The Seventh Dimension 10.20.07: ECW may be dead, Teddy Hart perhaps should be, and hopefully Lex Luger isn’t!

Duh-nuh-nuh duh-nuh-nuh duh-nuh-nuh-naaah!

This is a brief update to coincide with the latest news. I don’t have much to say on Larry Pfohl, aka ‘The Narcissist’ Lex Luger, but I wanted to make sure you all knew I wish him a recovery from his stroke/heart attack/whatever. He’s apparently doing well, in a stable condition at the time of writing this, so hopefully he’ll pull through.

I know he’s not the most popular man in the industry, and I’ve never cared much for him, but I do respect his accomplishments and his popularity in the nineties. Plus, the accolades speak for themselves – two World Heavyweight Championships, WWF Royal Rumble winner in 1994 (joint, with Bret Hart), joint-first WCW Triple Crown winner, and the first WCW Grand Slam winner (i.e. winning all their major belts).

He’s also earned a vast amount of recognition from PWI, including a very honourable #20 in the PWI’s Top 500 of the ‘PWI Years’ (chronicalling 1972-2003, so it’s not like he just lucked into that position. Incidentally, Hulk Hogan was #1, so it’s obviously based on influence as well as work-rate. That almost makes it more impressive). Like him or not, he is a future Hall of Fame resident somewhere down the line, and he probably deserves it as well.

Get well soon, Laz (I’m sure I can call you Laz. I mean, it’s not like Larry Csonka threatened to kick me off the site if I called him Laz…). And if you don’t, we’ve all got to go sometime. You’ve certainly done more in your 49 years than most will in twice that amount.

Ok, with that out of the way, let’s get down to business.

I know I said I’d do that silly thing about placing each of the other staff-writers into heel/face alliances, but things change. Besides, that would (and will, I still intend to do it down the line) end up being a piece of crap anyway, so this is much better. Besides, more people care about this, albeit not many, than they care what one man thinks would be the ideal booking for his colleagues if 411 was an indy-fed.

So, instead, I shall look at, what appears to be, the impending doom of WWE’s incarnation of ECW.

Here’s what’s been going on, for anyone who’s missed it. Sci-Fi have not yet committed to commissioning any more ECW once the current deal expires, which of course is worrying for the show’s hopes as its contract runs out in the next couple of months. Sci-Fi is run by the same person who owns the USA network, Bonnie Hammer, which of course is the channel airing Raw – a show which USA’s management is already having some problems dealing with. In fact, it seems that WWE themselves are preparing for disaster here, as they have decided to merge ECW with Smackdown! in stroyline terms, and repeating their ECW shows on the internet (though, disgustingly, since I‘m a Brit I can‘t watch them. This crap deserves to fail just for exhibiting xenophobia!).

All in all, the future is looking bleak for this much-scrutinised trial, and the first question that springs to mind is this:

So sodding what?

I’m far from the first person to herald the oblivion of ECW, so I won’t linger over this for too long. But really, what’s the loss here? Sure, they don’t have that extra hour on television, same as sixteen months ago when they were doing just fine business-wise. That also means they don’t have to constantly think about how to ‘science-fiction-atise’ their sixty minutes of glorified ‘Afterburn’ in order to pull in a million or so of the viewers that already watch Raw and Smackdown! (because, I can assure you, nobody just watches ECW. Or, at least, not a large enough minority of people to justify its existence at a time of crisis). Their paltry attempts at keeping the higher-ups happy with Boogeyman and Kevin Fertig just emphasised the point that this was sub-standard – or, at least, never going to become its own standard – from the second it debuted. I’m not saying it all failed, in fact I enjoyed watching a lot of it. But, then again, many people also enjoy watching destruction derbies.

It’s also been obvious for a long amount of time that the so-called ‘world heavyweight championship’ of ECW didn’t mean shit in the grand scheme of things. Funnily enough, the ECW title was recognised as a World Heavyweight Championship by PWI during the original ECW, yet not now when it’s on a broader scale. Funny that, but completely understandable because it‘s barely even the showpiece for its own show. (By the way, PWI, hurry the fuck up already and give the US Title its second-tier recognition already. It’s easily the most important title in WWE aside from the two World titles, yet it’s left sitting on a shadowed shelf while you masturbate over the Intercontinental belt that may as well by renamed the ‘Gets-Right-To-Lose-To-WWE-Champion-In-Handicap-Match-Whilst-Advantage-Is-On-Own-Side Championship’. Go away, PWI. Go away.) Now, I’ve defended Punk/Burke jerking the curtain at Unforgiven, and continue to do so, but their refusal to give Burke an entrance for that match was sheer madness. At least they had a match, though – unlike Punk and Big Daddy V, whose match was only a minute long after all those five days of build. It’s still a good thing to have on your resume, but in terms of the here-and-now, the ECW Championship means neither ‘jack’, ‘shit’, ‘fuck’ or ‘all’.

