| From WorldWrestlingInsanity.com Other Columns
Let’s go (back) to work. Item : I’m back. What’s the rumpus? This past May I took a touring gig, and by mid June, I was on the road once again. When I am on a tour, I have few opportunities to check in on what is happening in the wrestling world. As such, I have had my head buried in the proverbial sand for the last ten weeks. So… did I miss anything? Brevity aside, I am almost pleased to have missed much of the recent activity in the world of pro wrestling. The industry has seen an unprecedented level of ugliness in the past two months. Catching up on recent developments has been shocking, distressing, and sometimes flat out depressing. In just ten weeks, there have been multiple shocking deaths, the announcement of possible congressional investigations, Vince’s uncomfortably visceral reaction to the media attention, and wrestling “stars” (of varying degrees) all over the media - most of them succeeding only in exposing themselves as the worst kind of hypocrites and bold face liars. Assessment : Exceptionally Bad. Much has been said, in many forums, about all of these issues. I have no overwhelming desire to add to the maelstrom, so I will simply say this - these are challenging times indeed for those who call themselves pro wrestling fans. Item : WWE Smackdown - The roster gets decimated by the draft and a rash of steroid related injur....er... I mean… “a curse”. As a result, a freakish giant with literally no wrestling skill ends up as World Champion, and - in a move straight out of "Vince Russo’s Booking 101” - a midget is now holding the cruiserweight gold.
* Heavy sigh * Lack of talent on the active roster, combined with piss poor booking, has this show feeling eerily reminiscent of WCW Thunder. The few talented folks on the roster - Jamie Noble, Greg Helms, Jimmy Wang, even MVP and Matt Hardy, are all lost in the midcard shuffle, while the show’s focus remains solidly on plodding monsters like Batista, Kane, Mark Henry, and Khali. If the lack of decent matches and storylines was not bad enough, the once merely “terrible” Smackdown announce team has graduated to completely atrocious. JBL and Cole’s awkward “chemistry” is enough to make fans everywhere take screwdrivers to their eardrums. The show had a chance to rebound when E management wisely moved Edge into the show’s top spot after steroi… er… “the curse”… unexpectedly felled The Undertaker. Unfortunately, Adam must not have been wearing the proper voodoo charm, because he was soon a sad statistic of the “mysterious curse” as well.
With Edge gone, and Lon-drick, Kennedy and Bookah all moved to RAW, Smackdown now has VERY few highlights (see MVP.) Rey-Rey has just made his return, and The Undertaker is set to be reborn (yet again). So the future does look brighter. However, Rey and UT have their work cut out for them if they are going to save this sinking ship. Assessment : The quality of The Rock’s show has sunk deep into the gutter. It’s a new level of Ugly for WWE Smackdown. Item : WWECW on Sci-Fi - Wait… ECW is still alive? Color me surprised. With the vast majority of “the originals” gone, ECW is now held together by Johnny Nitro-Morrison, CM Punk, Elijah Burke, Bogeyman, Balls, The Miz, and Big Daddy V. This roster is beginning to (once again) resemble the land of the misfit toys. The ECW micard is full of “engaging” feuds like Bogeyman vs. V; Balls vs. Miz; and Thorn vs. Richards. That’s right – Stevie Night Heat is (by far) the most entertaining guy on the ECW midcard right now... and this past Tuesday... he was reburied (natch).
Meanwhile, at the top of the card is the seemingly decades long feud between CM Punk and the newly revamped ‘Lizard King’, which seems like it should be engaging… but is not. It seems like these guys should have great matches… but they don’t. They’ve had plenty of chances to deliver... they have not. Listen, I was on the bandwagon of folks who thought that miracle worker Punk could maybe pull this whole ECW thing out of the trash. At this point, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. Even if they do eventually pull the trigger and put the title on Punk (far from certain), then what? The fact that they send Viscera to the roster to roll over the “extremists”, in an effort to pump up his “star power” before he heads to Smackdown, should tell you everything you need to know about how the ECW brand is perceived by WWE management. Assessment : Still Ugly, and still sinking, but slightly less Ugly than Smackdown at the moment. Item : RoH loses a number of huge names yet continues to put on the best wrestling shows in the states. Names recently removed from the RoH roster include - Homicide, Colt Cabana, Alex Shelly, Chris Sabin, Christopher Daniels, and Jimmy Rave just to name a few. However, Gabe Sapolski has bounced back with a number of roster additions such as - Hallowicked, Kevin Steen, Erick Stevens, Matt Cross, and El Generico. Plus he is now bolstering the roster by mixing in NOAH stars Takeshi Morishima (current RoH World champion), KENTA, Naomichi Marufuji, and legendary GHC Heavyweight Champion Mitsuharu Misawa. Instead of feeling depleted, the RoH roster comes across as rejuvenated. Gabe and company have been careful not to miss a step as they have carefully gotten over acts like Delirious, Jimmy Jacobs, the NRC, and Sweet & Sour Inc. Using a combination of classic booking, and exceptional talent, RoH continues to pump out phenomenal shows, and have now taken a big step into the Pay Per View market as well.
