The Way I C It 3.31.08: WrestleMania Hangover Edition

You know, I imagine that if most of us were in his position, namely banging the boss’s hot daughter, we would do a lot of things the same as HHH has. Title runs? Sure, why not? Lots of face time? Well, it makes money. Go to great lengths to get myself over and stay there? Hey, if the fans like it, go ahead. There was a period in wrestling where HHH dominated everyone and everything on WWE programming, destroying every credible threat to “his” title. RVD, Booker T, Orton, Jericho…and when someone came along that good old Dad wouldn’t let him squash, he made his own belt. I have not defended these actions, nor will I. I also won’t bash him for beer-ying Goldberg (who only signed short-term) or Steiner (who was a loose wire waiting for a pool of water). Even the constant beer-ial of the Spirit Squad is somewhat excusable…they just weren’t ready.

Things changed, though. HHH disappeared for a while, others got over, and when he came back he stayed away from the title hunt. At one point, and I wish I could remember the exact circumstances, he lost a match that had a stipulation saying he would never get another title shot if he lost. He put over Jeff Hardy, clean I might add, and despite not giving Umaga a win in their feud, he made him look strong. People still bitched about him hogging the spotlight, but he was not holding the title (with the exception of a 2-hour reign at No Mercy) and was not getting any more face time than Cena, Hornswoggle or Edge.

Even though HHH lost last night, that was never going to be the reason for this rant.

On their roster, or in their employ, WWE has Dusty Rhodes, Arn Anderson, and unless something drastic happened recently, Ricky Steamboat. They also have Reid Flair in developmental, and are not on bad terms with Tully Blanchard, JJ Dillon, David Flair and Harley Race. Hell, for something this big, they might even have been able to get Sting, although that’s a big stretch. So tell me: With all of those (arguably) better choices available to them…WHY did TRIPLE bloody H get to induct Ric Flair???

Someone has to tell this guy that it’s OK to take a back seat occasionally. I get that Flair is his hero, but dammit he’s the hero of half the professional wrestlers alive today! I get that banging Steph comes with privileges, but they have to make sense, man! HHH is the most over face on the roster, so him winning titles or dominating the shows at least makes sense. In this case, he’s just using his status to get what he wants, and that right there makes me sorry I ever spoke a word in support of the man. Would it have been so hard, if HHH absolutely HAD to be there, to have more than one person induct him? For a name like Flair, it wouldn’t have been wrong. Hell, Dusty had 2 people!

Triple H remains a very talented wrestler and performer. He has an ego, but so do all the greats, and until now I’ve been willing to overlook it. No more.

Rant mode off. I hope everyone enjoyed the spectacle last night as much as I did. Given that Mania ended almost all the angles in WWE, I have a very small portion of WWE to bring you. For my thoughts on Mania, along with those of Slimmer, Minotti, and drunken JT and Small (paint your own mental picture!) you can check out the Instant Analysis right here. Also due to the PPV, this column is going to be somewhat shorter than normal. Are we all sitting comfortably? Then let’s begin!

The Way I C The E

Just some random observations from me this week, as I can sum up every angle like this: We built to WrestleMania.

If, as has been suggested, Jericho goes to Smackdown post-Mania and feuds with MVP, I cannot wait for the inevitable Edge-Jericho feud. I can’t remember them feuding before, which means it’s one of the last fresh big feuds WWE has, and both Edge and Smackdown need some freshness like a teenage girl walking down the beach talking with her mother about Summer’s Eve.

When Jericho kicked Punk to end the match on Raw, I thought we were heading for a post-match brawl, but they just went to commercial. How anti-climactic. I would have enjoyed watching Jericho and MVP going to sleep. Did I mention I’m a Punk mark?

