The Wrestling News Experience: 01.02.12

Monday, January 2nd, 2012

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

Brand New Year. Happiness Not Guaranteed

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Experience. I am Stephen Randle, your tour guide for the latest year when people are predicting that the Apocalypse will happen. As if a movie starring John Cusack could possibly predict the future correctly. He hasn’t done anything worth talking about since High Fidelity. Of course, given who ended 2011 as the WWE and World champions, maybe they aren’t wrong this time.

And my from Christmas haul, I’ve been playing a fair bit of The Old Republic, and by “a fair bit” I mean, “less than I’d like, but enough that my wife has not yet threatened divorce over it”, because, well, it’s an incredible game. Also, I picked up the first two seasons of Modern Family, and I can see why people like it because it’s clever without being too “inside”, but I don’t see it as the “greatest sitcom on TV” that people have been saying it is. Plus I’m not a huge fan of the “documentary” format in the first place. But still, it’s funny, so I like it well enough.

Moving on.

Tonight, it’s the first Raw of 2012, and we’ve already got a big show planned out ahead of time! What a concept…

Anyway, after defeating CM Punk as part of a Gauntlet match last week (thanks in no small part to Johnny Ace), Dolph Ziggler will receive the first WWE Title shot of the year, as he will take on Punk with the belt on the line.

In addition, we’re in Memphis, and it sounds like it’s been announced that Jerry Lawler will be taking on the worst part of every WWE broadcast in the past year, Michael Cole, in a Memphis Street Fight, where at least we’ll get five to ten minutes without Cole on commentary.

And Kane’s social experiment with John Cena looks to continue, as there are rumours that tonight will see a “special challenge match” involving both men. Hopefully they’ll prime the crowd a little better this week.Plus, R-Truth returned to get him some of his former partner, and he has promised that Miz will be in for more of the same each and every week.

Plus, Johhny Ace promised that Brodus Clay will debut tonight. Yeah, right.

Oh, and this:

The End Begins, tonight on Raw!

The Last Big Thing

Hmm…not much news this week, as befits the holidays. Well, I’ve got a note here from the Powers That Be here at 411 telling us that we’re “encouraged” to talk about Brock Lesnar. Good thing, too, because I was going to ignore one of the biggest potential wrestling-related news stories of the past week here in this wrestling news report.

So let’s talk about Brock Lesnar. You remember him, right? He learned how to be a pro wrestler faster than anyone thought possible, became WWE’s youngest World champion at the time he won by beating The Rock, and generally had a string of ****+ star matches by the second year of his WWE career. Which was also the last year of his WWE career, as he ditched the promotion after WrestleMania XX, news of which broke before the show and turned a highly anticipated Goldberg-Lesnar match on the PPV into a bizarre fan revolt as the entire MSG arena crapped on the match and both participants, and also Brock lost the match cleanly after initially being booked to beat the already departing Goldberg.

Post-WWE, Brock tried out for the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings, and despite not having played the sport since high school, still nearly made the team as a defensive back. But rather than stick with that (see a pattern?) Brock moved on to the rapidly expanding world of MMA. Before long, he was in UFC, and from there, it was a short step to UFC Heavyweight Champion. And by “before long”, I mean really, really damned fast, as he was champion even before he had half a dozen fights under his belt.

Unfortunately, Brock’s career hit a tailspin almost as quickly, losing the belt to Cain Velasquez, then losing again this past weekend to Alistair Overeem, after which Lesnar announced his retirement from the sport. That’d be three careers started and abandoned, all before he even comes within sniffing distance of 40.

And, of course, with Lesnar’s legitimate competition days apparently behind him, the focus once again turns to WWE, where Lesnar himself said he’d be open to doing, at worst, a one-off appearance for the right money. And with that, the countdown to Lesnar’s return begins.

So, why am I not particularly thrilled about this turn of events? Well, there are a lot of reasons, but primarily is the fact that there is no way we’ll be getting the Brock Lesnar everyone remembers. If he comes back for more than just a one-shot, which is a big “if”, Lesnar would never do a full-time schedule, especially since the travel and hard schedule is the reason he left in the first place. Secondly, this is no longer a young and hungry competitor, it’s an older Lesnar who has already made his bones and has no reason to really bring his “A” game to an industry he left behind years ago in search of bigger and better things. And while The Undertaker can wrestle one match a year thanks to The Streak, and The Rock can come back because he’s a world-famous Hollywood star who is clearly bigger than the wrestling industry and one of WWE’s best chances for big mainstream press, Brock Lesnar, to me, doesn’t have any of that going for him. Yeah, he was The Next Big Thing nearly a decade ago, but he squandered that shot when he turned his back on WWE, and since then he’s been a failed NFL player and a flash-in-the-pan UFC star. Coming back to WWE, everyone seems to think he’d be portrayed as a big deal, and it’d be in WWE’s interest in terms of drawing money if they did as well, but the truth is, he’s not a big deal anymore. Plus, you have to imagine that there would be more than a few talents backstage who might feel less than inclined to help out the returning Brock, especially a few of them who were there when Brock stood up the weekend before the biggest show of the year (and one of the biggest WrestleManias of all time) and told them that the life wasn’t for him and he was quitting. It’s one thing to put over guys like The Rock, or Bret Hart, or Mae Young, when they come back for their one shot deals and nostalgia matches, because they have given a lot to the industry and continue to give back to this day, and it’s considered a big honour to be involved in angles or matches with them. Brock? He left before the door could hit his ass on the way out, then spent a lot of time making sure to badmouth WWE and pro wrestling at every turn in order to distance himself from it. And now he expects to come back and be treated like a de facto main eventer? After a year where, more than most, a bunch of young talent managed to scratch and claw their way to respectability through hard work and dedication, how will they feel if they get shunted aside so that WWE can squeeze a few dollars out of Brock having a match at, say, SummerSlam? And trust me, if The Rock can’t move PPV buys, Brock definitely isn’t going to be what gets people to tune in.

