The WhoThinks Friday FreeThinks? 10.10.08

Welcome to the start of the weekend folks, and thanks again for tuning in for your regularly scheduled week-end dose of intrawebz’ rasslin optimism (minus most of the optimism). This is indeed the Friday FreeThinks, but as you can tell, this is certainly not Meehan. Good Sir John was held up this week with various real-life matters that needed his urgent attention, so I’m going to pinch hit for him and step in to try to make this as seamless as possible. For those of you who don’t know me, I started out here in the MMA zone and took over doing the AWA and UWF shows on EPSN Classic before those started to dry up. I may not be chock full of wrestling knowledge like Meehan and some of the guys, but I still have an opinion and I’m glad to get the chance to share it. And for those of you who end up hating this, it’s only for one week, so cut me a little slack. Alright, enough with the pleasantries, let’s get to the NEWDS!!! Let’s get started with the lovely MARIA!!

Wait….I’m sorry…hang on just a second…Larry’s informed me that I have signed on to do a NEWS report fill-in. Well, I think most of my content can still be salvaged.

Onward and upward!

The Doghouse:
None

Notes: As far as I know, it doesn’t seem like anyone is in the doghouse this week. Things are all quiet on the wrestling front. Perhaps a little too quiet. Where’s the bickering and pissing and moaning about character direction that I have come to crave on a nearly daily basis? -Sigh- I’m sure when Meehan comes back next week there will have been tons of guys that got buried, but for me this one’s a miss.

The Debuts:
FCW Wrestling (TV Show)

Notes: While this may not be a debut of a wrestler per se, it’s still a debut as we saw the first edition of Florida Championship Wrestling on the Bright House Sports Network in Florida. This is both good and bad for the developmental, which is currently the only developmental that the WWE is employing. The good is that they can finally get the guys that they’re grooming for the future some time on television and that can only serve to help them in the future. The bad is that the network doesn’t really have a lot of clearance and it’s doubtful that a lot of people are even going to see these shows. I’ll still never understand why they moved away from OVW, which they sunk a ton of effort into and built into a great territory with solid TV and a touring loop that let guys get better both in the ring and on the microphone through work, work and more work. Ah well, it’s still fun to think that a Florida Championship Wrestling program is back on the air. Memories…like the corners of my mind…

The Departures:
Matt Striker (ECW)

Notes: This is more of a one-off deal as Striker missed the No Mercy pay-per-view last Sunday due to the death of his father. I feel safe in speaking for the entire 411 community that we offer up our sincere condolences to Striker in this very difficult time.

The Drama:
None

Notes: No real drama to speak of it looks like either. I’m starting to feel more and more like Meehan might have just decided to bail on a slow news week and take some sweet-ass vacation somewhere.

The Disabled List:
The Boogeyman (ECW) – Returning From A Torn Calf Muscle and Dental Surgery Soon
Chris Jericho (RAW) – Broken Tooth Suffered in World Heavyweight Championship Ladder Match at No Mercy
Shawn Michaels (RAW) – General Aches And Pains Suffered During World Heavyweight Championship Ladder Match At No Mercy

Notes: Boogey was sidelined and has been out of action for quite some time, but he’s back and he has the return vignettes to prove it. Say what you will about his in-ring work or the general lameness of the whole idea, you’ve got to respect the man’s dedication to his character. Now if we could just figure out a way for him to worm Glamarella.