“Respect is Earned” was a four star show, and there have been other excellent recent DVD releases. Including : “Good Times, Great Memories” (4/28/07 - The Briscoes v. Murder City Machine Guns match is a must see MOTY candidate) “United We Stand” (6/22/07) & two recent shows from Japan (“Live in Osaka” & “Live in Tokyo”). All of these shows are better than any show that WWE or TNA has produced in the past year, and are all well worth the 20$ price tag. Brian Danielson continues to put up 5 star match of the year candidates with everybody he gets in the ring with. Most recently this past Saturday in the Manhattan Center against Takeshi Morishima. ROH has some huge matches just around the corner as they are promising “Budokan Hall level main events” on November 2nd in Philadelphia, and November 3rd in Manhattan. Assessment : It’s all Good. Ring of Honor is still the best pro wrestling product in the states… period. If you’re fed up with the pedestrian crap that the WWE and TNA try to pass of as “modern pro wrestling”, than you owe it to yourself to check out Ring of Honor. Forget what TNA says, anyone who has ever seen the product knows – RoH IS wrestling. Item : TNA Impact - Impact becomes the Kurt Angle show, and falls from it’s position as the best wrestling show on weekly television.
Despite the impressive amount of talent on their roster, somehow the geniuses at TNA have found a way to suck balls every single week on Spike TV, and to destroy the quality of their once consistently good Pay Per Views. This feat is accomplished (quite simply) by keeping their rapidly shifting spotlight fixed on FORMER wrestling stars such as - VKM, Dustin Rhodes, Raven, Bob Backlund, Ron Killings, The Steiners, Sting, The Dudleys, and Kevin Nash - and spending all the rest of their TV time putting over insane jackass - Kurt Angle (and now his ex-wife as well). Take a quick look at this half of the roster : Samoa Joe, Christian Cage, AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, Alex Shelly, Petey Willliams, Elix Skipper, Chris Sabin, Homicide, Sonjay Dutt, Jay Lethal, Low Shi. With talent like this, how could this show possibly be as bad as it is? It boggles the imagination. Just over a year ago (on 7.3.06) I said - “With Joe poised to take the World title off of Jarrett, Styles & Daniels as the tag champs, Christian ready to turn heel on Sting, Low-ki.... er... Senshi… as the X division champ - the future of TNA is finally starting to brighten up for real. I believe that TNA is about to turn a very important corner. Where they go from here remains to be seen, but it’s an exciting time to be a TNA fan.” I was right. TNA was about to turn a corner… and run straight into a brick wall. It was difficult to see then how they could possibly screw things up, but they found a way. Impact has gone from being the best wrestling show on television, and having fantastic growth potential - to being an unwatchable mess, reminiscent of the final days of Monday Nitro. I used to poke fun at these guys for occasionally stealing ideas from Gabe Sapolski. Now I can only wish that they would go back to that plan. Even with occasional (always too short) highlights – like appearances from The Instant Classic, and The Murder City Machine Guns - Impact is still just plain awful. I WANT to watch this show, but I can’t even sit through one hour of TNA programming. They do NOT need a second hour. They DO need a complete overhaul of their management team. Assessment : This once Good show has plummeted past Bad, and crashed headlong into Ugly. The people who run this company should be embarrassed. Item : WWE Raw. The flagship (Titanic?) of Team WWE has been on an up and down roller coaster ride (per usual). There’s too much material here to recap, so I’ll just do some quick hits - Vince was dead but now he’s not, as the poorly thought out “Vince blows up” story line is quickly canceled – Ugly, but probably Good that it ended quickly. Chris Benoit tribute show – Seemed like a Good idea at the time. Stephanie Linda and Shane return. Vince dominates the show with his illegitimate bastard (“…. bastard”) story line. – Bad for “wrestling” fans. Shawn Michaels and RVD disappear – Also Bad for “wrestling” fans. William Regal returns to his best role ever – Definitely Good for both him and us… now if they would re-hire Tajiri they would be onto something worth tuning in to see. King Bookah, Santino Marella, and “Undefeated” Gene Snitsky - Hysterical. The Mighty Thor is poised to return to his throne - Inevitable.
Assessment – RAW is currently bogged down in McMahon family nonsense that is hurting the show (per usual). However, right now, it is the best of the three WWE brands, and is also the best pro wrestling show on television. So, even tho I think the show has been weak lately, I’ll say - Good…. enough…. for now. Brief Item : Diabolic Khaos still kicks major ass.
Assessment : Awesome. Don’t know who they are? Look it up. Brief Item : The Heat Report goes “gonzo”. With current WWI Heat annalist Saad signing off for a while, The Heat report has fallen into the dangerous hands of... yours truly. Sweet news if you’re me, or if you dig my style. Swing on by and check out the Heat report - I know that you’re not watching the show, so I’ll try to make my report thorough and entertaining at the same time. Assessment : Very Good (for me at least). I can’t wait to get started. Brief Item : Club WWI is the place to be! With recent fantastic audios from JG, Mike Rickard, Canadian Bulldog, Orlando Jordon, Zah, D’Lo Brown, Richard Morton, Big Vito, and Sylvain Grenier (far more interesting than one would expect) Club WWI remains the place to be for fantastic audio commentaries and the very best shoot interviews. Is it worth the price? Indeed it is. “You’d have to be insane to turn it down”. Join the club today. Not tomorrow… Today! Assessment : James and the gang at Club WWI..... Always the best baby! Questions, comments, threats or bribes to abarnowski@comcast.net See you soon gang. © Copyright by WorldWrestlingInsanity.com WorldWrestlingInsanity.com is not
affiliated with any wrestling promotion. |
