What Were They Thinking? 9.12.07: Lack of Tag Teams, Big Daddy V and Jillian Hall

Greetings, and welcome to What Were They Thinking?, where I examine the worst angles, gimmicks, matches, skits, characters, and everything else that can be bad in a week’s worth of wrestling. I am your host, Bill Bumgarner, and each week I will be bringing you the worst of the worst from Monday Night RAW, ECW on SciFi, TNA iMPACT!, Friday Night SmackDown!, and a Pay-Per-View if there is one. For each show, I will be detailing the worst aspects of the night, ranked by a system of ‘skulls’ rather than ‘stars’. Whereas getting several stars is a good thing, getting several skulls is a bad thing. The system works like this:

N 1 Skull = This wasn’t too bad, but could have been better.

NN 2 Skulls = Step it up, people!

NNN 3 Skulls = Were you even trying with this one?

NNNN 4 Skulls = Oh, now you want us to change channels, don’t you?

NNNNN 5 Skulls = Shoot me – SHOOT ME NOW!!!!!

Aside from the rankings, I’m also going to break down the item in question and give my own take on it. There will not be a set number of entries for every show; how many entries a show gets depends on just how bad it truly was. That said, let’s get down to business.

WWE presents Monday Night RAW (09/03/07)

WORST IDEA: Jeff Hardy winning the Intercontinental Title

SYNOPSIS: Not much to explain here. Umaga is getting suspended, so they needed to take the belt off of him for at least the length of the suspension, so they had him job out to Jeff Hardy.

ANALYSIS: Don’t get me wrong; I like Jeff Hardy. His ring work is fantastic, his charisma is off the chart, he’s mega-over, and he can always find a way to get the crowd into a match. But we have to go deeper than that. Umaga is being suspended because of illegal drug issues. Jeff Hardy has gotten in trouble multiple times for illegal drug issues. My question: where’s the logic? What message does this send? “As long as you show up on time and your drug problems aren’t made public or keep you from working, we’ll keep you on the payroll and give you a title run.”? Hardy’s not the most dependable guy in the wrestling biz; I admit that freely. There are guys on the RAW roster that would have benefited much more from the rub gained from pinning Umaga and the title itself, like Sandman, Carlito, and Cody Rhodes, and giving it to Hardy is, in reality, a waste. Midcard belts should be given to guys that are sort of established, but need that extra push to reach the next level. Hardy is already considered an upper-midcard, if not main-event, level player, and another Intercontinental Championship run isn’t going to do a thing for him at this point. Add that to the fact that Umaga’s probably gonna squash him for the belt when he returns from his suspension and that makes it all the worse. Meanwhile, several guys in the locker room who would make great champions and could attain those higer levels are either being jobbed into obscurity, languishing in the opening bouts, or just being used in senseless skits. What a waste. NNNN

WORST MATCH: Beth Phoenix vs. Maria

SYNOPSIS: Santino Marella was supposed to be in Maria’s corner for this match, but he started running his mouth and Sandman saw fit to shut him up, so Maria was all alone for the forty-five seconds that this match lasted. Beth dominated here, and when it was over, Phoenix dubbed herself the ‘Glamazon’ and finished Maria off with a Fisherman’s Suplex.

ANALYSIS: First of all, let me say that I’m always glad to see Sandman beat someone up. Even if it’s against someone I like, watching him go crazy with a cane is classic. But, as for the match itself, the only word that can describe it is “ugh”. Maria didn’t get any offense and might as well have just laid down and let Phoenix pin her. Maria is typical of the rest of the Women’s Division, and that is sad. Beth Pheonix looks to me to be the one of the three women on the roster that can actually wrestle these days, the other two being Mickie James and Victoria, and the division as a whole is suffering with the losses of Trish Stratus and Lita. Now, I hear that Melina was awesome when she was in OVW, but I haven’t seen any of these performances, and if they are better than her current work, it boggles the mind as to why the WWE isn’t letting her do her best stuff. As to the rest of the roster, if they actually bothered to, I don’t know, train the Divas to wrestle, things wouldn’t be so bad. But they don’t. They had Gail Kim and Christy Hemme, two women who definitely know their way around the ring and look good doing it, to boot, and what did they do? Let them go to hire more bimbos like Jillian Hall (more on her a little later). If I didn’t have to watch an entire show to do this column, I’d probably just skip over these women’s matches altogether. They are almost always universally bad, and this was no exception. Its only saving grace was that it was short. NNNN

