Hidden Highlights Special 11.01.06: The Great Positivity Debate III: The Sequel Nobody Asked For

Staying positive is tough work. It is very easy to let yourself slip into just spewing off hatred when you are upset instead of being constructive. What’s even harder is to cut through all the muck and just talk about the good without the bad.

With that in mind, there was a seven week tournament pitting some of 411mania’s best against each other. Each the writer was trying to make the most valid positive point as a test of their writing skills and imagination. At the end of the tournament, the results turned out like this:

Team Randle (Randle): Well, that all depends on the level of Bret Hart’s involvement. Obviously he’s not going to wrestle. I don’t think Bret would agree to appear if he thought that they were going to use him to re-create the Screwjob one more time. I know for a fact he wouldn’t do anything that involves Shawn Michaels, and Bret beating up Shawn doesn’t really put anyone over who needs it anyway. That leaves just an appearance in Montreal for the fans, and really, he got his wish to say goodbye and thanks to all the fans at the Hall of Fame ceremony anyway. As a wrestling fan and a fan of Bret Hart, of course I would love to see him on WWE TV in some form. I just don’t think he’ll agree to do anything in Montreal that Vince would want to bring him in for. Bret has pretty much moved on with his life outside of wrestling, he seems to have given up most of the outward bitterness that plagued his later years in the business, and doesn’t seem at all interested in returning anywhere near a wrestling ring. I think you have to give him a great deal of respect for that, because it’s really hard for your average wrestler to get completely away from wrestling, even long after he’s unable to contribute anything meaningful. This is especially hard when you were involved in one of the biggest and most newsworthy events in wrestling history. And to make it even harder, Bret’s a national hero in Canada. Wrestling fans have been begging him for years to come back any way he can. So he did. He did the DVD set, he did the Hall of Fame ceremony, which means he’s ensured his legacy will be preserved, and he got to publicly say goodbye on his own terms. That’s more than most wrestlers ever get a shot at doing (witness Kurt Angle, whose career full of awesome five-star matches will probably never be compiled into a DVD set at this point). And I don’t believe you’ll see Bret Hart in any wrestling rings again, because I truly think that he’s done. He’s moved on, he’s living a life without wrestling, and I have to think that he’s happier that way.

Team Hidden Highlights (JP & JT): We get the feeling that Montreal – specifically attending a WWE event – is probably about the last place on the planet Bret Hart would want to be. We think it took a LOT for him to already do what he’s done, and we just don’t think there is anything Vince could say that him make him go any farther. He made nice for the DVD, and he came back for the Hall of Fame, which was in all honestly probably more for the fans that it was for Vince McMahon or the WWE. Would it be nice? Maybe. Would that entire building mark like marking was going out of style? Most certainly. But like Randle said, he has moved on to a new chapter of his life (one which does not include wrestling), and that appears to be what’s best for him. If it truly is what’s best for him, then we see no reason to attempt and shake the foundation of his new life by drudging up what is probably the worst memory of his career.

From the other perspective you have Vince McMahon. The question was about if Vince will try to get Bret to appear at the show, not if Bret will appear. Think about this from the McMahon perspective: he and his company can get a boatload of money, have new footage they can use forever, and have a compelling story that may involve other wrestlers now. If Vince does not even **TRY** to get Bret involved, he would be looked at like a bad businessman. Even though the results seem obvious that Bret would not do anything that has to do with the Screwjob, Vince owes it to his employees and stockholders to at least give it his all. We are fine with Vince making an attempt, there is nothing wrong with that.

Andy Clark: Team Randle – 380 words. Team Hidden Highlights – 307 words.

Team Randle (Randle): I’m going to say it’s very, very good for wrestling fans. You’re telling me that there’s a point where people who like to watch pro wrestling are going to stand up and say “Whoa, whoa, whoa. That’s way too many shows. I don’t want that much choice and differing products”. Are you kidding me? Wrestling fans will watch WWE because they always do, and they’ll watch the other stuff to “stick it” to WWE, because that’s also what they do. Okay, some of them will watch the other stuff due to legitimate complaints with the WWE product, but I think it’s fair to say that 95% of the people watching TNA are watching at least one brand of WWE as well.

And how is 6 shows of wrestling a “glut” anyway? Five years ago, weren’t there like 7 or 8 nationally televised wrestling programs? Let’s see…Raw, Smackdown, ECW, Nitro, WCW Saturday Night, Thunder, Heat, Velocity…sure, it was a wrestling “boom”, but people pretty much watched everything then, why would they change now?

