The Wednesday Wire: 10.5.11: Settling In

This is already the fourth week of The Wednesday Wire and I’m excited with where we’re headed. I have some good ideas that I will be bringing out in the coming weeks and months, and as I have said multiple times now, it’s up to my (hopefully) loyal readers to decide what stays and what needs to be defenestrated. On that note, I think it’s only fair to recognize those of you who took the time to welcome me back, critique and praise my first foray into the internet community shark tank in 4 years. A lot has changed in my life and it may be my skewed perspective but a lot has changed in wrestling, too, which adds another reason to the list of why this is fun to do.

If I Say Thanks Again I May Puke
Comments from 9.14.11: The Return

Our friend Still Guest#8287 is one of many who thinks my positivity is a breath of fresh air here on the ever-cynical IWC: “Good to have a column not focused on hating stuff and instead just talks about the positives, even if I disagree with the positives. Pretty good return column.”

Thank you sir! I know it’s 3 weeks late at this point, but can a man ask what you disagreed with? This is the Commentary Discussion section after all!

The appreciation of positive thought continues with Tommo pea, who I see hasn’t commented on my other two columns: “Fuckin’ hell, it’s nice to see a column that celebrates wrestling and doesn’t just rip it to pieces. Excellent.”

If you want to check out the vim, vigor and vitriol of my younger days here at 411 you can go to my old profile, where about 2 1/2 years of enjoyment and mild disinterest became blathering hatred in the News To Start Your Weekend. Here’s a link to my last column. I was not happy with wrestling, the big bosses here were not happy with me and I think by that point I was the only person actually reading it. I’ve always loved wrestling and it has honestly helped me get through some very tough times in my life. What really helps now is the excitement my son shows cheering on his favourites while sitting in my arms. I don’t see a lot of reasons to get upset about or hate anything these days, certainly not wrestling.

Thank you also to JR, who says: “Good column. Nice to read positive things for once.”

Other people also sang my praises. Guest#8196 finds that me being back “is a pleasant surprise.” The sentiment of Guest#2617 is that my column is “Good stuff.” And he claimed to be “Looking forward to next week.” The interminable* Berenstein Von Raschke thinks I’m “Awesometastic”, a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree. It is claimed by Analysis Stupido that this column is “Sophisticated stuff” and Loki agrees with the masses, saying: “Good column. I quite enjoyed it.” The man known as Nickels And Vines would like me to “Keep up the good work.” and Random Thoughts says “I like this article.” You are all so gracious! The celebration of my momentous return will go forever unmatched!

*In his love for and knowledge of all things wrestling.

I appreciate all of you that commented on my return column. Thanks to Guest#8090, Points, Guest#4082, Tapout42, Mark, The Great Capt. Smooth, the mecca, G-Walla, LitasRevenge, Jason King, truefan, s1rude, AGNJoe, Guest#8618 and of course my good buddy Stevie J, who referred to the great RBR Wrestling, the best live internet radio show/podcast on the interwebs.

One more time, thank you all for your comments, thoughts and suggestions. Hopefully you like the progress I’ve made and will offer more suggestions going forward. I’m writing this for my own enjoyment but I put it online every week because I hope I am able to provide something worthwhile for all of you to read and valid points for discusion.

“Ric Flair wants $750 to come on KSTV. You know how many years of work we can get out of [KSR blogger Drew Franklin] for that? – KSTV Producer Thomas Beisner

Thanks to 411 (or PWI, I guess) reader Kevin as well as my own online sleuthy journalistic skills it seems that Ric Flair was demanding 750 smackers for a FIVE MINUTE interview on Skype. Oh Ric. The official statement from the website: ” no less than 20 people contacted us offering to contribute money in order to get him on the show. I love you all, but what the hell is wrong with you? Seriously.”

“An officer observed the defendant (Jimmy Uso) traveling the wrong way on Howard Avenue in a silver Mustang.” – Tampa Police

I don’t get it. I really don’t. Two things: 1) There’s already been enough negativity thus far in The Wire. 2) I’m tired of reading about these guys doing this ridiculous crap. Therefore any time any of these guys gets caught driving under the influence or anything of the sort I’m just ignoring it unless they either get in real trouble, like they SHOULD, or if they hurt themselves or somebody else badly. It’s just not worth my time. Grow up.

Let’s get some positivity and fun going now. I love the one comment posted on the story. “it’s a complete mystery why people drive under the influnce = sedan service is only $65-$75- surly this is cheaper”

Written by Skyline Limo, which is conveniently located… on Howard Avenue.

Don’t ya think?

