The Wrestling News Experience: 09.05.11

Monday, September 5th, 2011

From 411Mania’s Canadian offices in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, this is The Wrestling News Experience, with Stephen Randle!

Audio Version Available Via The Voices In Your Head

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Experience. I’m Stephen Randle, and I can conceive of gravies that would boggle your tiny mind. Anyway, it’s Labour Day, which is that special time of year after which you’re not allowed to wear white. As is my understanding.

Moving on.

Last week, Kevin Nash revealed that he’d been signed to a WWE contract, and as a result, Triple H was more than happy to grant CM Punk’s wish that they have a match at Night of Champions. And then by the end of the show, the match was switched to CM Punk vs…Triple H. All right, then, we’ll go with that. With threats to his position erupting at seemingly every turn, what will Triple H have in store for us tonight?

Plus, Alberto Del Rio can work in the United States again, so this week I’d expect some sort of interaction between him and his opponent for Night of Champions, John Cena. Don’t forget, Cena stated that there was no way that Alberto Del Rio stood a chance of beating him in a fair fight, and also beat up his ring announcer last week, so I’d imagine Del Rio isn’t going to take things lying down.

And with both Raw and Smackdown Superstars present on Raw for the foreseeable future, one can only imagine how everything else will shake out, tonight on Raw!

And You Thought We Took Lists Too Seriously

Having apparently regained control of his Twitter account after it was mysteriously hacked and used to spout the ravings of a lunatic, Kurt Angle took to Twitter this past week and derided a list of WWE’s Top 50 Superstars of All Time, which was created for a DVD release. Kurt seemed to have a problem with only being ranked #34 on a list of the greatest wrestlers in the entire history of WWE/WCW/ECW and whatever other histories of other companies that are owned by WWE. And hey, he’s entitled to his opinion, even if it’s wrong and spelled poorly (have I mentioned that I blame Twitter for the downfall of the English language?). But before we continue with this, I feel the need to point out something that seems to be getting glossed over in this whole debacle.

Namely, this list was announced in November. Of 2010. As in, last year. The DVD came out in December. Also in 2010. Is Kurt just learning about this now? Has he been cut off from all forms of communication, written, verbal, and electronic, since last winter? Did he lose track of time during his matches with Jeff Jarrett and Sting and use them for a basis of assuming it was 1998 again? Because I could accept that last one, at least.

Anyway, Kurt later apologized to WWE for making fun of their list and his placement on it, and was subsequently arrested for DUI early Sunday morning, presumably because he was out late celebrating the fact that he was considered the 34th greatest Superstar of all time by a company that he hasn’t worked for in years in a DVD that was purely made to soak a few extra dollars out of fans who buy that sort of thing (see also OMG: The Most Shocking Events in Wrestling History That You’ve Already Seen A Million Times On Other DVDs And In Montage Videos). So in a rare twist, he was likely not inebriated when he made the initial, inflammatory Twitter post, but it is entirely possible that he was when he apologized for it. In my experience, most people do it the other way around.

Brand Extension Ends, Confuses Observers Who Thought It Ended Years Ago

So it’s been an interesting week in WWE, in terms of their two brands, which have remained nominally separate for nearly a decade now. Wow, yeah, nearly ten years. I didn’t even think about how long it’s been until I wrote that. The Brand Extension has existed, in some form, longer than the Attitude Era, the nWo, The Rock’s in-ring career, the entire run of Extreme Championship Wrestling, even Bruno Sammartino’s unbeatable record-length WWE Title reign. Talk about dedication to a bit.

Of course, the Brand Extension has been laughable at best for the last few years, as Superstars change shows at random even outside of the annual WWE Draft, the competition between brands is nearly non-existent outside of the Bragging Rights trophy that lasted for a whole two PPVs (also, two completely different trophy models) and was completely meaningless anyway. In that time, there have been a dozen full-time GM’s spread over both brands, not even counting an entire year of “Guest Hosts”, Superstars that had GM privileges for a week, and that time that Eugene was GM while Eric Bischoff was on holidays. Ah, Musical Chairs for a WWE Title Shot, truly, he was the greatest GM of all time.

In case you were interested, going solely off memory so I’d expect mistakes:

Raw GMs: Ric Flair, Eric Bischoff, William Regal, The Coach (technically, Assistant GM, but there was no GM to Assist), Vicki Guerrero, Bret Hart, The Anonymous Raw GM

Smackdown GMs: Vince McMahon, Stephanie McMahon, Paul Heyman, Teddy Long, Vicki Guerrero

The long and the short of it is, we now know that going forward Raw will also feature Smackdown stars, because house show business for the Smackdown shows is apparently abysmal, and WWE wants to jumpstart it by giving Smackdown wrestlers more exposure via the flagship show (and also likely by putting Raw stars on the Smackdown house shows). It is unclear if the reverse will be true for Smackdown, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens this week. Of course, many lower-card Superstars are apparently fearful for their continued employment, but I’d imagine if WWE is willing to keep trotting out NXT on the Internet for week after interminable week (seriously, how has out NXT recapper not either died from a brain aneurysm or gone on a killing spree by now?), then there will always be a place on Superstars for Zach Ryder. Although, if I were Drew McIntyre, I wouldn’t be making any long-term plans.

