The Wednesday Wire: 5.16.12: Feeling Refreshed

Happy days are here again! I took a one week break from a full length column to focus on my final week of college (undergrad, at least) and now I’m back with your favourite column and mine, the Wednesday Wire! And don’t forget to go to the Twitterbox and #WedWi!

Commentary Discussion: Being Set Up To Fail?

From @ScottOTD: “Is it me or does it seem like they’re setting up Punk/Bryan to fail by making Johnny/Cena the other big match?”

At this point I don’t have even the slightest clue what they’re doing. I know that Laurinitis is getting massive heat, but unlike Vince almost a decade and a half ago, I doubt people are willing to pay to see him get his ass kicked. They have a strong card build outside of that match but I don’t think they believe they have anything strong enough to go on last without John Cena, which is a damn shame. Punk/Bryan will be a great match and deserves to go on last, especially since this is really a second-rate show. What do they have to lose? Guaranteed the crowd is hotter for that than the Cena/Johnny match.

From indeed: “I enjoyed raw this week. My only real beef with it all would be can the wwe title be the main draw and not cena? It seems cena is bigger than the wwe title which in my opinion is wrong. Even the wh title seems unimportant.
They have the talent why not use it.”

I don’t really have a huge problem with the title matches being placed lower on the card than those with the purported bigger stars. Rock v. Cena and Brock v. Cena were both bigger matches than either of the top title matches on the last two shows, so it’s okay. Guest#5787 made the point that Rock & Mankind took a backseat to Austin & McMahon in 1999 and the same is applicable here as long as the feud overshadowing the titles is meaningful. The problem is that even though guys like Punk, Bryan, Sheamus, Orton and the rest of them are great at what they do and getting great crowd reactions, WWE has made it very clear that they’re all a step below Cena and whoever he’s feuding with. It’s not that the titles are devalued (they are, but that’s beside the point), it’s that the wrestlers don’t get treated like stars by the booking. They seem to go out of their way to tell us that none of them are important unless they’re wrestling for the World or WWE Titles.

From Andre the Midget: “I’m sure this is going to end up being Cena/Tensai but do they really think people are going to pay to see Cena/Big Johnny? There’s got to be something better they could be doing. This is a poor message to send to the rest of the roster and to the fans. I was hoping things were going to start to pick up after two incredible PPV’s in row. But someone always has to be feuding with an athority figure I guess.”

Ever since Austin v. McMahon became one of the biggest feuds of all time, the big wrestling companies have all been trying to recreate the magic. It comes up short time and time again yet somehow, over 10 years later, they really believe the fans care. They have to realize that the reason Austin/McMahon was so huge was because it was the first time we really got to see a guy fighting back against his tyrannical boss. Vince was the owner of the WWF and had the power to do anything and everything he pleased. Austin didn’t give a shit and thus did anything and everything he pleased. Blood was shed, men were lead out of buildings in handcuffs, expensive cars were destroyed and the deck was stacked against Austin with a slew of interesting characters to play against. None of that is true in 2012. The people are going insane for WRESTLING in 2012. The other crap is just watered down and everybody realizes that. They’ll boo the authority figure and cheer when he gets his ass kicked, but nobody is buying tickets or paying for PPVs to see what happens next between ‘wrestler A’ and ‘authority figure #455’.

Professional Wrestling News: Cena Divorced; Kim Married; NXT Moving Out

John Cena: Miserable and Divorced
It was reported late last week that John Cena filed for divorce from his wife of 3 years, his high school sweetheart Liz. Word is that Cena has been very upset for the past few months and has been very willing to discuss it backstage. Cena and his wife did sign a prenuptial agreement in 2009 upon being married that stated that indian giving would be allowed if the marriage were ever to end. The most important part of this story is that Cena’s soon-to-be ex hired the same attorney that Linda Hogan hired for her divorce with the Hulkster. And his statement said, in short, that she supported him when nobody ever did, and now that he doesn’t want to be with her any longer, she wants to take his money. One line from the statement:

“Liz will and really has no choice but to pursue all of her rights and entitlements.”

Oh really? It’s said that the proceedings are likely to get very ugly, which just goes to show that Cena married the wrong woman. I’m strongly feeling the urge to use a certain word at the moment.

Short Form: The Rest of the News

Dixie Carter wants Batista and his large delts and quads in TNA. She was said to be drooling when talking about him possibly signing.
Cody Rhodes is going to RAW! On the WWE.com roster page!
NXT is moving to Florida full time and will have its own tapings. Apparently the only “rookie” left on the show is Derrick Bateman, so they’re doing… something. What a mess that show became.
Gail Kim married the Dinner: Impossible guy over the weekend. I think I knew that they were dating, but I don’t know if I really knew or if I thought I thought I really knew. Or something.
It’s okay to stop holding your breath, everybody. TNA has confirmed that Bound For Glory will NOT be held inside the Impact Zone this year. They will instead be holding it in the old Double Dare studio. No word yet on who will be taking the physical challenge.