And yet, the ECW title match was always the only thing ECW contributed to the pay-per-view events, and only ever featured two wrestlers. The hierachy of WWE shows reminded me of the guy in school who would pick exclusively on another kid, until a shitter kid was brought into the equation and the bully teamed with the slightly disillusioned former-victim to attack the newbie. In other words, Raw > Smackdown!, but Raw + Smackdown! > ECW. Which is strange, since ECW and Smackdown! tour together and Raw is left by its little lonesome. Still, that’s the law of the playground. (By the way, Colin Meyer, if you read this, fuck you. I got a journalism gig and you went to juvie. You are nothing but a bald midget with an attitude problem.)

So, in other words, it was probably doomed from the start. The previous ECW fans are too set in their own little bubble to accept anyone else’s version of anything. The WWE fans had been told for years that anything other than WWE was inferior, and therefore were always destined to spit on incarnations of failed feds (see: WCW in the early stages of the InVasion). And the Sci-Fi fans probably didn’t give a flying force-field to begin with. WWE did little to convince any of us that it was taking ECW seriously, giving it just one event (the disastrous December To Dismember) after its television launch, and many people who were posted there expressed their dissatisfaction in numerous ways (see: Benoit, Chris). It suffered from bad luck as well, with RVD, Angle, Big Show, and the aforementioned Crippler all unexpectedly leaving in one way or another.

The fact of the matter is, ECW was nothing but a failure…

…Except, it wasn’t. It wasn’t at all. ECW gave Johnny Nitro a platform to succeed, albeit with a little help from the disintegration of the Rabid Wolverine. ECW gave us CM Punk’s (admittedly overlong) chase for the belt, which culminated in a surprise TV match which he won, a match that I would consider to be in the top fifteen for the year so far. ECW gave us Rob Van Dam’s long-awaited title opportunity as, without the new ECW needing a champion to appeal to its old fan base, I highly doubt Van Dam would have been given a reign with the WWE Championship. ECW gave Lashley a chance at glory, which he took and now looks to have extra credibility when he finally returns to Raw. ECW would have given us Punk vs. Benoit if…you know the rest, but we were all excited for the match and Benoit’s subsequent run with the title that obviously never came to fruition. Without ECW, Balls, Sandman, Dreamer, Richards and Nunzio would probably never get another chance on mainstream television, and Mike Mizanin, Matt Striker, Big Daddy V, K-Thorn, Elijah Burke and ‘The Wince-At-Spunk’ Shannon Moore minor-to-good chances at success (even if they didn‘t all materialise). Finally, without ECW, I wouldn’t have the pleasure of ogling the (otherwise usless) Extreme Exposé – in particular Kelly Kelly, whose arse I for some reason can’t get enough of – and their utterly ravishing bodies, each and every sad week of my life. Not on TV, at least…

If this really is the end for ECW, it deserves to be applauded for at least some of its efforts. Just because the ideas behind them were different from ours, and didn’t even resemble those of the original ECW, thus making the brand a complete joke…uh, what was the positive? Oh yeah, we must remember that we do have SOME things to celebrate from this whole thing, even if not many. And WWE can look back and say it was a success, because it lasted for sixteen months – around fifteen more than many dared to credit it with at the start of its life.

So, what’s next for ECW? Well, it’s important to realise that it’s not over yet. It looks likely, but we are going on nothing but speculation right now. If ECW is only to run on WWE.com, I’d still say it’s worth a punt, as Heat is still going strong – and that show doesn’t even have its own belt. Then again, if Sci-Fi does renew, WWE is going to be put to task by everyone, and quite rightly so, in order to prove its worth for the channel’s schedules. WWE has had its back to the wall on many occasions, but it does occasionally admit to making a mistake (CO*XFL*UGH) and cutting its losses ASAP. I guess we’ll simply wait and see what they do from here.

