The Wrestling 5&1 8.27.11: Torrie Wilson battles Ashley Massaro in Versus!

Will Torrie get her third win? Does Ashley start her own journey?

Take your pick.
Stay tuned as next week as I’ll reveal the winner!
If it’s Torrie, who should stand between her and the Hall of Bang?

No, not the band…

No, not the elevated fireman’s carry slam that somehow is a finisher…

It’s really a group of people in this business who sorely need … and attitude adjustment

You see, I’ve recently come across some people in the wrestling business that have some really poor attitudes. They just don’t “get it.” Let’s examine some…

The Young Bucks
Nick and Matt Jackson are some of the most talented young workers in the business. Great in-ring skills, very limited promo skills. (That’s a trend that we’ll see here, by the way.) They recently requested their release from TNA due to being underutilized. Their comments on their release have ranged from not being booked enough to make any money (very understandable) to not liking how they were written/booked (very subjective). After their release, we start hearing criticism of their backstage attitude. They didn’t shake hands…they didn’t take criticism from veterans. They publically discounted it, placing the accountability on the company and the veterans. Then you have a WWE tryout. This is their chance at wrestling’s grandest stage, a stage that over 95% of all wrestlers aspire to reach. To date, we’ve heard nothing about their abilities or their tryout match itself. What have we heard about? They didn’t shake hands with veterans. Now, these guys are well trained and well-traveled. They’ve been to Japan.

I want to take you back to 2006/2007, when I worked with Arizona independent promotion Rising Phoenix Wrestling. RPW owner/booker Johnny Kennedy looked at The Young Bucks as punks with an attitude problem that will never make it in the business. Co-owner Brett Heilman looked at them as the future, promising that we’d see them in ROH and TNA sooner than later. Who was right? Well, I thought Brett would be right, and he was. But so was Johnny.

There’s more to this story. We had an event in January of 2007 that the Young Bucks were booked on. They had agreed to a fee, and made the drive from Southern California to Phoenix. I don’t know if they shook any hands when they arrived. But I do know one thing—they asked for more money. Not for future bookings, but for that night’s booking. They worked for the originally agreed upon amount and were never booked again.

Bad attitude. Sense of entitlement. Poor business skills. Poor interpersonal skills. Four to five years later, what are we hearing? The same thing. Their TNA bridge is burned, and their WWE bridge is burned. I really hope ROH becomes a big promotion, because that’s their new ceiling.

And when other wrestlers refer to “The Young Bucks Pose,” they’re not paying homage, trust me.

You Decide: Have The Young Bucks effectively shot themselves in the foot?

Last week we watched an old school battle royal from 1991. Fast forward 20 years and we have last week’s Smackdown battle royal. Mark Henry was the winner—and he should be. He’s on a tremendous roll, and he’s the right type of wrestler to win a battle royal.

You Decide: Are you buying Orton vs. Henry for the World Heavyweight Championship?

Attitude Adjustment…

Up next? TJ Perkins. Oh boy…

This fucking guy. Seriously…the word on Low Ki is that he takes himself too seriously—he’s been called his own biggest fan and a mark for himself. This guy makes Low Ki look downright humble. Much like The Young Bucks, TJ Perkins (or TJP, or Puma) has an amazing amount of in-ring talent. More than most of the WWE, TNA or even ROH rosters. But man is he a jerk.

The southern California native recently moved to Florida in hopes of getting more bookings and possible catching on in TNA or FCW. Well, none of those things happened. He got work in FIP, but that soon dried up when the promotion became a joke. Gabe Sapolsky booked him in Evolve and Dragon Gate USA, but that didn’t last long. Once that was over, he got a shot in ROH. That didn’t work. He did tryout with TNA and FCW. How did that work out? Well, he’s back in southern California hoping to get indy work and is seemingly getting another shot in ROH.

So what’s wrong with him? In 2007 I was backstage at an NWA show in Phoenix. TJ Perkins was booked as Puma against SoCal veteran Disco Machine (this was their idea of booking more “lucha guys” by the way). Watching them prepare backstage was hilarious. Disco Machine is a respected veteran who has great technical skills and knows how to work a crowd. As they were discussing their match, TJ would constantly interrupt his opponent, making three suggestions for himself to every one suggestion that Disco made. And Disco was focusing on the match—getting it over with the fans. TJ? He was focused on getting his shit in. All of his shit. When they were finally done, TJ turned around and walked away. Disco stood there, shaking his head in disgust.

