The Wrestling News Experience: 08.27.12

Monday, August 27th, 2012

From 411Mania’s Canadian offices in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, this is The Wrestling News Experience, with Stephen Randle!

I Can’t Count The Reasons I Should Stay

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Experience. I am Stephen Randle, and when your tiny ray of hope in a lost season gets two at-bats before going back on the disabled list, you can only hang your head and prepare for a very long thirty-game slog to the end of another lost season. Some days, I really wish I didn’t care about professional sports. But then, what would I watch after all the shows I enjoy get cancelled because nobody else watches them?

Enough moping, there is wrestling to be discussed and also there’s no PPV so Larry might kill me if I’m as late submitting this week’s report as I have been the last two weeks.

Moving on.

Last week, WWE Champion CM Punk announced that he would gladly defend his title at Night of Champions against the very deserving John Cena, on the sole condition that John Cena publically say that he respected CM Punk and that Punk, by holding the WWE Championship, was indeed the “Best in the World”. Cena refused this perfectly reasonable request out of some strange principle where he won’t allow himself to admit that anyone might be better than him, and as a result, Punk has not yet officially named a challenger for Night of Champions. After Cena’s refusal, Punk turned to announcer Jerry Lawler, demanding an apology for Lawler’s words at Raw 1000, where the Hall of Famer claimed that Punk had “turned his back on the WWE Universe”, something Punk has staunchly denied. After Lawler also refused to apologize and brushed past the champion, Punk took offense and levelled him with a kick to the head. Rumblings this week have been that Punk may face Lawler this week as a result, and in addition, he must still name the man who will face him for the WWE Title at the next PPV.

Meanwhile, Raw GM AJ was busy last week, putting all sorts of people in all sorts of matches as punishment for various things. As a result, Chris Jericho no longer works for WWE, and…actually, the rest of her matches were largely inconsequential. However, AJ faces a full slate of work tonight, as with Night of Champions just weeks away, she must find a way to match up challengers for those titles that are under her brand’s control. Oh, and also, she has announced that Daniel Bryan will begin “anger management” counselling this week on Raw, which makes no sense, because he’s kept his rage in check fairly well, considering.

Speaking of titles that need challengers, the WWE tag team scene may be heating up, as there are as many as four teams that are seeking to be the next to challenge titleholders Kofi Kingston and R-Truth, who have held the belts since late April. Will a team emerge from the fray to claim #1 Contender status tonight?

And Triple H has been advertised as being in attendance tonight, where he will likely address his loss to Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam, and Lesnar’s subsequent resignation from WWE. One would imagine that the people in charge of contracts in WWE might have something to say about Lesnar leaving, and it’s likely that The Game will also have a response.

Plus, Alberto Del Rio is once again the #1 Contender to Sheamus’ World Heavyweight title. Yep.

All this and more, tonight on yet another three hour edition of Raw!

Bound For Aces And Eights Series

All right, so last week’s Impact was centered around Aces and Eights and the TNA locker room standing up to take them on. And while the brawl at the end of the show went on for way too long and in the end, nothing of shocking substance was revealed, I think TNA did a lot of things right. First of all, especially since it’s pretty clear that 95% of Aces and Eights are random indy guys who will mean nothing to the storyline but cannon fodder, it was an excellent move by TNA to have them unable to stand up to an essentially united TNA locker room, and only gained an advantage through massively superior numbers (and the presence of the man who appears to be the “leader”). Far too many people still remember the days of the nWo, which after the “membership drive” consisted of roughly 95% midcarders and cannon fodder, but which, week in and week out, would destroy WCW wrestlers, who didn’t get any significant advantage for months on end. Or, more recently, there was the WCW-ECW “Alliance”, which largely consisted of Steve Austin, his wife, and a bunch of other guys, which we were somehow supposed to buy as an equal threat to a WWE roster that was arguably at its deepest in terms of pure talent from top to bottom. Actually, they lost a whole lot and were booked as being clearly weaker. Never mind, we’re back to the nWo. Where was I? Oh, right. The point is, while WCW did think they had something going with a fractured locker room who needed Sting to come and save them, the length of the angle meant that by the time Sting faced Hogan, there was literally nobody left on the WCW side who hadn’t been beaten up, early and often, by the superior nWo. And while I don’t expect the Aces and Eights to be that sort of angle (for starters, there’s nobody in TNA who could do the whole “Sting in the rafters thing”, not even Sting himself), it’s a good idea, when you’re doing an “invasion” angle, to not have the invading force always have all the advantages. Sure, they get unfair advantages and create chaos and take people out by ambushes, but when it comes down to a fair fight, a group like Aces and Eights should be beaten when the entire TNA roster stands up to them, or when individual wrestlers out-smart them. You need to make it seem like they’re a threat, but also that they can eventually be beaten, otherwise nobody will care by the time the blowoff matches come around.

