wrestling / Columns
Lansdell’s Sunday Brunch News Report 10.12.08
Greetings, humanity! Welcome to Lansdell’s Sunday Brunch, where we’re waiting with bated breath for the Sony Xperia. Have we all had a good week? Excellent. I’m looking forward to the longness of the weekend, with tomorrow being Thanksgiving. What am I thankful for? My job, my family, my home, wrestling, being able to write about it and turkey dinner. Bring on the tryptophan! Before we go much further, allow me to summon the waiter…
Once a year WWE gives their fans a chance to influence matches whether it be choosing opponents, stipulations or outfits for the Divas. Always in previous years, fans have been able to vote as often as they pleased online. For some reason this year, WWE have seen fit to change that and only allow voting via text message at a charge of 99 cents a pop, with a cap of 10 votes per mobile number. It’s also limited to US subscribers.
I can’t figure out why they would combine all these choices. Would it have been so hard to charge international carriers? Hell, would it have been so bad to, gee I dunno, NOT CHARGE PEOPLE??? What’s next, paying for Raw? I guess Vince was down to his last hundred million. You can just see him in his jacuzzi, smoking a cigar, going “The fans love booking too, but they have to pay! Giggity!” Do I want to spend a buck to decide who HHH beats? Or who Santino flukes a win over? Like fuck I do, and even if I did I’d be screwed because I’m in Canada. And since when did text-message voting constitute “Cyber”? In the past I’ve voted for these things, simply because it cost me nothing to do so. Fuck ’em.
Rant mode off. BANNER!
The Spread~!
TNA can’t cross the line!
Fight! Fight! Fight!
The Week in Links!
Bound For Glory by the numbers!
Random Video Interlude!
JR shoots on younger wrestlers!
Espresso Shots!
NWE having an effect?
The Special of the Week!
Wallowing in Mediocrity
Days before their biggest PPV of the year, TNA gets bad ratings news. Will this influence the slew of contracts about to expire?
A few weeks ago, I started preparing to write a column on why TNA just can’t succeed. It was inspired by the episode of Impact where AJ Styles said “Um…” right in the middle of a promo, followed by dead air. This was the same promo where West and Tenay showed their ignorance by calling Saeed’s burkha a mask, and the one where there was less than 25 minutes of wrestling. I decided to give them a few more weeks before ripping them a new one, mainly because all the promos were actually building to something. The in-ring action increased, the promos got better, and I started enjoying TNA again. Unfortunately I seem to be alone.
Over the past 6 months, TNA has been the definition of consistency. The problem is that consistent mediocrity is still mediocrity. The last time Impact rose above a 1.1 rating was in March. Despite the return of Jeff Jarrett, the signing of Mick Foley, the World X Cup, more emphasis on younger stars, Samoa Joe as world champ and some intelligent storylines and pushes. This week’s Impact was their best in a while, and it did a lot of things right in terms of build to Bound for Glory, yet it scored an 0.95. We hear continuously that Spike are happy with TNA’s ratings, but they must have limits. If there’s one industry that the current economic climate should be helping, it’s television. No money? Stay home and watch TV. So why isn’t that happening? WWE’s ratings are dropping too but I’m not worried about them. If TNA get their act together then WWE will be forced to follow suit lest they lose ground. Right now Jarrett and company have to be thinking “They don’t want the old guys on top. They don’t want the young guys on top. They don’t want comedy and sex. They don’t want an emphasis on wrestling. What DO they want?”
Maybe that’s the mistake. Vince has made billions by TELLING fans what they want, and by and large it’s worked. By continuously changing his emphasis Jarrett has pissed off both the wrestling purists and the sports entertainment people. He also runs the risk of alienating some of his solid talents, who have to be getting frustrated at giving so much effort and seeing no real reward. With the contracts of Christian Cage, Robert Roode, Shelley and Sabin and others due to expire, TNA need to be wary about losing talent. Cage would be made a huge offer by Vince, likely including a guaranteed title run and probably feuds with Cena, Edge, Orton and Jericho. All of these feuds would do good business and the man would make a fortune, especially with the merchandise machine of WWE behind him. Roode has “Solid WWE midcarder” written all over him, in the vein of a Mr Perfect (though nowhere near as talented), and also could make a lot of beer money in WWE. The Machine Guns could be working Japan, RoH and the Independent circuit and would likely make more money, as well as get more of a chance to showcase themselves.