Technically, with Khali being taller than Big Show and only 10lbs lighter, isn’t KHALI the biggest athlete on the planet? I know we’re not supposed to think, but this one just seems obvious…

As a wrestling journalist, it is my job to talk about what happened on wrestling shows. Normally this doesn’t present a problem. Sometimes I have difficulty finding the right words to adequately describe a move, an atmosphere, or a match overall. Never before have I been so profoundly speechless over a promo. Michaels and Flair are two of the best on the mic, we knew this going into the feud. But never before have I experienced the raw passion and intensity that they both brought to that…absolutely incredible confrontation. It started off like most other promos, and the pacing and intensity just built and built until…WHAM, Michaels drops it right back down to first gear and walks away, not needing to spoil it with the super kick we all thought was coming. Pity is far more damaging to Flair’s ego than an attack would have been. The only thing that hurt it was Jim Ross staying loud and hyped up after the Mayweather clip. They should have had Ross and Lawler go quiet and subdued, as they’ve done before for much lesser promos, and THEN done the Mayweather stuff before heading to commercial. Byers and I were discussing Raw on MSN, and as he’s in the US and I’m in Canada where we have a 15 minute delay, he saw the promo long before me. He warned me not to switch off during Khali-Holly (and I wanted to SO MUCH), and was marking out like 10-year-olds at a joint Cena/Hannah Montana autograph signing. Once I saw it, we both agreed: End voting for Promo of the Year. It’s over.

The Way I C The T

I have to weigh in on Robbiegate. As soon as I read the caption I thought “Oh SNAP!” and posted to 3 different places. Since then I have been alternating between thinking he is an idiot, thinking WWE are tyrants, and thinking TNA are assholes. In reality, all 3 probably apply. TNA should have known that showing him on air would jeopardise his career, and should have had more respect for the man and his family. Robbie should have known better and either stayed backstage like Shannon and Chavo, or not gone at all. No way he and Johnny Devine, who he allegedly went to see, are closer than Chavo and Hector, or Edge and Christian. When were they shown on camera? Oh that’s right: THEY WEREN’T! And of course, WWE should not have put their employees in the impossible position of being so near to family and friends who they have not seen for a while, and yet tell them not to talk to them. It’s like putting a fat kid in a room with a Big Mac and telling him not to touch. Regardless, the next time we see Groundskeeper Robbie (don’t pretend you never thought of it!) will be on an episode of “Bart’s People” saying “I used to be Robbie!”

For a show that TNA had been hyping as “huge”, and their “biggest Impact ever”, it was a letdown. I can’t help but feel that the Storm run-in only happened because they were live and knew they could get away with a surprise for a change. It’s not like they’re going to make the teams 5 on 5…Otherwise, the main event was pretty paint-by-numbers PPV hype, although it was too close to giving away the PPV main for free.

More fantastic work between Booker and Roode. You almost feel like they legit hate each other. I love the booking of Roode as a non-chicken shit heel. Booker’s promo was OK…normally I’m as big a fan of intense Booker as I am of intense Angle, but he fell over a couple of parts and it killed the atmosphere a bit. This angle is still one of the best on TV right now and long may it reign. Shame they had to put them in a gimmick match on free TV, but I guess they wanted big stuff for the live show.

You have to wonder if the bookers could hear the crowd going nuts for Shelley. The use of the Codebreaker by mid-carders continues as Shelley busted it out this week. Like I said from day 1, not a great choice of finisher of Jericho. Not that he’s used it much. The jobbing out of the Guns continued after a very good match and a double underhook piledriver for the finish, which was a pleasant surprise. Regarding the Guns, I read a very interesting comment elsewhere on the site, which I feel deserves to be highlighted:

TNA only books this way so you people will have something to bitch about. IT’S
WRESTLING PEOPLE! It’s not supposed to be totally believable. Guys like MCMG’s
are so over with the fanboys they don’t need a push. You are buying their merch
without it!
Posted By: wrestling fan for 30+ years (Guest) on March 30, 2008 at 02:27 PM

Interesting take, that people should not necessarily be pushed just because they are over. The live crowd in the Impact Zone were off the hook loud, and this is despite weeks of Gun-jobbing. You need people in your midcard to be over, or nobody will watch anything but the main event. WWE would do well to notice that.

ANOTHER Machismo-SoCal segment, lifting weights this time, and we all know where this is leading….Sonjay walks off with Val leaving Machismo with the weights on his chest. What got to me was this exchange:
Val: What are you doing here?
Sonjay: I don’t know…
If that doesn’t sound like a TNA bookers’ meeting, I don’t know what does.