Okay, so I went long on my first point, but my second point ties into my statement that nothing shocking was revealed to give us more information about the attackers. Again, obviously this can’t drag on and on, but I like that Aces and Eights consists of a bunch of faceless “mooks”, who you aren’t supposed to recognize, for a couple of reasons. First of all, at least for the initial angle, this is not a group that will be wrestling matches, so it’s not necessary that they be recognized as anything but a big gang of guys out to cause trouble. Secondly, that big guy who came out at the end is clearly being set up as the “leader” (well, at least until he unmasks and we get into all the “who is the man behind the man” angle that will inevitably ensue), so he’s the one you care about unmasking. Only you don’t get to unmask him until you fight through all the cannon fodder first, and that doesn’t happen this early in the game. Yes, I am drawing video game parallels, what of it?

And yes, I, like many people, am 99% sure that the big guy is Samoa Joe, and TNA, if it is indeed supposed to be the Samoan Submission Machine, I am begging you right now that you not change plans just because people may have figured it out. In this case, people are figuring it out because it a) makes sense and b) would be awesome. Surprises and swerves can be great if done well, but logical, well-structured reveals that make sense have their place as well.

Also, the other reason I like all the masks and faceless guys is that it means that, at any time, there can be anyone under those masks. Sure, this week it’s nobodies, but next week, who knows who you might find as part of Aces and Eights?

Oh, and before I forget, I’ll probably take some heat for this, but I don’t think the revelation of who the leader is should take place on PPV, although I’ll admit that it’s pretty likely. Simply put, nobody buys TNA PPVs, and this is the sort of thing that you want your largest potential audience watching, and that means Impact. This isn’t Hogan-Goldberg, you aren’t missing out on millions in potential revenue by revealing the leader of Aces and Eights at No Surrender or Bound For Glory or whenever. And this isn’t the same as it would be were this a WWE situation, because while their PPVs also draw smaller numbers than Raw and Smackdown, those smaller numbers are still exponentially larger than TNA’s, and thus there’s larger revenue considerations at stake. Now, obviously, you put the matches that result from the revelations on PPV and get people to pay for them, but the initial unmasking, in my humble and largely uninformed opinion, should happen when you have the largest potential customer base watching, and for better or for worse, that’s TNA’s television show, not their PPVs. Once people see something like that on Impact and get interested, that’s when you start hitting them hard with “if you want to see how this ultimately plays out, buy our PPV!”

– Jeff Jarrett has started a Fantasy Football Challenge, where a $250 entry gets you entered into Double J’s league, with a guaranteed head-to-head match with Jarrett at least once over the season, and a chance at some fabulous memorabilia. No thanks, Jeff, I’ve got a full plate of fantasy football as I once again plan to dominate the 411 Staff league. And, as every year, I must remind my fellow staffers that I am Canadian, so every time I beat you, you have failed your country.

– The Rock posted a picture on Twitter this past weekend which claims that Cena caused him to tear his hamstring executing his top-rope Rocker Dropper at WrestleMania. So where’s his drippy “Desire” video set to a U2 song?

– Vince McMahon turned 67 last week, so if you forgot to get him a gift, it’s too late because he already hates you anyway for being an Internet fan.

– The Score, which is the channel that shows WWE Raw and Smackdown and several other WWE-related shows that nobody watches (including NXT, suckers), may be about to be purchased by Canadian media megalith Rogers, which hopefully won’t leave me without wrestling programming in the future. Although I guess I still get Spike, so I’ll manage. Anyway, the disturbing news is that a side effect may be the loss of Renee Paquette, the only person at the Score who I believed actually cared about the wrestling product. That’s right, Arda Ocal, I know you’re just doing it to look cool.

– Former Miss USA and Tough Enough alum Rima Fakih recently posted that WWE “doesn’t want her”, after many rumours over the years that she would be signed. Possibly because, even at the low level Divas are held to, she’s an embarrassment in the ring. Hey, is she still dating Ricky Romero? If so, could she remind him that he used to actually know how to pitch at a major league level? Because if he could remember that, it would help me a great deal.

