411 Fact or Fiction 07.05.12: AJ, Bruno, TNA/CHIKARA, More

1. CM Punk will wrestle Stone Cold Steve Austin at WrestleMania 29.

Ryan Byers: FICTION. If there’s one thing that Steve Austin has proven over the years, it’s that he’s a savvy businessman who knows how to make the most out of his status within the industry. His infamous walk out on the WWF was due to the fact that he realized an unannounced television match with Brock Lesnar would do nobody any favors, and he has consistently refused to return to the ring if he’s not in peak physical condition, knowing that it will rip off fans and tarnish is legacy. That’s why he won’t be wrestling CM Punk at this year’s Mania . . . because he’s smart enough to realize that it doesn’t make business sense given the names that are currently on the show. WWE already will most likely have a Brock Lesnar match on Wrestlemania, they will most likely have a Rock match on Wrestlemania, and they will most likely have an Undertaker streak match on Wrestlemania. Combine that with what all of the regular members of the roster will be doing and any non-wrestling celebrities who might make an appearance and you’ve already got an absolutely LOADED card. As big of a star as Steve Austin may be and as natural of a rivalry as Austin vs. Punk may seem to be, there’s virtually nothing that the match would add to a show that it is already most likely to feature Rock, Brock, Undertaker, and two major title matches. Austin will most likely sit out of Wrestlemania until such time that his match can be more certain to affect the show’s bottom line and be a primary focus as opposed to being second or third form the top thanks to Rock, Brock, and Taker.

Chris Lansdell: FACT. Going out on a limb here, since Austin has been out of the ring forever and seemingly has no interest in actually wrestling again. Plus he’s held together by a wish and a prayer at this point, so a match with someone like CM Punk seems to be negative value to me. Any Austin less than 100% Austin would be a complete letdown in a matchup that has been building on Twitter for the last couple of years. So what makes me call this a fact?

Mainly, I don’t believe anything that WWE talent does on Twitter is coincidental when it comes to feuds. Even if it starts that way, WWE will eventually take it over. The company keeps a tight grip on the way the superstars use social media, and the carefully controlled banter between the two feels very much like a slow burn. Then there’s the fact that he’s already feuded with his other likely opponents for the big dance: Jericho and Daniel Bryan. Punk can always be relied upon to have one of the best matches on the card, so you want to give him an opponent to bring that out…or someone like Austin, who will be a major attraction. There’s also the recent quasi-return of The Rock, who had detached himself even more from wrestling than Austin has. Finally, Jim Ross has been saying over and over on Twitter (seriously people, the man answers the same questions EVERY DAY) that he feels Austin has one more match left, and that Punk would be the best opponent. Not many people are closer to Austin than JR, so he would know.

Any one or two of these factors alone wouldn’t be enough to sway me, but all of them together put the chances at 70% at least for me.

Score: 0 for 1

2 AJ is getting overexposed.

Ryan Byers: FACT. AJ is coming off of a Tag Team Title run with Kurt Angle, he’s in a main event promo segment every week with Claire Lynch, and he is consistently wrestling in among the longest matches on TNA Impa . . . okay, okay, I’ll give up on the lame joke. (Though it did cause me to read up on current TNA storylines on Wikipedia, the most attention I’ve paid to the company in years.) As far as the female AJ is concerned, I do have to agree that she’s become too big a part of the feud between CM Punk and Daniel Bryan. The entire point of professional wrestling, going back to its origin, was for fans to see a personal issue between two competitors resolved in the ring. That’s the sort of wrestling that I grew up with, and it’s the sort of wrestling that I still prefer. However, for whatever reason, current WWE writers have decided that wrestlers standing on their own just aren’t interesting enough. They’ve decided to make the primary focus of most of their shows non-wrestling characters, usually in the form of a general manager or other authority figure. It was novel at first, but, after almost fifteen straight years of this same formula (since Vince McMahon first stepped into the role post-Montreal screwjob), I’m tired of it. AJ was fine at first, as she’s a unique character and plays her role well enough, but, the more heavily she becomes involved in the storyline, the more she becomes just another non-wrestler detracting from what should be the focus of the show, no different than Johnny Ace or that goddamn computer that Michael Cole read from.

