We’ve got a lot to cover, so let’s start with the links (because I really liked one of the columns this week) and then hit the news.
Missing Links
Melchor gives some space to Ryan Boman, where he makes a comparison between the rising popularity of NASCAR and professional wrestling. This is a fantastic column, focusing primarily on how both sports have had to lose traditional aspects of their identities in order to reach out to new fans.
However, wrestling Net fans familiar with stock car racing will should pick up on one important thing about the success of NASCAR – better than any sport, including basketball, golf (sorry, Eric) and women’s tennis, stock car racing has developed and marketed its new stars. I can remember in the late 80’s and early 90’s when I watched (I’m from the South, it happens), there was an established nucleus of drivers (Rusty Wallace, Bill Elliot, Davey Allison, Dale Ernhardt, Ernie Ervan among others) that dominated the sport. Today, some of the old stars remain, but the sport clearly belongs to the new guys (Jeff Gordon, Dale Ernhardt Jr., Tony Stewart, Matt Kenseth, and this year’s surefire rookie of the year, Kasey Kahne).
And they market the hell out of these guys. I know I saw Stewart in a McDonald’s happy meal commercial recently and “Little E” has his own cologne. I can’t even count all the products that Gordon endorses.
On the other hand, one might argue that it’s just NASCAR’s time, that the level of talent possessed by these new guys is undeniable and NASCAR is just the lucky recipient of the ball its running with. Kinda like the NBA in the mid-80’s and early 90’s. Maybe WWe is doing just as good a job with its marketing as it has always done, but the talent just isn’t there (but will be down the road)? It’s an interesting question to me. Your thoughts?
Nute returns to covering finishers by breaking down the spear. Dude is even using physics equations in his columns – that is impressive.
News To Me – Real As It Gets
Apparently, WWe is considering starting a program between Mick Foley and Ric Flair. This feud would be based upon the fact that Ric Flair challenged some of Foley’s contributions to the wrestling industry and Foley responded by accusing the Nature Boy of being two-faced towards him.
I think this stuff is great, personally. It’s one of the few times where being a Net savvy wrestling fan really pays off because you begin to wonder about things like how stiff they will work that you would not have thought about before. Plus you get to seem all cool and knowledgeable as you explain the background to your unenlightened friends watching with you.
Some of the best recent instances where this worked were the Benoit/Kevil Sullivan retirement match (where they were feuding and Benoit was trying to get with Sullivan’s real-life wife Nancy) and anything involving Bischoff and Flair (over Bischoff’s lawsuit against Flair). It could work again, but I don’t think the level of heat between these two is as bad as it was in the examples I mentioned. Furthermore, while interesting, it’s not exactly the best use of these two personalities. Both should continue to put over the new guys like Shelton and Randy.
News To Me – Thus Spake Mordecai
Mordecai will apparently deliver some shocking promos on SmackDown in an attempt to get his character over as a heel.
I doubt this will be the angle that reverses the perception many Net fans have about the SD brand, but it could be a start. Especially if they use what he says as a way to advance angles (similar to the old G-TV angle that was never fully explained). SD needs just about any mechanism it can think of to tell some stories about its new faces and create some interesting feuds between its established players.
I think it was Widro who said that Mordecai is a cross between Gandolf and the Undertaker, but I still can’t get past the resemblance to Kevin Nash’s old Oz character.
News To Me – Big Mac Attack
Vince had an interview with TSN’s Off the Record in which he discussed Austin, Bret Hart and Hogan. There was nothing really groundbreaking about what he said, but the tone was interesting to me. Apparently, Vince is on “good” terms with just about anybody regardless of how much they might hate his guts. Ever the politician, I guess he recognizes that nothing is truly final in the wrestling business and that doors need to be held open, reopened or blown off the hinges if it will help business. Just look at the fact that his old arch-nemesis Bischoff works for him and that Sting might be making an appearance soon in his company. This doesn’t happen in any other business.