In regards to Jericho, the injury looks like it’s a pretty painful, though somewhat superficial one. He’s not expected to miss much more than the show he missed on Monday night when he was GM. Michaels gutted it out through the aches and pains and competed the following night on RAW, though one has to wonder when his body will finally give out on him. I’m not hoping for it because I love Michaels work in the ring and out, but it’s feeling like he’s living on borrowed time after coming back from what many thought was a career-ending back injury. Here’s hoping he heals up and stays healthy for the long-term

Mr. Lipton? I Have A Mr. McMahon On Line One…

The news was reported earlier in the week that one Vincent Kennedy McMahon was seemingly unhappy with the acting being done by his contracted talent across the board on WWE programming. While I have to laugh at the fact that someone like Vince, who is usually a horrible actor when he’s on-screen, is the one that is bringing up this argument, he does bring up a somewhat valid point. Outside of some guys who are TV All-Stars like Chris Jericho, Shawn Michaels and Triple H, and some Not-Quite-Ready-For-Primetime Players like Jamie Noble (I have loved his stuff even from back in his days with Nidia as his trailer park queen) and Santino Marella, a lot of the acting on the program in backstage segments is hard to watch.

I’m going to begin by talking about the Divas, but rest assured, I’m not going to single out the women alone. However, they seem to be the major culprits when it comes to bad acting most times. Kelly Kelly, Candace Michelle, Michelle McCool, etc. are usually death whenever they are on-camera and either cutting a promo or doing one of those cutesy “we don’t see the camera” backstage segments. They come off as being both vapid and wooden for the most part and there is never anything that happens during them that is vaguely memorable. I’m not blaming them squarely or suggesting that this is a recent development, because even back when the Divas were a hot ticket in the days of Trish, Lita, Ivory and that ilk, their backstage segments were just as intolerable. For most, if not all of these women, acting classes should be just as mandatory as their Playboy photo shoots.

When it comes to new talent that are making their debuts in the WWE, they’re becoming blander and blander by the day. I think that guys like Cody Rhodes, Ted Dibiase, Kofi Kingston and others have very bright futures ahead of them, but right now their backstage segments are terrible and there’s no reason to feel emotionally invested in any of them. There is a huge difference between cutting a promo, which is a comfort zone for most wrestlers, and delivering lines of dialogue in what is essentially a scene, something that most wrestlers don’t do a lot of at anytime before breaking into wrestling. When these guys are forced to recite lines like they’re in a ninth-grade production of Hamlet (“Frailty, thy name is Orton”), it is just difficult to watch and usually results in me reaching for the DVR’s fast forward button.

Dolph Ziggler and his “introduction” bits are not much better because there just doesn’t seem to be any real rhyme or reason to them. He just kind of pops up, does his spiel, and then disappears again. That reminds me a lot of the way things were in the Attitude era, when stuff that worked was ridden hard and stuff that didn’t just kind of kept getting crammed down people’s throats before it disappeared. I wouldn’t be shocked if Ziggler debuts, wins a couple of matches, stagnates and then falls off the brand again. His character seems bland, forced,unimaginative and as phony as his hair color.

While some of this problem is based on the talent and their acting ability, or lack thereof, a lot of it speaks to the writing of the program as well. Part of why guys like Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Shawn Michaels, and performers of that vein have been able to get as far over as they have is because they are merely portraying themselves. You’ve heard that Jim Cornette adage a million times about how the best characters are guys who play themselves with the dial cranked to eleven. It’s true because it works and has a proven track record of working. When wrestlers are able to be comfortable in their own skin, acting as themselves, rather than trying to perpetuate a gimmick that is foreign or uncomfortable to them, their performance becomes…MORE BELIEVABLE!! I’m just as shocked as you all are. Really.

If the WWE and Vince specifically is looking for the acting on their programs to improve, they need to begin to move back away from having to have everyone either be a “character” or duller than dishwater and just let a lot of these guys be themselves. The idea of having promos pre-scripted is terrible because it sucks all the believability out of what the guy cutting the promo is saying. When you’re struggling to think of your lines, it shows and it usually looks piss-poor. When you’re going through bullet points and you’re able to fill in your own words while still getting the key points across, it looks a lot more normal and less stilted than a lot of the younger guys promos are nowadays. Give these guys a chance to sink or swim on their own when it comes to the mic and acting. They’ve obviously shown talent in the ring to get as far as they have in the business, and I think that it would be highly likely that given the chance to act as themselves rather than something they’ve been shoehorned into, the resulting segments and promos would be a whole hell of a lot better than what we’ve been getting these days.