“And with 40 superstars making this the biggest Royal Rumble match in history…” – Royal Rumble By The Numbers

In a marketing tactic lazier than Kevin Nash, WWE is using a super special record-breaking match to promote the October 11 SmackDown taping in Dallas… the largest battle royal ever! 41 WWE Superstars!

“It’s clobberin’ time!” – CM Punk

WWE is writing The Marine 3. WWE is also looking to put CM Punk in a movie.

Interesting…

“He turned himself in on Monday morning to begin the sentence.” – TMZ.com

So what are we thinking? Will Jeff turn things around this time? 10 days in jail is nothing, obviously, but has everything with Matt and getting one more chance settled into his head? I’m pulling for him, honestly, just like I’m pulling for Matt. I have no reason not to. They’ve both spent a lot of years killing themselves to entertain us. Hopefully they begin to spend a lot of years taking care of themselves.

“I can’t leave now. I’m more over than ever!” – Zack Ryder

Ring of Honor TV 9.24.2011

I was underwhelmed by the first episode of ROH TV in syndication under the ownership of SBG. Some things were impressive while there was a lot lacking. The potential is there to create a very strong show, and if there’s one thing to know about a complete reboot of a program such as this is that it can’t be judged by its first episode or in this case probably not its first four, as they were all taped on the same night. Granted they were shooting live-to-tape which means they had the opportunity to look at everything as it was being captured and hopefully they took advantage and made some adjustments as the night progressed.

Production
Lacking. This encompasses everything from picture quality to lighting and sound as well as camera work. It certainly wasn’t all bad; the crowd sound was significantly better than the poorly mic’d HDNet audience. This alone made it feel more like a true ROH event, which is going to be an important piece of the puzzle once they get all of the rest of the kinks worked out. HDNet’s commentary sound quality was better, but it was also put in during post-production. I was excited by the look of the ring in the preview video for this episode featuring the KOW v. WGTT but I was disappointed when I saw the actual episode and was exposed to the consistently inconsistent camera work.

This looks a lot like a WCW or TNA show. Not amazing WWE quality production but still strong. The lighting is good, the composition of the shot is good, the color is not bad – it looks like it belongs on TV.

This looks a lot like a regional promotion with no money for lighting, low quality cameras and novice-at-best camera operators. What is really bothersome is that these two screenshots are about 3 seconds apart and the actual cut on video is from the poor one below to the stronger shot above.

Not to cast any judgment on anybody behind the scenes in SBG’s Ring of Honor, because they could have been just as disappointed by this as myself and many others are — but I remember that back when Gabe Sapolsky was the head booker and had imput on the production side as well he got very upset at the poor video quality of a show that was taped in 2003 or 2004. It was back when ROH was straight-to-DVD only and people didn’t have high expectations for the visual aspects of the promotion. It was a usual 2-camera shoot; the hard camera was fine, but the one on the floor was tinted green and dark. The camera operator didn’t set the white balance and it ended up making the DVD incredibly annoying to watch. Every time they made a cut during a match it went from decent lighting for a respectable independent promotion to a picture that looked like a child spilled ink on film that was halfway through developing in a dark room.

Again, I hope this was caught at some point during the night and corrected.

Content

Good, but not great. The tag match between Futureshock (how many things in wrestling are named Futureshock?) and the Bravados was a simple match that showed off Cole & O’Reilly’s strong tag team cohesion and the Bravados’ ability to be douchey and entertaining. It was a somewhat bland match with some great spots – the succession of leapfrogs and kicks near the beginning by Futureshock was fast, smooth and crisp and the running knee/dropkick deal from the apron down to the chair in the corner of the guardrails by Kyle O’Reilly was really cool. The pre-match UFC style promos were also very good. Nothing flashy or over-the-top and most especially nothing corny like some of the original introduction promos from the HDNet show (Jerry Lynn I’m looking at you).

There was a large amount of time spent outside of the ring between the two matches. It was used to introduce us to some of the bigger players in the World and Tag Title divisions and to give us a bit of an idea what ROH is about. Jay Lethal’s interview in there was long and weird — I liked it but his voice was odd and very stifled sounding. Tough to describe it. Again, I did like it though, and it was certainly better than his infamous “Tonight… is the night… I’ve been waiting for!” promo from back when he first became Jay Lethal under the tutelage of Samoa Joe all those years ago in ROH.

The tag title match was good but honestly, again, a bit underwhelming. Worth my time, but probably only worth my time once.

