Professional Wrestling

[Pharaoh]

Pharaoh really, really likes wrestling.

It's a weird thing.

I got into the WWF as a kid (1985) when the business was booming. After a couple of years I grew tired of it and stopped watching WWE all the time around WrestleMania 6 or 7.

I had found the NWA/WCW around 1989 and after watching them for a while I just couldn't continue to put up with the WWF's shit. I guess I wanted to watch better "fake fights".

I started watching WWF again around 1991 when Ric Flair left WCW and went to WWF with the title belt! I watched both WCW and WWF for a couple of years and then just stopped altogether around 1993.

I started watching again in late 1995/early 1996, just in time to catch up on all the shit that was happening in the business before the NWO went wild and took the world of merchandise by storm.

Everywhere you went a ton of people were wearing NWO shirts, and remember that I live in Australia, were merch was harder to get before 1997.

I stopped watching again when WCW started to to get completely shit in late 1999/early 2000. I was pissed they let Jericho, Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Brian Pillman go to WWE (what a fucking stable they would have been) and just gave up.

So, I missed the last ever Nitro.

I stayed away for a little bit, but for some reason I always come back.

I probably started watching again in 2003 or something like that. It was around the time Benoit and Guerrero were getting positioned for their title reigns.

Anyway, long story short:

Unless something drastic happens in the business I think I'll always be a fan.

[Pharaoh]

So do I, but I like Pharaoh even more.

Thanks... it's nice to be popular.

I was pissed when MVP got shot down. How a main event level wrestler was jobbing to the likes of Kizarny and Funaki is baffling. Then again, one of my favorite wrestlers, Elijah Burke, was jobbing like crazy until finally being released last year. Now I know why MVP was shot down, and I'm not shocked at the pettyness of the McMahon's.

Vince McMahon is a law unto himself. I have read several articles that quote former members of the creative team and to get down to it:

It's very much like High School.

If you were a lowly writer you would have to bow down to Triple H, Stephanie, Michael Hayes(maybe not anymore. He used to head up Smackdown but got into trouble for racist comments) and the Raw writer Brian Gerwitz (I think that's how you spell his surname). They are/were the top dogs in the creative meetings.

BTW, if you didn't know: Don;t wait for Burke to return to TV.

The WWE released him!

That's insane. The guy obviously has talent.

TNA's creative team might be shit as well but I'd rather watch AJ Styles, Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe, Mick Foley, Sting, LAX and Beer Money Inc than see a company release tons of talent simply because they couldn't come up with a storyline for him.

[Pharaoh]

Changing the culprit from Christian to Matt Hardy made perfect sense. Who else would know what hotel Jeff was staying in or where he lives but his brother? And Matt needed a new direction anyway.

I disagree that Matt made perfect sense. IMO, Christian made perfect sense.

He's a long time buddy of Edge. Edge is dying to regain his title and "reaches out" to his former tag team partner. Vickie gives Christian the location, since she knows where her SD Champ is staying and BOOM! Christian does the deed.

At the Rumble Christian hammers Jeff with a chair, Edge regains title. On the SD after the Rumble Edge, Christian and Vickie laugh it up in the ring and mock Hardy. Jim Ross could give everyone a history lesson on commentary, bringing up the TLC matches and all that shit.

Eventually Jeff gets tired of the mocking and rushes the ring, only to be beaten down by Edge and Christian. Matt Hardy saves the day.

At No Way Out Edge loses his title in the Elimination Chamber (Triple H must win to set up the Orton feud) but in the Raw Chamber John Cena retains. At Mania Cena could face JBL, Shawn Michaels or the Undertaker, depending on what they felt like.

But at Mania Edge/Christian v Matt/Jeff would be a huge deal, even if they went to a double DQ/double countout as the brawled around the arena and into the parking lot.

After Mania Smackdown would feature Cena as Champ (Triple H will stay on Raw to continue the Orton thing) facing Koslov, Big Show, Umaga etc but the story of the show would be the Edge/Christian v Matt/Jeff battle.

You would have 2 of the best teams ever on SD.
You would have 4 of the most popular wrestlers of the Attitude Era on SD
You could go through a lot of different situations before they square off for the final time either at SummerSlam or Survivor Series in a TLC match.

THEN, Matt turns on Jeff and does this "Dark Cloud" shit, while Christian would eventually turn on Edge (for once again holding him down) at the Rumble.

