Ask 411 Wrestling 06.22.11: Compelling Faces, Collapsing Rings, Contrasting Lighting, More!

and never controversial-

Total Opinion Week!

That’s right all the questions this week (probably) will be opinion based, or at the very least really easy for me to answer. And the column will probably end up short anyway. But I’ll try and be controversial and thus you’ll all comment and it’ll look good on paper anyway.

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Backtalking

Why post something if I can’t answer it? I made a commitment when I started this to post every question I got, unless I already answered it, it wasn’t appropriate or some other obscure reason not to. If I can’t answer a question, I don’t just toss it out, I put it out there and hope someone else might have an idea. After all, with the time frame involved here, it’s not fair to just toss it out.

And the column is indeed ‘Ask 411 Wrestling’. Doesn’t say 411 Wrestling automatically knows the answer.

Austin’s Heel Turn Killed Him: Yes, Paranoid Austin was awesome in terms of entertainment and enjoyment, that’s one of my all time fav characters in wrestling. But it killed his drawing power (since he wasn’t anywhere near as hot as a heel as he was as a face), but then again how much of that was due to him playing second banana to HHH and/or The Invasion? It’s a grey area, but it’s still not as bad as Goldberg’s and not as good as Hogan’s. The character was awesome, but it sure as hell didn’t draw well enough to justify the turn.

Wrestlers who never bladed: Steamboat apparently did blade in some matches with Savage and elsewhere, so he’s out. As has Rey and Jeff, apparently. Warrior seems a popular choice as to a man who has never done it, and the Outsiders were mentioned and I can’t deny them off the top of my head.

Best Stable Leader Ever: Of course it’s Flair. I was just yanking everyone’s chains.

*anti-Chandler*

The Botched Megapowers Angle: I’ll address this below.

Your Turn, Smart Guy…

Who am I? My obvious claim to fame is that I’ve appeared in a Z! True Island Long Story, albeit via an image as opposed to a live appearance. My first televised match saw an injury occur. I’ve shaved a man’s head, and once lost a title thanks to a celebrity distraction. My first major title reign lasted less than a month, I won Bragging Rights for my Brand, and once teamed with Sable. Who am I?

Brian has it right.

You’re Edge. You were in a picture on Z!, you injured one of the Boricuas (can’t remember which one), you shaved Kurt Angle, you lost your first tag titles thanks to Joe C, you held your first I-C title for only one day, you won Bragging Rights with Rey Misterio last year, & you made your WWE PPV debut teaming with Sable at Summer Slam 98.

Who am I? I’m on Twitter. I’m not actively employed by any of the ‘big 3′ at the moment, although I’ve appeared in all 3. I’m married and have kids. I was not the first WWF Hardcore Champion, although I did hold that title. I once was involved in the ‘Wacky Tag Team Partners Who Hate Each Other’ angle, which wasn’t booked by Russo, oddly enough. I started in the business with another name, but it didn’t last long. I’ve attacked women, and I am who?

Questions, Questions, Who’s Got The Questions?/My Damn Opinion

Johnathan (and a bunch of other people) demand satisfaction!

Hey got a question after this past weeks Ask 411

How exactly did the angle backfire?

This was a popular question and comment, what I meant by that. And the thing is, I’m still not sure what the hell they were thinking. See, if you cast your mind back, the Megapowers had begun to break up with Savage becoming jealous of Hogan’s attention to Liz at the Jan 7th edition of Saturday Night’s Main Event.

But then came the Rumble. The match was supposed to be where they showed the rift beginning to form between them directly, and was supposed to have people choose sides. Preferably Hogan’s, but if people sided with Savage that was all right, when he went full heel that would be solved. The idea was that the Rumble was where the angle got rolling and everyone began to buy that the two were breaking up, and thus they’d fight and that’d be awesome and I gotta see it! And so on.

Now, logically it would be easy to handle this, since both men were in the Rumble. Since Hogan was the good guy and Savage was to be the bad guy, you either have Savage toss Hogan in an unfair way or you have Hogan toss Savage fairly and Savage throw a fit.

They went for option 2, but they screwed it up in that Hogan eliminated Savage when his back was turned, as he was facing off with Bad News Brown. It looked like Hogan was scared of Savage, or at the very least, he eliminated his friend in a slimy, heely like fashion. Then they do the Savage throws a fit and they make up. So if they’d done that and then have Hogan win the Rumble, it would be, while not perfect, acceptable. Had Savage come back and cost Hogan the match, would have been better, if perhaps a smidge too fast.

But then they had Hogan eliminated clean as bloody sheet (practically) by the Twin Towers. Sure, they double teamed him, but they didn’t sneak in a weapon, or use a low blow, they just ganged up and tossed him. And then Hogan acted like a bigger crybaby than Savage, coming back in and attacking both the Towers, with Gorilla having to support Hogan when a few minutes before he was attacking Savage for less whiny behaviour. Thus the guy who you were meant to be cheering for, the good guy, was shown to be a whiny coward.

That was the mess up. What should have been the beginning of a decently paced break up led to neither man getting seen as the good guy, and thus they had to then go from 20 to 195 miles per hour overnight at the SNME when Savage turned.

That was the fuck up I was referring to.

Rahil asks about the lights.

Why are the ring lights slightly dimmed in Sin Cara`s matches, like it was for the whole of the TNA Hardcore Justice 2010 PPV, is it to lessen the effect of possible botches and make them less noticeable. On the ALL STAR RAW for example (13th June 11) all the matches were fully lighted as normal except for the 6 man tag match involving Sin Cara ???