Now, this all comes with a caveat: if Brock is willing to come back and work full time and run angles and show up at Raw or Smackdown every week and generally work his ass off and give me some more **** matches, I’ve got no real problem with his return (other than the possibility that we’ll have to deal with Sable on TV again). But since that’s a long shot, and at best we’re going to get Brock back for “one more match” against Cena, or Undertaker, or somebody like that, before riding off into the sunset again, then I’d rather that he just kick back, enjoy the money he made over his life, and not come back to WWE at all.

Oh, and screw Bobby Lashley. He’s like Brock with half the talent, credibility, or recognizance in fans’ eyes, and yet he talks like he’s on the same level where WWE should throw money at him to do one match. He can fall into the Springfield Mystery Spot for all I care about his potential WWE comeback.

– Seth Rollins, formerly ROH’s Tyler Black, has been making the rounds on Smackdown house shows, and apparently is next in line to hit the main roster. Maybe he’ll debut before Brodus Clay does.

– Linda McMahon is reportedly steering away from mentioning her last name in her new political campaign. Since she’s completely separating herself from everything McMahon-related, will we be lucky enough not to have to deal with “Stand Up For WWE” this time around?

– WWE debuted a new entrance set for their house show, because that’s what will turn business around. Arguably, with WWE Network coming, it will make house shows look better if they decide to, say, air some matches from them on the channel. Remember, in the pre-Raw era, it was all house show matches on TV. I still remember the tiny little entrances and no video screen at all. And we had to walk 20 miles uphill in the snow to watch it!

– WWE trademarked “WrestleFest”, but not with the intentions of bringing back the awesome arcade game of the same name. You bastards!

– CM Punk was apparently initially denied entry to a house show this past week by a security guard who didn’t believe he was a WWE Superstar. Which, as we’ve been saying for years, is the whole problem that was created back when steroid monsters roamed the land and “bigger is better” was Vince’s secondary mantra, right after “if your grandmother is standing between you and a dollar, push her into traffic, blame someone else, and sell the crime scene footage for twenty bucks a pop”.

– And as the year comes to an end, Heath Slater finds himself on a losing streak of 19, which was WWE’s longest for the year. Yes, even Santino Marella had shorter losing streaks than Dave Thomas’ bastard son. Perhaps it would have gone better for Slater if he showed any personality at all beyond “ignorant hick with no charisma”.

– Longest winning streak for the year? Glad you asked, and no, it wasn’t John Cena, as Edge was forced into retirement while on an impressive 17-win streak. The fun fact about his streak is that he managed to lose the World Heavyweight title without breaking it, since he was technically stripped of the title by and then won it back an hour later. This is why I don’t recognize Ziggler as a World Heavyweight champion, by the way.

1. Chris Jericho It’s him. We all know it’s him. Mostly because if it’s not him, there’s no one else it could be that we’d really be interested in. It’s okay that we know, though. We knew last time, too, and it was still awesome. What we don’t know, however…who is “she”?

2. Brock Lesnar It seems like only a matter of time before Brock’s back in a WWE ring, but the length of his stay remains to be seen. Plus, you never know what other careers he’s dreamed of having

3. Dolph Ziggler Ziggler gets back to the main event nearly a year after he got there the first time on Smackdown, proving that he’s a very special talent that WWE nearly pissed away in the Spirit Squad. So you really can never tell where your next main eventer is coming from. 2012 looks very bright for the Zig Zag Man.

4. Wade Barrett By taking out Orton, Barrett immediately shoots himself up the ladder in WWE, so it’s a good thing Orton spent most of the last few months putting over Barrett, Rhodes, and Mark Henry, especially if this back injury is worse than they’re telling us.

5. Sheamus Speaking of people who stand to benefit immensely by Orton’s injury, if Randy misses the Rumble, where he’d been rumoured to be the guy planned to take it down, this man is my pick to win in replacement, and I can’t really see anyone else in the mix that would be a better choice to potentially face Daniel Bryan at Mania.