Readers’ Picks – Wave Your Hands Like You Just Don’t Care
We’ll file this under E for Eugene. Bruce Walters checks in with yet another little thing checked off by Mr. Dinsmore’s character:
I wanted to point out a little thing I thought was great. During the Eugene/Benoit tag match, while Benoit was in the ring, Eugene was mimicking every move he was doing on the outside, almost as if he’d forgotten he was a participant and was just watching his favorite wreslter perform. Mr. Dinsmore, take a bow. You’ve taken lemons, and not only
made lemonade, but packaged it, delivered it, sold it, incorperated, franchised, and gone public. Bravo.
What’s even more astonishing is that this apparent novelty gimmick actually has the legs to further the main event feud between Kane and Benoit. Using Eugene’s babyface heat to make Kane more of a asshole and Benoit more of a hero was a perfect way to get them involved heading into Bad Blood. Personally, I would have gone the extra mile and had Kane decimate the helpless Eugene, but that may still be in the works.
Speaking of Kane’s heat going into this match, I wanted to give some space to Light Castle who offered up a great little thing in terms of booking that would have helped out this program a long time ago:
Personally, I think they could have done one little thing 2 weeks ago to make this stronger, and that would have been to have Michaels take HHH out of the battle royal
earlier. Right before the last commercial break, while HHH is directing traffic, safe in the
middle of the ring. BANG! Michaels takes him out. Do that “infuriated HHH while HBK is in the stands” cut away.
Now you have Evolution all in the ring without their leader. Do they stay united? Do they
turn on each other? It really is every man for himself! Then you let Kane do the badassery for the finish that he did, and end it teasing the Shelton upset win (or Jericho
and Shelton vs Kane) and Kane finishes them off. Makes Kane stronger going into the
Benoit thing.
Sometimes it’s the little things that don’t happen that can matter the most.
An Announcement
Due to a move and career change, I will have considerably less time to watch RAW and write this report over the next few months. Since I am not half the man that Eric S. is, I have decided to enlist the services of my Good Friend Bill of the Harvard Education to write some or all of this report in my absence. Since I did not catch all of RAW, I thought this week would be a great time to introduce him. He has his own style and agenda and will also introduce some additional ideas over time that will make this column more entertaining than I possibly can. . I’ll let his writing speak for itself, but his credentials are unquestionable in my mind – he is the guy that gave me the idea for the Little Things concept.
So, without further ado, I’ll turn it over to Bill:
The Little Things
Hello World.
My hero and yours, Haley, has insisted on taking some time off to facilitate his transition to a new job. I have done my best to beg him to continue his column, because no one enjoys reading it more than I do, but he seems to think his career is important for some reason ($$$) that isn’t quite clear to me. I have agreed to be TEMPORARILY assume control over the Little Things, since I was the lucky man who was speaking to Haley when the idea for the column sprung, fully-formed, from his head. Like John, I watch wrestling for the Little Things, and find that I can enjoy virtually any gimmick invested with effort or energy, no matter how stupid it might seem if one were to make the mistake of applying strict logic to it. The one and only thing I can pledge to the readers is that I will remain true to this spirit during Haley’s BRIEF hiatus.
I cannot write with Haley’s wit, and I want him back here at 411 as quickly as anyone. I’ve told John that I am the new Honky Tonk Man: I am here to entertain you, but I want you to hate me, ache for my departure, so that when Haley decides he’s settled, he will return to rousing acclaim. This is only just, because Haley is great and I suck.
Since I will be here for at least a few weeks, though, I’ll give minimal details to indicate the perspective from which I see things. I am a Harvard alum, but this will not affect the column unless Chris Nowinski returns from the shelf; you don’t have to worry about any arrogance on my part, because we’ve established already that I suck. I’m now a law student at the University of Michigan, and my summer occupation, though legal, is not fit for discussion in polite company. I tend to look for the good in people or events, with two exceptions. Experience teaches me to be very hard on myself, because I deserve it, and the Republican Party, because it more or less embodies pure evil. The one Republican who gets a consistent reprieve from me, no matter what he does, is Ric Flair, my great wrestling hero, who will appear in the column every time he’s on Raw (which he wasn’t yesterday, to my chagrin.)