Chris Lansdell:: FICTION, but only just. AJ has been absolutely awesome in this angle, from her delivery to her facial expressions. Her entire segment with Punk last night when he said he hadn’t seen her match was just gold. It’s the main title angle on Raw right now and she is holding the whole thing together, so right now no she isn’t overexposed. However the PPV is still two week away and by the time we get there, it’s entirely possible I’ll be fed up with seeing her skipping around.

Oh who am I kidding? I’ll NEVER get tired of seeing her, she’s gorgeous and not in a plastic, painted-whore, enhanced way like so many Divas. But too much of a good thing can be sickening, even bacon, and this character she’s portraying can wear a little thin. Adding an angle between her and Vickie Guerrero might push us over the top, though it does seem they are holding off on putting AJ in the title picture until she’s out of the main event angle. That might help.

Phew. Made it through the whole thing without making a single reference to wanting to see her completely exposed. Aren’t you proud of me Cookie? Awww, crap…

Score: 0 for 2

3. Bruno Sammartino should agree to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.

Ryan Byers: FICTION. Bruno Sammartino is an absolute legend of professional wrestling who sacrificed large portions of his physical health and his family life to entertain fans for thirty years. That gives him the right to do whatever he goddamn well pleases. He doesn’t owe WWE an appearance at the Hall of Fame, and he doesn’t owe any of his fans an appearance at the Hall of Fame. Bruno has, over the course of the past twenty-five or so years, taken some positions that are highly critical of WWE and Vince McMahon and he feels as though, if he were to now accept an honor from the company and its commander-in-chief, he would be a tremendously large hypocrite. And, do you know what? Though to a certain extent it depends on how the induction is handled, in most scenarios he probably would look like a massive hypocrite, which is a criticism that he does not want to open himself up to. The man has a right to either accept or not accept the induction as he sees fit, he has a solid rationale for not accepting, and he’s not hurting anyone or anything by not accepting. Leave the poor guy alone and let him enjoy his golden years. Besides, if WWE is really adamant that Bruno belongs in the Hall of Fame and wants to have him included for the sake of honoring him or legitimizing the Hall and not just for the sake of making one last buck off of his name before he passes away, they can easily do an induction without him physically being present.

Chris Lansdell: FICTION. Why? What possible purpose will it serve? The man has taken a stand, and whether or not you agree with his reasoning for it (which has likely fallen by the wayside at this point; I for one cannot remember what his problem with it is), you have to admire a man who sticks to his principles like that. Sure he’d get a pretty ring and a hefty paycheck, but do you really think Bruno is at home on his couch looking at his barren ring finger on his right hand and yearning for the bling of a WWE Hall of Fame ring? That’s a clown question bro!

Score: 1 for 3

4. You knew Armando Estrada had a contract with WWE over the past 18 months.

Ryan Byers: FICTION. No idea. I vaguely remember reading that he was on an episode of WWE Superstars several months ago (a show that I never watch), but I figured that it was a Rob Van Dam-esque one-shot deal as opposed to part of a longer relationship. I don’t know why it is that the contract never turned into a regular on-screen role for Estrada. It could be that creative didn’t have anything for him, it could have been that he had personal problems which prevented him from ever going on the road, or it could have been one of hundreds of things somewhere in between those two suggestions. It’s a shame, really, because I always felt that Estrada was a fairly talented performer going back to his days in Ohio Valley Wrestling and got the short end of the stick in his first WWE run when Vince McMahon hooked up with Umaga and essentially stole Armando’s spot out from underneath him. I think that he could have been the man to reinvent the role of the manager in professional wrestling, and he could have done it much better than Vickie Guerrero and Abraham Washington are doing.

Chris Lansdell: FICTION. Wait, what? Is he Sin Cara Naranja or something? How do you have that guy, with his tremendous mic skills, under contract and NOT use him? You could have brought him in as Ryback’s mouthpiece, as Del Rio’s personal interviewer, even as manager for a crappy tag team to get him on NXT. What even has he been doing?

