wrestling / Columns
The Wednesday Wire: 8.1.12: What Do You Want From Me?
It’s Wednesday again therefore it’s time for the #WedWi! I’m Nick Marsico coming to you LIVE from Florida where the birds may eat your sandwich but nobody will kick over your sandcastle.
– The Wrestling News Experience with Stephen Randle
– News From Cook’s Corner with Steve Cook
– The Wrestling 5&1: Maria vs. Torrie with Greg De Marco
– The Contentious 10 Tag Finishers with Gavin Napier
– All The King’s Men: Sin Cara with Larry Csonka & Co
– The Wrestling Sandwich 7.28.12 with Scott Rutherford
– The Piledriver Report: RAW 1000 Review with Ronny Sarnecky
Today’s headline says:
Iron Sheik Wins Olympics!
Every sport. For real.
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Professional Wrestling News: Richards Walks Out; Slater Brings Fans In
Team Ambition Less Than Honest?
A story has been circulating that states that ROH’s Davey Richards and Kyle O’Reilly along with their training partner Tony Kozina were scheduled for a show in Iowa for APW. They showed up late, but by the time they got there the card had been changed and excluded the three men because the promoter assumed that they weren’t showing up. The real “news” part of it (if this is true) is that upon arriving and seeing that they were no longer scheduled to appear, Davey, Kyle and Tony all got dressed (undressed?) in their ring gear, demanded their pay and quickly left the building. I don’t know if I actually believe the story — did they get into their gear to make the promoter think they were going to wrestle only to take their money and split? Did they do it so they could say that they should be paid because they were there and ready and it was the promoter’s fault because he promised pay and then changed his mind and decided not to use them? I guess that one makes more sense. In the end, I think that if this story is true, Richards, O’Reilly and Kozina should have called the promoter to tell him they were going to be late. If they didn’t call and the promoter did call and couldn’t contact them, then he did nothing wrong and is truly the victim. Davey has been “liking” comments on Facebook that mention the incident which leads me to believe that something happened, but like most things that happen backstage, we won’t ever know the full truth.
Bruno Sammartino To Appear At WrestleCon
Bruno Sammartino has agreed to start making a limited amount of appearances. Even though his management has said time and time again that people should stop contacting them about it, the calls kept coming in so Bruno was advised to start considering some offers and accepting ones that he deemed worthwhile at his old age. He (along with his mustache) was honored recently at a live ROH show in Pittsburgh with a Lifetime Achievement Award. He looked better there than he did 6 years prior when he was in NYC for Ring of Honor. His next announced appearance is for WrestleCon as he is scheduled to be signing autographs from 9a – 2p on April 7. That event is already stacked, as I noted a couple weeks ago that it would also feature CHIKARA, SHIMMER, CZW and DGUSA holding multiple shows over WrestleMania weekend.
Heath Slater Is A Draw!
Word is that WWE has been considering having former stars appear every week on RAW. It was a successful storyline with Heath Slater that led up to the conclusion at RAW 1000. One of the guys WWE contacted was Tatanka. Remember the pretty good run he had a few years ago on SmackDown? He was damn solid and I enjoyed his time there. The most important part of this story: “Internally, many believe that the Heath Slater storyline (featuring cameos by past stars) helped bring back some of the audience that had tuned out.” Slater = RATINGS!
Kenn Doane Has Nothing Better To Do
Kenn Doane congratulated John Cena for his smart decision to settle his divorce out of court. That’s really it. So is Doane wrestling any more or is he just too much of a dick for anybody to ask him to come to their show? He was a very hot prospect back in OVW and could have been something special but once the Spirit Squad ended he had a less-than-successful run on SmackDown and was soon let go. I’m sure he did other stuff before he was released, but that’s all I remember. I assume he was just too much of a dick. And if Mickie cheated on him with Cena, then it seems that he was too much of a dick because he didn’t have too much — well, I think we all get it.
Short Form: The Rest of the News
– Ric Flair’s 25-year-old daughter Ashley has moved to Tampa is is expected to begin training at FCW shortly. Why did she start so late? I think the better question is can she be any worse than David?
– WWE wrestlers are still not excited about RAW’s move to 3 hours. The sky is also blue and the moon is made of cheese.
– New Japan begins their 22nd Annual G1 Climax tournament today. It will run from 8/1 to 8/12 and features an 18-man talent pool split into 2 blocks of 9 men each. Simple rules: Round Robin; all 9 men in block A wrestle each other once and all 9 men in block B wrestle each other once. The men with the best win-loss record in their block will face off in a final match to crown the winner of the G1 Climax. Shelton Benjamin, MVP, Lance Archer (Hoyt, etc) and Karl Anderson are the lone Americans in the tourney.
– Rhett Titus, whose partner Kenny King just abandoned him to join TNA, has entered himself into the upcoming ROH World Tag Title tournament. He hasn’t announced the partner yet that will help him try to regain the championship that he never lost.