It may be the “in thing” to hate on TNA and even more so on Vince Russo, but since starting to recap Impact and watch the PPVs I realised that a lot of it is unwarranted. Sure he does some stupid shit, and sure in the very recent past he’s done it in TNA, but now it seems to be tailing off. Give these guys a chance, before McMahon gets his monopoly back.
Everybody was wrestler fightin’!
Two fights involving wrestlers make headlines
Just when wrestling was fading from notoriety, two separate events involving wrestlers over the weekend are bound to be picked up by TMZ and/or other gossip sites.
First came the report of a brawl at the hotel TNA stars are using in Chicago. A drunken man decided to pick a fight with TNA road agent and former ECW star Hack Meyers, who wasn’t backing down. The man’s wife also felt the need to step in. Homicide, Brother Devon and the security guys tried to separate the two, which prompted the classy gentleman to start using racial slurs. A glass table got broken (in an incident involving Homicide and a member of Team 3D? Life imitates art!) and the police arrested the drunken fool and his psycho hose beast wife, who reportedly was choked out and would not stop screaming even as they led her away. Daffney has no alibi for the evening.
The second incident took place at a roast of the Iron Sheik (God THAT would have been worth money). A “comedian”, and I use the term loosely, apparently commented that Bill Appter was “deader than Owen Hart”. Another report surfaced later on that claimed the statement was “Your career is falling faster than Owen Hart.”
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?
Reports differ about the identity of the guy making the remark: some say Jimmy Graham while others are saying King Kong Bundy. Some punches were thrown but no arrests were made. The real news is that Hall is very clearly NOT sober when the events took place, which you can see here and here. There’s a school of thought that says the joke was not that bad, but considering the manner of Hart’s death it doesn’t sit right with me. He couldn’t have gone with Karl Gotch? Lou Thesz? Jake Roberts?
What? Oh. My bad.
The Week In Links
After all, what’s a Sunday brunch without the paper?
The shows
Just like a TV Guide that’s a week old
Csonka’s Raw Report
Bauer’s ECW Report
Lansdell and O Do Impact
Michael O’s Smackdown Report.
Required Reading
Best of the week’s editorials
Ari takes a special CHIKARA look in the latest CoH.
Chin tells us why The Game is important.
Wilcox looks at Edge.
Cook looks at wrestling stereotypes.
Slimmer, Small and Lansdell analyse No Mercy. Instantly.
Bound for Glory Numerology
TNA’s biggest PPV of the year is tonight, and we’ve got the numbers.
J-Thom has taken over from me admirably and leads the staff in the Round Table. Me? I deal in numbers, baby.
TNA World Heavyweight Title: Samoa Joe (C) vs Sting
Jeff Jarrett vs Kurt Angle, Special Enforcer Mick Foley
Booker T vs AJ Styles vs Christian Cage
Monster’s Ball for the tag titles: Beer Money (C) vs LAX vs Deep Blue vs Team 3D, Guest referee Mongo McMichael
X Division Title – Sheik Abdul Bashir (C) vs Consequences Creed
Knockouts Title – Taylor Wilde (C) vs Awesome KONG~! vs Roxxi
The Steel Asylum Match
Knockouts Bimbo Brawl – The Beautiful People (Dat Azz Squared) and Kute Kip vs Team Fugly and Rhyno
Best. Game Intro. Ever. Only game where you can have a gimp fight a guy in a bear mask and a loincloth, then pirate vs ninja.
