Thank you for joining me. My name is Joshua Grut, yes, that Joshua Grut, and I’d like to talk to you for a bit about professional wrestling if you’d permit me. I have some very bad news and some very good news about our pseudo-sport to share with you all, and now is as good a time as any to share it.
We begin with the bad news, and it concerns World Wrestling Entertainment. Quite a bit of a contrast between the name and the style of wrestling and the current collection of characters. When they got the F out and inserted the E, they dropped ALL pretense that this is real, this is to be taken seriously. In the very name of the brand is Entertainment. Turn off the brain, stop wondering why someone who has been beaten within an inch of his life will still run as fast as he can to three ropes and then run back to get clobbered again because his opponent grabbed his arm and tapped him on the back. Don’t consider why someone would jump off one rope to another, do a flipping summersault and land on his opponent lower back first. It’s nothing to be taken so seriously, just entertainment.
The new breed of characters confirm the E. The Boogeyman, the Spirit Squad, Paul the Pirate, Mickie the Psycho, beauty pageant contestants wrestling, Tatanka the Indian, Eugene the retard, JBL the rich jerk, Rob Conway and Sylvian the male models, Murdoch the Redneck, Viscera the Odd Looking Sex Addict. The old Undertaker is back making rings explode with lightning he controls with his MIND! MIND LIGHTNING! THAT’S TELEKINESIS KYLE! There are Mexicans on lawn mowers, little people playing with beach balls and a black man with a big fat momma who pray to Jesus a lot and says “Googlely mooglely.” The hot ladies get it on with one another, the Dicks rub lotion on their heads, Hacksaw returns for sight gags with a Ho while the rated R superstar stays PG-13. It is the late 80s again but sexed up with a late 90s influence, a combination of the two most successful periods for the company. Exaggerated stereotypes are placed in exaggerated situations and react in exaggerated ways. There is no mistaking how fake this all is, how we shouldn’t think about any of it or it will ruin the fun.
Why then does World Wrestling Entertainment seem committed to making it look more real in the ring? Cruiserweights are told to slow it down, make the big spots count. Rest holds, head locks, armbars for everyone! Those who don’t slow it down and are expendable are fired, those who don’t slow it down but would be a boost to the competition are buried until they learn their lesson. The mind lightning shooting dead guy almost beat the world champion with a triangle choke, a move taken from mixed martial arts competitions. Whereas a pile driver used to be commonplace, getting hit with one today results in at least a two week recovery period. The ladder jumps, the hardcore matches, the tables are all gone. New wrestlers with outlandish gimmicks are told to follow a template, to work a specific style. There are no surprises left to be found in a WWE ring.
The in ring product has become so stale and repetitive that it is hard to differentiate between new wrestlers. I couldn’t you the difference between Rob Conway and Chris Masters except that everyone seems to hate Masters. Besides the full nelson push, I have never seen anything in the ring or on the mike from either of them that sets them apart. Bobby Lashey can throw a belly-to-belly suplex and he’s really built, but if Chris Masters would learn the art of throwing someone over his head I’d see him as Lashey’s white clone. Orton, Cena and Batista have succeeded to an extent thanks to monster pushes and the ability to cut a promo. Orton recently took the standard realistic match to another level of believability with Chris Benoit, which was so successful it seemed to lead to the match between the dead guy who shoots lightning from his mind and Kurt Angle. Batista managed to set himself apart by speaking like a human being. The fans LOVED him for it. It’s amazing what a little deviation from the standard can result in. Just ask the incredibly popular Boogeyman.
Cena, however, who easily received the biggest push of the new class, is being turned heel by the crowd. He’s a badass character with funny promos and a great talent for acting. I mean, his promos crack me up but good. I know there are those who would disagree with me, but he can talk up there with the Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Mick Foley and Ric Flair. So what if he can’t wrestle well enough to push a match from okay to very good? That never stopped Hogan from being loved. It didn’t stop Warrior. Dusty Rhodes was one of the most beloved faces of all time. So I propose this question: Is it the formula that is being rejected? Independent face, cracking jokes, kissing girls, mocking interviewers, overcoming the odds while remaining dominant? The little dance before the simple move, preceded and followed by much kicking and punching? I see he added an STF. I remember when the Rock added a sharpshooter. We got so sick of the act we started to boo the Rock, and then the Rock left. The WWE decided to reconcile the loss by pushing their new golden boy EXACTLY HOW THEY PUSHED THE ROCK! Only this time, the act was already well worn. Rock might not have rapped it, but he said exactly the same things Cena does but with better catchphrases. The worst part? They will not stop. They will not give this up. The strategy of the combination of the most successful periods depends on a Rock to anchor. And those who could help the company as main eventers as the path is paved for the next generation, the midcarders who wowed us as Rocky and Austin captivated us, they are gone.