For some reason it appears that WWE is interested in rehiring Matt Morgan. That’s a shame, really, since the guy hasn’t improved at all since he got kicked out of WWE and went to TNA. Hopefully they make him stutter again.
Ric Flair skipped the house shows and the PPV over the weekend. Odds that he wasted his money and couldn’t afford to get there?
Matt Morgan wrote on Twitter on Monday that he had a great week in Connecticut with people he hadn’t seen in a long time. Uh oh.

INDY ROUNDUP: Ring of Honor & EVOLVE on iPPV; Pearce v. Cabana Begins

There were 300-400 indy iPPVs over the weekend. I’ll give you the results of a few of them. There were other indy shows as well and there are plenty of shows coming up. Let’s go to the tape!

ROH Border Wars, 5/12/2012: Richards v. Steen
ROH’s highly anticipated return to Canada for their first iPPV held out of the US has been met with rave reviews… from the people who actually got to see it. In an unbelievably unfortunate turn of events, ROHWrestling.com was unable to properly accomodate what is reported to be the majority of the people who attempted to order the show. For those that were able to order the show, many of them had a stream that is said to have looked amazing when it was actually online. It is very disappointing that this would happen AGAIN, and it’s even worse since ROH seemed to be placing most of the blame on GFL.tv. Oops. They are going to have a massive amount of cleaning up in front of them if they hope to gain back the trust of the fans who have now been burned by ordering ROH on iPPV a number of times, especially since the other companies, most notably Gabe Sapolsky’s DGUSA and EVOLVE, have had minimal problems with their internet pay-per-view events.

– Kevin Steen def. Davey Richards to win the ROH World Title
– Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin def. Jay & Mark Briscoe to win the ROH World Tag Titles
– Roderick Strong def. Fit Finlay to retain the ROH World TV Title
– Michael Elgin def. Adam Cole
– Lance Storm def. Mike Bennett
– Jay Lethal def. Tommaso Ciampa
– Kenny King, Rhett Titus & TJ Perkins def. Mike Mondo, Matt & Nick Jackson
– Eddie Edwards def. Rhino

EVOLVE 12 & 13, 5/11/2012 & 5/12/2012: El Generico Debuts
EVOLVE ran their first ever double shot weekend in North Carolina with a set of iPPVs. The shows featured the EVOLVE debut of El Generico, who is currently out of ROH due to kayfabe injuries. The belt of what I assume at this point can be called EVOLVE’s sister promotion, Dragon Gate USA, was defended on night 2, EVOLVE 13. The biggest difference between EVOLVE and DGUSA is that the shows of the former promotion do not generally feature Japanese talent even though a number of the EVOLVE guys are big parts of the latter promotion.

EVOLVE 12: 5/11/2012 from Charlotte, NC
– AR Fox def. Sami Callihan in Evolution’s End (normal rules in-ring, no rules outside)
– Ricochet def. El Generico
– Chuck Taylor & Silas Young def. Johnny Gargano & Samuray del Sol
– Fit Finlay def. Jon Davis
– Low Ki def. Jigsaw
– Alex Reynolds def. Mike Cruz
– Jake Manning def. Adam Page & Caleb Konley in a triple threat match

EVOLVE 13: 5/12/2012 from Concord, NC
– Johnny Gargano def. AR Fox to retain the DGUSA Open the Freedom Gate Title
– El Generico def. Sami Callihan
– Chuck Taylor def. Mike Cruz
– Low Ki def. Jon Davis
– Alex Reynolds def. Jake Manning
– Caleb Konley def. Kyle Matthews
– Silas Young def. Adam Page
– AR Fox def. Jigsaw, Ricochet & Samuray del Sol in a 4-way for a shot at the OFG Title

7 Levels of Hate Begins: Cabana Wins First Blood
The 7 Levels of Hate series for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship saw its first match occur on Sunday, May 13. In Glendale, CA at the NWA Wrestling from Hollywood taping, Colt Cabana def. Adam Pearce in a First Blood match. Each match will be for the NWA World Title, which Cabana has held since he defeated Pearce for it on April 8, 2012. Their next match will be a Boston Street Fight and will take place in Bridgewater, MA on June 8, 2012 at the New England Championship Wrestling show. For more information on that show, click here. The third match will be on July 7 at the Steel Domain Wrestling show in Hopkins, MN. They just announced that the show will be streamed live on iPPV, so stay tuned for that info.