Recently he’s taken Gabe Sapolsky to task for making him ride in a ring truck to various cities to compete for his promotions. I’m sure Gabe should apologize for giving him free transportation. He also said he was promised pay increases that never came. Now, promoters can be sketchy, but I’ve never heard this about Gabe. Wrestlers are lining up to work for Gabe, and TJ is begging for bookings.

But then TJ Perkins crossed the line, when he talked shit about Buggy. You read that right…he talked shit about BUGGY! Not a good idea. If you listened to this week’s edition of The Greg DeMarco Show, you know what I had to say about that. And I meant it. TJP is a piece of shit that is a mark for himself and isn’t going to make it any further than he’s made it. I hope you’ve saved whatever money you’ve made…

You Decide: TJP…thoughts?

Five things you didn’t know about… John Laurinaitis!

1. “Johnny Ace” made his wrestling debut in 1986 in Florida, and frequently teamed with “The Terminator” who was his brother (not that brother) Marcus.

2. He was, of course, one half of “The Dynamic Dudes” with Shane Douglas. Amazing what became of that tag team in wrestling history!

3. He had a loooooooooooong stint in Japan, nearly 10 years for AJPW.

4. He replaced Vince Russo as the booker in WCW in 2000. Don’t blame him, that ship was already sinking!

5. He is credited with inventing The Diamond Cutter / Ace Crusher / RKO. I’d imagine someone in Japan invented it and he stole it.

This week’s Impact Wrestling, taped over two weeks ago, featured TNA World Champion Kurt Angle taking on undefeated rookie sensation Crimson, as well as the return of Ken Anderson—already. That’s one nasty injury Immortal gave him.

Chad Nevett’s Impact Wrestling Instant Analysis was used for the segment breakdown and match times. But those ratings are mine. And to make sure it’s different, I am rating things out of six. Six—the number of sides the TNA ring should have.

Segment #1 – Kurt Angle hypes Angle vs. Crimson (2/6)
Kurt Angle it out to hype Angle vs. Crimson, and he does a “meh” job of it. which is par for the course in TNA, as they usually do a “meh” job of promoting everything. Immortal got involved, and this just didn’t do anything to increase my interest in the main event. I mean, it didn’t decrease it either, right?

Segment #2 – Velvet Sky, ODB & Jackie beat Angelina Love, Sarita & Rosita (4:00ish, 4/6)
Not a technical masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but it told the story that it was supposed to tell—ODB & Jackie are trying to earn their full-time contract, and find themselves in a position to either help Velvet or put a hurtin’ to her. They choose good over evil on this night, and the faces pick up the win.

Segment #3 – Kid Kash pinned Jesse Sorensen (3 good minutes, 4/6)
Good little match here—they packed a ton into three minutes. The story was that Sorensen, the rookie, was #2 in the X-Division rankings and Kash, the veteran (and former champ) was #3. Kash couldn’t put the kid away, so he had to resort to pulling the tights.

Segment #4 – Rob Van Dam forced The Pope to submit (5:00, 4/6)
Good match with a good finish (considering I expected a crap finish when reading the spoilers). They actually made my buy the surfboard, which is impressive. Post-match sees Samoa Joe attack Pope, causing Devon to (reluctantly?) make the save.

That was three straight good TV matches, huh?

Segment #5 – The Rob & Rob Express, Steiner mocks Bully Ray, Winter beats up Mexican America (4/6)
Each of these segments was surprisingly good. I like Rob & Rob together, the Immortal promo was actually funny, and Winter looked legit in delivering that beating. A lot was accomplished here, and I hope they follow-up on The Rob & Rob Express.

Segment #6 – Ric Flair, Sting, Hulk Hogan, blah blah blah (1/6)
This was somewhat like the opening segment, except it did in fact make me even less interested in this feud. This has sucked, is sucking, and will continue to suck.

Segment #7 – Daniels wants to do this one more time (3/6)
Much like the opening segment, this didn’t hurt my interest in seeing Daniels vs. AJ Styles, but it didn’t help it either. Daniels, an amazingly talented athlete who has no reason to believe he can’t hang anymore, is stuck worrying that he can’t hang anymore. AJ logically doesn’t want the match because he plans to be in the Bound for Glory Series finals at No Surrender. So they’ll do it on Impact, instead!

Segment #8 – Immortal beat Fortune when Bully Ray pinned AJ Styles (6:00ish,5/6)
Yet another good match on this week’s program, even if it was a little overdone. After watching three promo segments, I’m totally okay with this being all over the place.

