Category: Wrestling Musings

All posts related to pro rasslin’ that isn’t covering specific shows or events.

CM Punk. Champ For A Year… And I Don’t Care…

It was a year ago that CM Punk defeated Alberto Del Rio to win his second (third? forth? I lost count) WWE Championship and that reign continues to this day… and yet I feel somewhat ambivalent about it. You’d think that it would be a cause for celebration that a genuine fan favorite not only got a run with the top belt in the company, but is still champ after a whole year… but honestly, what has that run amounted to? Playing second fiddle to whatever shit main event John Cena has against Big Show and Johnny Ace?

I was hoping this heel run would be a step up and his reign would start feeling like more of a big deal, but honestly, I have a feeling that we’re living on borrowed time. You know Rock is roaming around there somewhere and, well, we need SOMETHING to merit going back on that “Once In A Lifetime” deal that nobody with a functioning half-brain bought for a single second. Hope I’m wrong, but more than likely, I am not.

Now piss off and let me get back to my Fruity Pebbles.

Damn…

You know what? Here’s the main difference between three-hour RAWs and three-hour WCW Monday Nitros. Three-hour Monday Nitro had the stale nWo and old guys dominating the main event scene, but at least they tried to put together a show that kept your interest, whether it’d be cruiserweights or top-notch wrestling or even the Goldberg squash. The only purpose of these three-hour RAWs seem to be to give me plenty of reasons NOT to care about the current product.

The AJ/Cena/Vickie thing? Don’t care.
The Punk heel run? Don’t care.
The Ryback thing? Don’t care.
The Team Hell No thing? Starting to not care now that they’re tossing Miz in there.
Hey. Remember when sports entertainment used to be fun?
WWE sure as hell doesn’t. They’re too busy telling (shitty) stories or celebrating glory days that they’ll never reach again. Even TNA is starting to lose its luster, dragging out its Aces And Oh-Point-Eights thing and trying to convince me that Jeff Hardy is a credible World champion.

Yurple The Clown Is Better Than Ryback

http://www.lordsofpain.net/news/wwe/Cover_For_WWE_s_The_Attitude_Era_DVD_and_Blu-Ray_Release_-_Over_40_Superstars_Featured.html

So the link above has the cover for WWE’s upcoming Attitude Era DVD… taking the form of a parody of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper cover… It takes a while to get used, but it kinda grew on me. It should be interesting to see how this thing comes out as far as the documentary is concerned. Will they feature Vince Russo like they did in the recent nWo feature? What crappy pandering commentary will John Cena add to the product while wearing his crappy merch? And most importantly, will any mention of WWF or the WWF scratch logo be erased?

Perhaps even more amusing, however, is some of the resulting comments on that page, which tends to point out the major critical issue with the current WWE product. Because when YURPLE THE CLOWN – a character that had a grand total of TWO appearances at most – when YURPLE THE CLOWN is a more memorable and interesting character than guys like Brad Braddox (or whatever the fuck his face is) or Heath Slater or Ezekial Jackson or even fucking Ryback… it’s a sure sign that you need new storytellers.

THAT’s where the facepalm comes in.

On a side note…

I haven’t been following RAW in what seems like forever, only managing small snippets and reading online reports, but you know a show is bad when even reading a text recap puts you to sleep. Honestly, there was nothing on the show that gave me much incentive to watch. If they’re trying to tell stories, they need new storytellers, because their current stories suck.

Meanwhile, over at Dixie Land Impact… am I the only one who’s getting tired of this Aces And Oh Point Eight thing going on? You figured that they would have resolved this at their Bound For Glory PPV, but apparently they want this thing to last another six months. Yeah, it was a good thing for a while, but now it’s starting to get boring. Hasn’t Uncle Eric learned anything from the nWo debacle?

On a happier note, I got my hands on WWE ’13… on Wii.

Jeff Hardy – New TNA Champ…

Austin Aries… perfectly good champion. Fresh face in the title scene… and you have him put over Jeff Hardy… I’d pull out a Cornette Face image out of my archives, but it’s really pointless…

But you know what? I’m not gonna make a big deal out of it. No, I’m not a fan of Hardy getting another World Title reign… and no, I’m not entirely convinced that he put all of his “personal demons” behind him, but I’m willing to give this a shot. And all honesty, this hasn’t really killed my interest in TNA storylines all that much. So maybe, it’ll turn out alright, but I’m dreading another Victory Road 2011 incident. And TNA doesn’t need a repeat of that night.