WWE One-Timers

Yes, tonight is the start of hockey season, which is why I decided to use a hockey term instead of some pithy wrestling name for the quick little news bits I’m looking to hit on here.

Smackdown looks to have done a 2.4 fast national rating on Friday night. WWE is very happy with that number as it is by far the highest rated show in the history of MyNetworkTV.

This is good news for the WWE as there was some worry about gloom and doom on the ratings front with the move to MyNetworkTV, which apparently has a little less clearance and a LOT less of a national profile than the CW had. Fans were expecting the worst when they saw the ratings for the WrestleMania 24 special, but it appears as if those worries were somewhat premature. Whether WWE can maintain these ratings or even possibly grow them is what we need to keep our eye on moving forward.

Kelly Kelly has denied rumors that she will be posing for Playboy. She posted the following on her MySpace page.

“I finally have a chance to set the record straight…I’m not posing for Playboy..nothing against Playboy at all but I don’t know who is posing for Playboy but it won’t be me. I just want to concentrate on wrestling right now.”

Do you hear that sound? It’s rather quiet, but all over the world, you can hear 14-year-old wrestling fans crying into their mother’s copies of Cosmopolitan. Granted, this isn’t huge news for us adult-types who end up inundated with porn of all kinds on a daily basis in our internet travels, for the younger types who would have loved to see it, this is probably pretty crushing. I won’t lie, I’m disappointed too, but I tend to hate the Playboy work because those pictures are usually so re-touched and airbrushed that they barely look human.

INTERMISSION

Remember that there’s no telling what can happen in this crazy world. The next hobo on the sidewalk that you give a sandwich to could become a future WWF Intercontinental Champion, WWF Heavyweight Champion, and King of Professional Wrestling.

FREAK OUT FREAK OUT!!!!!

Bound For……Glory??

TNA’s answer to Wrestlemania, Bound For Glory will hit the airwaves on Sunday night and here’s the full card.

Samoa Joe vs. Sting for the TNA Title
Jeff Jarrett vs. Kurt Angle f/ Mick Foley
Taylor Wilde vs. Awesome Kong vs. Roxxi for the TNA Knockouts Title
Beer Money Inc. vs. LAX vs. Team 3D vs. Abyss & Matt Morgan in a Monster’s Ball TNA Tag Team Titles Match with Steve “Mongo” McMichael as the special referee
Christian Cage vs. AJ Styles vs. Booker T
Sheik Abdul Bashir vs. Consequences Creed for the TNA X-Division Title
Steel Cage Asylum match featuring X-Division wrestlers

Meh.

I’m sorry, but this just doesn’t look like a supercard to me. I realize that TNA is doing the best with what they have, and the Angle/Jarrett match is intriguing because of the Foley aspect and the fact that, to my knowledge, they’ve never worked with each other before. Everything else on the card though just kind of ends up looking like it could be on a regular TNA pay-per-view.

If we’re looking for other positives in the card, it would be that Sting should hopefully be putting over Samoa Joe to cement his status as the man within TNA, the X-Division Steel Cage Asylum match should be an insanely spotterrific spottastic spotacopia of spots, and the Monster’s Ball match should be pretty good considering that three of the teams don’t suck. I’ll let you guess which team is the one that does suck, but I’ll be nice enough to give you a hint. Their name rhymes with Beam Free G. There is a lot on this card to look forward to, so I’ll give TNA credit for that.

However, this is supposed to be their showcase. Their WrestleMania. And as I said before, a lot of these matches don’t seem very special. Part of that lies in the fact that TNA doesn’t have a roster full of huge superstars that you can just mix and match and end up with a Wrestlemania-eque card. Granted, even WrestleMania tends to have some dogs, but as I said before, a lot of this doesn’t look any different than what most TNA pay-per-view cards look like. To me the thing that seems missing more than anything else is the “big-event” feel that comes with WrestleMania. I realize that it’s going to take TNA some time to get that feeling for their show, but they also have to do things on their own to make it stand out.

