The Way I C It 11.19.07: Not So Smooth Moves

Lots of stuff for me to C this week, plus my opinion on the need to ban moves. Let’s start with a piece of news that is right up my alley…

The Way I C the E

Jericho is coming back! Yes, we knew this a month ago. But now it is fact. Most interesting part of this for me is that he has said he will have a new finisher. [Jim Carrey] Re-eee-eee-eee-eeeeeeallyyyyyyyyy[/Jim Carrey]. Fascinating. Doubtless we’ll see it tonight on Raw, but I don’t want to ruin a chance to do some perfectly good speculation beforehand!

Thing is, all of the good moves are either taken or banned. Jericho is no longer a high-flying cruiserweight, so I think we can rule out some sort of twisty top rope thing. I initially thought we would not see a power move, but looking at the roster on Raw, hardly anyone tops 300, so it wouldn’t be out of the question. A dragon suplex would make me mark liek leeeeetle gurl, but I believe it’s on the Ban List. We haven’t seen the Roll the Dice/Test Drive/inverted spinning neckbreaker for a while either, and that’s a really nice looking move when done right. The other option would be some sort of submission hold, and since he no longer uses a proper Walls of Jericho (reportedly due to HHH and Austin whining that it hurt too much), something like a Cobra Stretch à la Delirious or, just to make every RoH fan cream themselves, Cattle Mutilation.

Kennedy/Rey was just awesome this Friday. Near finishes, back-and-forth action, variety from Rey which is something he needs, and a clean finish. Plus some ridiculously great psychology. Best match on Smackdown in a while, possibly all year.

Raw right now is making me MEH more each week. Until this week’s episode, of course.

The Way I C the T

Does Kurt Angle wrestle for TNA? He’s hardly ever on TV.

I’ve mentioned this on the forums, but if I hear Tenay say “And, yes,” once more, I’m flying down to Orlando.

Kaz/Angle was nowhere near as good as Kaz/Cage. Both matches, though, can solidify Kaz as a top level face. If they want.

I thought the whole reason TNA were keeping Christian away from Angle was to avoid doing a match that had been seen in WWE. So what’s up with Christian/Booker?

Yeah, 3D made me laugh too. It’s a bad thing though. Know why? We’re supposed to buying these guys as monster heels. Monsters don’t make jokes. Sabin was pretty good this week though.

Rellik? 3 freaks vs Abyss? Wait, at some point I’m supposed to care, right?

The BASTARDS!!! Making CM Punk curtain jerk. With a tag team title match on the card. While I’m spewing vitriol, some old geezer thinks he’s funny because he can make a play on my name. Hadn’t heard that one in at least a week and a half. Try again, Mr Sunday. I’m not even going to complain about Barcham stealing my thunder and rating finishers because, well, he’s new too. And he never beat me senseless at Fact or Fiction. My God, these chips rule all. Seriously, if you live in Canada, buy them.

Not-So-Smooth Moves volume 2 – The Botch Factor

Perfect timing, as I wrote that heading, Melina botched the splits entrance.

Over the past few months, the WWE has been hit with a spate of freak injuries in the ring, diluting an already questionable main event scene. This has led to a fair amount of discussion regarding the length of the road schedule and the safety of the performers in-ring. Regular feedbacker has this to say about moves that are and should be banned:

Yo Lansdeli. what’s up. Thanks for giving my feedback a fair look. Now I understand what happened with Candice Michelle was an honest accident, like what happened with Darren “Droz” Drozov….did I spell that right. but the only thing I was trying to empathize that High Risk styles are very risky. Fans and the IWC assholes should stop being selfish. look at Rey Mysterio or Amazing Red, they do high risk styles well they used to, infact there was one spot where Mysterio did a cool move in a Battle Royal that used two rings. he springboarded onto the top rope of one ring, lept over to the top rope of the other ring and then lept off onto his last remaining opponent hitting a Hurricanrana. really cool, but that’s drawing away from my point. Mysterio has trouble moving like he used due to the toll that his style has taken on his knees, and Amazing Red constantly has Knee problems, or another example is The Straight EDGE(Or very Boring) Superstar CM Punk, He’s said he doesn’t do the Pepsi Plunge anymore due to Knee problems even if they would let him in WWE. Now I admit no one is asking for a Reverse 630 Shooting Star Leg Drop and I can see lessening of the chains around their superstars but if everyone started flying up and down, left and right like a Ferret on Crystal Meth what would we think of Amazingly talented superstars like Gregory Helms or Alex Shelley who don’t need to do that to give awesome matches. we would think of them as bland and boring. one of the things that has made AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels so amazing is that not only can they fly like they have wings but they are amazing technical wrestlers just check out their Ironman match from a few years ago to see that. I apologize for the Length of the Feedback, I just get into whatever I’m reading about. now If someone would only do a Dream Match column I could give them my Dream Match Suggestions like Eddy Guerrero vs Christopher Daniels or Alex Shelley vs Dean Malenko.