The best part about it, like I said, is the choice. If you want to watch wrestling, there are several days of the week that has some for you. If you don’t want to watch WWE, there are three or four alternatives now. See, I can understand talking about the “glut” when we’re talking PPV. Hell, I’m against WWE running 16 PPV’s a year. Wrestling fans don’t usually have that much money lying around, coupled with TNA’s schedule, plus the chance that ECW might end up with more than 2 PPV’s if they’re successful, AND the fact that WWE raised their prices again. That’s an entirely different kettle of glut. But we’re talking free/relatively free TV here. It’s going to cost you the same to watch Raw on Monday as costs you to watch any other cable show, plus you have access to all those channels, all the time. This isn’t a glut, it’s choice. It’s like being able to watch ER, Grey’s Anatomy, and those surgery shows on TLC. It’s freedom, baby, yeah!

I promise never to imitate Austin Powers again.

Team Hidden Highlights (JP & JT): Anyone in the wrestling business, from an indy jobber to Vince McMahon himself will tell you that competition of ANY kind in wrestling is good for the business, especially when we’re talking about free TV. Obviously we’re speaking from a personal perspective, but we watch wrestling four to five times a week, and if it was on the days we don’t, we would watch that, too. There are nothing but positives when talking about having an actual choice in the matter when it comes to wrestling that we watch. From a strictly “options” standpoint, the wrestling fans are the biggest benefactors of the new (and healthy) competition.

Having competition also tends to step up everyone’s game. Everyone wants to succeed, and everyone wants to be better than their competition. The only way to do that is to have better characters, offer better wrestling, and providing a more entertaining product. Let us remind you that for a while there after the Attitude Era ended, wrestling was in a bit of a slump. Well, that happens when you have nothing to go up against and therefore by default slip into cruise control. If you ask us, ever since TNA moved to Thursday night, TNA and WWE have both gotten better as a whole. Adding other promotions into that mix – that are on television no less – and that landscape can only improve even more than it already has.

It may be pointing out a bit of the obvious, but it is clearly better for the wrestlers. More promotions equals more shows equals more rosters equals more jobs. We often forget that for a lot of indy guys, wrestling is ALL they do, and unless you’re with a recognizable promotion, chances are you are not making the greatest living doing so. Broadening your audience brings more money in, and as cliché and cheesy as it sounds, a lot of that money helps feed these guys and their families. I’m all for people not starving.

Besides, WSX is only going to be a half hour a week for 14 weeks, and MavTV is not on in 95% of American homes. If any of these programs are any good, they’ll find their way into larger audiences and timeslots, and then we’d have to worry about it. For now, though, there really isn’t that much more addition going on.

Andy Clark: Team Randle – 354 words. Team Hidden Highlights – 392 words.

Team Randle (Randle): How is this worth it? Money. Money, money, money, money, moneeeeeey. Let me run through how sponsorship works: Jackass Two pays TNA a certain amount of money to promote the movie on Impact. TNA claims this money as revenue, and uses it for things like, say, paying the wrestlers. These are all good things.

Of course, that’s not what this is really about. TNA went too far in their alliance with Jackass. Having Chris Sabin, Sonjay Dutt, and Jay Lethal do stupid things in the ring and calling it “the influence of watching Jackass to gain an advantage” was fundamentally a bad idea. First of all, the things they were doing weren’t really in the vein of the extreme stunts done in Jackass, it was kindergarten stuff like hitting someone in the nuts with a bowling ball (which Al Snow had been doing years beforehand anyway). Secondly, Dutt, Sabin, Lethal are already known to be good wrestlers who don’t need to stoop to stupid tricks to win matches, so the fans felt like their intelligence was being insulted.

The good news about this is that once the promotion for the movie ended, so did the Jackass references. Sabin, Dutt, and Lethal dropped all of the stupidity and went back to their normal acts (which, although fairly bland, were working because the fans were watching what they did in the ring, not what they did outside of it, like most of the X-Division). And they pretty much pretended that the last month never happened, other than some heelish tension remaining between Sabin and Jerry Lynn. And life has continued apace. Sabin was given a rematch against Senshi and won the X-Division belt, which they had probably planned for anyway, but had to delay when Nash went down to put that storyline on temporary hiatus. Of course, now Nash is back, and the Sabin-Shelly/Nash story can continue in a more featured setting, with Sabin as the actual champion instead of just a random guy, defending the honor of the X Division.

Team Hidden Highlights (JP & JT): We mentioned the term before, and we’ll mention it again. “Broadening the audience”. TNA obviously faces an uphill up-mountain battle against the WWE, but they do have one thing going for them. They focus more on wrestling. We don’t know how many times we’ve heard a non-wrestling fan say that they caught five minutes of RAW the other day, but then changed it because they were doing some silly skit. In other words, they may have found it on accident, but they were willing to give wrestling a shot. When they didn’t get wrestling, they changed the channel.

