The MattThinks Friday No-CostThinks!: 07.10.09

Hello all, and welcome to a very special edition of Friday Freethinks, or whatever the bloody hell Meehan calls it. Meehan can’t be with us today for some reason. JP went to visit him, he wanted to ‘thank him’ for the hilarious joke about him getting drafted off the site from last week. After all, with Hidden Highlights ending, it worked out nicely, huh?

See?

Anyway, first on my list is Midway being bought about by Warner Bros. While I’m sure this has fuelled some speculation as to the future of the MK franchise among others (Special Guest Character: Daffy Duck!), the fact that the TNA franchise was not part of the deal is the main issue here. On one hand, it’s a franchise with a built engine, a ‘dedicated’ fan base, and a fairly successful Cable TV show to plug the crap out of the game, plus it does have at least one award under it’s belt, albeit a Marketing award.

Now, I’m sure some tiny company will buy the rights once the terms have come down, if only to do a roster update and call it a day for easy money. No-one is biting on the contract as it stands (I don’t blame them), and will wait to pick it up cheap. Crave Entertainment I’ve heard as the main interested party, but for like 20% of the value. Buy it cheap, slap it together, send it out, done. Won’t fix the problems in the game, but it’ll still be done. However, if I’m TNA, what with their main Video Game guys being Joe and Styles, both huge gamers, I take the engine that’s built, toss it out, and go beg AKI to make their new game.

Hell, with their agreements in Japan and Mexico, you might be able to get one hell of a International Roster without the need to make up names like Han Zo Mon or Ming Chee. After all, TNA is not going to get the Arcade fans, so why not make a great game that appeals to the Hardcore masses?

That, or make it into a XBLA/PSN game and bring in the Fire Pro guys…

Of course, the really big news story this past week was undoubtedly Edge’s heel injury (Irony!). The surgery has gone well, but he’ll still be out for many months, with the Royal Rumble being a best case scenario and Wrestlemania still a little optimistic. Many fine writers here on 411 have already given their 2 cents on whom should get elevated because of this. However, there is a more pressing problem, that of the Unified World Tag Titles. Thanks to the foreign tour, we’ve had a week where Edge is fit and healthy and working fine, so stripping Jericho of the belts, while the most obvious and likely scenario, is still a little flat.

I mean, they can’t have Jericho defend his belts in a handicap match against Priceless, that’s just going to mess with the fans heads. Unless they did it at a House Show I guess…

But what I believe should happen, and not just because this would benefit me in a backhanded way, is to allow Jericho to select his new partner. It has precedence, Lance Storm chose Chief Morely when Regal got Bangalore Belly. But who? Who in the WWE would team up with Jericho?

Well, how about a multi time former Tag Team Champion who, like Edge, doesn’t like Jericho but has some respect for him on some level? A guy who’s not doing anything at the moment? Maybe a guy who’s already been interacting with Jericho a bit online?

The Miz, COME ON DOWN~!

Chyna has signed a record deal. Funny, I thought it was December 21st 2012 that that should have happened…

So the cover for SDvRaw2010 has been released.

Eh, I’ve seen worse. But I’ve sure as hell seen better. Now, the main question is: Will this allow you to use Divas in the Main Event matches or not? PG13 be dammed, I want to feed my Legend Trish and CAWed Victoria into a Hell In A Cell god dammit! I want to make Maryse tap out like… Well, like a little girl. I should be allowed to do it!

Huh, that came out way too misogynistic. I mean, sure, I respect them as athletes which is why I want to be able to use them in this way, but it comes across as just me wanting to beat up women, which is totally not the right thing to do.

Especially in this of all News Reports. So my apologies if you were offended by the previous statement. But my point still stands.

So, Jerry Lawler might be running for Mayor of Memphis. Ok, let’s get this out of the way first: He won’t win. Not unless he has thought of some damm good policies since his last run at the windmill in 99. Nothing against Jerry, I like Lawler, but I don’t see this happening. But let’s, for the sake of argument, my point and for the length of this article, assume that he wins. He does bring a whole bunch of logical, good policies and wins in a landslide. Now, you could argue that one night a week is not that big a deal, he could do both, but again, just suppose he has to leave the desk for a bit. What happens?