Long feedback is never a problem! You do have some valid points though, a lot of people saying that move X should not be banned are hoping to see it on a weekly basis, and it’s selfish. I haven’t thought about Amazing Red in months, but he’s a perfect example. Jeff Hardy is another: he’s still there, and still flying, but he’s slowed down a lot because he’d rather hear a “Holy Shit!” chant than wrestle past 35. And Punk is only going to use the Plunge in WWE if he ever gets to feud with HHH. Which would be money.

It’s certainly an interesting theory that banning certain moves will reduce injuries, or has reduced them. Droz, for example, was injured due to a high-angle back suplex, a move you hardly see these days. Austin had his neck broken with a K-Driller, a tombstone piledriver variation, now banned for everyone but Undertaker and Kane. In the WWE at least. Chavo suffered a serious concussion due to a mis-aimed shooting star press by Paul London. Anyone who’s forgotten what happened to Brock at Mania XIX should look it up, provided you have a strong stomach. As a pre-emptive measure, moves like the Death Valley Driver and its variants, the piledriver itself, the Vertebreaker, and various other lovely drop-you-on-your-head moves which make me happy in the pants. Some of these moves have not lead to an injury in the WWE, but why tempt fate? While any move can potentially cause a nasty injury (right Mr Out-from-a-hip-toss Cena?), dropping someone the size of Umaga on their head is asking for a broken neck.

There are a couple of counter-arguments to this. The first is one I mentioned above: if you can get hurt from any move, why ban the ones that look the best when they are hit? TNA, for example, still allows the Death Valley and the SSP, and they get good pops when they land. For a company that is losing ratings like WWE is, wouldn’t they be better served allowing the things that people want to see?

A better counter-argument, though, is that in TNA to a lesser extent, and RoH and the indies in particular, there are no banned moves. RoH regularly features burning hammers, nasty piledrivers (Kevin Steen’s package piledriver in particular), brainbusters, shooting stars, 450s, even a guy doing a 630. Dropping people on their heads is commonplace. TNA does this to a lesser degree, but they also have insane spotfest matches like Ultimate X. Some of the biggest knocks on people like AJ Styles, the Briscoes, Chris Sabin and countless others is that they are over in the indies due to their movesets, which would be watered down in WWE. So, with all these allegedly deadly moves being thrown around, why is it that virtually nobody ever suffers a major injury in RoH, TNA or PWG? There have been exceptions, sure, like Jimmy Rave’s continuous facial injuries, or the NASTY botched SSP to the outside by Mark Briscoe, but for the most part, nothing catastrophic has happened. And between those 3 promotions, arguably numbers 2, 3 and 4 in the country, they put on as many shows as WWE in a year, if not more. And we haven’t even mentioned Japan, where the moves are nastier and injuries are even less common.

Of course, this neglects the fact that WWE has a lot more invested in their talent than any other company, and if anyone were to get seriously injured in a WWE ring nowadays, the public outcry would be huge. TNA would still have a lot of questions to answer, but other companies barely register as a blip on the national media radar. How much coverage did we see of Khali accidentally killing a guy in the ring? For those who don’t know this story, the amazing Steve Cook has addressed it a couple of times over in Ask 411.

Why is it, though, that WWE seems to be so unlucky with injuries, but smaller companies who do more dangerous stuff have escaped relatively scott-free? It’s my opinion that, in general, the young guys in WWE today are poorly trained in terms of their time in developmental, whereas most guys in the indies have been through their paces for years before getting on the big shows, and even longer before being allowed to take a nasty bump. Simply put, WWE rushes their guys to the forefront these days. Another possibility, of course, is that muscles developed through copious use of steroids and HGH are weaker than muscles built up naturally, and thus more prone to injury.

It should be noted that I emailed several people at the WWE in an attempt to obtain the full list of moves that are banned, but I received no response. Such a shame, as I was all prepared to go in to bat for them on this.

So what’s the bottom line? Well, truth be told The Way I C It, WWE has no choice but to leave moves like the SSP or the vertebreaker of the weekly move sheet. The risk to them and to the performers is just too great. But there is no reason they can’t be allowed out for use at pay per views. This would restore the special feeling to the monthly events, knowing that you could see something amazing that you don’t normally get to see. Because let’s face it, right now the only difference between a PPV and Raw/Smackdown is a clean finish or a gimmick match. TNA already does this, with people like Scott Steiner saving his Frankensteiners for PPVs. It happens to a certain extent at Mania, with Brock’s SSP, Booker’s Houston Hangover, and the like in recent years. If you knew, though, that you could see a shooting star press at the next PPV, or watch someone take a DVD through a table, you’d be more psyched than normal. I know that I personally was looking for Brock’s SSP the whole match at Mania XIX, because I had heard he could do one, and I figured the only place he would ever do it would be at the granddaddy of them all.

That’s about all I have for this week. Next week, we’re back to your regularly scheduled moves column, when we look at a move that is possibly more impressive from a standing position than it is from the top. And that’s a shoot. As always, email in your guess, and the winners get to write up a nice little blurb for the column.

Is there a move you want featured? A different aspect you’d like to see addressed? Just want to vent? Drop me a line. I’m off to watch HBK-Orton.