In other news, Devon was revealed to be the Aces & 8s mystery face… or something… well, I guess as long as they don’t make him a reverend and give him a deacon to carry a collection box, it should be interesting.

Fans Really Like Ryback

According to a wrestling site somewhere, WWE had recently closed their Twitter poll asking fans to vote on CM Punk’s Hell In a Cell opponent. Ryback won over John Cena with a whopping 69% of the vote, which would probably explain why the poll was closed… watch WWE suddenly book CM Punk vs. John Cena at the PPV, just to spite the very WWE Universe they claim to listen to.

As far as Ryback goes… I can’t honestly get into the guy. Clearly, people are really liking what they see with him and he certainly has that potential and drive to be a big deal, but to me, he’s always going to be the guy who had the silly cowboy gimmick on that NXT show… or the guy that eats a lot on that Tough Enough show a few years prior. Feed Me More indeed.

With that having been said, I’d actually like to see a Punk/Ryback main event at the Hell In A Cell PPV. It’d be something different, it’d be elevating a new star in the making

So what's been happening with rasslin'? SEVEN POINTS worth mentioning in my mind.

Seven quick points regarding the “sports-entertainment” thing that came to mind;

CM Punk is still WWE Champion… most likely jobbing to Cena at the next PPV so they can have that Cena/Rock II match for the title at the Rumble. Because they tried to swerve people into thinking that Cena has no chance after that draw finish at the last PPV, but their booking of Cena is so damned predictable that it only becomes a matter of delaying the inevitable each they push back the eventual Cena win. 

CM Punk’s reasoning behind his not getting respect makes sense. He’s the champion and yet he plays second fiddle to the pandering idiot. Anything Cena says is bullshit. 
Trying to sit through a three-hour RAW is a damn near chore. There are times where I am thankful that Canada is an hour delay on RAW airings; that way, I can spoil myself and see if there’s anything worth while on the program. In fact, outside of the 1000th RAW episode, I have yet to sit through an entire three-hour RAW because they do nothing to keep me hooked. 
I still honestly don’t care about the Divas division… Hey, apparently, I didn’t care about the division ten years ago when there were competent and even GOOD workers such as Trish, Molly, and Lita. So why the fuck would care about the division now that it’s full of interchangeable Barbie dolls that all look the same? Thank god Beth Phoenix is on her way out so that she can move on to bigger and better things and not let her talent be held back by the limited vision and incomptence of a creative team that knows fuck all on how to use her. 
Jeff Hardy getting a title shot at Bound For Glory? Not a good idea… oh sure, he’s kept himself clean so far, but how do you know he won’t regress back to his old ways once on top? Apparently, his contract is about to expire and TNA is desperate to keep him. Make him happy if you want, but not at the expense of your World Champion who is actually a breath of fresh air and the kind of talent you want to PUSH on your television show, not former or failed WWE experiments. TNA has such a good thing going right now, I just hate for them to kill it by doing something stupid just to make some guy happy; especially when he’s responsible for one of the company’s biggest embarrassments last year. 
Perfect segue there, but let me shoot it out there. TNA has a really good thing going here, as they are putting out riveting, entertaining, and highly well produced wrestling product with their live Impact Wrestling shows. The wrestling is top-notch, the angles and storylines are actually compelling and involving, the backstage segments are done in a way that it feels genuine and not fabricated, and perhaps most importantly, the live crowd feels, well, live and bored out of their minds. It’s probably for this reason why I think they should stick with the live show on a permanent basis, because it does make a world of difference in how the show is presented and quite honestly, TNA is doing a much better job of putting together a live show where anything could happen than WWE is. Mind you, I don’t think TNA is going to be a threat to Vince anytime soon and that’s okay. They needn’t worry about that. Just keep doing what you’re doing, don’t do anything stupid, and you’ll be fine. 
I feel bad for the people who went to the WWE house show in Sarnia, Ontario… Taken verbatim from an undisclosed wrestling newz site, Ryback’s match against Jinder Mahal at Saturday’s SmackDown live event in Sarnia, Ontario resulted in a no contest after Ryback suffered a serious cut approximately two minutes into the bout. The match was stopped by a doctor’s orders. Fail.

That’s all I got… later.