand why. But I am sure there are people all over the wrestling industry who still don’t get it and it’s only a passing fad. I know Ric Flair said as much in an interview from a couple of weeks ago. Then again Flair probably only said that because some guys in the UFC make a fight what he used to in a year. With three divorces and alimony’s to pay, he is a tad bitter.
Speaking of Paul Heyman, right now TNA is betting everything on an ECW invasion angle in the hopes that Paul Heyman will come to TNA and save them from the fate of WCW before them.
TNA officials have gotten more aggressive over the past week or two when it comes to signing Paul Heyman. As noted before, Heyman has been offered the head of TNA creative job but Heyman wants a role where he’s the guy running everything, something similar to Dana White in UFC. It was also noted that he sees the creative side of things as a problem but not the biggest problem.
Credit: F4WOnline.com
If Paul wants the keys to the TNA kingdom then HAND THEM TO HIM. Paul should make it Iron Clad where no one can under cut you or sabotage his work. But as bad as TNA’s creative team is, it’s not the biggest problem there is. The biggest problem TNA has is no one knows whom the f*** they are. TNA has some of the worst promotion, which is amazing considering they have a great TV Pitchman in Don West on the payroll. How many people bought Mark McGwire rookie cards because of him? Are you telling me he can’t be on television at least shilling matches and up coming events?
TNA relies heavily on the Internet, which is nice, but the Internet only goes so far and I’m pretty sure this is what is meant by “not the biggest problem” or at least one of them. TNA does these great Before The Bell specials sort of like UFC’s Countdown To shows but unlike the UFC ones, Before The Bell ends up on Youtube and not on Spike where it should be.
Before a PPV why isn’t there at least a special on Spike to entice people to order the show? Well I know one reason why. It’s because TNA thinks TV Ratings are more important then PPV buys. See it’s that kind of thinking that if Paul Heyman does sign with TNA needs to be the first thing to go.
I could list a whole bunch of things wrong with TNA just from a production standpoint. I am sure Paul has these very things down on a list and if he does sign they will be first things addressed. Anyway you look at it, Paul knows rebuilding TNA from the inside out won’t be an overnight thing. If he were to take on such a thing, he has made it clear it has to be worth the sacrifice to his family. It could possibly be a five-year project to turn TNA in a company that is worth a damn…much less one that is making money and lots of it.
On Friday night TNA held a show here in Brooklyn at MCU Park where the Brooklyn Cyclones play and they drew their biggest North American paid attendance with between 5,500 and 6,000 fans. I was in attendance and I have to say the difference between the television shows and these house shows is astounding.
I have said a lot of horrible things about Jeff Jarrett over the years and I think I would like to take some of them back right now. Jarrett books the house shows and from top to bottom it was pretty damn good. No bullshit angles, no nonsense, and no nothing usually associated with TNA. It was a good old fashion professional wrestling card top to bottom. It’s such a novel concept to do pro wrestling that it could just work for them if they tried it.
Despite what you might think given my generally negative attitude towards TNA, I want to see them succeed. Obviously there are 6,000 other people here in the New York City area that wants to see them succeed as well.
Just a sample of the pics from the show that I personally took with my vastly outdated Nikon Coolpix 885. I pushed the limits of the ZOOM to its breaking point. If you are inclined to, on Facebook I have more photos from the show.
But look at that crowd. There is a fan base and it is willing to continue to support TNA. Now I don’t know if Paul Heyman will be the Messiah some make him out to be. Does he have the Midas touch to turn everything into Gold? I don’t know. But one thing is for sure here. What TNA is doing right now is not working. What TNA has been doing for the last eight damn years has not worked and it will continue not to work. TNA has the wrestlers with the talent to pull things off. TNA is like a gigantic ship that is loaded to the gills right now. But it has no one at the wheel and its just going in circles over and over and over. People in TNA who probably read this column know that is a fact.
Ah well we shall see what happens. There is a rumor floating around that Hulk Hogan is pushing for Abyss to win the TNA title at Victory Road so he can face him for it at Bound For Glory.
I don’t want to get all conspiratorial here; but the show was rumored to be in Charlotte and built around Flair suddenly gets moved to Tampa and Hogan is pushing for a title shot.
Well I’d probably order the PPV just to see it. There would be a lot of betting pools on how many bumps Hogan takes before his back finally breaks into a million pieces. Hogan doing a thumbtack bump is an amusing thought. Who would have ever guessed when Hogan was bullshitting about being up for the role of Randy The Ram that it would actually come true? Hogan’s back is seriously messed up and he has to be INSANE to think this would possibly work. Well we know he’s all ready insane, but there’s different levels of insanity and he’s going off the deep end if he thinks this is a good idea assuming the rumor is true.
But then again it wouldn’t surprise me if it were. I mean you really didn’t think Hogan was putting over Abyss with out thinking of himself in the long run did you? Hulk Hogan only puts someone over so long as it makes him look better in the long run. We shall see what happens. I really hope TNA doesn’t do something that stupid but knowing them will.
That would be a fun question to ask Paul Heyman. Say he does get an offer he cant refuse from TNA and he comes in just as Hogan is crowned champion. How in the hell does he fix that kind of mess?
In case you haven’t noticed, TNA has been using the likes of Tommy Dreamer, Raven, and Stevie Richards as part of some sort of angle where they just show up in the crowd and watch a match and then disappear. Apparently a few months ago TNA had some sort of focus group do market research and the one thing that came back in unison was people liked ECW.
Well no shit. Everyone loved ECW. But its 2010 and while we still love Tommy Dreamer, Raven, Stevie, and the others…I don’t want to see a rehash of a rehash of a rehashed angle.