On a side note, TNA have to be smarting that at that 1.0 rating from their first foray into live. It seems like no matter what they do, TNA cannot draw in new viewers.

The Way U C Me

Chris Jacobs is back via email:

Yeah the punishment should be over, I agree with that, but you never about the attitude of these guys. Maybe they havent changed, and are now just bitter with the punishment. They just need to get their act together. I liked MCMG, and I wish them the best, but wrestling needs to lose the ego problems, ecspecially if you are just a bunch of glorified indy guys

TNA is a glorified Indy right now, so they should feel right at home. I accept your point that we don’t know what the Guns are like backstage, and if they truly have learned nothing from the jobbing, then perhaps they do need more of it. The thing is, it doesn’t seem to be making a difference with the fans, and all reports say that the fans are the only thing Shelley and Sabin care about. As for wrestling losing ego problems…the biggest and best performers of all time have been walking ego problems: Shawn, Flair, Hogan, Nash. Getting rid of them altogether is counter-productive, but newcomers need to be put in their places.

About the SM on Punk’s bandage, I’m pretty sure it was meant for Joe since his
birthday was last Monday.
Posted By: soulpower (Guest) on March 24, 2008 at 12:58 PM

So it would seem. I still think it would have been funny had it been Santino’s birthday though.

The Mid Card wasn’;t buried,they ought to have benn just happoy they were even
in a Raw main Event w/ 2 of the 3 guys in the Mania Main Event,they all should
begged to get an RKO or Fu in that match.I mean c,mon,Duggan or Kendrick are
too big to take one of them moves????

Posted By: Greg (Guest) on March 24, 2008 at 02:24 PM

Not at all. They’re not too big to lose, but beating them with one move each (except DH Smith, strangely enough) sends the message that they are nowhere near the level of Cena and Orton and never will be. Basically, the result was fine, the execution sucked. Take a look at Flair: no matter who he beat, he always made them look great in defeat. Like Ric says in his book: If you make your opponent look like a chump, you look less impressive when you beat them. It’s a bit of a loaded comparison because Flair was never faced with 17 guys at once, but that’s part of my point: the situation should not have arisen, and given that it did, the mass pile-on and beatdown should have come a lot sooner, when more guys were there to do it. Here’s how I would have booked it:

Santino, Super Crazy and Duggan get beaten easily. After brief flurries, DH Smith and Val Venis get pinned. Everyone else piles in and attacks. In the brawl, JBL hits Umaga, who goes nuts and starts killing people. Cena or Orton slips out to get a chair, and clears the ring of everyone else until Umaga catches him. BATSITA comes out and fights down the aisle with Umaga, while HHH comes and does his thing. That way, your comedy heel and 2 jobbers get squashed, 2 other jobbers get beaten, and nobody you want to build looks bad.

Back to throw my hat into the ring again…

Posted By: ausjimmy (Guest) on March 25, 2008 at 05:28 AM

Once again you have made some excellent choices, although I’m going to have to say no to Finlay, as he is not British. We could slide the kayfabed Piper in there, or Robbie Brookside at a push. I’m drooling at the thought of the tag match and the scramble cage though.

“kong kills bitches dead” LOL
thanks for featuring hamada vs kong by the way, it’s from my Youtube channel

Posted By: kapengmabula (Guest) on March 26, 2008 at 01:17 AM

Burchill is a fine choice for a mini-push, don’t get me wrong. I just think it’s a waste of time to bring Jericho back and have him putting everyone over without winning anything himself.

Anyone who enjoyed the Joshi column really should check out kapengmabula’s YouTube channel. Some incredible and awesome matches on there. Toyota vs Kong is an formidable feud and produced a great series of matches, better than almost anything in North America from men OR women.

The Olympic plan is taking a week off while everyone is still suffering a WrestleMania hangover. With that said, that’s pretty much game, set and match boys and girls. Keep an eye out for more me on this week’s Buy or Sell, and coming soon, a video review column from yours truly.