WORST SKIT: Jillian Hall and Khosrow Daivari – In Concert

SYNOPSIS: This was the precursor to a mixed tag match with these two versus Micke James and Cody Rhodes. First, we hear that Jillian had her wisdom teeth removed and her mouth was packed with gauze, but she was going to sing for us anyway. She handed the bloody gauze to Daivari, who held it like it was contaminated (probably was), tossed it aside, and then they began to sing. Then Micki and Cody come down and the match is on.

ANALYSIS: The match itself was so bad that it almost took the above segment, but Daivari, Mickie and Cody looked good and did their best to save it, so it ended up being (barely) watchable. I’m not a fan of Daivari’s gimmick or promos, but at least he can put on a decent match. The singing, however…….ow. Neither one can carry a tune, and I couldn’t even tell what they were singing. With one singing in Farsi and the other sounding for all the world like a broken air raid siren stuck on maximum volume, this quite literally gave me a headache. I couldn’t even tell if it was the same tune, much less what they were “singing” about. Whoever came up with this skit needs a few swift kicks to the groin so they’ll know the pain we went through having to watch it. (When Jillian had those teeth pulled, she should have asked if they could remove her voice box while they were at it.) The reason we have to put up with this is that Vince is upset with Hogan for several reasons right now, not the least of which being the fact that Hogan refused a new contract because he simply can’t wrestle anymore, and is taking out some of his spite with this horrible parody of Brooke and her singing career. If I were the Hulkster, I’d be trying to find legal grounds for a lawsuit against this, primarily just to stop this horrible gimmick. NNNNN

RAW ends this column with three extremely horrible entries, and a generally boring show all around. The only part that was genuinely entertaining was Santino Marella’s caning, and that didn’t last very long. I almost included the McMahon/McMahon/McMahon/McMahon confrontation, but seeing Vince cower before his family and seeing Hunter get in another little rib at Vince’s expense with the video package made it tolerable.

WWE presents ECW on SciFi (09/04/07)

WORST MATCH: Boogeyman vs. Matt Striker

SYNOPSIS: First off, the match wasn’t bad. The execution and finish were. Big Daddy V is in Matt’s corner, which never bodes well. Striker starts off scared silly, Boogeyman hits a few solid moves, then Striker bails and tries to run away. Another few moves, and Boogeyman knocks him out of the ring with a clothesline. Back in the ring, more dominance from Boogeyman. Then Matt bails once more, suckers Boogeyman into chasing him around the ring and allows Big Daddy V to nail the witch doctor with a clothesline, which signals the DQ. Afterwards, BDV nails Boogeyman with a Samoan Drop onto the floor.

ANALYSIS: Again with Big Daddy V? This guy wasn’t over as Mable, as King Mable, as the Ministry’s Viscera, or as “The World’s Largest Love Machine” Viscera; why do they think he’d be over now? He’s extremely slow, has little to no real arsenal, can’t cut a promo to save his life, and it seems that he gets fatter every week. That singlet they have him wear doesn’t help things at all. It is very, very sad when the only person on the roster with bigger boobs than Pamela Anderson is a guy. What’s worse is that they essentially traded him for Sandman, one of the few who made ECW fun to watch. If this is the new face of extreme, give me boring and mundane. NNNNN

WORST SKIT: John Morrison talking about how good he is

SYNOPSIS: Description says it all. Calls himself a wrestling avatar, says CM Punk is a loser, then calls him a Blink-182 groupie. He then starts into his list of nicknames for himself and says that he’ll put Punk down for good.

