01-12-07

“...Rags to riches, or so they say.”

Boo-yah, here we go!!

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Item #1 – Bob Holly pinned CM Punk........................clean.

Okay...I know that most of you think I’m going to go off on a tangent about how the Internet darling got beat and now the world is coming to an end.  That, however, isn’t the case.

Don’t get me wrong, though...I’m pissed.

It has nothing to do with him losing a match.  He lost his first match (if you want to get technical about it) in Japan to Randy Orton in December during WWE’s tour.  The problem I have is that he was the last of the "new breed" of ECW (i.e. Mike Knox, Kevin Thorne, and CM Punk) who were supposed to carry the new brand but have instead been shuffled into the midcard jobber roles normally carried by the men who are now the main eventers (i.e. Bob Holly, Matt Striker, and Test).

The problem is that Punk, being built-up as the only ECW-bred "superstar", has been booked to be better than Holly over the past few weeks.  He's been booked in a way that made you expect that he would come out on top in his feud with Holly.  Holly should have won in heel fashion...DQ, outside interference, tights, foreign object, etc...but instead he won clean.  Clean.  It's now assumed that Bob Holly is better than CM Punk.  That means CM Punk is now relegated to midcard jobber status.

Why?

Bob Holly is a career-long midcard jobber.  Always has been, always will be.  He's never been 'over' and he never will be 'over'.  Punk's spot in ECW is now similar to Matt Hardy's or Carlito's.  In other words, he'll win matches here and there but is not considered anywhere near ready for being at the top-of-the-card. 

Punk could lose to Lashley...he could lose to RVD...hell, he could lose to Test.  He lost to Bob F*CKING Sparky Plugg Holly.  I don't care how Holly's been booked lately...he's a career nobody and him beating Punk WITHOUT cheating spells out a lot in Punk's future ECW push.  Hell...Punk beat Shelton Benjamin in Iraq last month.  Does this mean that Bob Holly’s better than Shelton Benjamin??

Has the world gone mad????

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Item #2 – “Donald Trump” vs. “Rosie O’Donnell”.

Why yes...the world has, in fact, gone mad.

I have yet to watch RAW in its entirety.  However, I did download the show (DID YA HEAR THAT, WWE??  I DOWNLOADED IT ILLEGALLY!!!  HA!!  CHOKE ON THAT!! I ALSO DOWNLOADED NEW YEAR’S REVOLUTION, TOO!!  Ahem...) and forced myself to watch the atrocity that was the “match” between the two. 

What this proved, more than anything else, is that WWE is totally out of touch with what their viewers want to watch.  And no, I don’t mean the match itself.  I thought the idea of putting two look-a-likes in the ring to do this was an intriguing idea.  No, the problem I had with it all was the booking of the match itself.

Yeah, I know.  How insane in that?  Well...I’ve come to expect the unexpected nonsense when it comes to WWE (Doctor Hienie, anyone?).  Listen, I know that WWE will give me their version of ‘sports entertainment’ regardless of how silly it ends up being or how stupid a segment sounds or looks or even how embarrassing it makes one feel to be a wrestling fan.

No, kids...the booking of the match was the downfall.  First off, it was too slow.  And I should clarify by saying that the match itself wasn’t too slow because, really, it wasn’t.  It was the build-up to the match, the intro to the match, then the match itself that made time stand still.  Hell...it was so slow that backstage Randy Orton was yawning!  (zing!!)

The other problem was that, for whatever reason, WWE expected the audience to get behind the match and cheer them on.  Therefore, the booking of the match did not suit the audience at all.  Let’s face it...if people really were behind the Rosie look-a-like, this match wouldn’t have been all that bad.  Hell...if more people were behind Donald Trump (i.e. Ring of Honor vet Ace Steel), then the match wouldn’t have been that bad at all.

What this ended up being was yet another in a very long line of examples of Vince McMahon stroking his own ego by throwing something on WWE programming that only he wants to watch and then struggle when it finds little to no reaction from the WWE audience.  From Roddy Piper vs. Mr. T in a boxing match to God on PPV, Vince never ceases to amaze me with what he finds amusing and how he truly believes his audience will also find amusing (Slammys, anyone?).

Bottom line, this was simply a bad idea.  Was it the worst match on RAW ever?  Nah.  Was it the worst idea ever?  Nope.  Was it really, really awful?  Oh yeah...it was the drizzling shits, for sure.

Still...Ace Steel won his debut match on RAW.  That’s gotta count for something, eh?

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Item #3 – Wanna know what’s worse?

This whole thing with Trump is actually leading somewhere.  Yep...wanna know where?  Wanna be scared?  Huh??

Hehehe...I won’t divulge everything I know.  However, I do know this...Trump’s “people” with NBC had already contacted Vince McMahon about a possible cross-promotional-thing long before this battle with Rosie came up.  This is all just a manner of convenient timing that McMahon was more than happy to jump all over.

Trump actually participating in a WWE angle...yeah, that could be worse.

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Item #4 – Austin Starr won the Musical Chairs event.

Y’know, the only thing entertaining in TNA lately has been the Kevin Nash-led nonsense taking place in the X-Division.  While the segments have been extremely entertaining (I mean c’mon...Bob Backlund rules??  Tremendous!!) and the members of the X-Division finally (!!!) have some personalities to go with their abilities, how will the X-Division fare once these segments are done?

