Hola y recepción a la edición más última de la verdad o de las consecuencias.
Yes, indeed, after a long absence, Truth or Consequences is back and this time it’s bilingual baby? You may be wondering why I have decided to introduce my column in Spanish. Well, it’s not just a feeble attempt to get some Hispanic readers, merely a nod to the fact that I’ve been away on vacation to the wonderful island of Lanzarote, hence my absence, and I’ve come over all multi-cultural.
Anyway, I’m back now and ready to kick things back into high gear.
I’ve had a number e-mails since my last little missive on the roster cuts, most of which I have already responded to personally, since I wasn’t sure when my next column was going to be coming out. However, two of them sparked sufficient interest, that they formed the basis for this return column, so let’s have a look-see at what I found in my Inbox since the last time…
Adam Threfall wrote in with the following…
“Mr. Bufton,
I have only just started reading Truth or Consequences and I’d like to say that I think you are doing a great job. I have been working my way through your archive and I noticed that you tend to focus on what’s happening in the WWE. I was just wondering what your opinions are on TNA, ROH and the puro scene?
Keep up the good work.
Adam”
Thanks for the e-mail, Adam – glad you enjoy the column. You’re right, I don’t cover TNA or ROH in any great detail, nor do I really cover puroresu or lucha libre, though I have an interest in all four of them. However, there’s only so much time in my working week and, though I try to keep up with the news and the shows in these other areas, the only promotion that I’m guaranteed to watch, week in and week out is World Wrestling Entertainment. Besides which, if it’s regular news and commentary that you’re after, InsidePulse has some of the best TNA coverage on the ‘Net thanks to Jeremy Lambert’s ‘TNA At Ringside’ column, whilst David Ditch can provide you with the always-entertaining ‘Puroresu Pulse’. I watch the shows, certainly and I catch as much wrestling as my little heart can cope with, but I simply choose not to f*ck with the masters.
That said, I do have certain opinions on these promotions and scenes as well as others and, since you asked so nicely, here they are.
NWA: TNA
I have to say that I really enjoy TNA and I hope this TV deal provides them with the break they need to legitimately make it to the big time. I can’t claim to have watched it since the beginning, but I’ve seen a few of their weekly PPV cards and I was impressed. More importantly, I believe that their monthly PPVs have been outstanding, completely blowing away what WWE had been producing. Now that they have Samoa Joe on board, that’s just given me one more reason to watch and I think he is a truly awesome worker and I hope he goes from strength to strength. I also hope that Jarrett keeps his hands off the belt for a decent period of time – too me he is like JBL, in that he is a good upper-midcard heel but shouldn’t be wearing the gold around his waist. The X-Division stuff is, of course, out of this world and WWE should take note and learn how to book a Cruiserweight division (before any TNA marks e-mail me, I know that there are technically no weight restrictions from the X-Division, but their ranks haven’t exactly been swarming with superheavyweights now, have they?). Even the veterans like Waltman, Billy Gunn, DDP and especially Raven have all worked their tails off for the promotion and you do get that sense of everybody pulling together. Indeed, it seems as though the only things going wrong for TNA are those things that are out of their control, such as the loss of their TV Deal with FSN but even then, they are looking into new revenue streams with the DVDs and the action figures are cutting costs by lengthening the TV/Internet tapings rather than taking the WWE line and just sacking a bunch of people. Good luck to them, I say and, though I can’t see a resurgence of the Monday Night War any time soon, it’s good to see the NWA claw its way back to the top.
Ring of Honor
The first Ring of Honor show I ever bought was ‘Night of the Butcher’ because I am a complete and utter mark for Abdullah the Butcher. That’s it – the sole reason – and, to make things worse, the match I was after (The Carnage Crew vs. Homicide and Abdullah) was shit. However, this show also gave me my first real taste of Michael Shane, CM Punk, Colt Cabana, Paul London and American Dragon and I was blown away by how different these guys were to the crap being peddled as wrestling on Raw every week. This was early 2003 (when I bought the show, that is – the card itself took place in December 2002), remember, where the ‘hot’ feud on WWE’s flagship program was Scott Steiner vs. Triple H and all the 5-star classics that it produced.Punk and Dragon in particular, impressed me and I wanted to see more of their work, even more so when I found out that the common consensus was that ‘Night of the Butcher’ wasn’t even one of the better ROH shows. As for the promotion itself, I’m somewhat torn. Yes, the action is great, the angles are okay and they are starting to get a bit of mainstream attention, thanks to the CM Punk incident and Matt Hardy plugging them on national TV, but I view ROH in the same way that I viewed ECW. Both were completely different to the current wrestling trend (albeit it totally different ways) and, in that sense, both were needed to keep the wrestling scene fresh. However, with that good side (and it is a good side. If it wasn’t for promotions like ECW and ROH occasionally breaking out of the standard wrestling formula, pro-wrestling would become stale very, very quickly), comes a downside. As with ECW, certain ROH fans get far to precious about what they perceive to be ‘their’ promotion and act as if they are above the proles whose wrestling week starts with Raw and ends with Heat. Not all of them are like that – Hell, not even most of them are – but there are some and, unfortunately, that small minority tends to be the ones with the loudest mouths. The other downside is that, with the best will in the world, ROH will never, ever be as big as the WWE is right now, but I don’t think they need to be. They’re the biggest Indie promotion in North America (I don’t class TNA as Indie anymore, since they have corporate backing a monthly PPV deal and a TV deal in the works), they’re making money, selling their DVDs and coming up with some excellent shoot interview discs. If they concentrated on getting a national TV deal or a huge PPV deal, then they could be in danger of losing a lot of money as well as a lot of creative control, in the hope of attracting new fans who might not even be there for them.