Four of the six who opened our eyes to how far these superstars were willing to go to entertain us have parted ways with Vince and co. They gave us undercards we will never forget, some gave us their health, all of them gave us their blood. When the main eventers of their generation left, they figured it was their turn. It wasn’t, not for one of them. Edge came closest I guess, but WCW wrestlers jumping and the eventual company purchase flooded the market with available talent. The upper midcard slots that should have been theirs went to Big Show, Chris Jericho, Booker T, Scott Steiner, Ric Flair, Chris Benoit and Eddie. The Dudleyz, Hardyz and team E&C languished in midcard hell. When you do your job well and you do your job right, you eventually expect a promotion. You can claim they tried to promote them. Jeff Hardy could not defeat his demons. The Dudleyz were both pushed as serious single threats at first, but a goofy gimmick when goofy gimmicks were not the norm and the lack of big time victories led them back to square one.
That brings us to Matt Hardy, Edge and Christian. Christian realized his time would never come with WWE so screw him, but let’s start with Edge. Edge has been climbing his way up, clawing and scratching. He has the look, the mike skills and the ring skills. But the fans rejected him as a face. He was just so bland. As a heel, he’s serviceable. He screwed just the right person at just the right time to make the fans notice his mixture of boring but effective offense and his rightful feeling of entitlement. But he has never had a catchphrase, and he has never left us talking about that awesome thing Edge did at the PPV when six men and a ladder were not involved. Still, he continues to climb the ladder, his days of being neglected and passed on for WCW exes behind him. But with HHH still firmly in place, Kane and Big Show always ready to be bad guys and a new crop of wrestlers nipping at his heels, one must wonder if Edge will ever become the focal point he sees himself as.
Matt Hardy must be discussed next, because he is the antithesis of Edge. It is not just because of the whole Lita thing, it runs so much deeper than that. I know I talk an awful lot about Matt, more than I do about any other wrestler these days. Matt Hardy has a terrible catchphrase. It’s HORRIBLE. Matt Hardy Will Not Die belongs in the wrestlecrap hall of fame. Matt Hardy Version 1.0 is meanwhile one of the greatest gimmicks of all time. Matt facts. Moves with names. T-shirts. Funny segments. HAND GESTURES! Matt gave the fans a hand gesture to hold up when they saw him. Can you name one wrestler who thinks about things like that these days? Matt Hardy gave his company everything they needed to create a superstar, and they SHIT ON HIM! There is no other way to say this. They mocked him with a cruiserweight title run, they mocked him with his completely one sided feud against Brock Lesnar. After all he did for the company, when he needed them the most, they fired him. Then the money signs started flashing as he became the biggest babyface in the world of wrestling. He came back, gave one bad promo, and they destroyed him all over again. He got himself a new girlfriend and they tore them apart after he was beaten over and over by Edge. And what crime did Matt Hardy commit? He got over as a heel. He’s one of the most over faces whenever he steps in front of the curtain. His crime seems to have been that he succeeded despite the fact that his company never thought he would. Despite his success and the love of the fans management wants him to look foolish to validate their belief in his incompetence. It’s sickening. His crime? Resigning with these people who want to destroy him. I hope the money was well worth it.
But hey, this isn’t about how what they’re doing with Matt Hardy sucks. It’s about how what they’re doing with the whole company sucks. By skipping the Edge/Christian/Jeff/Matt/Dudleyz era of main events, what we have now is that the main eventers of the previous era are the veteran main eventers of this era. Sure, there are a few kids floating around, but Triple H, Undertaker, Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle are still the focal points of the shows. The acts haven’t changed, just the other performers. These respected veterans know they’re getting old, perhaps a bit past their prime. They had two choices:
1. Step aside.
2. Help create a new template of what the match should be to better fit their abilities.
They have not so subtly done away with anything that can be considered fresh and exciting. There is a format now, a style that must be adhered to. When they were down against WCW they threw anything against the wall and hope it stuck. Some did, some didn’t, but the things that did stick, man did they stick. The wall has been torn down. There is nothing to throw CM Punk against. There is nothing to throw Samoa Joe against. There is nothing but a realistic, slow style of match that these ridiculous characters must adhere to. Deviate from the formula and see where it gets you. Where once it was anything, we must now say only what is basically the same thing can happen in the WWE. And no matter how good someone performs what is essentially the same style of wrestling as everyone else, it remains the same style as everyone else.
Hey! Perk up! I said I had good news, and good news I got. TNA is throwing EVERYTHING against the wall, and they’re coming to prime time in April! The logical conclusion is that this will one day lead to a head to head contest against World Wrestling Entertainment, which TNA will WIN.
You’re probably cracking up right now, but it’s the truth. TNA will defeat WWE in a ratings battle over the long haul, at least for a while. Why? Because if Vince proved one thing in his battle with WCW, it was that the audience will seek out the better product. Say what you will about Jeff Jarrett, but he has brought us a company that produces what is clearly the best product in wrestling. The storylines can use a little cleaning up, but this collection of WWE castoffs and independent wrestling stars brings us excitement, athleticism and incredible matches every time. TNA started out with a dumb name and a lousy roster, and they have become the definitive wrestling product for those of us who know of them. Once they get prime time exposure every week, they will become a true #2 company. Then they will become a #1 company.
Or, Vince will buy them. Either way, can’t wait for that Shawn Michaels vs. Vince McMahon match at Wrestlemania. Probably make Joe, AJ and Christopher look like a puddle of piss.
