Not An Evolution Schematic 11.22.08: The Hardy Boys Mystery.

See, this is why I don’t do straight opinion much. I tend to always be surprised with what people disagree with me about, and I feel the need to respond to all criticisms. And some times that’s hard. Take, for example, Memo to Marks last week, who claimed that Regal isn’t over, in so many words. He’s not over with the average fan.

Now, on some level I can understand that that’s technically an opinion, and thus I respect the writer’s right to have it, it’s still a similar statement to such claims as ‘Miz & Morrison aren’t entertaining’ or ‘Victoria’s not sexy’ or ‘I believe in Creationism’ or ‘Obama is totally experienced enough to be President’. I don’t really know how to respond, apart from just saying, well, you’re wrong.

I respect your rights to believe it, but still, by all logic, reason and evidence… You’re wrong. Totally.

See how egotistical that looks? And the last thing I want to be is egotistical, not when that role is already filled by (insert your least favourite 411 writer here).

As for the other comments:

Homie: Yes, Honky being involved in the end of the Honk-O-Meter would have been desirable, but WWE can’t or won’t do that sort of long term angle anymore, and I think even the most ardent HOM fan would have tired of it by then.

Scott B: Yes, Santino is a comedy act. But he’s also bloody over, more than any other heel on Raw not holding the World Title nor a fan of kicking people in the head. Being a comedy act does not automatically mean you can’t work a good angle. Honky Tonk Man fits your description pretty well, and yet his reign worked. Santino spent every week for a few months hyping the hell out of the IC belt, which is about 4th on the pecking order in the WWE right now. It’s never going to be the #2 belt overall again, but at least, unlike say the tag belts, they guy holding it clearly wanted to be the champ. Nowadays, that’s pretty good. Besides, if you’re really so damm pissy, why focus on the past dark days and instead focus on the new champ?

And you compared Santino to the worst booking of the past decade, and you’re complaining about insults?

Johnny Kinard: Good point about his moveset, but that’s more a generic WWE problem then one Santino has exclusively. But still, finisher first, then the moveset can develop.

Michael: Ah yes, when in doubt break out a Russo insult. But I won’t hold that against you, because you do kinda make a good point. His in ring work (for whatever reason) sucks, but that’s the booking issue. WWE sees that he’s good on the mic, so they push him on that alone. Part of my logic for putting him on ECW is that ECW, right now, is the best booked brand/fed on TV right now, and thus I think he’ll do better there than on Raw.

The Great Capt. Smooth: Well, you may get your wish, depending on who turns on who in the break-up.

dav: The Goldberg streak, while inflated, wasn’t totally made up, see my ES (Part 1) on Goldberg. The comedic option wasn’t lost on me though.

StanleytheManly: Absolutely, the gimmick (much like Cena’s) does mean he can’t show off his talent, if he still has it. Again, working with Matt Hardy can only help him either get a chance to show it off or develop a style consistent with the character but still having an edge.

guest: Well, since Stevie’s gone, they could certainly do worse. Personally, if they had to pick someone for the job, I’d give it to Howard Finkel.

What?

Meta: Not if you’re using a leave in conditioner.

theHomewrecker!: Thanks for the backup.

Groinman: The inverted commas were there to point out the logically gap Santino would have to use. It was, after all, the ‘ECW World Television Title’ and thus, technically, was a world title. And even if I’m wrong on that score, Santino’s not going to let reality get in his way.

Oscar: MITB is a good thing, having a non-entrant win it would seriuosuly de-value it. At least wait until it’s firmly established (one more heel winning it should be enough) before you do something like that. But Santino blowing the chance is funny. And the streak… It is something, but not the best something they could use, you know?

Guest#4247: Ok, I might be a little hard on the Rolling Cutter, but the longer time fans will hopefully back me up by saying that soon after it debuted, every man and his dog was using it, PLUS every second call up from WWE developmental seemed to use it. Regardless, it’s still not fitting him.

Ok, that all? Let’s talk Hardys.

(Before we begin, a note I somehow left out of last week’s column. Quick question for you. D’Lo Brown is over, for a given value of the term. Why? His talent? Hardly equates to overness nowadays. His longevity? Again, not an issue usually in today’s world. I’m not even going into anything to do with his skin tone. No, I wager that the reason D’Lo is over, mostly, is residual heat from his chest protector gimmick which led to his Euro and IC reigns. That was nearly a decade ago, and yet it’s still having an impact today, in that he’s over, pretty much because he got to that point because of that gimmick. And who was it that both gave him that gimmick AND felt it was important that everyone have a gimmick, not just the upper guys? The devil incarnate himself, Vince Russo. Just food for thought.)

So, right now, Matt and Jeff Hardy are both high up the card, in slightly different positions. Matt Hardy is ECW Champion, supposedly the third highest guy in the company, with a solid push, TV time, lots of fan support, great match after great match and basically proving all the doubters way back when wrong, he’s moved on from his past love life issues and is now living his dream.

Whereas Jeff seems to be stuck in some bizarre level of purgatory. He’s one of the most over guys on the roster, is teetering on breaking through to the main event for good, but is being held back by worries about his commitment and his issues with drugs. This has led to his current direction, which appears to be trying to make him… I really don’t know. Tweener appears to be where they are aiming for, they want to make him a little wilder, perhaps to give them an on-air excuse for why they fire him to tell the kids.