Puroresu
I love Japanese wrestling but I don’t exactly follow it, if that makes any sense. Various tape traders keep me supplied with the latest shows from the big guns like NJPW, AJPW and NOAH and I try to fill the gaps in my collection from the smaller Japanese feds, like BJPW, DDT and IWA-Japan, but I don’t really keep track of who’s wrestling for who and what wrestler will be appearing on which card. Some of the reasons for this are pretty obvious – I don’t speak Japanese for one, so any angles or feuds have to be told in the ring for me to fully appreciate what’s going on. If I see a match between Tatsutoshi Goto and Naofumi Yamamoto, for instance, unless I’ve seen other matches in a series, then I’m not going to know why they are feuding with each other or even what kind of a feud it is. Is one of them trying to teach the other respect? Is it just an exhibition match? Do both men hate one another with a passion? I can tune in to an English-speaking promotion almost at random, and pick up stuff like that just from the announce team and the pre-match promos, but with puroresu, you can only get it from what they do in the ring. It’s a good thing, then, that most Japanese workers are amazing, especially when compared to the Masters’, Snitsky’s and Grenier’s of the world. The only major Japanese promotions that I have never seen are Osaka Pro and Michinoku Pro and I don’t know why. It’s just the case that, when I’ve had some cash to splash out on wrestling tapes there’s always been something else out there that I wanted more than I was prepared to take a chance on either of these two. If any puro fans out there can recommend a starting point for either promotion, please let me know.
Lucha Libre
And so to the sunny shores of Mexico and one of the larger gaps in my wrestling knowledge. I have seen very little lucha in my time – indeed, I think I have a grand total of ten tapes in my collection – and, again, it’s got nothing to do with lack of interest or a dislike of the lucha style. Okay, so it can be a bit too spotty and, even worse, a bit too arm-draggy for my particular taste, but I have enjoyed what lucha I’ve picked up over the years. I think it boils down to the fact that I know so little about it and, compared to puro and the American stuff, there is very little on the ‘Net, at least in English, so any lucha purchase is more or less a stab in the dark. Again, if I have the money there for tapes, am I going to spend it on a lucha tape with no-one I recognise on it, or am I going to a ‘Best of the Freebirds’ tape, or whatever? My lucha experience is the AAA ‘When World’s Collide Show’, a three-tape ‘Best of Los Gringos Locos’ set, ‘cos of Eddie Guerrero, some old Aztec Mummy films starring El Santo and some CMLL shows that I recorded off the TV – hardly encyclopaedic. Again, any lucha fans who want to recommend a tape to me, feel free.
Puerto Rico
Now this is something I do know about. I’ve always been a big fan of the hardcore and brawling styles of wrestling and, let’s face it, if that’s your bag you’ve got to love Puerto-Rican wrestling. The old school tapes from this region are bloody and brutal, with guys like Abdullah the Butcher, Carlos Colon, the Invaders, Bruiser Brody, Ricky Santana, the Mighty Igor (a template for Eugene if ever I saw one) and Mr. Pogo slicing one another up with barbed wire, stabbing each other with forks and tapping more arteries than a season of Buffy. Fast forward to the present day and you’ve still got guys going for it – El Bronco, Angel Rodriguez, Alex Montalvo, Wilfredo Alejandro and Jose Rivera Jr. are all flying the flag for bloodletting and carnage. Caribbean wrestling isn’t for everybody but if you’ve ever watched a Hell in a Cell match and thought that the competitors were all a bunch of pussies, then you might want to check out some real hardcore action.