Click here for the other posters.

Bobby Lashley: Independent
Bobby Lashley stated that he would like to do as many indy shows as he can. I like him. He’s never been the greatest wrestler, but I’ve never read anything bad about the guy and he knows that being booked at smaller indy shows will help attendance. The cynic in me wants to know how much he gets paid for a show, though.

EVOLVE in NC: Poor Attendance
The two EVOLVE shows drew a combined total of approximately 200 people, which is obviously a huge disappointment. Thankfully, the iPPVs reported did decent numbers, which made the monetary loss hurt less. A report said that Jon Davis’ performance was “do or die”, which doesn’t really make sense to me since he’s been consistently good-great for a while now. He performed well, though, so I guess he ‘did’.

Gabe Sapolsky: Vitriolic
EVOLVE and DGUSA booker Gabe Sapolsky posted an incredibly frustrated status on Facebook on Monday:

“When the ownership and management of a company doesn’t care or have enough respect for its employees and more importantly paying customers to spend enough money to have adequate equipment they can fuck off. When a company decides to go on the cheap and take a risk that something like a website will work instead of doing everything in their power to guarantee it will work they can fuck off. If the ownership and management doesn’t care or respect it’s fans enough to do this they don’t deserve your support.”

ROH fucked up. There was also an issue for EVOLVE over the weekend, but the ultimate saviour and all-around good guy Sal Hamaoui stepped in and streamed that sumbitch of an iPPV himself.

Free Pro Wrestling: Beyond Wrestling and CHIKARA Pro

From TJ Hawke: “This was the first singles match between Mike Quackenbush and Tim Donst; it was labeled as a student vs. teacher match. Donst was 19 years old at the time, and this was only his fifth singles match according to the commentators.”

From TJ Hawke: “Beyond Wrestling released a match from their show “World of Hurt.” It featured the Beyond debuts of the Super Smash Bros. (Player Uno and Player Dos) vs. The Runaways (Joe Gacy and Ryan Slater). The Runaways were the victims of the famous Hypnotizing at the hands of the Osirian Portal viral video at the beginning of 2011.”

PPV Quick Review: TNA Sacrifice

Christopher Daniels & Kazarian def. Samoa Joe & Magnus
TNA Tag Team Championship

I’m very surprised that the belts have been lifted off of Joe and Magnus so quickly. Daniels and Kazarian are still busy with he never-ending and completely ‘who cares?’ feud with AJ, so why give them the belts? Prediction: AJ and Angle team up against Daniels & Kazarian while Joe and Magnus turn on each other and feud for way too long until nobody gives a shit.

Jeff Hardy def. Mr. Anderson

Both guys are faces and the match ended inconclusively even though there was legally a pinfall victory recorded. Mr. Anderson said in an interview recently that he wishes he hadn’t turned face-heel-face-heel so many times over the past couple years. Good luck with that, Ken. I have a feeling he’s headed back to Heeltown, USA in the near future.

Austin Aries def. Bully Ray

Aries actually submitted Ray. That was quite unexpected. I am honestly shocked that Aries is getting the kind of push he is in TNA right now. Not for a lack of talent, because the guy is awesome, but I just never saw it coming. Eventual World Title run for A Double? Maybe. Also, I’m curious… when did Aries turn face? I haven’t been able to watch the TV show, but he was on Garrett’s team at LockDown and now he’s facing Bully Ray. I know he and Ray were at odds back when Aries first aligned himself with Bobby Roode, so it’s not shocking that they’re wrestling each other, but when/how did Aries turn face? He’s still the X-Division Champion, right?

Kurt Angle def. AJ Styles

I guess they just had nothing better for these guys to do. At least it wasn’t Styles/Daniels or Kazarian again. Can they please find ANYBODY else for these guys to wrestle? Good-to-great matches are nice, but it gets really fuckin’ boring after a while. Put Angle in there with Aries or Bully Ray. How about we see what Crimson can do and put him and Angle into a feud? Boom.

Robert Roode def. Rob Van Dam
Ladder Match, TNA World Heavyweight Championship

I wouldn’t have given half a shit about this if it wasn’t for the stipulation. If it weren’t for the stipulation? College graduate over here! GRAMMAR! If you couldn’t already tell, I haven’t seen the show yet. The point still stands that I wouldn’t bother watching this match if it was just Roode versus Van Dam in a regular match.