Score: 2 for 4

SWITCH!

5. Daniel Bryan will be WWE Champion sometime this year.

Chris Lansdell: FACT. Someone has to beat Punk eventually, and although my gut says it will be Cena I think there’s room for a D-Bryan title run either before or after Cena gets “his” belt back. The Guy Who Couldn’t Talk has quickly become gold on the mic, as anyone who watched RoH knew he could and would given the chance, and of course there’s never been any doubt about his in-ring skills. He’s also nigh-guaranteed to be clean in Wellness terms, something that other main event talent could stand to learn (HI RANDY!). I’d rather watch Cena-Bryan than Cena-Punk again, and although we’d all enjoy Punk-Bryan every week it’s just not viable.

Ryan Byers: FACT. The WWE roster is the thinnest that it has been in literally years. Even if everybody was healthy and available for the company to use (which they aren’t, due to injuries and suspensions), there are fewer wrestlers who fans buy as top stars now than there were in the 1980’s, the 1990’s, and even the 2000’s. Because of this, the choices of who you can put a title on without making said title into an absolute joke are few and far between. The vast majority of the guys who can credibly hold the WWE Title have held the WWE Title at some point within the past two or three years, and it’s virtually impossible to find a new act to slip into that spot because nobody has been groomed for it. Daniel Bryan is virtually the only guy who is in a position that he can believably hold the title who hasn’t held the title already, which leads me to believe that the belt is going to be around his waist sooner rather than later. I don’t necessarily believe that the change to Bryan will occur at the upcoming Money in the Bank pay per view, but, once it does happen, I have a feeling that it will be an extended run.

Score: 3 for 5

6. Kurt Angle is, as he claims, the best wrestler in the world.

Chris Lansdell: FICTION. I struggled with this one, because it’s so incredibly subjective and also largely irrelevant. Angle has the total package: he can talk, he can brawl, he can wrestle. He’s also beaten down and not getting any younger, but it doesn’t appear to be slowing him down too much. Punk, Bryan, AJ Styles, Jericho, Samoa Joe, Ziggler, Bobby Roode and a whole slew of independent guys are all in the discussion, and I likely wouldn’t think any less of anyone who chose one of those wrestlers. The fact is that a majority would pick the field over Angle, meaning that he can’t really be the best in the world by any sort of objective criteria. Even if he is, that and a couple bucks will buy him a cup of coffee.

Ryan Byers: FICTION. I have to admit, I cannot remember the last time that I saw Kurt Angle wrestle a match. It has literally been years. As such, I don’t think that I can fairly comment on his skills in the ring. However, what I can honestly say is that I am generally aware that Angle is working much, MUCH less than a full-time schedule, mainly popping into the ring for TNA’s monthly pay per views and maybe doing one-full length match in between the PPVs. (And most of those matches, from what I understand, are tag matches.) He’s certainly not doing that many house shows. I have a hard time calling anybody who is not working a full-time schedule the best wrestler in the world, regardless of how good their sporadic matches are. In order to be the best, you don’t just have to wrestle well. You have to wrestle well consistently and have no unfair advantages over the same individuals who are competing for that spot, and having the convenience of taking three or four weeks at a time off between your matches to allow your body to recuperate is definitely an unfair advantage. I would be much more inclined to give the title of “best wrestler in the world” to somebody who is in the ring day in and day out, like Hiroshi Tanahashi or Daniel Bryan. Due to the hectic schedule that he keeps, I would even be willing to give the title of “best wrestler in the world” to John Cena before I would give it to Kurt Angle, even if he isn’t as mechanically or technically as sound as Angle is.