Damn kids with their emo and their music and their myspace.com
JR rips into the new generation of stars, and with good reason
This is so tremendous, it speaks for itself:
Listening to some young wrestlers talk amongst themselves recently, I was shocked to hear of the variety of subject matters they so “profoundly” discussed. IPods, IPhones, “I” period but nothing about wrestling, counters, submissions, paying their taxes, saving their money, hiring a financial planner, preparing for their future….you get the picture. It is easy for many of today’s wrestlers to bitch and moan about their position in their chosen profession or lack thereof and provide an overall woe is me version of their lives to whomever will listen but change for the better, or worse, starts with looking in the mirror. I walked away from this inadvertent eavesdropping shaking my head but thinking that young wrestlers are no different than young stockbrokers (bad analogy), young professionals, etc. All company’s can do a better job in putting the right tools in the hands of their people but only the people themselves can make the tools work for them. Broke and seemingly helpless wrestlers from any era can largely blame themselves for not having the common sense or discipline to prepare for their futures.
Preach it my portly palsy partner! JR is almost totally correct here. In an economic crisis period like this, people making decent money like WWE guys need to be more careful than ever with what they make. Do you really need that fifth muscle car? Isn’t a bed at Holiday Inn just as good for sleeping as one at a Four Seasons? And trust me when I say, you do NOT want to fuck with taxes. You would think that today’s younger stars would see what’s happened to people like Jake Roberts, Scott Hall and Chyna, not to mention the not-so-big former stars who we never hear about because they don’t tend to have internet connections in dumpsters outside Piggly Wiggly’s, and would learn from that. You can only spend it once, and wrestling won’t be there for you when you’re 45. Do you want to be wrestling when you’re 60 like Flair, too scared to retire because the IRS will take your home? Or would you rather be like Mick Foley, comfortable having spent virtually nothing while he wrestled?
The only thing I don’t really agree with is the part about them not talking about wrestling. I have a hard job deciding if this is kayfabe from JR, or if he really believes it. Kayfabe is dead. Talking about the business happened a lot more in wrestling’s heyday because promotions hired people who loved wrestling. These days they hire people who want to make money, travel, be on TV and get an opening to the movie business. Certainly this is not everyone, but it’s a lot of people. It could also be seen as talking about work when you’re not working, which is a great way to burn yourself out. Besides, what are they going to talk about, ways to counter the Pedigree?
One-line looks at minor news
Dolph Ziggler suspended for Wellness – Crest White Strips are on the list?
Kizarney débuted on Smackdown – Snoop Dogg is considering lizzegal acshizzun.
Kelly Kelly says no to Playboy– DAMMIT! I thought she was an exhibitionist?
Brooke Hogan says no to Playboy – Thanks be to God. Guess Hulk will have to reinstall the camera.
Nash to wrestle for NWA – When did he learn to do that?
JR thinks Flair will make a major announcement soon – Did he switch to Geico?
Never should have dropped that European Title, Vince
WWE’s European Tour hits a snag in Spain and Italy…is it Rikishi’s fault?
Long-time readers (both of them) will know that I have often touted the emergence of NWE in Europe as the next big wrestling promotion, and surmised that not only could it become a legitimate option for wrestlers released from WWE, but could also eat into WWE’s European market, absorb some smaller European Indies and maybe, just maybe, make its way to North America one day. That day might be far off yet, but news broke this week that has to be seen as an encouraging sign for Rikishi’s young promotion.On WWE’s recent European tour, attendance in Spain and Italy was down to around a third of what they’re used to. Spain and Italy are the main stomping grounds for NWE, and numerous sources in Europe are reporting that wrestling burnout is the reason for slow sales.
The fact that these fans would rather spend their money to see NWE than save it for WWE tells me that NWE are having an effect and are shaking things up. I haven’t seen their product but the roster has some talent on it and they have managed to bring in some decent to big names. If they can continue to march west through Europe and can pick up some British talent on the way, they could have something big.
That’s it for this week, boys and girls. As I write I am watching my Canadiens destroy Randle’s Leafs. Oh it is so sweet. Speaking of Randle, he’s in tomorrow along with Cook, Clark and JP. We’ll have Cheers ‘n’ Jeers and PPV coverage tonight. For now, this is…
Lansdellicious – Out.
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