I’m torn on this whole issue. While I liked the Brand Extension as it was initially presented when they were putting effort into keeping them separate and competitive, at this point they barely pretend that it’s even relevant anymore, and the World Heavyweight Championship (or whichever belt happens to be on Smackdown at the time) is treated like a second-tier title unless you’re actually watching Smackdown, which still has a Raw Rewind every week to remind you what’s happening on the “A Show”. Seen a Smackdown Rewind on Raw lately? No? Hm. And while I wouldn’t wish anyone in wrestling an undeserved trip to the unemployment line, the truth is that WWE is carrying a lot of guys who probably wouldn’t be missed if they were fired tomorrow. Also, re-uniting the titles might force the writing staff to come up with storylines for John Cena and Randy Orton that don’t involve them fighting for the World title. Maybe. Or better yet, maybe John Cena with his already surgically-repaired spine and Randy Orton with his degenerative shoulder dislocations could be rotated in and out and actually given some time to heal without wrestling. They could still do PR appearances, but maybe they don’t have to be on Raw and Smackdown every single week. I know, wrestlers are paid for working and they’d never agree to it, but I’m allowed to speculate, aren’t I?

So in the end, I’m willing to wait and see where they go. Who knows, they may just re-solidify the brand lines on TV and just let the house shows be dual-brand. Or maybe they’ll just throw up their hands, fire everyone who is below US Title level, and be done with it. Frankly, you could probably get someone to bet on either option.

The Absolute Last Time We’re Talking About Him

All right, we’ll cover this quick and move on before he can get any true publicity out of this. Last Tuesday night, Matt Hardy posted a YouTube video that I won’t be linking to if it even still exists that, essentially, read like a pre-emptive suicide note, including an obituary-styled pairing of his date of birth and the next day, September 31st. And because many people are still, generally, decent human beings, there was a great deal of concern, to the point that some people contacted police and rescue workers in North Carolina to check on Hardy before he did anything precipitous.

Of course, the next day, Hardy posted another YouTube video in a similar style that announced his “rebirth” on that day. Yes, he really thought that this was a great idea. After a general outrage from people who didn’t see it coming (or just people who thought he wouldn’t be dumb enough to actually post a suicide note without meaning it), including allegedly some anger from the local law enforcement who had been disturbed over the whole thing, Hardy posted a third video where he apologized for the whole thing and also announced his retirement from full time professional wrestling, which is probably a good idea given that neither of the two professional wrestling organizations that would be financially worth his time want absolutely nothing to do with him.

Now, if Matt Hardy truly believes that this whole thing was a big misunderstanding and can’t figure out why anyone would think that his initial video was a suicide note, then I strongly encourage him to consider that his sense of judgment may be more than a little skewed from years of taking bumps and head shots, and maybe he should get himself physically and psychologically examined before it’s too late and before he does anything else with his life, even if it doesn’t involve wrestling. Just simply for his health, his sanity, and his quality of life.

However, if he’s apologizing in hindsight because he posted that video knowing what it looked like, thinking it would be really cool and shocking and get publicity and attention for his “rebirth”, then he is a piece of garbage and I regret the fact that at any time in his professional career I cheered him, enjoyed his work, or supported him in any way. And at this point, after the ups and downs of the apparently now-ended wrestling career of one Matt Hardy, I’m not sure which of these two scenarios I’d rather have be true. God knows the second one might make it easier to stop caring about whether I’m going to be writing his obituary inside a year.

By the way, this goes double for Jeff Hardy. One more chance? Dude, you’ve had like sixteen chances and they’ve all ended with you getting disciplined for drug use. STOP WRESTLING AND GO TO REHAB BEFORE YOU KILL YOURSELF.

1. John Cena Apparently Punk really is the only man capable of going toe-to-toe with Cena, who polished off Mark Henry, Christian, and Wade Barrett on back-to-back nights without breaking a sweat. Del Rio’s probably happy he was detained by visa issues last week.

2. Randy Orton Speaking of polishing people off, Orton took care of Dolph Ziggler with (far too much) ease and ended his week by beating Christian one more time. Would it be wrong to wish that, just once, he’d show concern or some sort of weakness?