Anyway, I hope that answers your question, Adam.
My other e-mail was from Gil Peterson…
“Kevin,
So you liked the Hell in a Cell match at Vengeance? I did too, but HIAC is always good IMHO. This had me thinkin’ – what is your favourite type of gimmick match?
GP”
Yes, I certainly did enjoy Hell in a Cell at Vengeance. As for my favourite type of gimmick match, well there are just so many and it depends where you draw the line as far as “gimmick” goes. Is 2 out of 3 falls a gimmick? I’d say no, but many others would say yes, because it’s not standard rules. I remember a load of tag matches on Saturday Night’s Main Event being contested under those rules and it made them more exciting, especially if your favourites lost the first fall and you were screaming at the TV to try and egg them into winning.
I have to say that I only like gimmick matches when they add somethign to the proceedings. You look at some of the Deathmatches from Big Japan or FMW with their No Rope Barbed Wire Exploding Board Spider Net Piranha Tank Rubber Chicken C4 Explosive Bag of Thumbtacks Death stipulations and you have to wonder what the point is. Yes, you’re a bunch a loonies – we get it, Mr. Onita. When it comes to having loads of objects available for use, I think that TLC is as chaotic as I’d go, on a regular basis at least.
I don’t know if I can whittle it down to a particular favourite, but here’s five of the best, in no particular order.
Elimnation Tag Matches
By this I mean those made popular by Survivor Series. Again, I love the psychology in these, as you could potentially end up with 5 on 1, or however many are involved in the match and, if they are played out well, have an entire audience on its feet rooting for the underdog.
Cage Matches
Call me a bluff old traditionalist if you like, but I would sooner see a good old-fashioned cage match than a Hell in the Cell or Elimination Chamber bout. There have only been a handful of EC matches and in each one you knew that it was really only ever about two guys and a bunch of cannon fodder. Also, although Hell in a Cell is more visually impressive, the psychology is f*cked up. The premise of HIAC is that you have a ‘normal’ match, pinfalls in the middle of the ring and there just happens to be this whopping great steel cell around you to prevent outside interference. Yet nearly every match ends up with the opponentsbreaking out of the Cell, anyway, just to hit the big spots. The cage match, on the other hand, when fought under the proper rules of escape-to-win (none of this cop-out pinfalls malarkey) is great – beat the ever-loving hell out of your opponent, in the hopes that they’ll stay down for long enough for you to make good your escape. I love it.
Iron Man Matches
I love these for all the same reasons that I love 2 out of 3 falls and elimination tag matches – let one guy get the advantage and the other guy really has to pull out all of the stops in order to prevail. I know that some people think that Iron Man matches are boring, because they go on for an hour or more, but all I can say is that you need to find some better matches then. A really good Iron Man match can make an hour seem like minutes, so just roll with it.
Toughman Matches
This is something of a guilty pleasure, as I’ve only actually seen one of these and the rules were a little complicated, so stick with me. You have two teams of four (though I imagine this could be altered) and let’s say that Team A scores a pinfall. They then choose one person from Team B to enter the and get to spend a minute beating on him 4-on-1, whilst the opposition are not allowed to enter the ring. After the minute is up, the referee clears the ring and the guy from Team B who has received the beating, has a ten count to get to his feet. If he makes it, the bout continues – if not, his team loses. As I say, I only saw one of these matches (pitting Eric Embry, Percy Pringle, Jeff Jarrett and Bill Dundee against Steve Austin, Jeff Gaylord, Gary Young and Skandor Akbar, if you want to know) but it was a hell of a lot of fun and, like many of my choices, the psychology revolves around one side getting an unfair advantage over the other.
“I Quit”, Submission and Stretcher Matches
I’ve lumped these three matches together because, even though they are definitely distinct from one another, I feel that they have one thing in common. In each case, the match ends when your opponent cannot continue and, as such, they are great devices for signalling the absolute, no-turning-back, stone cold END of a feud. If you lose one of these beauties then there is rarely any dispute (for the purpose of this column, I’m ignoring the “I Quit” match between Foley and the Rock at Royal Rumble 99, okay?) over who was the better man in the feud.
There you go – five match gimmicks all linked by a common thread, in that their focus is not over-the-top weapons, ridiculous stipulations or controversial finishes, but that they help to enhance the wrestling aspect of a match, rather than detract from it. They all bring an element of psychology and finality to any feud and, bearing that in mind, should all be used to end an angle, rather than simply progress it.
That’s all for this week. Feel free to e-mail me at the link below and let me know what you think of my random musings.
Until the next time…farewell.