If this is to be the end, consider this my eulogy to WWECW:

On the other side of the coin, of course, are those that ARE given countless chances, but choose to fuck them up…

F.R.O. stands for “fuck right off”, for anyone unaware.

Much like with ECW, although confirmed in this instance, Teddy Hart’s career is (once again) over within the WWE. This is the second time he’s been released by WWE, having now also burned his bridges with Ring of Hono(u)r after that cage match debacle (which he blamed on a concussion, so I will give him the benefit of the doubt on this occasion after seeing how much Sandman fucked his match up with Cactus Jack in ECW after a brutal head-shot). He’s already been owned by Rob Halden and some others since being fired, so I won’t go into all the (many) reasons why his release is a good thing – particularly because it isn’t, since the other members of the Nu-Harts may struggle to get a place on the roster thanks to this diabolical, deluded shit-bag of a faux-somebody. Hopefully they will make it, Harry Smith’s Canadian accent and all, and show this scum-sucker what he’s missing out on. Not that he’ll care.

To be honest here, many people are feeling anxious about slagging him off because he’s an ‘amazing athlete’. Is he, though? Yeah, he’s agile as hell and can do loads of flips and basic counters and stiff attacks and such, but so can Chris Sabin. And Chris Sabin isn’t a fucking moron like Teddy Hart. I’m sure as well that Teddy felt he could survive on the family name, but I’ve got news for you – Bret Hart is a conceited prick as well, albeit a highly-talented one. From a technical standpoint it’s a feather in his cap, but from a professional one? Bret is probably NOT the contributing factor that wrestling management should base their employment decisions on. Thankfully, he had Owen for a brother, so it was balanced somewhat. (And no, I don’t need to have been watching wrestling during the Hart era to know what I’m talking about here.)

And before anyone starts on about the fucking moonsault Teddy pulled off in Germany from a support post, I know. I’ve seen it. It looked awesome. But the capacity to somersault from 20′ off a narrow vertical beam does not justify insolence and egotism in itself. You know what? I could fucking throw myself off a steel pole if I was crazy/drunk enough at the time and was getting paid a shitload of wad. I don’t know any young, able-bodied adult who couldn’t, quite frankly. Teddy, if you want to impress me with flips, try back-flipping on even ground, instead of giving yourself nearly three seconds to complete the revolution. Hell, backflip UP three feet or something. All your moonsault did was give you some Youtube exposure and add to the flawed idea that all excitement in ‘wrestling’ has to come from nearly killing yourself.

In fairness, Teddy was likely in a bit of a catch-22 as far as his dynasty. He IS a draw because he’s a Hart (and, of course, because he is honestly super-fun to watch), but at the same time he was probably released from his contract so early BECAUSE he’s a Hart, and Vince didn’t want any more trouble after such acrimonious relations stemming from the departures of both Bret and Owen from his company. Had he not had the name-value, he’d likely never have been hired by WWE. However, had he been hired regardless of the name-value, he probably wouldn’t have been released. It’s not a nice place to be in, I’m sure. At the end of it, Teddy’s no worse than any other bastard over-egging their worth to the industry.

But that’s the problem, as well. Teddy Hart’s no BETTER than any other bastard. Again, I’m not selling him short in terms of his ability, I’m just saying that he sells himself long. Or something.

Teddy, get over yourself. Grow up, get some perspective, and then maybe we’ll allow ourselves to give a damn about you. And, whether you realise it or not, you WILL need our support down the line when TNA are trying to make you a star. Bitch.

You know, it’s funny but I think we’ve almost become the reverse in regards to our perceptions of John Cena. There’s a weird sort of symmetry in how Cena is seen now by different groups of people, compared to when this whole rollercoaster of a career started for him. This is how I’ve seen it:

– (2002) Cena is a vanilla face who WWE clearly likes. He gets a few roll-up wins and nobody cares.
– Cena turns heel, nobody cares.
– Cena suddenly dresses in a basketball shirt and chains and battle-raps with Rikishi on an episode of Smackdown!, which comes out of the blue somewhat. He jobs, but gets our attention.
– (2003) Cena is put in several high-profile matches, losing to Brock Lesnar (WWE Championship match), Undertaker, and Kurt Angle, each time with good-to-impressive showings. Now, we care.
– Cena turns face because the fans clearly love him so much now in the Stone Cold mould. Michael Hayes tries to sabotage this, but realises his mistake (thankfully, this is still Smackdown! so it never airs), and Cena pins US Champion Big Show with an FU at Survivor series. He’s on a roll.
– (2004) Cena beats Big Show at Wrestlemania XX for the US belt via cheat-eference, and everyone cheers him to the rafters. He’s still not great in the ring, though.
– Cena is a very good, and very passionate, US Champion.
– (2005) Cena wins the WWE Championship in a crap match with JBL that WWE give no attention to. Ooer, that’s not the greatest of starts.
– Cena has two great three-way matches while champion (with Jericho/Christian, and with Angle/Michaels), but otherwise isn’t terrific and the character seems watered down. The IWC, who has never been high on him, is now very frustrated, and the smarks in attendance are starting to turn as well.
– Edge wins the title, giving Cena face heat once more, but loses it back after three weeks and fans are rabid for Triple H to take the belt from him, while the IWC simply expects it to happen. However, John Cena retains, stunning many people (though pleasing me and every child in Chicago).
– Cena loses to Rob Van Dam, is booed out of the arena and called gay by ‘fans’, but many pundits applaud his professionalism in playing the heel role and putting up with the ignorant crowd that night.
– Cena wins the belt back from Edge in Canada, in a superb TLC match.
– (2007) Cena holds the belt for over a year, hanging with Shawn Michaels and carrying Umaga, Khali, Lashley and Orton to terrific matches in the same year (well, not so much Orton). The children, ladies, and a lot of hired critics within the IWC love him now, but the smarks (who are also part of the IWC, but are too stupid to realise it…despite using the internet to tell us this) are too selfish and blinded by their own cynicism to accept Cena’s improvement.

So now, we have a reverse of the beginning. The fans loved Cena while most analysts were indifferent, but now most of the analysts respect Cena and enjoy his matches, while the ‘fans’ have conditioned themselves to disregard each of the man’s efforts because they dislike the character.

I’m not certain what point I was making there, but I enjoyed making it.

I enjoyed Bound For Glory, so I did. It wasn’t perfect, but nothing was so bad that I’d like to go into it further. There wasn’t a single stinker on the card, and most of the matches had things I’ll remember for a good while. Elix hitting the cross-body on Hernandez from about 15 feet in the air, Consequences Creed’s really impressive debut, the Lethal Combination off the top rope, the Black Hole Slam from Abyss to Raven on the tacks and glass (though isn’t it funny how, in a match which most have deemed as below-average where an old spot is recycled, said spot is more warmly-received than the first time it happened – Abyss vs Tomko at Slammiversary – which was more surprising and in a much better match? Oh, how fickle we can be, sometimes…), and of course the entirety of Joe vs Christian. The main event was really good, as well, and it’s testiment to the efforts of both men that they turned what could have been a car crash into a classic, even with all the run-ins that were unnecessary. But, as good as Bound for Glory was…

The TNA Championship is back around the waist of Kurt Angle after the Impact! taping for October 25th. I wouldn’t mind that much, but coming off their biggest show? Stupid move. Imagine if Stone Cold had lost the title a week after Wrestlemania X-7. It wouldn’t have gone down too well, and Wrestlemania would potentially have been classed as ‘unimportant’ despite being the greatest wrestling show in the history of the industry. TNA have basically done that here, except it won’t even be a surprise to many of those watching it on TV because they’ll have found out thanks to the spoilers.

However, that’s not what I take issue with. What I hate is the stupid tag team match they’ve created for Genesis. A tag team match, where whoever gets the pinfall wins the TNA title. That would be bad enough if it was just the opposing team that had the chance of getting a hold of the belt. But no, this time the ruling includes Kurt Angle’s own partner, which is Kevin Nash. Do I even have to explain why this is stupid? Why would anyone be able to co-exist in a tag team environment like this? Look, WWE did it once that I know of on pay-per-view, at Backlash 2001, and it worked. It worked because Kane and Undertaker, the tag team champions, had legitimate (kayfabe) heat with Triple H and Stone Cold (the IC/World champions, respectively), and wanted to make them pay. They all put their belts on the line, and both teams wanted to defend their own belts while also PUNISHING the other team by taking theirs. Triple H and Stone Cold had no reason to care who got the pinfall for their team, and Taker and Kane didn’t seem to give a hoot either because they were so hell-bent on killing the Power Trip (as seen when Undertaker went for the pin on Triple H, rather than wait until Stone Cold got back in). It worked because there was a story being told, a proper, long-founded plot.