**No Ring of Honor TV again this week, sorry. I already, as hopefully you can tell, spend a lot of time on this every week and I just didn’t have enough time to check out the full show. I will say that I did enjoy the segments spotlighting Mike Bennett and Eddie Edwards as well as the ROH World Title match. Bennett’s match was pretty good as well. I promise I’ll figure out a way to fit this show into my schedule as time goes by. Thanks for understanding.**

IMPACT Wrestling 9.29.2011

“The next time I come home I’ll be wearing the World Heavyweight Championship.” – Bobby Roode

I think everybody who has seen this is completely in agreement that videos like this one are always incredibly effective. We’re already behind him and know this means a ton to him, but now it’s even more real and now we’re rooting even harder for him to leave Bound for Glory with TNA’s biggest prize.

“You’re the next World Heavyweight Champion!” – AJ Styles

The clip of the match from Youtube was very strong. Roode isn’t flashy like AJ or a lot of the other guys that the IWC is in love with (or hates, depending on who you’re talking to) but he has great timing, he’s smooth and he does everything right. The finish of this one was great. Series of blocked Styles Clashes, AJ ducks a clothesline, Roode dodges the Pele, AJ splats, Roode jumps on him with the crossface. Beautiful. Thus far they are doing everything exactly right leading up to this match. I am looking so forward to this one that I may even avoid spoilers until I can catch the match myself. Maybe. I’ll try at least.

“Without Crimson in TNA, who else is gonna be my bitch?” – Samoa Joe

So where did Crimson come from anyway? Is he any good? Should I be excited to see Crimson v. Joe? Is Matt Morgan in this match? I’m confused. Segment was good though.

“Why don’t you take that 10 cent whore…” – Jeff Jarrett

My gosh, Jeff! Such language to be using in front of your wife!

WWE RAW Supershow 10.3.2011

“Randy Orton is just ragtaggin’ this boy Drew McIntyre!” – Booker T

Thanks for coming, Drew. There must be somebody backstage that he’s not blowing that he’s supposed to be.

Michael Cole: “How do you control the strongest man in the world?”
Booker T: “You don’t!”
Michael Cole: “How do you control the viper?”
Booker T: “You can’t!”

Anybody else get the feeling that was not prewritten? I really think that actually just happened. Either way it was awesome. That needs to be in the WWE open.

“We promised you a great main event… Andre The Giant! WrestleMania! The world is watching! How do you control the strongest man in the world? You don’t! If ya smellllll… Ladies and gentlemen it is electric! How do you control the viper? You can’t! The champ… is here!”

It sounded a lot better before I typed it.

“He just made Mark Henry angry right there boy!” – Booker T

I could just say the same thing I did about Drew up above. It’s a shame that a couple of guys with the talent of Morrison and McIntyre are where they are right now, but I loved the opening pair of segments of RAW. The whole idea right now is that Triple H is letting RAW get completely out of control; if that’s going to be the case then I want him to be the COO indefinitely. This is fun.

The Morrison v. Henry match did remind me of the first ever ROH PPV match (2007’s Respect is Earned) where BJ Whitmer challenged Takeshi Morishima for the ROH World Title. I was there that night and it was insane. Obviously the match on RAW was significantly different but the idea is the same: big monster gets caught off guard, smaller agile dude takes advantage with a flurry of offense but gets stopped cold and it’s all she wrote.

“What happened to this place, huh?” – Triple H

Wow. How much more over is Vickie than absolutely everybody else? Not only that, but golly gee I can’t get over how hot she is. Look, I have a thing for older women and Vickie is just impressive. Anyway, I really have no idea where they’re going with this whole thing. There are like 100 things going on at once and it seems like they’re doing their best to intertwine them all while still keeping some things distinguishable.

Oh, and dude, Triple H totally forgot Mason Ryan.

OMG HE WAS BERRIED THIS IS A TRAVESTY

“Eve had her 6-inch heels last night, but not tonight. She’s ready!” – Booker T

Holy cow Kelly just kicked the shit out of Beth Phoenix. That was something else. I’m interested in seeing where this leads. Seems like that sentiment is a theme with me these days when it comes to WWE. Definitely a good thing.

“Pancake your ass on outta here!” – The Rock

They said that was a deleted scene from Fast Five, right? I assume it’s because they didn’t want people to realize that there’s one actor that Vin Diesel is actually better than.

Seriously Rock, what the hell was that?

“Well the closed captioning person just walked off the job.” – Jim Ross

I want to be Santino. This is something that I have just decided. I used to be upset about them wasting what I thought was some great potential but if they didn’t give him this comedy role they would have missed out on something incredible. I can’t say enough good things about how awesome this guy has been, and the crowd loves him. He’s also absolutely perfect to have around in a time like this. The rest of the show is extremely serious and they’re straying from doing much comedy in order to get over the “no confidence” angle, so having Santino back will give them a perfect outlet for comedy each week.