Regardless of the aim, I personally feel the angle and new direction is a bad move. Simply put, in these times of economic crunch and uncertainty, the last thing WWE should be doing is messing about with one of their most popular, merchandise moving talents.

That is not to say Jeff should get a free pass, but anything that might make kids less likely to cheer and buy Jeff Hardy’s stuff should be frowned upon. But of course, then you run into the issue of can you trust Jeff? He’s liable to get frustrated if you jerk him around too long, and he’s always one strike away from an embarrassing release.

So what do you do? You can’t mess with his kid fan base, but you need to keep him happy and, let’s be honest, try and find a storyline that’s compelling for us fans who have hit puberty, since that’s part of the problem, he’s lost enough chances to ruin his drawing power. Although that hardly stopped Batista, but that’s another story for another day.

So WWE appears to be stuck, trying to pull the guy in too many directions at once, enough so that he’s bound to snap sooner or later. However, there is a way out, and ironically enough, it’s one that WWE had but for some reason hated.

During his last reign as WWE Champion, John Cena was one of the most over guys in the company. He was pretty much at the top of the list in terms of being a beloved babyface. And at the same time, he was near the top of the list of being a despised heel. It was (mostly) neatly split down the middle, kids and women loved him, men hated him. And both would by tickets to watch his matches, in the hopes of seeing him win or lose, depending on your age and sex.

And ironically enough, both the WWE and the IWC were up in arms about this. The WWE tried everything in their power to make us men love him (which they’ve now sorta half accomplished by his absences and then having him job a whole bunch of times) while the IWC, every week, was bitching and moaning about how the WWE should turn him heel, to ‘capitalize’ on all the heat he had.

Both opinions, frankly, were and still are short-sighted. Why is it such a bad thing if one guy gets two different reactions? Sure, it doesn’t make for neat, simple TV, but it does make for interesting, unusual TV. And you got the best of both worlds, in that you drew both markets strongly, kids bought his stuff while adults went along to watch him get beat up. Not in huge, record breaking numbers, but certainly in acceptable numbers for a main event talent nowadays.

But this idea that the audience must have one, and precisely one, reaction to a guy is weird, in that the best wrestlers and stables in history drew mixed reactions all the time. Horsemen, now, they were as much respected and adored as they were hated and feared. The Attitude Era, the single biggest drawing period in wrestling history, was centered around people being allowed to cheer whoever the hell they liked, in WWF and ECW at least.

Now I’m not suggesting we revert to Russo’s ‘Shades of Grey’ mentality, because to apply that on a grand scale requires a lot of skill, a lot of talent (both in front of and behind the camera) and one solid heel/face angle to run on top to allow everything else to be less needed (with Austin/McMahon drawing the numbers, you could experiment a lot more with the undercard). Russo has proven that without all these factors, SOG is confusing and boring.

But why can’t you allow mixed reactions to go down, and use them? Especially when it’s so easy. All you have to do is turn the Hardys Super Face.

Make Jeff and Matt the most dominate tag team in history. Have Jeff win the ECW title off of whoever Matt loses it to, then Matt wins the WWE title, or give Jeff the US while Matt keeps the ECW, and give them the tag belts, and push the duo hard as unstoppable and good. Matt redeems his brother, and they just dominate everyone who steps up to the plate. (This prevents them having to feud since they’ve proven that they can’t do hatred between the two of them, and allows Matt to hang around and keep his brother more in line backstage). Pretty soon, since the IWC is already pretty close to hating Jeff for various reasons, coupled with their new supermen push, they’d draw a negative reaction from the guys, even while the kids love them since they’re winning all the time and fighting bad guys all the time.

(If you really want to get the IWC/Men [let’s face it, they’re fairly interchangeable really] ticked off, have them win the tag titles in this fashion. Announce an episode of Smackdown will have Smackdown Slots, ala Raw Roulette. On the ECW prior, have a preview Slots match, a tag title match between the Colons and Chavo/Bam or someone. The Colons spin up ‘Strange Bedfellows’, and thus their opponents become randomly chosen. It turns out to be CM Punk and Scotty Goldman, who then win the belts. The men go into joy overload at this Second City Saints reunion/the idea of Punk being a dual champ. But at the SD taping after ECW, have the Hardys just crush the ‘thrown together’ team to win the belts. That’ll get the IWC pissy.)

But for this to work, you need a tag team that can stand up to the Hardys for the men to get behind. A team that is clearly heel to the kids, but cool enough for the IWC to want to see beat the Hardys down.

Enter Edge and Christian.

Reunited when Christian comes over from Raw where he had been a face, the brothers turn and beat down the Hardys, and a decade after their breakthrough ladder match (Wow, I feel old), the Hardy/E&C war begins anew, with the fans split down the middle, but tuning in every week regardless.

Mixed reactions are great, it’s the no reaction that’s the problem. There are issues with this idea (namely, it seems to make Jeff more integral and thus less easy to fire. And while in the short term that’s true, hopefully his solid push keeps him happy short term, long enough till the mixed reaction is established and the Hardy/E&C feud begins, at which point if he has to go, E&C can take him out and then you can go into E&C vs. Matt and, I dunno, John Cena…), but it’s better than risking Jeff’s merchandise sales.

Hey, it can’t be all what’s the best story or best talent you know.