That’s me. Now, without further ado, this week’s Little Things:
1. Love Makes the World Go ‘Round
Like most fans in the audience, I think Eugene is totally hilarious. Actually, I’ve been a mark for just about every “retard” gimmick I can recall, from Norman the Lunatic to George Steele to Perry Saturn with his beloved Moppy. George W. Bush is pretty much the first prominent retard that I’ve disliked.
Anyway, my love for Eugene makes it all the more surprising that I thought Kane was an MVP talent on Monday’s Raw. His gentle hug of Eugene, and his attempt at the same at the start of their match, made me laugh, but they also made me think. It wasn’t so long ago that the silent masked babyface Kane was fairly close to playing a retard in his own right. In the days of yore, when Kane and his buddy X-Pac were entangled in love trangle with Torrie, Kane was getting the same sympathetic heat that Eugene gets today, as it was clear to the audience that the big red lug just didn’t understand the double-cross building around him. While I’m sure few at Raw were thinking of those days when they scripted Monday’s confrontation, I enjoyed the irony. It’s clear that Monster Kane is a wiser Kane, and in mauling Eugene, he separated himself from his more pathetic alter-ego.
2. True Patriot Love
Opening Monday’s show with the Tag Title switch was wonderful booking, as the grateful Montreal crowd stayed hot all night after their home-town win. Canadians are bright and observant, though. I was amused that Rob Conway consistently garnered less of a reaction than Sylvain Grenier. Unlike American fans, who mark out for USA! chants in any circumstance (no matter how absurd), this crowd remembered when it was most appropriate to cheer, and massive flag-waving didn’t really deceive them.
3. Learning from the Master
If HHH, Randy Orton, and Bastita had formed a stable without a certain someone, I have no idea what I’d think of it. I have nothing against any of these guys, and they have all had their funny moments, but, left alone, I think they’d be basically dull, stale, and downright soporific. One man makes Evolution great, as he makes every angle he touches great: the Nature Boy. After all, Ric had the idea of wrestling as an evolved Superman long ago: Why else enter the ring to Thus Spake Zarathustra? The Man is the heart and soul of Evolution, and Raw’s true Superstar. Even when absent, his presence was felt in the homage paid by young Orton, who knows there is one legend who can never be killed, only copied.
As JR pointed out, Orton’s adroit use of the thumb eyepoke was an obvious credit to Naitch, but what I enjoyed even more was Orton’s attitude in his interview. When he was asked why he refused to fight Benjamin, Orton’s swaggering brush-off was straight out of Flair 101, as was his animated objection to the playing of last week’s highlight. Flair did the same routine more times than I can remember, especially when he was losing non-title matches all around the horn as part of the NWA’s Bash tours in ’85 and ’86. Though my memory is dim, it sure seems like the late Road Warrior Hawk beat Flair twenty times those summers, but every week, there was a new excuse for the loss. Hell, though I was probably the only viewer who made this dubious nostalgic connection, Orton’s homage to Flair made me really excited to think of Smackdown’s Bash revival later this month.
4. Learning from the Master, Part II
Mr. Regal deserves boatloads of praise for most of the things he does, and the Eugene angle is no exception. He has kept his turn from reluctant trainer to ardent friend as slow and subtle as today’s climate allows. His confrontation this week with Bischoff was another clinic in the cool face contortions that make both Haley and me admire Regal so. What I don’t understand, and what I’m waiting for, is to see Eugene copy Regal in the ring. Granted, face Eugene can’t do very much aristocratic prancing, but a little here and there would be funny as hell. If he’s already said HHH is his favorite wrestler, and he obviously knows about wrestling history in a savant-like way, a heel antic or two would be in character and applauded, if funny.
5. Wow!
So, since this is the first time I’ve done this, I don’t know whether I’ve droned on too long. This is a Little Thing that requires few words. When Trish called attention to her “Stratus-tron” in her awesome segment, I thought it would be a great idea if that screen revealed an X-Ray of a scantily-clad Trish. Despite the terrific promo, beautiful women are better with mouths closed and clothes off.
That is all from us this week. If I can, I will resume the column next week, but at some point this will be Bill’s gig for a month or so, probably starting later this month or early July. Let me know how he did and how I did (all emails will still go to my account) and I’ll see you guys soon
Haley