– Apparently a new WWE Title belt is still under construction, with the assistance of Rick Petko, the only guy working at Orange County Choppers who doesn’t seem like a giant asshole on American Chopper, who posted a picture of the belt in progress on Twitter last week. Bad news, folks, it looks like the giant “WWE” logo is indeed the centrepiece. You may all now re-commence wailing about how much better the eagle belt was.

– And we have an update on Ezekial Jackson: he’s still under WWE contract! Man, they weren’t kidding about the whole “no firing people until Linda’s done campaigning” thing.

1. CM Punk In the interest of full disclosure, my wife is once again fully opposed to my stance on CM Punk after coming around during the Summer of Punk last year. However, all I can see is an underappreciated WWE Champion who simply wants respect, and the BMOC John Cena being a jerk in response. Nope, no buried psychological issues from my past affecting my outlook there, no sirree.

2. Alberto Del Rio As tired as I am of his never-ending string of World title shots, absolutely nobody beats Randy Orton, 100% cleanly and without outside help, in the middle of the ring, these days, and especially not by submission. Now, can they have him do it with someone I actually want to see get that sort of rub?

3. Aces and Eights While they couldn’t stand up to a fair fight, they clearly have the numbers to overwhelm the TNA locker room, and let’s not forget, before getting run off by Bully Ray (of all people), they did serious damage to TNA’s World Champion. Oh, before I forget, one request: less card-related puns, please. You aren’t villains on the Batman TV show starring Adam West, for crying out loud.

4. Kingston/Truth Here’s a new thing for a WWE Tag Team: after defending the belts at SummerSlam, they were also victorious in a six-man on Raw and a tag match against Primo and Epico on Smackdown. I don’t think the division’s gotten that much positive exposure since there were still Dudleys and Hardys in WWE.

5. Dolph Ziggler Yes, many people have “retired” Chris Jericho, but hey, he’s the latest one. Plus, he’s clearly making his own opportunities to cash in and become champion, and since it looks like Randy Orton might be in a giving mood these days, moving into a feud with the Viper could pay positive dividends for Ziggler. Note to WWE: this is one of those guys I was talking about earlier.

6. AJ Styles Man, he must be breathing a big damned sigh of relief right now, don’t you think? It’s hard to believe that you could be taken seriously by saying “it would have been a better storyline if he actually had been screwing Dixie Carter”, but here we are.

7. The Big Show Beating David Otunga makes him a good guy to me, but I doubt that’ll stick. My only issue with maintaining his dominance is going to be the fact that Night of Champions is the next PPV, and there’s no belt for him to realistically challenge for. Not that that’s stopped them from having him on the card the last two years, as I suddenly recall.

8. Sting First of all, I still like crazy Sting. Secondly, I like him as the driving force uniting the TNA locker room, because even though WWE owns all the footage and rights, there are still people who know that he’s been through something like this before, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to watch it happen again while he’s around.

9. Brock Lesnar Show up, say two words, make a fifteen second Tout video, leave. How much is he getting paid again?

10. Captain Morgan Because if I have to watch anything like the Divas #1 Contender Battle Royal from Raw in the near future, the Captain and I are going to become close, personal friends very quickly.

Inactive List as of 08.20.12

WWE Raw

– David Otunga, out indefinitely as of July 7th (movie)
– Evan Bourne, out indefinitely as of March 19th (foot)

WWE SmackDown

– Mark Henry, out indefinitely as of May 1st (surgery)
– Ted Dibiase, out indefinitely as of March 7th (ankle)
– The Great Khali, out until November as of July 24th (surgery)
– Wade Barrett, out 3-4 months as of Februrary 20th (dislocated elbow)

WWE NXT

– Bray Wyatt, out six months as of July 4th (torn pectoral)

TNA

– Chris Sabin, out 6-9 months as of June 14th (ACL)
– Jesse Sorenson, out at least one year as of February 12th (spine)
– Sonjay Dutt, out 6-8 weeks as of July 8th (shoulder)
– The Pope, out 2-3 months as of August 12th (broken collarbone)

Transactions

– Brock Lesnar, RAW, “quit” WWE as of August 20th

– Chris Jericho, RAW, “fired” as of August 20th Raw, no longer under WWE contract