Score: 4 for 6

7. A relationship between TNA & CHIKARA will be beneficial for both sides.

Chris Lansdell: FACT, though more for CHIKARA. Their talent gets to wrestle on national TV, gets to see backstage politics at work, see production values way above anything they’re used to, and get a ton of exposure and experience. If you’ve never seen CHIKARA they are largely a comedy promotion with heavy lucha and puro influences (in that order) that has recently secured an internet PPV contract. They normally hold events in small venues and their list of alumni is not exactly long. Hunico is a CHIKARA product, and Antonio Cesaro wrestled there fairly often, but off the top of my head I can’t think of any others who made it big.

TNA gets to use these young guys to fill up matches in the X Division and put some flashy moves on TV, likely to fill up the Gut Check spots each week. In the off-chance they strike gold, they have the option to keep using that wrestler. TNA doesn’t seem to have an aversion to masked wrestlers, and with a lot of the CHIKARA guys wrestling under the hood that does come into play. Other than that it’s pretty much a neutral scenario for TNA: they get cheap talent to fill time that might have a shot at a long-term roster spot.

Ryan Byers: FICTION. TNA will benefit to a certain extent, as they will get talented wrestlers to round out the undercards of their shows and, specifically, the X Division. (Though, to be fair, as much as I like CHIKARA there is nobody on the roster who I feel TNA would place into a main event position.) However, I completely fail to see how a relationship between TNA and CHIKARA will benefit CHIKARA as a promotion. Yes, the wrestlers from the group will benefit through the additional opportunities that they will have to be booked on national television and the paychecks that come with those opportunities, but I have a hard time imagining how CHIKARA as a promotion will be benefitted. Is TNA going to use its television to plug CHIKARA’s live events? I doubt it. Is TNA going to name drop CHIKARA’s DVD distributor, Smart Mark Video? No way. Some might claim that, if TNA talent is sent to CHIKARA shows, the company might benefit, but TNA wrestlers barely draw live crowds at TNA-branded shows, so I sincerely doubt that one member of the TNA roster on one isolated CHIKARA card will do anything for that show’s bottom line, unless they inexplicably send Kurt Angle and Sting to do battle with Los Ice Creams. Don’t get me wrong, I have no objection to the working relationship, because I’m a big fan of CHIKARA and most of their roster and love seeing them get any opportunity to advance their careers. I just can’t agree with the statement presented because I don’t see CHIKARA as a whole company benefitting that much.

Score: 4 for 7

8. ROH cancelling upcoming shows in the Carolinas means nothing in regard to the future of the company.

Chris Lansdell: FACT. They’ve done this before, in fact I believe they’ve done this in the Carolinas before, and they’re still going strong. I haven’t read the press release so I don’t know what the reasoning was, but I’m going to assume it was slow ticket sales. This happens. WWE has cancelled events, I’m sure TNA has. The sky is not falling. RoH is like the cockroach of the wrestling industry; it has lost so much and been through so many devastating occurrences (you said 18 right?) and yet here they are with a TV deal, regular iPPVs and some of the best in-ring action to be found anywhere.

Ryan Byers: FACT. Here’s the thing. Ring of Honor is a television property now. They’ve been purchased by Sinclair Broadcasting, and they’ve been purchased by Sinclair Broadcasting for the primary purpose of providing syndicated television programming for Sinclair’s affiliate television stations. Even if ROH’s live events are doing horribly to the point that they have to be cancelled, the company will survive if Sinclair still wants it around as a television property, just like TNA has managed to survive for years and years with only minimal profits – or even great financial losses, depending on the year – all because of the financial support of SpikeTV, who feel that having a wrestling show in their lineup is worth their while. So, while ROH cancelling its Carolina shows might be a negative sign for the future of ROH running live events other than TV tapings, it doesn’t necessarily say that much about the viability of the promotion as a whole so long as there is still desire for them as a television show.

Final Score: 5 for 8

Many interesting points made by Ryan & Chris this week! I enjoyed reading them in the same article once again. They agree slightly more often than not, but when they disagree both men make compelling arguments defending their opinions. It was tough for me to decide who to agree with…except on the AJ issue where Chris is clearly in the right. We thank them for their contributions and invite you to go down to the comment section and let us know your opinions on these pertinent topics. We’ll be back here next week with more 411 Fact or Fiction!