WrestleMania 24 was barely in the bag and already ads were starting to slowly creep into WWE programming hyping up WrestleMania 25. By the time we hit November or December, I would fully expect that there will already be ads counting down, and highlights whetting our appetite for, the second incarnation of the “Grandaddy of Em All” (I’m sorry, I say the second because the first will always be Starrcade to me, sue me). WrestleMania makes moments that last a lifetime and moments that people remember for years and years. TNA needs to go the extra mile to make people feel like this is a year-ender, that this is the culmination of everything that the product has to offer before they turn the page and begin anew. They’ve failed to do that and failed to make it stand out on its own, so while it may end up being an excellent show, it will end up being just another show that is largely forgotten in two or three months.

TNA One-Timers

TNA has signed a new TV deal with 52MX in Mexico. The channel will air Impact on Saturdays at 1:30pm and 6:00pm, as well as on Sundays at 11:30am and 4:30pm.

Good news for TNA on the heels of the WWE getting TV clearance in Mexico as well. Granted, it’s not on as high a profile as the WWE’s deal appears to be, but they’re getting plenty of airtime with 52MX, and anything that gets your product more exposure can never be viewed as a bad thing.

Details of TNA’s new drug policy were handed out to the talent at the last tapings. The policy is said to be similar to WWE’s. As far as penalties, all that is known right now is that the first punishment is a 30-day suspension with no pay; the second is a “more severe punishment.

It’s about damn time. Nearly a year and a half after the WWE instituted their Wellness Policy, TNA is finally appearing to get on board and have something in place to keep their wrestlers off of drugs. Whether anything sticks or if this is just a piece of paper isn’t known yet, but I’m hoping that this is something that has teeth to it. I realize that TNA is in a trickier position than the WWE with fewer stars and less opportunities to write storylines around suspensions, but in the end they have to remember that this is for the good and health of their workers. Expect a few guys in TNA to look like they’ve been shrunk in a dryer in the coming months if this policy is legit.

Sting has either verbally agreed too or already signed a deal to stay with the company through the end of 2009. The company would love to do something next August with Ric Flair, when his non-compete clause with WWE ends.

If Sting is sticking around to help put over guys and maybe do something with Flair that didn’t involve them getting into a match, it’s all good. If Sting signed just so he and Flair could have their 2,348th “FINAL MATCH EVAR”, then it’s just wrong. Flair went out on the ultimate of high notes, and it would be a shame to see him risk that by wrestling again in TNA. And to end up using Sting in that instance rather than working with younger talent that need the rub would be a waste of more of TNA’s money.

I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on this little nugget of news that passed through the 411 offices this week.

Shari Tyree, ex-wife of Warrior “Ultimate Warrior” Warrior, is going around trying to sell the book rights of her memoir which is mostly about her marriage to Warrior and is titled “Behind the Paint; My Life with Wrestling’s Ultimate Warrior.” The pitch for the book is below.

Hellwig continues to be a media personality, even outside the wrestling ring, making frequent personal appearances to espouse his anti-gay, anti-drug ideals.

Where do I pre-order this sucker?? Honestly, I haven’t been this excited for a wrestling book in a long, long time. That even covers the Bret Hart book. If this thing is filled with even half of the Hellwig-burying greatness that the WWE-produced DVD, this could be the most hilarious book in the history of the written word. I love the fact that it also suggests that Warrior may have been into the men after his rather hate-filled rants against “queers”. That just gives me more than enough reason to bust out these two treats.

And With That, I’m Outta’ Here

I’m off to head back to my regular gig at Nokaut.com, and I’d like thank Larry and Meehan for letting me step in to take over this gig for a week. It was fun getting to write about my favorite hobby, pro wrestling, which I haven’t been able to do in nearly a month after losing out on new episodes of the AWA and UWF shows. Meehan will be back next week, so for all of you underwhelmed with this week’s offering, there is light at the end of the tunnel. I’ll see ya when I see ya.