Welcome back to to another thrilling installment of TVFTCS, starring yours truly and expecting father of twins (any time now), Jed Shaffer. Please stayed tuned and read the very special closing statement by him. But first, here is in answering stuff…
Mailbag i5 the ROXOR!!!1!1!1 (Jed’s turn as mailman)
This week, you get me, Jed, your irritable, curmudgeony old bastard playing mailman for the Cheap Seats. Our look ahead at WrestleMania XXII in our last cheap seats generated a fair deal of replies, more then Mark and I thought we’d get. Not a complaint, mind you, as we like feedback … except there seemed to be a running theme of “why didn’t you do this?”. For instance, someone by the handle of Lightcastle wrote the following:
OK, I happened to click on your column, and I like the idea of trying to book the unannounced card for Mania. But I can’t see why neither of you thought that if they are going to put Smackdown people in the MitB, then Hardy should go there. He’s over and he’s got more ladder cred than anyone else on the roster. You need someone that RVD can conspire with to make interesting spots.
Well, Lightcastle, that’s simple: we weren’t booking what we WANTED to see. We were making suppositions and projections, based on current booking, about what the unannounced undercard matches might be for the second “Grand-daddy of them all”. They aren’t angling towards Hardy in the MITB; they have something going with him, MNM and Animal. Now, I could be wrong. There’s still a few weeks, but their path seems to be against Hardy in the MITB. Edit by Mark: Curse you SmackDown spoilers that come out before the column! Back to Jed…
Plus, there’s another good reason not to put him in there: his career is dead. His value was cashed in, he was jobbed out to Edge in dramatically one-sided fashion, and he’s been shunted back into the Jobber-To-The-Stars role he seems (sadly) destined for. I like Matt Hardy … I think, like Scott Keith once said, that he has the potential to be a Randy Savage-style intellectual heel … but as a face, he makes tapioca seem like freakin’ filet mignon, he’s so bland. As for the credibility argument … we have Ric Flair and Shelton Benjamin in it. Neither are terribly well-versed at the ladder match, and Flair is almost 60. Credibility need not be an application condition here, so sayeth Creative.
Johnny92m (that’s his name, yo) had this to say about the booking:
Good job this week, but I had some thoughts.
I like the way you guys booked WM. But I have some left field picks. In MITB, I’d say Goldust could end up in it (Dusty’s writing, so it can happen) as well as Paul Burchill (Why not?). Matches like this make me miss Ken Kennedy.
GOLDUST?!? I think you over-estimate FatDust’s power. He is a member of the Creative Committee. Key words: member, committee. And one of the newest members, too. To have the kind of power to put Goldust over in the match would require Vince, HHHead Of Creative, The Bitch Of The Baskervilles, Kevin “Soap Operas Rule!” Dunn, and the rest of the team to die at the same time. No chance for Paul Birchill, either; too new, and his gimmick is far too cartoonish for a main event push.
As for Kennedy … you’re on your own there. Hated him from day 1, still don’t see the value (please, everybody, don’t email me and try to prove his worth … I don’t like him. End of story.).
I think the Women’s match would be more interesting to just throw all the diva’s in there who’d make relevant sense. Trish(Champ)/Candice(Playboy)/Mickie(Trish)/Torrie(Candice slap on Raw)/Melina(Trish from Survivor Series)/and Victoria(Works in somewhere with Torrie/Candice). It’s the best way to make 18-34 year olds happy. They need more than worms.
Okay, we have the spot-fest of MITB, and you want to put a second clusterf*ck on the show with six women, of whom only 3 are any good in the ring? This would do worse then wear the audience out; it’d stretch their good will past the breaking point. Trish/Mickie will give the people a good women’s match, and with the shitty card they have thus far, they need any good will they can dig up.
Make a weird excuse why by the E and move Sylvan over to team with Masters (Carltio’s in MITB if it’s all Raw) for the Tag Titles. Why not?
Why not? Let’s see … Rob Conway’s gimmick is similar, if not identical, to Sylvan’s, minus the accent, and Conway can wrestle. Unless we’re going for the Two Juiced-Up Loafs angle. Plus, doing another unexplained or unnecessary talent swap shouldn’t be done, lest the audience shit on the “once a year” promotion of the Draft Lottery.
I think Flair in a Ladder match is great. I would be iffy if I hadn’t seen Raw’s TLC match with Edge.
Lots of people seem fine with it. Not me. I’d prefer to see him do what he does best: wrestle. And make a new star, one on one, the old fashioned way.
I was wondering (going wit WM) who else you guys thought will be in the Hall of Fame.