That said, I see no reason why Anderson is already back. At least let him wait until after No Surrender!

Segment #9 – Mickie James cuts a promo, Eric Young has comedy “match” with Scott Baio (2/6)
I’m indifferent about the Mickie promo, and could care less about Eric Young right now. Next.

Segment #10 – Crimson beat Kurt Angle by disqualification (10:30, 4.5/6)
This match was the perfect microcosm of Crimson in TNA. Is he an unstoppable monster? Or is he the rookie underdog that finds a way? Now while I was fighting that, I was fighting the fact that this match shouldn’t be happening right now. Much like a misplaced Chris Benoit joke, this is too soon. Add in the fact that neither man can really lose this match, and you have to go with a screwjob. In a TNA main event? No! Samoa Joe can’t get the better of an injured Crimson, so we resolve that backstage. And thus Crimson is out of the BFG series—he can stay undefeated and not be the challenger at their biggest PPV event of the year. It’s better than putting him in a 4-way and not taking the fall. This match was one of the best Crimson matches to date, but he was in there with Angle.

Best Match: Immortal vs. Fortune

Best Promo: Rob & Rob, Steiner & Ray, Winter & the Mexican Americans

Overall Rating: 3.35

Overall Thoughts: Better than their prior two efforts. The show featured mostly good matches, and mostly “meh” promos. Sound familiar? It does if you watched a lot of Nitro. Weird, since Hogan, Bischoff and Russo are involved. I’m not more excited about No Surrender, and I’m not exactly excited about anything else TNA is doing—and that’s how I feel immediately after watching their flagship program.

You Decide: What did you think of Impact Wrestling this week?

Hit up the ‘Mania on TWITTER (so Ashish will like me, okay?)

http://www.twitter.com/411mania
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http://www.twitter.com/411moviestv
http://www.twitter.com/411music
http://www.twitter.com/411games
http://www.twitter.com/411mma
http://www.twitter.com/demarcolives – that’s me!

Pro Wrestling Guerrilla presented its annual Battle of Los Angeles this past weekend, and it was a great card from start to finish.

Here are the results:

Willie Mack pinned Chris Hero with a backslide
PWG World Champion Kevin Steen beat Finlay by submission with a Sharpshooter
El Generico reversed a top rope Ricola Bomb into a huracanrana into a jackknife pin
Eddie Edwards pinned Roderick Strong with a roll-up (did ROH book the finish, too?)
Joey Ryan & Scorpio Sky beat The RockNES Monsters to become #1 Contenders to the tag titles
El Generico beat Willie Mack in a BOLA semifinal
Kevin Steen beat Eddie Edwards via submission in a BOLA semifinal
PWG World Tag Team Champions The Young Bucks beat The Kings of Wrestling with another roll-up
El Generico beat PWG World Champ Kevin Steen to win the 2011 Battle of Los Angeles

While I was pulling for Willie Mack to get a huge push into the finals, he got the win over Hero and kept it close with Generico. Steen was on fire through the finals, which really gives Generico more momentum for winning. Bucks vs. Kings was a surprise, but makes sense if this is the last KOW appearance in PWG. They’re not on the September 10 card for the same company.

Speaking of which, PWG announced the card for their 9/10 return:

World Champ Kevin Steen defends vs. Davey Richards
World Tag champs The Young Bucks defend vs. Joey Ryan & Scorpio Sky
El Generico vs. Rocky Romero
The RockNES Monsters vs. The Super Smash Brothers
Eddie Edwards vs. TJ Perkins
Willie Mack vs. Ryan Taylor
Peter Avalon vs. Brian Cage-Taylor

You Decide: Are you satisfied with the Generico win? Had this been an iPPV, would you have ordered?

Just as I was losing faith in my ability to garner hatred, King Hater made his return. And in a week where I’m busy addressing wrestling’s current crop of bad attitudes, it’s perfect timing! I’ve missed you…

“I am not stupid, as you appear to be. I know this will never get posted, being the piece of shit you are. But at least I know you read it. … First off, nice mention of your Facebook page. Though it was less than two months ago that you claimed you did NOT have a Facebook page when another poster pointed out the picture of you that reveals you to be morbidly obese. So, which is it Greggy? Do you have a Facebook page or not, or is it more along the lines of whichever happens to be convenient for you at the time. Wow. Just….wow! … Second, it is unbelievable to me that, how many columns in are you, and you still are not aware of the fact that I am sure your computer has a spell check. It must. Though you choose, for whatever reason, not to use it. Sad. But, I guess, if you took the extra time to do little stuff like that you probably wouldn’t be morbidly obese to begin with. … Good day.”
~Guest#0841