Here, it’s just Angle and Nash, who have never been a tag team, against Sting and a partner of his choice (please, not David Arquette), who have probably never been a team, in a match where teamwork is irrelevant. That’s ridiculous. Why not just make it a four-way? Or, in fact, a three-way? Or better yet, why not just have had Angle challenge Sting at Genesis for STING’S TITLE and do whatever he wants there, when there’s no build to take into consideration? Instead of this bollocks?

Sorry for sounding so negative, but it pissed me off a bit.

Rubbish Youtube Quote of the Week~! From ‘Kane vs. The Great Khali’ (don‘t ask):

perimason123
hope kali die

Because you don’t enjoy watching him on a show you don’t actually have to watch? Yeah, fuck his wife. Fuck everyone who actually knows, loves and respects the man, because some sodding illiterate piece of shit on a computer thinks he has a right to complaint without elaboration.

Besides, I have news for you – we’re all going to die. And if there’s a heaven and hell, Khali is more likely to have earned his place in the former than a little tosspot like you. Piss off, fool.

The Matter: It’s our old friend Teletext, again. This time, its litter of shits have been labelling viewers of ITV1’s ‘The X Factor’ as being “brain-dead imbeciles”. I’m not going to defend the show, because it’s rubbish. It employs a ‘fast track to short-term success’ philosophy that revolts me and is cancerous to the music industry. With that said, what I have to say has less to do with the show itself, and more to do with society’s sttitudes as a whole.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I find this pompous bigotry just as intolerable as – in fact, perhaps moreso than – racism. I’ve been called out by niggers (LOLZ!!1 CAN HE SAY THAT~?) in the past for being whitey, but I haven’t given more of a shit that for any other form of abuse I’ve received. I know many others wrongly see it different, but really – the term “I am *whatever colour*” has never been a source of self-laudation, so why would the semantic ever be an effective insult when directed at someone else? Unless you allow it to be, of course.

However, the use of ones mind IS something to consider, boast about, and question others when they fail to exploit it properly. Therefore, to accuse someone of being of less-than-average intelligence, simply because they choose to watch a rather meaningless talent show whose winners never amount to anything, is utterly indignant and puerile. It’s THIS kind of disdainful shite that should be condemned by the public, NOT Jeremy Clarkson smoking on Top Gear or Rory Bremner enacting a comedy sketch that mentions Madeleine McCann which obviously (rolls eyes) MUST mean he hates Madeleine despite politicians taking the brunt of the joke. Honestly, I am sick to death of civilisation. Kill everyone.

The Link: Well, I guess the link it that wrestling is also arrogantly and moronically considered lame-minded viewing, just on the pure basis that many of its viewers happen to be idiots. That’s hardly the fault of the programming, though. As I keep having to explain to cunts on Youtube and such, if you’re complaining about the ‘fake’ nature of wrestling while also worshipping manga or, indeed, any television drama, you’re a hypocrite who’s not worth their damn salt. But nothing will change any time soon, so I guess we’ll all have to put up a little longer with being insulted by insufferable ‘walking abortion commercials’ who can barely spell the words they’re aiming at us. Meh.

I haven’t had any feedback for last week’s column, and in fact I’m going to have to cheat slightly here…my one 411-related e-mail was a response to an e-mail that I sent to the man in question. See, I sent feedback to another columnist, and his response is my one piece of ‘feedback’ this week. So we’ve come full-circle in a way. A circle of shit, mind you.

The peer in question is Mike Minotti, and the article that started this was called FU Cena Haters.

Thanks for your kind words, TG. I actually wasn’t aware of what went down with that William Bumgarner guy until you just brought it up. (Editor’s note: not to gloat, of course) I was frankly shocked to see that a 411 writer, even a newbie like he was, could write something as uneducated and cold as what he did. It was a perfect example of what I was talking about. Your blog, which I also just read, that called him out was a great read. Frankly, if I had read it before, I may not have written this “FU, Cena Haters” column, since I think you already said what I wanted to say (probably better, too).

Alright, I’m beginning to rant again. Thanks for the feedback. Keep up the great work you’ve been doing here so far.

I won’t even comment on this, it doesn’t need one. It highlights so much that should – nay, NEEDS – to be learned by those criticising only individual circumstances of recurring aspects of ANY profession. A brilliant comment, and one worth its own column down the line. Go for it, Minotti.

Well, that does it for the week. Another short one, but maybe I was just over-compensating beforehand. Not sure what’s on tap next week, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Bye-ah!