To our point; Jackass has a huge following, and TNA certainly wasn’t going to announce that “Okay, the members of Jackass will be on right at 11:23 p.m.”. That would be foolish. So for those loyal enough to sit through the entire hour, they may have liked what they saw when they tuned in. Your fan base cannot grow if it new people aren’t exposed to the product. The Jackass promotion – while we’re sure had a lot to do with money – was a chance to have thousands of people who normally don’t watch your show tune in, and possibly enjoy enough to come back.

We will however be the first to admit that the way it was handled in terms of the wrestlers acting like, well, jackasses could have been much, MUCH better. That said, it did not stop TNA from turning it into something they could use. There was a mini-storyline going on where Jerry Lynn was trying to get the guys on track, and it was only when Sabin stopped acting like a Jackass that he was able to capture the title. Turing a negative into a positive instead of wallowing in a perceived mistake is the greatest thing of all and what many naysayers are never able to do. TNA did not let the live audience (which is whacky unto itself) bring them down, but used it to make themselves even better.

Andy Clark: Team Randle – 339 words. Team Hidden Highlights – 333 words.

Team Randle (Randle): Let’s see, how to defend racially-motivated gimmicks in this wonderfully PC world we live in. Oh, I know, how about THEY WORK. Nothing polarizes people like race, and if you want someone to be hated (or maybe even liked), it’s the simplest thing to do to have them come out as a racial stereotype and proclaim to hate everything that you hold dear. It’s like making fun of your local sports team, but on a totally different and contemptible level!

But then again, really, humans are contemptible people. Call it a genetic flaw. We have an extraordinary capacity to hate people. Really, it’s why wrestling is so popular. Wrestling is all about the good guy whose views and goals align well with our own, fighting against the bad guys whose views are diametrically opposed to ours.

But wait, Cryme Time and Jimmy Wang Yang aren’t the “evil foreigner” gimmick, are they? In fact, from one point of view, they’re actually very progressive gimmicks. That is, gimmicks that mock commonly held racial stereotypes in order to point out how stupid it is to have such stereotypes. Well, that’s how it would be if we thought wrestling writers actually thought deeper than going for the cheap laugh. But call me an optimist. Hey, when Eddie and Chavo were stealing stuff from white people, nobody was talking about how racially insensitive it was, because it was damned funny stuff, with a “wink-wink, we’re not really like this” mentality that worked because everyone was in on the joke. Now, Cryme Time isn’t necessarily at that level (because they’re nowhere near as funny as Eddie and Chavo), but the effort is there.

Now, yes, racial stereotyping is bad. But they work on TV. Wrestling isn’t the only show to take advantage of such time-honoured traditions as “the effeminate guy who everyone thinks is gay”, or “the black gangsta who’s comically incompetent”. That doesn’t make it right. And it doesn’t even mean that people will learn anything from studying these stereotypes and have remarkable journeys of self-discovery. All it means that people will watch it, and perhaps pay money for it. Really, that’s the bottom line with any TV program that wants to be successful. And doubly so in the house-show/PPV-driven business of wrestling.

Team Hidden Highlights (JP & JT): Does this even need defending? Seriously, we’re nervous the word count is going to end up like 400 to 12. If anything, we should be applauding more use of none-white wrestlers who have stereotypical gimmicks. I (JT) know a big Asian man, and while he doesn’t have the accent, he does wear cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. He think’s Jimmy Wang Yang is hilarious. Hey, if he’s fine with it, we’re fine with it. Fortunately for us (JP and JT), we have a sense of humor here at Hidden Highlights, and have already shown plenty of love to Cryme Tyme. The fact is that gimmicks like this have been around like this for years in wrestling (SEE: The Godfather, or to reverse roles a little, John Cena the rapper), and nobody every raised a stink before; we see no reason to raise one now.

Besides, why are we assuming that an “all black faction” in TNA means that they are going to be bad/evil. Now THAT is racism. Maybe it’ll be a faction of Harvard educated black men who want to give back to the community that helped raise them. Why is no one thinking that a race based gimmick can be about good people who happen to be the same race?

On top of all that, have you taken a walk in the real world? Hate to say it, but many people spend the vast majority of time with people of their own race. It makes sense that a group of people who are friends just happen to be the same race. It does not mean that they are against other races, it just means that they are associated with each other.

No, there is really nothing to worry about here. You should worry about if you have a problem with the idea of people of the same race being together.

Andy Clark: Team Randle – 378 words. Team Hidden Highlights – 313 words.