3. Mark Henry Well, at least they learned from the past two times they tried to have him rip the door off a steel cage. However, they’ve done a very good job of making it seem like not even Orton has a chance of beating the World’s Strongest Man.

4. Kevin Nash For a guy who medically can’t get cleared to wrestle, he sure did get to do a lot last week, leaving CM Punk laying, twice, and shoving his best friend to the mat as well. Hey, it’s more ass than Triple H showed when he took on Undertaker.

5. Kurt Angle hey, Kurt, you can be #5 on my list if it’ll make you feel better. Probably not, though, since this list has almost as much credibility as WWE.com’s. Maybe more, depending on the week.

6. Sheamus The Celtic Warrior continues to look strong as he teams with Cena on Monday, then blows through The Great Khali and Jinder Mahal on Tuesday. Although that second one means less and less every week.

7. WWE Smackdown Even if the house shows aren’t doing well, everyone seemed happier with how the live Tuesday show went, although I don’t know if I like the idea of back-to-back nights for WWE’s two shows. Still, anything would be better than Friday nights.

8. Mickie James She’s TNA Knockouts champion again. Which begs the question of what the point of the whole Winter feud was, but I nearly forgot who I was talking about. Seriously, which division means less right now, the WWE Divas or the TNA Knockouts? The correct answer is: whatever division Eric Young is supposed to be champion of.

9. Air Boom That’d be the first and last time I’ll be using that team name. Thousands of fans voted and that was the best they could come up with? Man, maybe wrestling fans really are dumb.

10. Sin Cara Well, one good thing about this whole “who’s Sin Cara this week” mess, people really, really want to see where it’s all going in the end, especially after that strange heel-like turn on Smackdown.

Inactive List as of 08.29.11

WWE Raw

– Big Show, out 3 months as of July 18th (broken leg)
– Chris Jericho, out indefinitely as of September 27th, 2010 (punt-related injury)
– Goldust, out indefinitely (torn rotator cuff)
– Husky Harris, out indefinitely as of January 31st (punt-related injury)
– Kharma, out 9 months as of May 23rd (pregnancy)
– Rey Mysterio, out six months as of August 23rd (knee surgery)
– Skip Sheffield, out indefinitely as of August 20th, 2010 (broken ankle)

WWE SmackDown

– Kane, out 3 months as of July 22nd (broken leg)
– Layla El, out indefinitely as of May 23rd (ACL/MCL surgery)

TNA

– Chris Sabin, out indefinitely
– Jeff Hardy, out indefinitely as of March 14th (suspension)
– Matt Morgan, out 4-6 weeks as of July 26th (torn pectoral)

Transactions

– Santino Marella, out indefinitely as of September 1st (separated shoulder)

WWE

WWE Champion: Alberto Del Rio
– 22 day reign, defeated CM Punk by cashing in Money in the Bank on August 14th (SummerSlam PPV)
– Next title defense: vs John Cena, Night of Champions PPV

World Heavyweight Champion: Randy Orton
– 22 day reign, defeated Christian on August 14th (SummerSlam PPV)
– Next title defense: vs Mark Henry, Night of Champions PPV

WWE Intercontinental Champion: Cody Rhodes
– 24 day reign, defeated Ezekiel Jackson on August 12th (Smackdown)

WWE United States Champion: Dolph Ziggler
– 78 day reign, defeated Kofi Kingston on June 19th (Capitol Punishment PPV)

WWE Tag Team Champions: Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne
– 14 day reign, defeated David Otunga and Michael McGillicutty on August 22nd (Raw)

WWE Divas’ Champion: Kelly Kelly
– 77 day reign, defeated former champion Brie Bella on June 20th (Raw)

TNA

TNA Heavyweight Champion: Kurt Angle
– 29 day reign, defeated Sting on August 7th (Hardcore Justice PPV)

TNA Tag Team Champions: Mexican America
– 18 day reign, defeated Beer Money, Inc. on August 18th (Impact)

TNA X-Division Champion: Brian Kendrick
– 57 day reign, defeated Abyss on July 10th (Destination X PPV)

**NEW** TNA Knockouts Champion: Mickie James
– 4 day reign, defeated Winter on September 1st (Impact)

TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champions: Tara and Miss Tessmacher
– 46 day reign, defeated Rosita and Sarita on July 21st (Impact)

TNA Television Champion: Eric Young
– 102 day reign, defeated Gunner on May 26th (Impact)

De Marco has The Wrestling 5&1.

Reid has Hot or Not.

Baum has Chapters 37 and 38 of One Fall.

Martell has The Triple Threat.

Ari has Column of Honor.

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Here it is, your Moment of Buddy

What’s “Labour Day”?
Come To Think Of It, What’s “Labour”?

Have a good one, and always be a fan.