– Laurinitis is out as the EVP of Talent Relations. About damn time. He’s still going to be booking the matches at house shows but they definitely needed a shakeup where he was.
Commentary Discussion: Punk’s A Heel, Rock’s Alright
From Andre the Midget: “I hope they make some sort of mention to the fact that the WWE title hasn’t main-evented a PPV since the Rock n Wrestling era. That would give Punk some motivation for being frustrated.
Although he should focus his anger on Cena, but they could play it up as Rock comming back and making it about him and not the title that’s why Punk is pissed. Continue to play off the whole why did he leave thing they had going. (If he wanted the title so bad why leave in the first place)”
According to my expert calculations, the last time the WWE Title closed a pay-per-view was at TLC back in December. John Cena wasn’t even on the card. I still don’t get why the fans booed Punk so hard from the moment he hit Rock with the clothesline. I get why people would do so once he started the classic “wrestler looks expressionless/forlorn” gimmick that WWE loves to do, but the clothesline itself didn’t come across as a heel move to me at all. It could have been done better, but that doesn’t matter now. What happened is over, so now it’s time to look forward to what Punk will do next.
From Nunyah: “No offense, but it took you THIS LONG to finally get over The Rock leaving and distancing himself (somewhat) a few years ago? I mean forgive a man for making a career change from a business he literally grew up in. Forgive him for trying his hand at something new. Forgive him for distancing himself just a little from his PAST profession while trying to establish himself in his NEW profession. I suppose all of you guys would still show up at your old job just so your boss and co-workers don’t think you abandoned them. I never understood this obsession with bashing him for trying a new challenge in life. And FYI he was trying to distance from the business, not the fans.”
I got over it a few months ago. That doesn’t really matter though. My point was that I no longer care to bitch and complain about him (which I fully admit was way overblown on my part) and I’ll just sit and enjoy the show. One very important element of this column was that I was going to talk positively about the stuff that everybody else was complaining about. For the most part I’ve been able to do that. I really do find a lot of what happens in WWE to be entertaining. I’m not in love with it by any means, but I do have fun watching a decent amount of the product and I get a kick out of how into it my son can get at times. There’s no reason for me to argue about why I had a problem with The Rock or what my exact issue was, but it’s there for the most part (in long, unneeded rants) in previous columns.
From Fazz: “What makes it a heel turn is the quite obvious “I think CM Punk had turned on the WWE Universe” call by the commentators. You’re looking for subtlety where there is none.”
Yeah, there really is no subtlety, is there? At least Punk made mention to that comment from King.
From Russonomics: “That Progress Wrestling match made me smile. Its nice to see a UK indy show with an actual crowd.”
I’m glad that my posting of the indy matches isn’t going to waste. Any comments from other people who have been checking out some of the matches or FreeProWrestling.com?
From The Great Capt. Smooth: “I wonder if they will change Handy Henry’s name if he gets a contract?”
But they’ll still refer to him as Mark Henry & Mae Young’s son and never give any explanation as to why he has a different last name.
From I’m Mark and I’m smart: “I thought Road Dogg was trapped in the basement of Titan Towers!”
It seems that they let Josh Mathews out every week… why doesn’t he break Roadie out of there? They must have armed guards or something.
From Nunyah: “While I do agree that fans need to be respectful, I don’t know if I agree with the onus being on the fans and not the celebrity. The celebrity would not be a celebrity if not for the fans, and would probably be working the same 9 to 5 job as most of these fans do. Instead a celebrity gets to do what they love to do for a living while simultaneously making enough money be wealthy, or at the very least pay their bills all because of the fans spending their hard earned money on them. You take away the fans and their time, attention and money than what career and life would any actor, musician, professional athlete, professional wrestler, politician etc. have?”
Well politicians will still have lobbyists and cronies and illegal practices of many sorts with which to make money, but that’s not your point nor mine. I do agree with you that if nobody paid to see their movies or bought tickets to games or shows and merchandise, the stars wouldn’t be stars since no studio, station, team, or the like would keep them around, use them and pay them. But they’re different cases. Fans pay to see these people ply their craft (whether they’re shitty at what they do or great) at the designated places. They aren’t paying for access to the people themselves. They’re public figures and very recognizable, but just because you’ve seen them on TV, the field, the arena or in the movies that doesn’t mean you actually know the person nor are you their friend who can just walk up and start a conversation. There are plenty of celebrities that are complete assholes that still get paid tons of money and tons of people still pay to see what they do. Does that mean it’s right? No, not at all. But if anybody wants to bitch about how a celebrity treats them, they better make sure they don’t treat anybody poorly either. Stones in glass houses and whatnot.
WWE Monday Night RAW: Three Hours Ain’t So Bad
CM Punk Wants The Spotlight
CM Punk opened the show to discuss an issue he had with how King closed RAW last week. In a small bit of justice for me, Punk said that he was upset with The Rock and he wasn’t turning his back on the WWE Universe. Yeah, still a heel turn, but fuck you. I was wrong. Most of you were right in saying that Punk was going to complain about not being the focus of the show in general as the WWE Champion and The Rock stealing his spotlight last week. Punk was in about 3/4 heel mode for the opening segment.