Team Randle (Randle): This is easily good for several reasons. Most importantly, while Booker has become fully immersed in the gimmick of royalty, I never thought that Regal or Finlay really fit into the whole thing as anything other than just two wrestlers standing behind a guy in a crown and expensive robe. Certainly not knights, anyway. And really, while we’re willing to buy Booker as a King because he’s so totally serious about the gimmick, there’s a danger of going too far into the cartoon with Regal and Finlay, because nobody would take them seriously if they started dressing as knights and talking in “thees” and “thous”. What works for Booker doesn’t necessarily work for two wrestlers who have made a career out of being no-nonsense tough guys who can beat the crap out of you and enjoy doing it.

And while any good heel should probably have a stable of heavies to back him up, Regal and Finlay are more complex characters, who don’t need to be around Booker to garner heat or get extra crowd attention. The crowd already liked Regal and Finlay as their own acts. Since the real purpose of a stable is to help get people over who perhaps can’t do it on their own, and everyone involved in Booker’s stable doesn’t need the help. So, instead of feeding an entire stable to, say, Batista, where once he runs through them all, anyone who can’t beat them wouldn’t be seen as being on his level, you now have three unrelated heels at the same level, with their own agendas, against different people.

So, instead of one storyline involving a united stable against one or two faces, we have the opportunity for multiple different storylines again. That, in theory, inspires creativity, and also the opportunity for multiple people to get over at the same time on the same show. Thus, you have three PPV matchups instead of just one. That’s just good depth, and makes the brand seem more attractive to someone deciding what PPV they want

Team Hidden Highlights (JP & JT): Well for one, it’s good for SmackDown! because the E was smart enough to not drag it on too long. Finlay loves to fight, and him simply bowing down and playing knight to King Booker was only going to be believable for so long. While we may have believed Regal a bit longer, the fact that him and Finlay were not getting along pretty much negated the possibly of a healthy, supportive stable for any length of time. This is also good for SmackDown! because all these of these guys are so good on their own, why not let them continue to help the show flourish like it has recently?

Moving Finlay and Regal away from King Booker and back into the area of the card involving the United States title doesn’t even need an explanation. Both of those men can do WONDERS for the product working with guys like Benoit, and in turn, helping the younger guys like Lashley continue to improve.

As for King Booker, he’s not all by himself. He still has Sharmelle there and they have shown that they can do just fine on their own. He’ll continue to embrace the King Booker character (and bless him for that) and right now, King Booker and SmackDown are the hottest commodities in the WWE.

Yes, when the gimmick first started he needed the peripheries, but that times have changed. King Booker is his own gimmick and can carry it with just him and Sharmelle. Or perhaps he will get some new knights, some young guys who need a rub? Besides, let us not forget that these guys are heels. Sure, we love them but the audience is designed to hate them. “Popular” is not the word, “intentionally hated and over” is what you are looking for. It’s not like the Court was drawing in tons of money or people from being together, it was doing that by having other wrestlers beat them up. So if there is more that can be done in the long term by separating them, than it is all the better.

Andy Clark: Team Randle – 339 words. Team Hidden Highlights – 348 words.

Team Hidden Highlights (JP & JT): The important thing to remember about each member of the Spirit Squad is that they are so young and have all the potential in the world. Kenny is 20, Mikey 23, Johnny 25, Nicky 23, and Mitch 23. All of these men are really in the beginning of their careers. Do you know what Steve Austin was doing between 20 and 25? Nothing! The Rock? Wasn’t even getting “Die Rocky Die” chants yet. Heck, he was still growing out his hair! Ric Flair? Trying to make his way from the AWA to the NWA territories. Hulk Hogan? He was either Super Destroyer or Sterling Gold. The point of this is that you cannot judge the future of a wrestler based on a gimmick at the very beginning of their career. Sometimes, it takes time for them to find a niche that catapults them up the card. Other times, they may discover that wrestling is not right for them and move on in the world. Each one of these men have shown great promise as entertainers and as wresters, so they all stand a fair chance of finding that special moment that will let them have a new home. But it doesn’t have to be tomorrow, nor should it be tomorrow.

On top of all that, a wrestler cannot be considered a failure just because they do not win a Heavyweight Championship. Roddy Pipper never won a major championship, yet he has to be considered one of the most successful wrestlers of all time. Scott Hall never won a major title either, yet despite his personal problems he is well regarded as a wrestlers and a performer. When it comes to the young guns of the Spirit Squad, we want to give them the benefit of the doubt and not judge the end of their careers when it is just starting to begin.

It could go so many different ways it’s hard to speculate so early, but we think some things are clear. While it appears that Kenny is being molded to be the break-out star (and more power to him if that’s the case), there is nothing saying that any of the other four can’t take off. More than likely, once the big split does come, at least two of them will remain a tag team, something that is always a good thing because as ignored as it may be, you cannot argue with having tag teams around; especially if they actually ever decide to give the division some attention. The other two who fly solo can easily transition into the mid-card. There is plenty for these five guys to do, and it’s up to them to make the most of it. As we said before, let’s wait and say before we start envisioning title runs and epic failures.