ANALYSIS: Each and every time this guy gets the mic, I shudder. He’s just so flat, boring, and dull that it’s hard to keep interest. I understand that it’s part of the gimmick (something to do with the old band ‘The Doors’, if I reember correctly), but come on, man! Put a little energy into it! If Ben Stein could cut a better promo than you can, it’s time to either step up or step out. I’m sick and tired of this already, and just glad that I won’t have to see him for a few weeks due to the rash of suspensions following the Signature Pharmacy scandal. I never thought I’d say this, burt please bring back MNM. At least Mercury could do mic work. And the Blink-182 reference? Oi. Morrison, if you’re gonna insult someone, at least try to use something, I don’t know, current. NNNNN

ECW finished the week with two extremely painful entries (pun intended). The ECW revival started out good, but very quickly lost steam and hasn’t regained much of it. CM Punk has the belt now, whch is a good thing, but they would have done much better to try and keep some of the feel of the old ECW around. This has become “RAW Lite”, and that isn’t good by anyone’s standards.

TNA presents iMPACT! (09/06/07)

WORST SKIT: James Storm looks for Rhino at an AA meeting

SYNOPSIS: Storm is with Jackie. Jackie tells him that he can’t take his beer into the meeting. Storm calls the members pathetic and says that he needs to drink because they’re pathetic. He argues with them for a bit, someone wants to call the police, Storm asks if Rhino is there, and is told that they couldn’t tell him either way. Storm asks if AA really works, then exits after leaving a six-pack in the meeting room.

ANALYSIS: Oi. The guy’s a grade-A jerk; I get that. We all get that. Did we really need this segment? On paper it sounds good, but the exection was bad. I don’t approve of alcoholism in any way, but I do applaud those trying to quit. This skit was just plain tasteless and really didn’t do anything to help the show, Storm, Rhino, or anyone else. NN

iMPACT! does okay for itself this week. Only one gripe, and it was rather minor. The show itself, the final one before the No Surrender PPV, was good for what it was supposed to do – namely, hype said PPV. Decent matches, Joe going on a rampage, and Abyss destroying Angle. All in all, a good day.

WWE presents Friday Night SmackDown! (09/07/07)

WORST LOGIC ERROR: Jamie Noble vs. Hornswaggle

SYNOPSIS: This was supposed to be for the WWE Cruiserweight Championship. However, in an earlier skit, which was actually fairly funny, Noble got caught in a leprechaun trap he’d made (a box with the word “AKME” on it supported by a stick tried to a rope, which Noble held). The only people to come by were Jesse and Festus, who heard him calling out and thought that the box was talking. The ref starts the match, then begins a ten-count. Noble escapes the box and runs to the ring, but too little, too late. Afterwards, Hornswaggle puts marbles in the ring and runs, and Noble slips on the marbles trying to catch him.

ANALYSIS: If they’d restricted this to a skit, it would have been good. But the fact that they made it a skit/match combo was terrible. Noble baiting a leprechaun trap with Lucky Charms? Good. The box with the “AKME” logo on it? Good. Noble getting caught in his own trap? Good. Jesse and Festus talking about talking boxes? Gold. But the way they did the “match” portion? Horrid. Granted, it was funny to see Noble slip on the marbles, but the fact remains that the TV audience could see that he was trapped in the box, the in-house crowd could see that he was trapped in the box, and since Cole and JBL have monitors in their announce table that shows what the cameras see, you know that they had to know about it. It was also known that he had a match that night. So….why didn’t anyone help him out of the box? I mean, if I were in that position and I knew someone was trapped and needed help, I would, I dunno, help him. That’s not exactly a great leap of logic to make. It’s this sort of thing that makes me wonder why I bother watching. NNN

SmackDown! got off kind of easy this week, too. The only gripe on this show was minor, but the fact that it retains to logic sends up a red flag. I’m not saying that the writers should think of every possible logic hole, but one that big kind of makes me wonder if they’re thinking at all.