Can’t speak for Neeley, but after Bret and Eddie, they can’t do too many big names. Hence Sherri and Mean Gene; big names without being BIG NAMES. Maybe Ted DiBiase, Slick, Jake Roberts (is he in yet?), Rick Rude … if they do another big name, Dusty, Steamboat or Road Warriors.
Sega Edwards (SEGA!) also chimed in on the Flair/MITB issue. Jesus, this is a popular issue.
While I was reading your column this week, I saw that neither of you mentioned the possibility of Flair winning the Money in the Bank match at Wrestlemania. For how much I’d love to see RVD go over, wouldn’t it make sense for the WWE to give Flair the golden ticket if he’s ever going to get that last title run. The MitB contract would let the dirtiest player in the game sneak his way into the championship after some major match in the same way Edge did at New Year’s Revolution.
Flair’s IC Title run was his last time around the block. Nostalgia looks great when we’re on the safe side of it … the “we haven’t wrung the cloth dry” side of it. When you push nostalgia that far … we have Hogan’s WWE Title run in 2002 to look at for an example. The crowd still loves Hogan and still chants one more match when he appears, and the crowd was hot for him then. But at 50, he is no longer a realistic threat to anyone in their 20’s or 30’s (or even some 40-year olds). Presenting him as such hurt Triple H, hurt the title, and hurt the WWE. Doing Flair as champ would end up with the same thing: at 60, he is simply not credible as the best wrestler in the company. Putting him over Shelton Benjamin and Rob Van Dam and other young stars does them and the whole company a disservice.
Charles James Sterner IV also takes exception to the idea of our booking, namely of Matt Hardy:
Just wanted to say that I really like the column. When thinking about fantasy booking for Wrestlemania, one match sticks out in my mind though. Forget Matt Hardy, Animal, and Tatanka; have a three-way for the Tag Titles between MNM, Mexicools, and London/Kendrick. While not exactly Edge/Christian, Dudleyz, and Hardyz from years gone by, it would create some excitement in the tag team scene and those two other teams have had issues with MNM in the past couple of weeks so it’s not like just some random
assortment. They have time to build it too. That’s just one match I wish they would do that I’ve been thinking about recently. Again, great column.
It’s a great idea, but again, you’re missing our point: we don’t WANT a Hardy/Tatanka/Animal.MNM hellhole … but that’s where things are headed, seemingly. We were only reading the signs they’ve been so goodly enough to post for us.
But at least all those people were respectable in their replies, even if they kinda missed our intentions. Larry Tenelanda, as usual, finds some little issue with me. Don’t ask me what I’ve done to piss this guy off, but I get some kind of mindless yammering from him with EVERY column. I feel so lucky, I ought to buy a lottery ticket. A quote of mine he decided to purloin and pick apart is in bold, his comments follow in the familiar italics.
“Every time TNA takes a step forward, they find a way to shoot themselves in the foot that took the step. Maybe they are WCW Lite after all.”
They are not “WCW lite”. Can you IWC guys quit with the TNA / WCW comparison. If they were WCW, Aries and Strong would’ve walked out on the company or bitched and complained until they were sent home and PAID! (Like Hulk Hogan in his WCW days). Or they would would be causing havoc backstage. TNA did the right thing in this scenario, something WCW NEVER did. They are not WCW lite, TNA cares about it’s product and rules of conduct. If this were WWE, nobody would be bitching.
Did you grow up under power lines, or are you naturally stupid? Let’s see, how to tear this asshole apart … why not use my trusty friend, The Facts?
Firstly, people bitch about the WWE all the time. Or have you missed virtually every column printed in the IWC since the InVasion? The number of WWE apologists and loyalists can be counted on one finger, whereas the number of detractors have grown so exponentially, you have to use quantum mechanics to calculate the numbers.
As for Aries & Strong? No, if it were WCW, they would’ve been buried on Saturday Night as jobbers for “Hole In One” Barry Darsow (yes, I went there), or Bischoff would’ve released them in a pique of Hogan-in-his-ear rage. WCW only rewarded people with paid suspensions when they thought they were worth it, like Scott Steiner. Aries & Strong would’ve been dust under Bischoff’s heel.