Team Randle (Randle): First, I’ll give you the bad news. Mikey’s too small to have much of a future outside jobbing. Slightly brighter, however, are the futures of the other four Squad members. On the lower end of the totem pole, Mitch and Nicky are fairly competent wrestlers, but haven’t really done anything to stand out in the ring or in promos, and Mitch didn’t even wrestle for the first few months of the Squad’s existence. Likely, in a breakup, they’ll end up in a tag team together, possibly retaining the Squad gimmick on a smaller level, maybe even with Mikey hanging around. After all, just because they’re breaking up the Squad doesn’t mean the gimmick has to end. They’ll have a decent career as a tag team, hanging out in the moderately resurgent ranks with the Highlanders, Cryme Time, Cade/Murdoch, and Haas/Viscera. Actually, when you put them on that list, they’re probably the most talented of the group.

Then we move on to the obvious two stars of the group, Johnny and Kenny. Ken Doane has pretty much been earmarked as part of the future of the business, and even as part of the Squad, was the feature participant, getting the singles matches with Cena, Shawn Michaels, and Triple H. It’s fairly certain that he’ll be getting at least a mid-level push following the Squad’s breakup, and I’d imagine that he’ll be winning the Intercontinental title within the next year, or at least challenging for it. He’s not going to main event for years, if ever, but I’d say he’s pretty much guaranteed a job for a long time.

And on a slightly lower level than Kenny is Johnny Jeter. I saw Johnny wrestle live in Toronto against a soon-to-debut Bobby Lashley, and he looked good. He’s actually probably the farthest along in terms of experience and skills of the entire Squad. I have a sense that he’ll end up on Smackdown, either in a tag team (maybe replacing Kid Kash in the Pitbulls), or as a midcard heel, possibly a cruiserweight (not that I know what he weighs), or the US title division. I think he also has the skills to hang around for a good long while, if not at the same level of success that is to be expected from Kenny.

Andy Clark: Team Hidden Highlights– 469 words. Team Randle – 382 words.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This question was asked before iMPACT played on 10/26

Team Hidden Highlights (JP & JT): We want to hearken you back in time to a little PPV known as ECW’s Barely Legal. That show was built on the match of Taz vs. Sabu. There were no titles, there was no gimmick; just two men that wanted to rip each other apart for a year and half on out. Or what about Sting and Hogan? Starrcade 1997 was a year and half in the making as well. Recent IWC negativity has been of the thought that in order to build up a long term feud the guys need to not touch at all. That is simply not the case as these two examples have shown. There were confrontations between Sabu/Taz and Sting/Hogan for a very long time, yet it only made the fans more rabid to see the matches. Meanwhile, other storylines happened for all of the wrestlers involved. The overall story was these two matches, but there were many chapters in between. That may be what we are about to see here. Do not forget that Joe was also involved in the Monster’s Ball (thus has feuds with Raven, Abyss, and Brother Runt), was mixed up with the NWA title (and Jeff Jarrett and Sting), has had run ins with Christian Cage, and never settled his business with AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels.

We know the latest rumors came out that Vince Russo wants a Samoa Joe/Kurt Angle match at the November PPV, but you shouldn’t believe everything you hear. Even if they do get their hands on each other, so what? That isn’t a bad thing. Look no further than the current feud between Styles/Daniels and LAX. It seemingly came out of nowhere (albeit over the belts), and has blossomed into one of the longest and best feuds currently in TNA. Jarrett and Sting have been in the ring several times in the last ten months and only at Bound For Glory did we finally get a true payoff to that feud. Look, even if they do wrestler two or three times before a big payoff, these men are not stupid; they know not to reveal everything on the first day. They will wet our mouths a couple of times before looking to quench the thirst.

With that in mind, it seems to us like there is a longer term plan going on to make Joe and Angle huge stars, and to get that great built off it. Will it last until Bound for Glory next year? We hope so, but that may not happen. That doesn’t mean, though, that they can’t start the build now. Much like above, it’s about waiting and seeing what is going to happen, not prejudging the ending on ideas that probably won’t happen.

Team Randle (Randle): Well, there’s always that whole potential for blowaway matches that will have workrate freaks creaming themselves several times during each encounter (and probably a bunch of times before the matches even take place). But hey, that’s just the obvious answer, let’s go for some other reasons.