TNA presents No Surrender (09/09/07)

WORST MATCH: Ron Killings and Pacman Jones vs. Sting and Kurt Angle

SYNOPSIS: Sting and Killings start out with back-and-forth action. Pacman refuses a tag. Angle tags in, beats down Killings, and Pacman drops to the floor when Ron reaches for a tag. Karen Angle is out, she and Sting get into a yelling match, during which time Killings and Pacman double-team Kurt. Karen slaps Sting, Sting points and yells at her to go to the back, and she falls over like she was hit. Kurt things Sting hurt Karen and attacks him with an Angle Slam. Pacman then tags in and pins Angle for the win and the title.

ANALYSIS: Okay – just who thought this was a good idea? Oh, right; Jarrett. First of all, Jones didn’t do anything in this match. Second, the finish was contrived, convoluted, and crappy. Third, this was a horrible way to end the only tag-team title reign I ever remember Sting having. Finally, this means we’re gonna have to put up with more of Pacman’s no-wrestling-involved wrestling style, which is going to drag the quality of the shows from now on down. NNNN

WORST IDEA: #1 Contenders’ Tag-Team Gauntlet

SYNOPSIS: This was a rather fast-paced match; Styles and Daniels started out, with new men coming out at regular intervals (I forgot what the exact interval period was). One man from a certain team would come in first, then when they had one from each team in, the partners would come in. I’m not going to sumamrize the entire match here, as that would take almost as long as watching it. If you want all the details, I encourage you to head over to Larry Csonka’s No Surrender report to get the scoop on everything that took place in the match. Suffice to say, there was a lot of action, and some fairly innovative moves throughout. At the end, it came down to the Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley versus AJ Styles and Tyson Tomko, with the Christian Coalition squeaking out a win over the Motor City Machine Guns.

ANALYSIS: In case you’re wondering if I’ve gone off-topic by talking about a good match, I haven’t. Good match, yes, but poor planning and execution (seems to be a common motif for wrestling feds this week). TNA doesn’t have much of a tag-team division; the choices for the teams in this gauntlet make that plain. The Voodoo Kin Mafia, the MCMGs, Team 3D, the Steiner Brothers, LAX, and Triple X. That’s about it. Six teams. Granted, their tag division is bigger than the WWE’s, but it’s still pretty lackluster. And when you consider that the Steiners may not wrestle for a long time, if ever again, and that VKM has been nothing but a joke since the days that they were called the James Gang, that narrows it even further. The MCMGs, LAX and Triple X have promising futures, but there’s no telling how much longer Team 3D can keep wrestling. The X-Division is fairly substantial, and the Heavyweights are pretty numerous. Take a few from each and make them into tag-teams. Permanent tag-teams. Styles and Tomko had a pretty good showing here, and I could see them as a long-running team with perhaps a lengthy title reign. You see? It’s not that hard to put together a viable team. TNA is trying to think, but they’re under-doing it. (However, in TNA’s defense, if they’d restricted this to the five established tag-teams that are on the roster and not on the injured list, then it would have been superb. But they had to have ten teams, so we got stuck with some guys just thrown together.) NNN

And that was No Surrender. We saw a non-wrestler take home gold, some further proof that tag-team wrestling is dying, Black Machismo getting back what he shouldn’t have lost in the first place, Rhino finally getting a win, Samoa Joe doing what he does best and destroying someone, and the debut of Judas Mesias. Not a bad show, but it has two rather large black marks on it, both relating to the tag-team titles. I can only hope that, with the second hour of TV that iMPACT! is going to get next month, they’ll flesh out the tag division more and give us more guys that are actually tag-teams and less guys who are just thrown together in a tag-team match.

And so another week of televised wrestling comes to a close. This was my first column so try to go easy on me for a few weeks until I can get into the swing of it all.

Feel free to send me your comments on my column or the shows I discussed and even those I didn’t (I have no way of seeing Ring Of Honor, so anything you guys can give me on that will be quite helpful). Until next time, this is Bill saying, “Why do I still watch this stuff?”