“That’s all we wanted. Our jobs back.” – R-Truth

Hey, they actually used a shot of Miz’ Twitter feed and a fabrication of a real Youtube video! WWE is finally embracing the digital social media age! I’ll say it again, though, I just don’t know where this whole thing is leading.

The end of the Hell in a Cell PPV (full review next week on the WedWi) was fantastic and I think showing that in its entirety may get them some good replay buys this week.

“Sheamus is a clubber. I’m not talking about a night clubber, I’m talking about wrecking machine.” – Jim Ross

The tag hope spot where one guy is grabbed out of mid-air just before making the tag is way overused these days. I don’t remember the first time it was used but I do remember that the first time I saw it I thought it was ridiculously incredible. It still pops the fans almost every time, though, so the spot still works and has a place in the general tag match structure.

“They don’t want a piece of Cena, they’re just taking a piece. Like a thief they’re taking this boy!” – Booker T

Cody and Bourne stalled the finishing flurry fantasmaganza by a moment, but it didn’t end up hurting anything. Bourne took that CrossRhodes fantastically, too. I thought his neck was snapped off. I will always be a sucker for the furious signature move/finisher stream that happens in many multi-man matches. The crowd goes wild and it’s chaotic and cool. This was such a fun match.

“I like watching people beat the hell out of each other.” – Triple H

Beth Phoenix said “We’re just girls.” Really? Isn’t she supposed to be a complete badass? Oh, and did anybody else think it was Stephanie calling for “Hunter” at first? Was it just me?

“Hey, you can’t talk!” – Fan to referee Mike Chioda

“I’m reluctantly walking out.” – Jerry Lawler

I loved how much emphasis they put on Jim Ross deciding to leave. He deserves to be treated special and I’m glad they gave him that moment in the spotlight, even if it was in this very muted, different way.

Quiet way to end RAW. Weird way to end RAW. Cliffhanging way to end RAW. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be? So how does the show start next week? We know that the fans are on The Game’s side, but is anybody else? What do the main event guys think?

**No SmackDown either this week. I actually had a chance to catch RAW live this week, which was rare. SmackDown didn’t have a chance. I don’t even know what happened, but it was the last show before a PPV so it likely wasn’t anything that I needed to see. I think the Sin Caras did something.**

“If you’re 18 years old, you don’t want to see PG stuff.” – Ken Anderson

It seems like the whole anti-PG thing has died down significantly over the past few months. I was initially caught up in the hyperbolic mess that ensued when people first saw that square on the top left corner of the screen, but when I stepped back for a moment it became obvious that it was silly to get upset. It’s not the rating that causes a show to be good or bad, it’s the crafting of the stories. It could be rated G, NC-17 or anywhere in between and if the writing is uninspired or nonsensical it’s going to stink. WWE actually did some very good stuff during the time period where they were really following the guidelines that people associate with PG. Now they’re saying ass and being more crass in general and it still falls under the PG guidelines. As a father I wish they wouldn’t, because it’s not the language that makes the dialogue better. Some memorable quotes from the interview:

“You don’t want to see somebody called a ‘darn butthole.’ It insults their intelligence.”

It’s not the language that insults their intelligence, it’s people like this uninformed goof who are stuck with the mindset of a 15-year-old boy. I know you’re entire identity is based around the word “asshole” – obviously, then, if you can’t say that you assume that “darn butthole” is the only viable next step down. That is the thought process of a neanderthal. That could absolutely not be a more shortsighted statement to make.

On Velocity, where he belongs

“Steve Austin was always telling people, ‘There are about 10,000 people here calling you an asshole,’ and that was a bad thing. But what if we turned it around? What if we played into the notion that nice guys finish last, and so I’m an asshole.”

Is it offensive to anybody else that he was upset because his entire gimmick was based on that one word? Anderson is so stuck in the past that it’s really kind of embarrassing, honestly. He did end up going with the “nice guys finish last” idea and it worked. I was a fan of the Mr. Kennedy character. It worked as a heel and it worked as an anti-hero face as well. He got hurt a couple times and it ruined his chance to get the character fully developed and realize the potential that was there, but as evidenced with its complete one-dimensionality in TNA we find that it ended up being a casualty of the “Russo Effect”.

The “Russo Effect” isn’t what you may think. It isn’t about him getting a hold of a character and achieving miserable failure when trying to write for it. When Vince Russo left the WWF and the babysitting mind of Vince McMahon he was left to his own devices and there was nobody that bothered editing his ideas and making them presentable on TV. What resulted was a bunch of ideas put on television before they were ready to be seen by an audience. That’s what the Mr. Anderson character in TNA seems to be. It’s an unedited, dumbed down and underdeveloped version of his WWE character with a bunch of added crassness that he seems to think makes it a more mature and complete persona. Very misguided thought process.