I guarantee you Guest 0841 is one of the biggest, fattest pieces of crap reading this column. And that’s saying something! I must say that I missed this idiot. About the Facebook page…I opened it in June. When it opened, I announced it in this very article. By the way, I’m 45 columns in if you count this one. That doesn’t count Buy or Sell and The DeMarco Files. So you should know by now that I have zero control over the comments section, thus I have no control over what gets posted. And Larry, Jeremy and anyone else with the ability to approve comments can tell you—I welcome any and all comments/ And you’ve used the “I’m not as stupid, as you appear to be” line before. It wasn’t funny the first five times.

The Rock? The Miz? Nah, you get nothing.

So last week was the big match, Buggy vs. Terra Calaway for Terra’s Lucha Pro Women’s Championship and a shot at WILD Champion Winter (from TNA).

On top of that, Buggy had that little run-in with TJ Perkins. Basically, Perkins was being a little bitch (he always it) and complaining about Buggy on the internet. You can find it if you really want to. Buggy did discuss it on this week’s edition of The Greg DeMarco Show and she took the high road. Me? Not so much. I’ve listened to it, and I’m quite proud of my rant on TJP. Seriously, eff that guy. He buys into his own hype, complains about being underpaid and thinks he’s the next big thing. He likes to claim he made up moves for WWE wrestlers despite not even being in developmental. He complained about being given a free ride to EVOLVE and DGUSA shows. His last ROH stint was quite short lived. He is a great worker, but I’ve seen him backstage and you can see the pain on the faces of those who have to deal with him. He’s not worth the hassle.

But he is worth you giving a listen to my rant! Check it out here:

Next week, we are finally joined by Tough Enough cast member Ryan “Skid Marks” Howe! Phone issues one week, his birthday surprise canoeing trip the next. But we’ve maintained communications and he’s confirmed for this coming Tuesday. Really.

Yay, more people with bad attitudes!

Matt Hardy: Listen, it’s been said. I know Matt’s tried to explain it. I believe a ghost picked up a tree and threw it at Matt’s Corvette, right? And then, as he was bleeding, an angel entered his body and freed him of all of his vices and demons, right? What is it with this guy and angels? Hey Reby…drop this loser and get yourself a real man. I’m CM Punk can work you into the rotation.

John Morrison: Ever since Melina got released, I’ve been worried about this guy. He’s making long Twitter posts “in support” of her, but he’s also lobbing criticisms at is current employer. And when you’re supporting someone by repeatedly calling them the “hottest,” you’ve both got problems. And much like Hardy, The Bucks and TJP, he’s talented in the ring and very VERY limited in the mic. Speaking of Melina…

Melina: Booking fee? $3000. Plus first class travel and first class accommodations. Maybe she can ride in Gabe Sapolsky’s truck with TJP? I hope she enjoys both of those booking she’s going to get. I mean, I thought Tiffany/Taryn Terrell was asking for too much, and she wanted $2000.

Ric Flair: This one hurts the most. He’s the freaking Nature Boy! He’s made more money than he can remember. In fact, he probably doesn’t remember it since it was so poorly managed that he’s extremely deep in debt! He “retired” and got inducted into the Hall of Fame in the manner a true champion should. And he continues to shit on it each week he appears for TNA. And it’s Hogan and Bischoff, so they’re never going to allow Flair to look good. But he’ll keep doing it—he needs to cash! Sad, sad state of affairs.

And no, I’m not slamming Shane Helms here. He’s taken enough punishment, he’s actually trying to turn things around. And people are erroneously making Helms recent incident out to be new news. It’s not, it’s from the original motorcycle accident. Kudos to him for hitting this head on and trying to make it better.

Our “&1” Model of the Week is Rebecca Knox, who caused quite a stir a few years ago when she started wrestling. She was also a regular over at the Online Onslaught forums, developing quite the following there and at the Pun’s House board. Yes, I linked to them. While you’re checking out legit message boards with great people, don’t forget to head over to OffTheTeam.com, where you can be an OTTer.

Looking for some more stuff to read? Our News Reports are a great place to start! And not to be outdone is the Columns side.

Vote in Versus, talk about wrestling, have fun!

Until next time…

Listen to the show!