– Claire Lynch, TNA, quit

– David Otunga, RAW, returned to action on August 20th Raw

– Hulk Hogan, TNA, returned to television on August 23rd Impact

– Rey Mysterio, RAW, out indefinitely as of August 20th (concussion)

– Rosa Mendes, RAW, returned to action at SummerSlam PPV

– Tyler Reks, SD!, released from his contract

WWE

WWE Champion: CM Punk
– 281 day reign, defeated Alberto Del Rio on November 20th (Survivor Series PPV)

World Heavyweight Champion: Sheamus
– 148 day reign, defeated Daniel Bryan on April 1st (WrestleMania XXVIII)
– Next title defense: vs Alberto Del Rio, Night of Champions PPV

WWE Intercontinental Champion: The Miz
– 35 day reign, defeated Christian on July 23rd (Raw 1000)

WWE United States Champion: Antonio Cesaro
– 8 day reign, defeated Santino Marella on August 19th (SummerSlam PPV)

WWE Tag Team Champions: Kofi Kingston and R-Truth
– 119 day reign, defeated Epico and Primo on April 30th (Raw)

WWE Divas’ Champion: Layla
– 120 day reign, defeated Nikki Bella on April 29th (Extreme Rules PPV)

TNA

TNA Heavyweight Champion: Austin Aries
– 50 day reign, defeated Bobby Roode on July 8th (Destination X PPV)

TNA Tag Team Champions: Christopher Daniels and Kazarian
– 60 day reign, defeated Kurt Angle and AJ Styles on June 28th Impact

TNA X-Division Champion: Zema Ion
– 50 day reign, defeated Kenny King, Mason Andrews, and Sonjay Dutt in an Ultimate X Match on July 8th to claim the vacant title (Destination X PPV)

TNA Knockouts Champion: Miss Tessmacher
– 11 day reign, defeated Madison Rayne on August 16th (Impact)

TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champions: ODB and Eric Young
– 172 day reign, defeated Gail Kim and Madison Rayne on March 8th (Impact)

TNA Television Champion: Devon
– 162 day reign, defeated Robbie E on March 18th (Victory Road PPV)

De Marco has The Wrestling 5&1.

And apparently we’ve lost all of our weekend columnists again, so I would suggest that there will never be a better time to apply to write for 411! If I can do it, anyone can do it!

Well, that’s not true. But try anyway!

And this week’s TWNE After Dark is online, and it is the only place where you can hear me respond to my reader mail and the 411 Comments section, so if you want to know if I care what you wrote, you have to tune in! In the newest episode, I take WWE to task for failing in an epic fashion to make their alleged “big summer angle” the least bit compelling, and the problem with only turning wrestlers “halfway” and why it’s hurting both CM Punk and John Cena. Plus, a summary of Chris Jericho’s latest WWE run and why, in the end, I am pretty disappointed with how it went.

Have I mentioned lately how thrilled I am that my little podcast has such a loyal fanbase that is much larger than I would have expected? Because I totally am.

Also, don’t forget to join the TWNE After Dark a Facebook group.

411 will have live coverage of Raw tonight starting at 8 pm EDT.

From our promotional department, I’ve been informed that if you really do like 411Mania and all it provides, or even just me (and really, who doesn’t like me), don’t forget to bookmark the site in your browser or make 411 your homepage, and tell all your friends about how awesome 411 is.

And don’t forget, you can follow all of the everyday goings on in 411 on Twitter.

Stephen’s Twitter
http://www.twitter.com/411mania
http://www.twitter.com/411wrestling
http://www.twitter.com/411moviestv
http://www.twitter.com/411music
http://www.twitter.com/411games
http://www.twitter.com/411mma

That’s our show, That Damned Cook is in tomorrow, I will be back next week. Plus, don’t forget to look for Four Player Co-op in the Games Zone on Wednesday, and the TWNE After Dark podcast at 10 pm EDT this Wednesday as well!

Here it is, your Moment of Buddy

Is There Anything Worth Watching Yet?

Patience, Buddy. The fall season is coming. And with four shows at 10 pm on Monday that I want to watch, that DVR (and our timeshifting channels) is going to get one hell of a workout. Seriously, they couldn’t have put one of Castle, Hawaii Five-0, and Revolution on Wednesday night instead? I have all sorts of room in my schedule then!

Have a good one, and always be a fan.