Mania 26 would see Edge v Christian, with Christian playing the good guy role (he's done it before in TNA). This would get Christian over huge with the crowd. Edge is on a whole 'nother level and could easily put Christian over in a match and still stay "strong".

My "creative writing" ain't great, but WWE ain't much better.

[DennyMcLain]

I like it.

The one thing I'd really like to see again is a "street smart" wrestler. The thing I loved about Austin wasn't his wrestling (brawling), but the fact that here's this trailer trash redneck "out thinking" the whole damn stable of wrestlers. He was always one or two steps ahead of everyone else... even Vince McMahon.


I agree with your PG Cena comment. The dude's really articulate, and has great entertainment instincts. He can easily start fucking with minds and out-scheming everyone, but the WWE goes for the easy, simple set-up a 12 year old can understand.

[D's Nuts]

I think wrestling today is an insult to those that have followed it before. There is nothing new, nothing creative going on. They rely too much on the same 4-6 guys to carry everything and not develop anyone. I hate HHH. I hate Shawn Michaels. I hate Cena. Orton is at least interesting. Jericho has been brilliant all year. CM Punk is the anti "superstar", is so over, they gave him a push and now he's back on the mid card. Nothing they do makes sense.

Vince needs to pull his head out of his ass, realize that wrestling fans are not idiots, and make things interesting. Doing this whole "PG" thing too isn't going to work long term either.

[Pharaoh]

D'Nuts: When you say wrestling has nothing new, do you mean the entire business or just WWE?

Because TNA has a lot of new guys that are worth watching: Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin, Jay Lethal, Consequences Creed, LAX, Beer Money Inc. The fact that TNA also has Kurt Angle, Sting, Booker, Mick Foley, Scott Steiner and the Dudley Boys (now Team 3D) just makes it easier for me to watch, despite having to tolerate many shit storylines.

Ring Of Honor is a company that has possibly the best wrestler in the world: Bryan Danielson. He has been in some classic matches and has performed with a ton of different opponents and still had great matches. He was trained by Shawn Michaels, if that makes you wanna check out his shit. Their champ is a guy from the UK - Nigel McGuinness. He's also pretty fucking impressive in the ring and can cut a promo (He ain't The Rock or anything like that but he's decent) and ROH also has The Briscoe Brothers, one of the best teams for at least the last 3 years. They have some other good guys, but I don't watch them because I don;t have the time. I might download a great match or something just to see why everyone raves about it, but I'm not a ROH fan.

I'm sure there is good shit going on in some Japanses companies or in Mexico, but many fans (including myself) can't handle the different styles. I have watched some Japanese stuff in the past and they have the whole buffet: hardcore shit that would blow your mind, technical wrestling, strong style, high flyers, the whole deal. It just depends on what company you wanna watch.

As for the PG thing: It always will happen. Why? Because that's how Vince made WWE into the giant it is today. With stuff aimed at the kids. They only changed to the Attitude Era because the original ECW was doing that crazy stuff and WCW was pushing the limits of what could and could not be done on a wrestling show.

Vince was forced to change. He did not change because he wanted to.

That said in a few years all these kids watching WWE today will hate this shit and another guy like Austin will be there at the right place and time to create another Boom!

Re: CM Punk - Triple H hates his guts, Shawn Michaels thinks he can't wrestle and Vince doesn't like his "look" but the fans, they fucking love him. I just gave you the 3 reasons why he's in the mid-card and not touching the Main Event for a while (unless he wins the Money in the Bank ladder match at Mania again, in which case all bets are off)

[Pharaoh]

TNA's creative team's latest shit =

Samoa Joe actually pulling a knife on Scott Steiner! How fucking stupid is this? If it was a chair or something "found" in an arena I wouldn't mind, but a knife? If the object of this was to make people cheer for a man holding a knife to another man's throat ... job not done, as this just looks pathetic.

Not to mention the fact that not one person mentioned Joe's knife attack after it happened. And they featured police on this episode backstage looking through Booker T's locker room! So the cops don't care that Joe pulled a knife.

TNA has 3 on-air "authority figures" in founder Jeff Jarrett, shareholder (what shares? they aren't a publicly traded company) Mick Foley and commish Jim Cornette. Not 1 of those guys mentioned the knife attack, or threatened to suspend Joe or anything! How fucking stupid. Even the commentators didn't care about Joe's knife - Don West instead cut a promo on Mike Tenay calling him pathetic.