Oh no, that’s just because he’s super special, it’s nothing to do with his botches…

The fact that it might help hide Sin Cara’s inability to adjust to people who don’t move as fast as him is a side effect, or at worst part of the reason, but it is mainly to try and set the dude apart. Like how Kane’s first matches had the red lighting, it’s to make it seem like Sin Cara is just THAT damn special. Any possible botch hiding capabilities are secondary.

Michael asks about who’s in charge.

Hey man, love the column and all that.

Quick question, with WWE heading out to Aus and NZ very soon, I was wondering who comes along and is in charge of all the guys when they do? Does Vince come along or is it more of a time where HHH or an agent is in charge?

It’s someone else other than Vince, since with two brands when one’s overseas the other one is often filming TV or some such, and TV is more important. I don’t believe HHH is up to that point yet, but now that there are multiple touring companies Vince can’t be everywhere, so unless it involves TV, he won’t go. To the best of my knowledge.

Gregory wants to discuss how WWE sucks and if we can change it.

Your work is the top stuff on the site:

Vince Russo once said that wrestling fans will always watch wrestling, like we’re Pavlovian morons that can’t resist a show with wrestling in the title. But what if us wrestling fans account for a bigger portion of the audience than those in charge seem to believe? What if enough people stopped watching and Raw goes from a 3.0 to a 2.0? Maybe then Vince McMahon will stop force feeding us bland and boring wrestling. The only way to express discontent in the marketplace is buy voting with your pocketbook. Do you…or anybody else agree?

I agree, to a point. I totally agree that to really enact change upon a company, you need to hit it where it hurts the most, the pocketbook. For all the comments and tweets and posts about how WWE should push Zack Ryder or should put the belt on Christian or hire Cheerleader Melissa or whatever cause de jour the IWC has, none of it matters. The closest you get to your opinion mattering is when you go to the show. If enough crowds chant ‘We Want Ryder’, he’ll get on there, sooner or later. But the fact is, if you really, truly, want to force the WWE to change, you have to stop supporting it, stop paying it money.

But then we run into the other major problem: We’re not the target audience. Kids are, right now. And they are the ones driving the WWE machine. Kids are the ones who are out there buying every flavor John Cena shirt, and Rey Mysterio mask and what have you, even if every IWC member stopped supporting WWE full stop, they’d still be profitable. Hell, that’d probably end up worse for WWE, since they’d stop putting out the awesome DVD sets they make occasionally for us guys.

The IWC cannot impact the WWE enough, right now, to warrant the WWE changing their business model. If/when kids grow up and stop buying the stuff, then they’ll come crawling back to the adult market, and go into Attitude 2.0 and be ‘good’ again, but until the kids stop paying, we can’t really do anything. Alas.

The IWC could, theoretically, help out the smaller companies, ROH, CHIKARA etc, by supporting them you could have a real impact, but then a good chuck of the IWC ‘supports’ them by stealing their stuff, just like they steal the WWE and Impact Wrestling stuff. But it is a meaningful thing you can do. Not watching WWE doesn’t do anything to their bottom line (unless you’re a Nielsen Family), and not buying one of their DVDs is a tiny fraction to their bottom line. Buying a CHIKARA DVD or a ROH shirt is a larger fraction to their bottom line. So do that.

And who says I can’t be positive?

David wants to ask about backstage stuff.

Hey Mathew,

Do you think more of the reporting/opinion of backstage news should be considered with a more open mind to the reality of business, as opposed to our own personal preference for which guys we think should be on top?

Yes and no, if you’ll forgive the expression. Absolutely I agree that the backstage reports are often viewed as storylines, people tend to think about the backstage stuff in terms of heels and faces, thanks to years of being told it’s fake and having backstage stuff exposed and real life dramas being exposed to the world. There is a tendency to view locker room stories in terms of who you like and dislike as being heels and faces, so I do agree that there is a need for a little more objectivity from your average reader about what is and isn’t right and wrong backstage.

But I do disagree that it’s not any of our business/that there is no right and wrong. Wrestling is a unique sport/business/show/activity/whatever, there is not one other thing on the planet that is like it, it takes a little bit here and there from dozens of other things in life and mixes them all together. However, while there is an aspect of every man for himself, and people shouldn’t be viewed as being ‘wrong/evil/heel’ for trying to keep their job, there is a certain… need in wrestling for refreshment, for change. It’s not like sport, where eventually someone will lose their touch and fall, in wrestling it’s possible to keep going for years and never change. But you can’t do that, not if the fans don’t like it. There is a difference between ‘holding your spot’ and ‘not doing what’s best for business’. From a financial point of view, from a storytelling perspective, and from the bigger picture overall, you can be too selfish. You can hog the limelight. You can be in the wrong. It’s not nearly as common as some people believe, but if your actions help kill the company, or you kill a man’s career because it might impact yours, or if you drive away fans, that’s wrong, in terms of the business. And you should be called on it.

But then, are the fans the right guys to call people out on that? Yes and no. It feeds back to the earlier question, playing armchair quarterback is one thing, not supporting the product is another. If you make people not tune in, not buy a ticket, then you’re in the wrong, regardless of what it is you’re doing. Someone calling you out on that on a message board may be right, but it’s the fans not coming that are the real jury.

But it’s certainly a valid point you raise.