Okay, there’s the fact that Joe’s actually been losing some of the momentum he had coming off his series with AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels, the last time he had some truly inventive and interesting matches. Since then, his position has semi-stagnated. Sure, he got to fight Jarrett, but that was less about Joe and more about punishing Jarrett prior to the “marquee” matchup with Sting, as well as giving the PPV before Bound For Glory a high-profile match when they’d written themselves into the corner of holding off Sting-Jarrett for the title. There’s the fan perception that Joe deserves the title shot, but the last chance he got close, he lost the four-way #1 contender’s match and was relegated to fighting Rhyno and Monty Brown the next PPV. And at Bound For Glory, despite being involved in a major storyline with Jarrett, they cut it short and threw him into the Monster’s Ball match instead. Now, sure, Joe won them in dominating fashion, but he’s SUPPOSED to be winning the midcard matches. What fans want to see is Joe fighting for the NWA title. And since the plum of dethroning Jarrett went to Sting, who is subsequently taking time off and returning as a face, Joe loses the obvious feud he would have had after the last month. Fortunately, Kurt Angle is here, and he’ll put Joe over like nobody’s business. After Joe and Angle have a good series of two or three PPV matches, there will be no doubt that Joe is THE #1 contender, and the future NWA champion. He’ll be back out of the garbage environment of Falls Count Anywhere, Monster’s Ball, and Fan’s Revenge Lumberjack matches, and into the pure wrestling environment where he excelled when fighting Styles and Daniels. That’s the Joe I want to see, and that’s the Joe we’re going to get.

Oh yeah, and there’s the fact that this is another real big chance for TNA to pull in some good ratings, and better PPV buys, as people tune in to see one of the true dream matches of this era of wrestling.

Andy Clark: Team Hidden Highlights– 455 words. Team Randle – 398 words.

Team Hidden Highlights (JP & JT): X-Division: It’s not about weight limits, it’s about no limits. What we like about the idea of the X-Division is that the “style” can change with the times. In the mid-90’s, the cruiserweight styles of Rey Mysterio and Juventud Guerrera became the style to be, and thus the Cruiserweight title reflected that. But that style began to creep into the mainstream move-set, and the independent style began to take off. Now, the independent style is in the X-Division, but maybe Japanese arm bars will be the wave of the future. The problem with the cruiserweight title is that it had to be about high flying luchadore action, and when that did not happen it got people up in arms. The X-Division is not about the flippy-floppy style, as men like Samoa Joe can win the title with little complaint. The title actually changes styles by the wrestlers involved, the wrestlers do not have to change to the title. So perhaps one day x-Division will mean catch-as-catch can, or perhaps it will mean hardcore action, or maybe it will mean never touching the ground. The important thing is the title reflects the champion and challengers, not the other way around.

That said, Kevin Nash does not fit the flippy-floppy X-Division, but maybe he fits the future of the title. Maybe it means that it is the stepping stone title, a title that reflects a hybrid style of flying and mat-based wrestling. Kevin Nash himself is a character who draws attention. He also works hard with young guys to develop characters that fans can get behind and care about. At the very least he’s going to make Alex Shelly get a rub and get more face time. He’s also going to give the X-Division guys some focus. At the most he may make one of them a huge star. Nash came back despite most everyone saying he screwed TNA over by getting hurt before the last PPV. Listen, Nash is an older guy with a lot of medical problems, and these things happen. But he came back and went right back to where he last left off. The only difference is that he was completely about promoting the division, not destroying it. He came back, immediately presented a tournament/battle royal, and gave it “meaningfulness” with a trophy. Then, even when his boy Shelley didn’t win, he presented the title to Starr, shook his hand, congratulated him, and walked out with him. This was more about putting them over than it was making them look weak, which is always a good thing. He’s been pushing this idea he’s had for the X-Division all along, and it looks like his vision is going to come true.

Besides, now a bunch of extra guys got a PPV bonus. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Team Randle (Randle): Because Nash is freaking hilarious and his chemistry with Shelley has given us some spectacular promos during the last year? Witness the press conference for the Kevin Nash Open Invitational (how can something be both open and invitational, by the way?) X-Division Gauntlet Battle Royal at Bound For Glory, when an Shelly made an obviously ad-libbed comment of “Cecil Fielder” and nearly caused Nash to break down laughing. It’s the best comedy duo this side of Abbott and Costello. Well, not really, but still, pretty darned good.

Anyway, it’s not like Nash is wrestling in the X-Division. Well, initially that was the plan, but I think even he realizes after he injured himself trying to wrestle again, that he’s too old and too fragile to go any more. Now, he works through his minion Alex Shelley, and that can only be good for Shelley, who gets the rub of hanging around Kevin Nash, especially when he inevitable turns on or gets turned on by Nash, because really, we all know it’s coming some day.