Here are these guys who normally beat the ever-loving snot out of each other on a weekly basis and they’re all hanging out playing musical chairs or limbo-ing or doing push-up contests against each other.  While kayfabe disappearing is a good thing, are we supposed to then believe they hate each other when a feud suddenly appears?

And how are they supposed to be taken seriously again?  Other than Senshi, everybody is being made to look silly.  Not funny or cool...but silly.  Why should the home viewer take them seriously again should an opportunity arise in the future for an intense promo or something similar?  DX learned quite quickly that the crowds can turn on you in a second if you go from ‘funny’ to ‘serious’.  I fear these guys will find out the same thing.

Still...the Kevin Nash/Alex Shelley chemistry is gold.  Senshi’s straight-man gimmick is working to perfection (and doesn’t hurt his character, either).  However, Sonjay Dutt, Jay Lethal, and Austin Starr are all just there trying to be funny.  Overall, though, I’m really enjoying the segments and hope they continue.

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Item #5 – Wrestling Society X.

Tell me this doesn’t look friggin’ awesome.  HOWEVER, I’ll wait a little bit first because I want to see if the actual wrestling can connect the high-spot dots together.  Only time will tell. 

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Item #6 – Game over?

Not quite...but here’s to hoping that he finally grows his beard in.  Sweet Jesus he looks like a tool.

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Item # 7 – LOSER OF THE WEEK.

Each and every week, I pick somebody (not necessarily always from wrestling) who has either acted in a dumb way, said something stupid, or generally was an idiot in some way, shape, or form.  This week was tough.  There were so many choices but at the end of the day, I’m going with the person who ended up being portrayed as being dumb, stupid, and idiotic even though they didn’t really do anything but open their mouth once and be unfunny.  Yes kids, the second choice of 2007 for ZAH’s Loser of the Week is...

Rosie O’Donnell!!!

Listen, I’ve got nothing against the woman personally.  I’m not even afraid to admit that I used to watch her daytime talk show all the time and marked out a bit when she finally got to meet Tom Cruise in person.  No, she’s a loser this week because she was crapped on more than anybody else.  I mean, Trump himself went off on her day after day after day and told anybody who would listen how fat and uncouth and vile and ignorant she was...simply because she made some dumb comments about his pageant. 

What was worse was WWE’s portrayal of her.  In the land of WWE, fat = bad.  Hell...overweight = bad.  The unfair jokes made at Rosie’s expense were neither funny nor in good fun.  WWE was mean-spirited for no reason other than to put over Trump for a future angle.  Rosie is 100% accurate when she talks about how America’s views on those with weight issues is a horrible thing and that young girls (and young guys) end up with horrible esteem issues because of it.

This isn’t about that, though.  This is about how Rosie has been portrayed this past week.  This is about how Rosie was attacked this past week.  This is about how Rosie was made to look a fool on many different fronts this past week.  For those reasons, I’ve no choice but to name Rosie O’Donnell (through no real fault of her own) my Loser of the Week!

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Pillar to Post 

Each and every week I’ll take three statements that you, the WorldWrestlingInsanity.com readers, have submitted on the hot topics du jour and then get two or three volunteers to give their thoughts and insight.  Ladies and gentlemen, this week (and I encourage every reader to throw me an e-mail and volunteer), I was able to find two great World Wrestling Insanity readers in TL and kc law!

1. Agree or Disagree
After losing clean to Bob Holly, it’s quite apparent that CM Punk should be moved out of ECW as soon as possible.

TL: Disagree.

I actually feel that EVERYONE should be moved out of ECW, but that's another story.

Hopefully losing to Holly one time won't hurt Punk's momentum, provided he can return the favor.  I eventually think that Punk is destined for stardom on Raw or Smackdown, but I think he should stay in ECW for a bit longer, where I think he could still have massive success even in the short term.  Imagine if he had a semi- high profile match at WrestleMania, maybe even for the ECW title.  I could REALLY see that Detroit crowd cheering the hell out of Punk, much like the Survivor Series crowd except much larger.  People really seem to get behind this guy.  The potential crowd response could make
him seem like the breakout star that he is, giving more of a rub to ECW and making it a huge deal when Punk eventually jumps ship to one of the other brands.

kc law: Agree on certain conditions.

As long as the losses stay few and far between them then he might as well stay in WWE’s internationally televised Developmental Territory. But if they have something else for him to do which will benefit him, his career and the WWE then he should be moved.

But when I first heard about Holly's win I looked for some perspective. I wanted to see how other up and comers faired when taking on good old Bob. You have Rene Dupree who got stiffed in a house show match by Holly. Then there is Mr. Kennedy who seems heavily pushed, defeated Holly at No Way Out. Then you have examples of the mega pushed talents Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar. Brock Lesnar broke Holly's neck and Angle broke Holly's arm. So that may give the indication that Punk's push may well and truly be over.

But I doubt that his push is over for Punk but ECW is trying to make Holly look better. The problem with that being that he has spent somewhere around 10 years as nothing more then a mid carder and it is hard to change people's opinion on that. But that is irrelevant to the question at hand. If Punk left to join DX, then bring it on but if he is being moved to be wasted, like Carlito, then he might as well stay in ECW. Just don't job out your future WWE. Holly hasn't got too many years left!