(As most Vince Russo observers will note the promo between West and Tenay draws on real life beefs some wrestlers have with Tenay as it's known he does not speak up in creative meetings when some think he should. That's a post for another time though)

Now, since they have gone with the knife angle what happens when Joe doesnt actually use it on Scott Steiner? What if Joe just kicks his ass and leaves him laying? Will fans want to see Joe pull out another knife and make Steiner tap out, claiming that if Steiner doesn't tap he'll die?

You can't go anywhere good creatively with this knife shit but IMO that's not the worst thing TNA did on the show.

The worst thing is announcing that Sting and Kurt Angle are gonna wrestle for the title at the next PPV! Why is that bad you wrestling crazy freaks ask? Because they fucking gave the match away for free on the previous Impact!. That's right, 1 week ago they gave away their top match and now expect you to pony up for it. To make the free match more "special" it was an "Empty Arena Match" (except the arena wasn't completly empty. The commentators, some security guards and the rest of the Main Event Mafia [Booker T, Kevin Nash, Steiner] were still in the building)

Now they expect fans of TNA to pay to see Sting and Angle wrestle in a normal match. Why would fans do that? Sure, the PPV has other matches (like Booker v AJ Styles and likely Joe v Steiner) but the main event of every PPV is the big draw and TNA just gave their biggest showdown away for free.

Even though I think Russo is close to useless the fact remains Jeff Jarrett approves all this shit. Founder or not he's the wrong man for the job he has.

[Pharaoh]

OK, The thing about Tenay time:

Apparently he doesn't speak up in backstage meetings!

OMG, kill him - dude probably feared for his job for a very long time in WCW and didn;t say shit because you there are some powerful political forces in those meetings.

A WCW creative meeting in 1998/99 would have included:

Eric Bischoff - actually runs the company and is best buddies with Hulk Hogan in real life. On TV he plays the boss, is best buddies with Hogan and his crew that includes Kevin Nash

Hulk Hogan - is the money man for WCW, best buds with Bischoff. On tv he basically can do as he pleases cause he's Hulk Hogan

Kevin Nash - ever wonder why Nash beat Goldberg and ended his winning streak? Because Nash was the head of creative at the time and if you've got that job you should at least use it to your advantage.

Ric Flair - had many, many friends in WCW offices and backstage

To blast Tenay for sitting silently in those meetings is moronic. What's he gonna do? Get them to change their plans? He would have been shouted down or told to pack his bags or both.

At some point in TNA he was part of creative meetings (this was before Russo, Jarrett and Dutch Mantel took over the creative side) and if he sat silently there then maybe you can question why. After all, in those TNA meetings back in the day there wasn't as many political beasts rolling around backstage.

Now? With Foley, Jarrett, Nash, Angle, Sting, Scott Steiner and Russo around and all wanting to get their ideas put on TV it's no wonder a guy like Tenay would keep his mouth shut.

[DennyMcLain]

Question for Pharaoh -- how the Hell does TNA make money when they're stuck in the same arena for every Impact (or what appears to be the same arena). WWE is annually near the top or at the top of venue attendance moneymakers. I can't remember the last time I watched a RAW and saw empty seats at the top.

From what I understand, tix aren't too expensive, either. But if you're packing 15 grand into an arena at $25 a ticket, that's some decent money. And that doesn't count the merch vendors.

Also, TNA is a cross between WCW and WWF circa 1985. I can't watch it due to it's cheeziness. Of course, some will say "dude, but they've got great wrestlers". Of course they do, but the foremost importance is "entertainment". It's a scripted television SHOW, not a sports event. A show's main purpose is to entertain, and if you don't have great writers it doesn't matter who the fuck you put in front of that camera...period.

On the flip side, you can have a stable of mediocre wrestlers, but if they can entertain you AND you have solid writing, then you're all gold. Check out the Attitude Era as an example. Neither the Rock nor Stone Cold Steve Austin nor HHH were very good technical wrestlers, and HHH can't sell a punch if his life depended on it (shit misses by a good six inches or more each and every time), but their characters were so damn incredible that it didn't matter.

If you develop solid and varied personas, the storylines will write themselves.

[DennyMcLain]

...and whatever happened to Bobby Lashley