Besides, Nash is exposing a very real issue some people had with the X-Division and turning it around on them: the X-Division is sometimes seen as just a glorified cruiserweight division. Nash is doing his best to make sure that people realize that the X-Division is for all sorts of wrestlers, whether it’s him trying to fight Chris Sabin back before the injury, or bringing in A-1 to wrestle in the Battle Royal match. Because hey, he’s right, there is no weight limit or required style to the X-Division, it’s supposed to be open to everyone and anyone. Sure, it’s got the high-fliers, but I seem to recall in the past it’s had matches involving Sabu, a large masked man named X, and of course Samoa Joe was definitely no lightweight. Sure, it was done with comedic intentions, but it gets the point across. Anyone can wrestle, anyone can win. And stemming from that, it means that just because Nash is a big tall guy, he can be beaten by a smaller wrestler like Sabin. A fair opposition to the obvious WWE theory of bigger is better, wouldn’t you say?

Andy Clark: Team Hidden Highlights– 470 words. Team Randle – 364 words.

Team Hidden Highlights (JP & JT): In business, there are short term gains and long term gains. A short term gain for TNA is to have a 5* match between AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels. The internet will be a buzz, fans will tell others they should watch it, and TNA will have some good press. In a few weeks, that buzz will be gone and only the hardcore fans will remember it for their end of the year MOTY candidates. TNA cannot grow on short term gains alone; they need to take a lot of risks and do things that only make sense in the long run. Hiring Sting did a few things:

(1) It told wrestlers that they had another option, that TNA could be taken seriously. Now a guy like Kurt Angle can say, “Wow, I really can work somewhere else.” Perhaps guys like Chris Benoit, Rob Van Dam, Booker T, Rey Mysterio, or others will feel the same way. Perhaps this just starts to open the gates to all sorts of possible changes.

(2) It gave SpikeTV incredible confidence in TNA. Shortly after Sting signed with the company, iMPACT got moved from Saturday nights at 11pm to Thursday nights at 11pm, and TNA was granted several primetime specials. And as just noted above, this helped lead to the signing of Kurt Angle with helped lead to the 9pm timeslot. Spike’s confidence in TNA grew considerably, and TNA was able to get betters deals out of Spike for it.

(3) It brought in people who were not watching the product. There are plenty of people who will not watch TNA because they are loyal to WWE. There are also a lot of people who are loyal to WWE because they can no longer be loyal to WCW because it isn’t around. Sting WAS WCW, and him signing with TNA peaked interest from a lot of WCW fans, and while they may not have gotten all they’d hope for out of the Stinger, merely tuning in to watch him was an excuse to sit there and find out, “who are all these other guys?”. If you’ve never seen TNA, the names Christopher Daniels, AJ Styles, and Samoe Joe don’t mean a whole lot to you. If you watch them on a weekly basis, or even bought a PPV featuring Sting and in the process of waiting to see him got to see Daniels vs. Styles vs Joe, then your opinions of the current TNA product might have changed, and he probably opened a lot of eyes to the OTHER things TNA offers, not just to the fact that he was now on the roster (which Christian also did and, assumedly, Kurt Angle will now do).

So, did TNA get $500,000 worth of wrestling from Sting? Well, probably not. But they got a hell of a lot more for their long term future. Plus, they got to sell a bunch of Sting merchandise, which is always a nice little bonus.

Team Randle (Randle): Actually, not to turn this into an argument with JT and JP, but Sting didn’t significantly increase the number of people watching TNA, as ratings from before he came in are roughly the same as they are now. But it was a great attempt by TNA to do that, and it helped pave the way for TNA to become an alternative destination for up-and-coming wrestlers, as well as disgruntled WWE employees at the end of their contract. The end result of that, of course, is Kurt Angle roaming around the Impact Zone, suddenly making TNA seem like hey, they might actually start being a threat to WWE’s monopoly in the near future. I’m not going to go that far quite yet, because it’s still a long road to go. But the fact of the matter is, TNA, slowly, is becoming viable as a secondary wrestling organization, and part of that reason is that they showed they were willing, when the opportunity came up, to pony up the money to bring in Sting. Sting was the biggest free agent out there in wrestling at the time, and as a bonus, he’d never worked for WWE, remaining a WCW loyalist to the end, and retaining a large part of the WCW fanbase. So the potential was there for him to bring in a section of fans. It didn’t work out perfectly, but it was all about the possibilities.