6. Kane I actually like the whole concept of Kane’s desire to bring out the evil in Cena, but it’s a shame the crowd wouldn’t play along. Go figure, WWE ignores the reason why people chant “Cena Sucks” and attempt to manufacture the chants instead, and it doesn’t work nearly as well. Huh.

7. R-Truth I worry that face R-Truth will suck, even if he’s still crazy, but there was a lot to like about his Miz beatdown and the promise that the beatings will continue, tied up in a weird analogy about Christmas presents. So maybe it’ll work out.

8. Gail Kim From jobbing on Superstars if she was lucky to main eventing, even if it is on Impact. You can count the number of true television main events involving only the Women’s division of both WWE and TNA on one hand and have fingers left over (and I believe Gail was involved in one back during the epic Kong-Kim feud), so that ain’t not too bad.

9. Drew McIntyre Even though he lost, it looks like there’s nowhere but up for McIntyre, who was buried so far down that John Morrison’s career path was starting to look good. Drew’s got talent, his career can still rebound after a year in the doldrums.

10. Jinder Mahal Well, at least he finally got a win over Ted DiBiase in a feud that looks like it might join Hornswoggle-Chavo and Eric Young-Robert Roode for potentially longest running feud that nobody gives a crap about.

Inactive List as of 12.19.11

WWE Raw

– Chris Jericho, out indefinitely as of September 27th, 2010 (punt-related injury)
– Kharma, out 9 months as of May 23rd (pregnancy)
– Rey Mysterio, out indefinitely as of August 23rd (knee surgeries)
– R-Truth, out 30 days as of November 22nd (Wellness)

WWE SmackDown

– Christian, out 6-8 weeks as of November 13th (ankle)
– Layla El, out indefinitely as of May 23rd (ACL/MCL surgery)
– Sin Cara, out 6-9 months as of November 20th (ruptured patella)

TNA

– Chris Sabin, out indefinitely (shoulder)
– Ric Flair, out 4-6 months as of September 14th (tricep)

Transactions

– Alberto Del Rio, RAW, out 6-8 weeks as of December 26th (ACL)

– Camacho, SD!, made WWE debut on December 30th Smackdown

– Drew McIntyre, RAW, moved to Smackdown brand

– Eden Stiles, SD!, released from her contract

– Kevin Nash, RAW, out 6 weeks as of December 18th (back)

– Randy Orton, SD!, out 4-6 weeks as of December 30th (back)

– R-Truth, RAW, returned to action on December 26th Raw

WWE

WWE Champion: CM Punk
– 43 day reign, defeated Alberto Del Rio on November 20th (Survivor Series PPV)
– Next title defense: vs Dolph Ziggler, January 2nd Raw

World Heavyweight Champion: Daniel Bryan
– 15 day reign, defeated The Big Show by cashing in Money in the Bank on December 18th (TLC PPV)
– Next title defense: vs The Big Show, January 6th Smackdown

WWE Intercontinental Champion: Cody Rhodes
– 136 day reign, defeated Ezekiel Jackson on August 12th (Smackdown)
– Next title defense: vs Booker T, January 6th Smackdown

WWE United States Champion: Zack Ryder
– 15 day reign, defeated Dolph Ziggler on December 18th (TLC PPV)

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

WWE Divas’ Champion: Beth Phoenix
– 85 day reign, defeated Kelly Kelly on October 2nd (Hell in a Cell PPV)

TNA

TNA Heavyweight Champion: Bobby Roode
– 60 day reign, defeated James Storm on November 3rd (Impact)
– Next title defense: vs Jeff Hardy, Genesis PPV

TNA Tag Team Champions: Crimson and Matt Morgan
– 46 day reign, defeated Mexican America on November 17th (Impact)

TNA X-Division Champion: Austin Aries
– 106 day reign, defeated Brian Kendrick on September 11th (No Surrender PPV)

TNA Knockouts Champion: Gail Kim
– 50 day reign, defeated Velvet Sky on November 13th (Turning Point PPV)

TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champions: Gail Kim and Madison Rayne
– 60 day reign, defeated Miss Tessmacher and Tara on November 3rd (Impact)

TNA Television Champion: Robbie E
– 50 day reign, defeated Eric Young on November 13th (Turning Point PPV)

De Marco has The Wrestling 5&1.

Martell has The Triple Threat.

Kirk has The Wrestling Sandwich.

Ari has Column of Honor: Final Column 2011 Part One and Two.

411 will have live coverage of Raw tonight starting at 9 pm EST.

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That’s our show, That Damned Cook is in tomorrow, I will be back next week. Plus, don’t forget to look for me this Tuesday in the Games Zone for Four Player Co-op.

Here it is, your Moment of Buddy

Every Year, Buddy Says He Won’t Party So Hard Next New Years.
Every Year, Buddy Lies To Himself.

Have a good one, and always be a fan.