See what people liked was the ECW show it self. Lots of wrestling and minimal bullshit. Anything that happened of importance happened inside the ring and not in some pre-taped sketch in the back. Hell I would take Mid 80’s Memphis Wrestling over ECW. It’s not that hard to figure out what works and what does not. It’s all about the build to the big match. You have to get us emotionally invested into wanting to see say Jay Lethal overcome weeks and weeks of punishment to get the big win and revenge over Fortune.
TNA would end up doing something that could last weeks in one or two shows and that is the problem.
ECW was old school in the sense it was all about the build to the big ECW Arena show. Sure there was more violence but there was plenty of old school stuff to tug on the old heartstrings. That is what TNA needs to do in a nutshell.
Abyss keeps referring to “THEY”. Well I hope “they” turn out to be the ECW guys and “they” end up beating the crap out of him. Abyss would have never been worth a damn in the real ECW. What he needs to do is just go to Japan or CZW all ready and win some deathmatch stuff. I’d rather see a Youtube clip of Abyss taking a swan dive into a pile of light tubes in some parking lot then it happening on Impact.
Moving along to the more ridiculous stuff in the news, this one really made me laugh when I read it. Read it yourselves and I’m sure you’ll have the same reaction.
The Wrestling Observer is reporting that Vince McMahon has banned the “knife edge” chop from use in WWE matches. The chop, which was made famous by Ric Flair, generally gets a “woo” reaction from the crowd after it’s used by a wrestler, and Vince does not want the crowd woo’ing as it of course reminds them of Flair, who works for TNA right now. It should be noted that straight down chops like the ones used by The Great Khali and Big Show are still being allowed as they don’t draw a “woo” reaction from the fans.
Vince McMahon might be the best promoter in all of wrestling, but he really is a schmuck sometimes and this is one of those times. What is next? Do you ban punches because it might remind someone of Hogan or someone else who’s on the McMahon shitlist? Though apparently this rule has been in place for a while now but only Flair and Shawn Michaels were allowed to do them.
There is a solution though for this. I suggest everyone who is reading this column who is going to some sort of WWE event in the future, anytime Show or anyone else does an open hand slap you have to do a WOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Hell you should just do it at random times to really drive them nuts. It’s always fun to screw with the audio and make them dump out entire sections of the crowd if they aren’t reacting the way they want to.
The Nexus Angle continues to be the best thing the WWE has going right now even though it almost got cut off at the knees last week when Wade Barrett had a visa issue to be worked out. The Nexus rookies ended up beating up Arn Anderson, Dean Malenko, Jerry Lawler, Michael Hayes, Mike Rotunda, and Ricky Steamboat in an awesome angle. Steamboat is in the hospital for real due to a broken blood vessel in his brain (not an aneurism as initially feared).
Right now they are playing it as the heels of RAW are ganging up on the good guys who are trying to take out the Nexus. Arn Anderson did a rambling but still damn good promo on RAW last night where he told Sheamus that he’s basically gonna get his ass kicked by them in the end. I know people complain about old guys who hang around way past their prime (cough Hogan cough) but you know what, I wanted to see The Nexus take on some of the Legends in a street fight. During RAW last week when all the legends formed a circle and rolled up their sleeves you knew that it was going down. Who wouldn’t love to see Arn get some revenge with a tire iron along with Barry, Mike, Sgt Slaughter, and other old timers? Dust off Tony Garera and whatever corner he’s been hiding in and have him be part of it. A good old fashion eight-man tag would be awesome.
See now I would want to see the legends come out of retirement for a shot at revenge at the young punks. Nexus in a no holds barred fight against the legends would do way more for the angle then lame talking segments.
The WWE got lucky at the end of RAW when John Cena beat the living shit out of Black Cena Darren Young. That was the first time in years that John Cena didn’t look lame to all the men in the crowd. Usually I laugh at Cena when he’s doing his “I’m quiet so it means I’m serious” then “GRRRRR I’M ANGRY” schitck, but last night it worked big time. I am looking forward to see what happened next as Cena will be in a Overcoming The Odds 7 (well I guess 6 now) on 1 match next week. There really is so much that still can be done with this but I fear they are barely scratching the surface on purpose. I say go all out and bring back the unpredictability factor to RAW. That was the one good thing about the Attitude era. You didn’t know what would happen next. At any given moment all hell could break loose. The Nexus angle is bringing that back. Someone being left in a pool of blood couldn’t hurt either.
There is just one small thing that I don’t like about The Nexus. Can we please have them wear some clothes? They aren’t wrestling so why are they in their full gear? Have them all dress up in matches black jeans and shirts with giant N’s on them. It just looks weird when these guys who up all dressed to wrestle even though we know they aren’t going to. Just put some damn pants on them…please.
Other then that the only thing of interest over the last few days was last week The Undertaker made it official with his Old Lady Michelle McCool. She officially became the new Mrs. Undertaker and we can all expect her to run the WWE Women’s division with an iron fist as long as she is. We used to joke that Triple H and Stephanie’s daughter Aurora would someday break Moolah’s record as longest reigning Women’s Champion. Well it looks like she has some competition now. Though with RAW having a Divas title and Smackdown having a Women’s championship in theory both of them could have record breaking runs.
I can’t hate on McCool though. Right now the FLAWLESS LayCool team is tremendous on Smackdown. People hate Layla but she really has improved so much since just being a diva search winner. I look forward to the day when they break up because McCool wants her belt back. That will be a fun feud even though we know who will win in the end.
On that note I am done for this week. It’s way too hot here to continue. I mean I could, but right now I think I’ve covered all the bases for this week. It will be interesting to see how many buys Lesnar’s fight did and how many combined WWE PPV numbers it equals.
Well until next time keep cool and remember someone has to give you this information and it DAMN well has got to be me.
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