– My son: “Did CM Punk just turn heel again?”
– I really like nameplates (chyrons?) for the champions as they enter. Looks good.
– Del Rio doesn’t have his car tonight. He must mean business.
– I don’t like the chyron for SmackDown guys on RAW and vice versa. Nobody’s truly brand exclusive. Plus it bothers my OCD.
– Santino is super over and they gave him a title, so why not have him win? The guy probably sells tickets as it is… it would help if he was featured a little more and defended the title.
– Vickie with the Elaine dance! I’m pretty sure she’s done that before.
– Sandow beats down The Funkasaurus!
– So is Brodus’ knee just going to be perpetually injured?
– Jericho and Christian are teaming! Let the Ass Cream flow!
– AJ mentions those men in white from last week. I don’t know if anybody else actually caught on to that, but they did certainly appear to be from a menta institution. Did any of you notice that? I was expecting them to take her away after Bryan married her, but when that didn’t happen I figured that I was mistaken. I guess not.
– So they showed the fire a bunch of times… does that mean it wasn’t legit?
– I love Daniel Bryan’s knee drops.
– Hey! The WWE logo is back! And Sheamus skulled Bryan on it!
– But Bryan kicks him off the stage and nails the flying knee!
RAWactive Match: Sheamus v. Daniel Bryan
Well, I don’t have any issue at all with the concept of fans voting on Twitter even though they didn’t actually have a choice since all three matches were the same. It gives the fans who like to participate a chance to do so and it didn’t waste any time. The match was fantastic, as the crowd was HOT (like that fire LOL) and they used the stipulation very well. Bryan doesn’t look bad in defeat, but damn it he needs a doctor! Also, I was very glad that Sheamus pulled Bryan off the ring steps before pinning him. It bugs me when guys just make the pin on the steps. Just a small pet peeve.
– Daniel Bryan needs to skedaddle because he and Little Jimmy have some business to handle.
– But Bryan kicks Little Jimmy out of the ring! And Truth is consoling an invisible child!
– NO! Bryan is committed! Total backfire (kinda like the one in the arena LOL).
– #MILLIONSOFDOLLARS
– He’s the ONE MAN BAAAAAAAND, babay! Time for the ratings to surge up, up up!
– Orton got rid of the beard and shaved head and is back to an older look. Less badass.
– That was quick.
A Tale of Two Turns: Jericho Quietly Turns Face
What do you guys think about the very understated nature of Jericho’s change of attitude? He hasn’t said much, but he’s doing the face moveset and the crowd loves him. I’m looking forward to hearing what he has to say and I am interested to find out if he can reinvent himself and do something different as a good guy.
– Kidd and Tensai could have a very good match if given the time.
– So they apologize for the rape joke but King can do a joke with an anti-Asian slur and it’s cool?
– How many freakin’ times are they going to show this Lesnar/Triple H recap? Great use of the extra time guys!
Cena v. Big Show: Nobody Wins… So They BOTH Win!
Punk’s on commentary and says to King what everybody is thinking: “Your commentary is rotten!” Then he calls a move properly instead of with silly hyperbole. Punk should really just be a wrestler/commentator like he was in ROH sometimes. Show and Cena had themselves a much better match than expected but I wish they would throw us a bone and not just do the completely obvious thing all the time. The obvious thing isn’t always the wrong thing, like in the case of a foregone conclusion where a guy is wronged but then fights back over time and eventually gets his big win at a huge event. It’s a classic and simple story that can have twists and turns along the way even though everybody knows exactly how it’s all going to end. But why not surprise us and have Big Show beat John Cena? It can lend some credence to his constant claims that nobody can beat him one-on-one, Show v. Punk would have an interesting dynamic and they can spend some more time building a more important Cena/Punk match. Oh well. I still very much enjoyed the #1 Contenders match on RAW and they usually do very fun triple threats so I can dig it.
Free Pro Wrestling: Rampage Pro Wrestling
PART 2
Jimmy Rave & Kyle Matthews v. Caprice Coleman & Cedric Alexander || RPW TV – June 10, 2012
From TJ Hawke: “This was a really fun match. It started a little slow, but once it got going it got really good. Coleman and Alexander are really coming together as a team, and I am disappointed that ROH hasn’t done more with them. I wouldn’t mind Rave and Matthews being brought in as a team to other promotions. They work well together.”
That’s all I have in me this week. THIS felt like a full column. I’ll keep it up and now it’s your turn to help out and facilitate some discussions on whatever it is you feel like talking about. Start the comments!
Next week: TNA talk? Ring of Honor frustrations? Excited chitter chatter about the who’s going to write the new Spider-Man movie?
– Nicholas A. Marsico