Right now, the #2 Color guy in WWE is Jim Ross of all people. Unlike Play By Play guys that WWE seems to have a machine to spit out (That order is easy. Cole-Grisham-Matthews-Korpela, who is their waiting in the wings guy), Color guys in WWE are a bit rarer. So say you bump JR over to Raw and promote Striker to SD (although personally I’d just have him go to Raw direct but that’s not gonna happen), who works with Matthews on ECW?

I don’t see WWE bringing in anyone from outside, not to ECW. So anyone who can talk on the Indies is out, as are any legends not really signed on (Piper would be pretty cool…). Styles won’t do it, and WWE doesn’t really have anyone in an Agent role who could slide in… Except one. WWE has an agent on staff who has experience at Color, and is the logical choice to take over, given that he’s working with Matthews every week anyway.

Dusty Rhodes.

If that thought scares you, then move to Memphis and vote against Lawler.

I’ll say that again: Lawler winning the Mayorship will directly lead to Dusty Rhodes on weekly commentary. Is this what you want?

Hulk Hogan is in the news again.

Yeesh.

Regardless, he did have something interesting to say about TNA, about it being ‘The Little Engine That Could’ that was lacking that one big move/name to compete with WWE. Of course, the cynical immediately said “He wants a job”, the delusional “OMG, TNA should get Rock!”.

Now, Hogan is right in that TNA is a little Engine. Despite a show that most people think is stupid and PPVs that aren’t the focus on the company, they’re turning a profit this year, are growing, and their ratings, while not a patch on WWE, aren’t crappy. So, would one name, one move make the difference?

No.

People point to Austin/McMahon and/or the nWo as one move things that did propel their shows to the top, with Hulkamania being the classic version. But the thing that a lot of people fail to address (not even Vince McMahon himself) is that one star does not a company make. In all of those cases, sure, their one main thing was red hot. But the rest of the card wasn’t that far behind. Hulkamania had Piper, Andre, Orndorff, many high class heels that were his tent-pegs, supporting the love while Hulk fought lesser names. The nWo storyline was great at first, but you also had incredible matches from the Cruiserweight Division and the workhorses in the mid-card to counter the nWo story. And Austin-McMahon had The Rock, Foley, Taker, and a writer at the top of his game who also cared about the undercard.

I don’t care if, I dunno, The Young/Samoa Connection suddenly caught the public’s imagination ala Austin or Hulkamania, if the undercard isn’t solid, then it won’t be enough. You can have something people want to see, but if the other matches turn people off, then they won’t come out for just one show.

I know this is somewhat pessimistic, so let me finish with some quantifiers: TNA isn’t going anywhere. They’ve established their beachhead and they can defend it well enough against anything but a full bore WWE attack. TNA can keep chugging along and still exist, and maybe very very slowly grow. But they have one of the best writers in Wrestling history (Best = Most Successful here), with wrestling talent arguably on par with WWE. If they really want to speed up, a bigger engine won’t do it, they have to fix the rails first.

Well, that just about covers all the news I really wanted to talk about. I guess that’s why John has the format, to spread this out a bit. Anything else from you, Hulk?

Guess not. Well, I won’t put a video in here, gotta save them for Ask 411, which is where I normally write. I probably should put that at the top, but screw that, I’m, all together now,

Far. Too. Lazy.

Actually, Ken Anderson I’d like to address quickly. I don’t know who has been helping him with his videos that have been popping up, but they do prove one thing.

WWE isn’t letting it’s talent do what it does best. Ken is showing some charisma and, more importantly, comic timing in these things. Much more than just saying your name twice. Like with Big Show, WWE has had guys who are pretty damm funny, but they never let them do it, or worse, write ‘comedy’ for them.

The average wrestler is not an actor. The best wrestlers are improve artists. It’s been said before that writing out promos word for word is not the best way to go. Regardless of the cookie-cutter approach, it also forces guys to change their delivery. WWE needs to recognise charisma, and work around it, not pave over it.

Not that’ll care, all they care about is that when Ken turns up in TNA after August 27 he doesn’t repeat his name…

All right, that’s it, I’m done. Meehan will be back next week to try and counter my cynicism. Until then, you’re on your own. See you in Ask 411 next week!

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