Well, I'm at this school now, and I think I know what indy wrestler's feel like when they're in their first dark match. Maybe they're the best in Rockland County Professional Wrestling. Now, all of the sudden, they're performing in front of roughly one THOUSAND times the number of people, in the house with some of the best in the country, and the rest of their lives hinge on how they do in the next five minutes. Well, change "the next five minutes" into "the next three semesters," and make "the best" into "pretty good," and you have a basic idea of my new college life. Am I stressed? Yeah. But ranting about wrestling is a nice way to blow off steam. My target this week…
Tag Team matches.
No, not the tag division. I love the tag-team division. It's great for undercard guys to develop their gimmicks and get some practice. Guys who aren't quite ready to hold the Intercontinental or US title, but are a bit too good for the Cruiserweight or European. If you have a guy who can't speak, that's fine, stick him with a guy who can. Got a guy who isn't too talented? That's ok, too. Just stick him with someone who is. The tag division is great. What I'm sick of is the senseless tag team matches the WWF seems so fond of. Have we not seen the "two guys who don't want to work together, but will for this ONE match" enough friggin times over the last few months? For guys who don't want to work together, a lot of them work together an awful lot.
Take a look at this past week, for example. On Raw, we were supposed to get Rock/Undertaker vs Kane/Rikishi. Instead, they got all crazy and gave us the equally stupid Rock/Kane vs Rikishi/Undertaker. Rock and Undertaker dislike each other, but this is roughly the 142nd time the two of them have teamed up in the last couple months. They won the tag belts, lost the tag belts, and yet still have to face two heels in the main event, or the end of the first hour every damn week. Something new like, I dunno, a SINGLES match, might be nice every now and again. I am so sick and tired of seeing Rock/Austin or Undertaker/Rock. And then, a couple months back when Triple H teamed with the Rock. Triple H… the guy the Rock has feuded with for, oh, THREE YEARS was his tag team partner. I think the WWF's new booking philosophy is "sense be damned, let's have us a tag match." Now, on Smackdown, we look forward to Kane/Rikishi/Kurt Angle vs. Austin/Rock/Undertaker.
Now, I understand that leading in to the Royal Rumble, the WWF likes to have a clusterf*** ending to further the Rumble itself. Take two big heels and put them against two big faces. Or, the new game, is take a face and put him with a face tag team and put them against a heel and a heel tag team. Hence, the Austin/APA vs Angle/Edge/Christian from Raw. These matches are senseless and serve NO purpose except to tease matches from the Pay Per View. If it was ONLY the week before the PPV, it would be almost forgivable, but it's gotten to be every week. Since December:
11/30/00 – Kane/Benoit vs Billy Gunn/Chris Jericho and Angle/Edge/Christian vs Rock/Undertaker
12/7/00 – Regal/Kane vs Hardcore Holly/Chris Jericho
12/11/00 – Angle/Edge/Christian vs Dudleys/Rock
12/14/00 – Rock/Austin vs Regal/Angle
12/18/00 – Edge/Christian vs Rock/Undertaker and Dudleys/Billy Gunn vs RTC (It's questionable whether to count this, because there are three legitimate members of RTC… I'm also not really counting T&T&A vs Acolytes/Jaquolyte because they're technically the same group… but I could give them half-a-point)
12/21/00 – Saturn/Benoit/Malenko vs Hardyz/Jericho and Rock/Undertaker vs Edge/Christian
12/25/00 – Jericho/Dudleys vs Angle/Edge/Christian
12/28/00 – Jericho vs Edge/Christian and Rikish/Kane/Regal vs Rock/Undertaker. I hadn't even mentioned handicap matches until now, but they fall into the senseless category easily as the stupid tag matches do.
1/1/01 – Jericho/Dudleys vs Angle/Edge/Christian
1/8/01 – Jericho/Hardys vs Saturn/Benoit/Malenko, the GODAWFUL Kane/Rikishi vs Rock/Teddy Long/Jack Doan and Albert/Trish vs Test
1/11/01 – Benoit/Edge/Christian vs Jericho/Dudleys
Then this week, which I discussed above. It's CONSTANT and it's BORING. Nothing gets furthered, nothing gets interesting, it's just a toss a bunch of guys in the ring and let them work. The WWF has FIVE HOURS of first run television per week, and that's not counting the toss off shows like Jakked and Metal. You would think with that much time to fill, there wouldn't be this rush to get every single guy on the screen every show. Maybe the workers want it, but my God it makes for boring television. Instead of teaming Jericho up with the Dudleys for the 83rd time, how about we give him five minutes against a singles wrestler who can keep up with him? That way, we can see a good match. Same thing with Chris Benoit. How about a ranking system with the tag teams, so they're always wrestling for something? Anything but these week in, week out tag matches that DO NOTHING!!
Since the 80s, the WWF has always done this before PPVs. Prime Time Wrestling on the week before a PPV would be tag matches featuring guys from the main events, or singles matches from tag team guys. Now, every week we get these matches, and they're wastes of time. Primarily, it's to get everyone on television. Which is why there's so many tag teams and little groups now. If everyone can be out at the same time, more folks can get their mugs on the screen every week. I can't stand it anymore.
Of course, I'm going to watch Smackdown tonight, so I'm losing the battle.