Plus, it’s not like he came in and embarassed himself, or buried any talent, or took the money and ran after a year. Sting seems pretty dedicated to helping TNA, and even though he spent a year feuding with Jarrett, you have to think of all the people that were involved in that storyline, that got a boost from the involvement. Christian’s going to end up with a feud with Sting in the near future, I would bet. Eric Young went from just a guy in Team Canada to a fan favourite, and Alex Shelley developed one of the few unique characters in the X-Division with his video camera and Paparazzi productions. Samoa Joe got the rub of both tagging with Sting in a high-profile match, but also opened the door for a feud when he abandoned Sting after the match. Scott Steiner got a job out of it, even if it ends up being short-term. AMW, Team Canada and Gail Kim got extra TV time by being part of Jarrett’s Army against Sting. The number of lives this year-long feud touched is actually astounding. And let’s not forget, it was a well-written year-long feud, that ended properly with the triumphant hero, and it showed that TNA creative can actually do a huge overarching storyline over a long period of time. When was the last time a feud lasted a whole year and still managed to be interesting over the majority of its time? Some of that credit has to go to the writing team for that.

Andy Clark: Team Hidden Highlights– 495 words. Team Randle – 493 words.

Team Hidden Highlights (JP & JT): Let’s go back a week before Batista retuned to SmackDown!, ok? Rey Mysterio and Chavo Guerrero were trying to stop the beast known as Mark Henry and King Booker was barely a King and was jobbing out to Lashley every week. To say the least, the upper card was kind of bare. Immediately after coming to SmackDown!, Batista automatically added another face to the mix. He got messed up when Mark Henry got injured, and he was booked into a Heavyweight title feud too soon and had to lose to the red-hot Booker. That said, those losses helped make Booker a better champion and continue the King’s Court. Meanwhile, he also gave Mr. Kennedy something additional to brag about, and has been involved in an interesting four way feud with Lashley, Finlay, and Booker.

Look, let’s not forget that when coming off of an injury and long period of time off like that, most people can’t come back and immediately be in top form. Batista is a perfect example of this. Has he been a bit rusty in the ring? Yup. Has he been a bit un-inspired on the mic? Yes. But we have to give him time, and in our opinion, he has gotten slowly better each and every week. In fact, as of late, he has seemed to be on fire, and most certainly has been a major factor in the goodness that has been the title scene.

Sure, he’s not the champion right now, and maybe he isn’t at his full game. Or maybe our expectations are too high and we are remembering something that did not happen. Either way, that’s not the point. Sometimes, your role is to be the champion and carry the brand, and he was doing that before his injury. Sometimes, your role is to make others look good and beef up the card. That is what Batista is doing right now. He has a role and he is fulfilling it, and that is all you can ever ask of the man.

Team Randle (Randle): Batista is a main eventer on a brand that was in some serious trouble just as he was scheduled to come back. Rey wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire as champion. JBL retired from in-ring competition. Randy Orton ditched for Raw. Kurt Angle got sent to ECW. King Booker was barely a month into his existence, and hadn’t yet hit his peak. The Undertaker was stuck in a feud with Great Khali that nobody wanted to see. And then the Wellness program destroyed the Smackdown card further just before Great American Bash. Oh yeah, and even Mark Henry, Batista’s big comeback opponent, got injured. Batista came back at exactly the right time, no matter how rusty he was, and no matter how much momentum he’d lost, because the Smackdown main event scene was quickly turning into a desert right before Summerslam. Batista gave the Smackdown writing team a quick fix. He didn’t need to be built up to a credible main eventer because he was already a credible main eventer. He could be used to fill the slot against Booker at the biggest PPV of the summer, and by losing, he legitimized King Booker, who up until that point had only beaten paper champion Rey Mysterio.

Futhermore, Batista helped another Superstar bounce back quickly from his own long-term injury leave, by feuding with Ken Kennedy for the first month of their respective returns. That instantly catapulted Kennedy up the card, even moreso because Kennedy actually did not get destroyed and lose to Batista. Well, okay, he didn’t exactly win either, but he hung with Batista for a whole month, giving about as good as he got.

Sure, his feud with Booker didn’t exactly re-set the world on fire, but it’s not like either of them are five-star wrestlers. Plus, Batista definitely had some rust, and was probably overcompensating due to his long lay-off, wanting to roar out of the gates in his first title match back, and really put something extra into his work. The problem was, the rust and the over-exertion combined to cause some visible screw-ups, and whispers started that he didn’t “have it” anymore. So, they plugged him into some matches with Finlay, who both Bobby Lashley and the entire Raw women’s division will tell you is one of the best teachers in WWE, to help him get his timing back and refine his style after a six-month layoff without live opponents, twenty thousand live fans, and TV cameras recording his every move. Really, Batista can only get better from here, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see him main eventing WrestleMania again, having regained much of his momentum and popularity in the meantime.

Andy Clark: Team Hidden Highlights– 339 words. Team Randle – 448 words.

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Thank you for participating in the third ever Great Positivity Debate. Remember, polls remain open until Thursday November 9, 2006 at 2am GMT (That’s Wednesday November 8, 2006 at 9pm EST for those who are really counting) and the results will be posted in News from Cook’s Corner the following day.

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