WWE RAW Supershow: 5/14/2012

Opening Tag Match: Santino Fits In By Not Fitting In
I guess it makes sense that Santino found himself in this match since he’s the US Champion and the guy Cody is (was?) feuding with had bigger fish to fry, but it was weird to hear Santino’s music play after Punk’s. That aside, it was a very strong match. Lately I’ve been really getting tired of the random tag team matches, but Santino played a great “face in peril” while Rhodes and Bryan kept their offense interesting. The best part was probably Santino’s failed dive attempt followed by Punk saying “you’re supposed to go through the ropes!”. Fun match. I hope to see Cody get into a feud with another young star now.

Big Show Gets Fired: Turns Heel on Sunday
This was all over Twitter last night right after Cena read the stipulations for their match off the letter from the Board of Directors. Show and Kane had a terrible match that featured the usual ‘chain wrestling’ to start and finished with the worst chokeslam since Judgment Day 2002. Ya know, it was pretty bad ass the first time Kane and Show started a match with chain wrestling, but they’ve done it in pretty much every match they’ve faced off in for the past 5+ years. The crowd didn’t give a fuck about the match, but they were off their seats during the post-match angle. Show sold everything perfectly — he’s one of, if not the best, emotional promo guys in the company. The guy knows how to sell emotional pain. The segment continued for about 10 minutes longer than it needed to, but that seemed to be the point. They REAAAAAAALLLLY wanted to push it down our throats because they didn’t want people to figure out that a SWERVE~! is on the way this Sunday.

John Cena: He’s Gallagher Without The Watermelons!
Um… so I guess now that Rock and Brock are gone, Cena is able to feel relaxed again? He went from super serial mode to sad and confused mode (JR would call it “conflicted”) and now all of a sudden his arm is miraculously healed and he’s making 20-year-old movie references. I honestly didn’t hate this segment as much as everybody else seemed to, but at this point in my life I’ve pretty much become a John Cena apologist, so take it with a grain of salt, I guess. Here’s something that I thought about a while back but never brought up — people always complain when there’s a promo instead of a match to close out the TV show. The TV show, though, is there to further angles and push characters and the wrestling, whether we like it or not, is generally just there to bridge the gaps between the talking. As long as PPVs end with a match and not a promo, people really should stop bitching about it. Sometimes RAW flows better and ends better when an in-ring promo segment closes the night.

The Rest of RAW: Triple H, Tag Teams and Ws
I was surprised to see Paul Heyman show up on RAW again this week. I was really expecting his appearance to be an RVD-esque one shot deal. It seems, though, that Heyman stepped right over Dennis Stamp and got himself booked again. || I wonder if this AW thing is actually going to go anywhere or if it’s going to materialize on TV for a few weeks and be history before the fall. || Orton and Jericho had a pretty good match. Orton’s concern with Sheamus was that he didn’t get a “W”… that would be cool but it doesn’t really play into Orton’s character. He should have just been pissed because he didn’t get to kick some more ass.

PPV Preview: WWE Over The Limit

CM Punk v. Daniel Bryan, WWE Title
This one really came out of left field. RAW and SmackDown guys were part of the ‘Beat The Clock’ challenge, and suddenly Jericho stopped caring about Punk and Daniel Bryan took the opportunity and beat… Jerry Lawler (also random and odd) to win the challenge and get a title shot. That aside, the build to the match has been solid if unspectacular, but the big draw here is the match itself, which should be awesome. Winner: CM Punk

Sheamus v. Orton v. Jericho v. Del Rio, World Heavyweight Title
I prefer this over Sheamus v. Del Rio one-on-one and four-way matches are always good with the right guys involved. This one definitely has the right guys involved. With the draft supposedly coming up I would not be shocked to see Jericho moving to SmackDown. Winner: Chris Jericho

John Cena v. John Laurinitis
Big Show interferes, turns heel, Laurinitis gloats. Chance that this closes the show: 95% Winner: John Laurinitis

Kofi Kingston & R-Truth v. Jack Swagger & Dolph Ziggler, WWE Tag Titles
Give it time and it could be darn good. There are only 5 matches booked for the main show, so maybe it will get time… is what I would say if I didn’t know they were going to add at least 1 impromptu match to the show. I’m going to cross my fingers but not hold my breath that the tag division is getting a resurgence. I wonder if AW and his boys will have anything to do with the result. Winners: Kingston & Truth

Layla v. Beth Phoenix, Divas Title
I’ve heard Layla has improved. Still don’t care though. Winner: Layla

Zack Ryder v. Kane, Pre-Show Match
Really? Is this the blowoff? Who wants to bet that they won’t even acknowledge their history? Oh well, at least Ryder gets to do something. It’s better than being in a dark match like he was on Monday. Winner: Kane

There you go!

Next week: More dancing!

– Nicholas A. Marsico