For the record, I like TNA. I really do. Got a few of their DVDs, I watch their PPVs … they’re an entertaining wrestling company. But the situation with Aries and Strong was very WCW-ish. Dismiss it all you like, but the fact remains that Aries and Strong were in the middle of a high-profile young upstarts vs. popular mainstays storyline; their decision to work the RoH show led to TNA shit-canning the entire story for TWO WHOLE MONTHS. Smarks will remember where it left off, but the casual fan will forget the storyline ever existed, and the momentum they had will be lost to time (see The Naturals, victims of an injury). TNA, in their infinite wisdom, decided against turning a negative into a positive and shipping Strong and Aries home at the expense of the X-Division and continuing storylines which promised to make new top-flight stars. That kind of bite-your-nose-to-spite-your-face mentality is a prime example of WCW-style thinking, only WCW did it on even larger scales … White Hummer? Uncensored ’97?
You could also reference paying Sting $500,000 for six months, two of which have been spent at home … a slightly smaller scale version of WCW having Kevin Wacholz and Lanny Poffo on the roster, paying them both over $100,000 in guaranteed contracts, and never using them even once. Or that TNA has and continues to acquire new talent, even though their window to showcase talent remains an anemic 60 minutes (44 with commercials) a week … a smaller version of WCW having over 250 people on the active wrestling roster coming into 1999, and using maybe 25% of them or less at any given Nitro/Thunder/Saturday Night/Worldwide. Or having a dominant, muscular, charismatic superstar who captivates the crowd with personality and being a human wrecking ball, only to squander him and kill his drawing power with bad booking, useless heel turns and jobbing at the wrong time to the wrong people (Goldberg/Monty Brown). Face facts: TNA is WCW Lite. Their mistakes mirror WCW’s step for step … just miniaturized. Not everything WCW did was bad. They had an awesome Cruiserweight Division, TNA has the X-Division. Both companies had (for a time) decent tag divisions, dominated by a couple very popular teams (Outsiders/Steiners/Harlem Heat, AMW/XXX/Team 3D/Canada) and rich in undercard teams. And for everything TNA does good that WCW did, they also make a misstep, albeit on a smaller scale, in the same pattern WCW did. If you think I’m somehow harping on them and being a hater, Larry, go ahead and misinterpret my words like your normally do. Bottom line: WCW and TNA are half-siblings in their business models. If TNA doesn’t move away from those mistakes soon, the ties that bind might become anchors that drag down.
And finally … finally, we have a big gun to trot out. He goes last because you save the best for last: Inside Pulse’s very own Eric Szulczewski, who always has a lot to say (and a quick aside before we get started: we don’t need age before beauty, Eric. Chicago’s your town, you can be the triggerman. But when they come to Detroit next year, I got dibs on the rampage). This could be a column in and of itself, folks, so get some Goobers.
(Do you know I actually typed out “Jedi” on the last “Jed” before I caught it? And I did it again, for some reason. All I know is that I have another case of insomnia in advance of a phone interview tomorrow morning. Oh, get this, if you loved the Triple H Meats thing, you’ll never guess what the company I’m phone-interviewing with is called: Stampede Meats. Yeah, after all that stuff I’ve said about Bret…no, it’s not in Calgary; that would be too perfect. However, it comes as close to perfection as possible. Their plants are in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, in other words, home. Oh, please fly me in for an interview…)
Jedi was a nickname growing up. Still is. Since I’m a Star Wars geek, I take no offense to being called by that. Hopefully you get somewhere with Stampede; tis always a good thing to go home again.
Okay, on to this week’s Cheap Seats. As I said, it’s mostly Jed, without an “i”, that I need to clear things up with. I didn’t say that TNA’s tag scene was as shitty as WWE’s. I said that whoever out there is slamming WWE for their tag scenes and praising TNA for the same is full of shit. Those people see things squarely in black-and-white terms; if someone’s bad, then someone else is good. I just felt the need to point out that they’ve been rotating the straps between the same bunch of people for the last two years while not developing anyone else. Who are the only teams to break into the “top ranks” in that time? Two retreads and a team led by f*cking Konnan who can’t seem to stabilize on membership and would be jobbers if it wasn’t for Konnan being there. I feel really bad for Homicide. He definitely doesn’t deserve this. Sorry if you misunderstood that, Jed.
Did I accuse you of saying so? I hope not. Now I have to back and re-read, to make sure I wasn’t accusatory. I try to avoid putting words in people’s mouths (I have a few readers who try to do that for me on a bi-weekly basis).
Mostly agreed on the tag scene. I don’t see it as the black-and-white issue TNA mutants do. TNA’s tag scene is better then the WWE’s. But that’s like saying a shot in the foot is an improvement over a shot in the knee; it’s still a f*cking gunshot. But at least we have TNA trying to pretend there’s a tag division. WWE has given up on all sides; on Smackdown, we have MNM being three-time champs in less then a year, and on Raw, we have the belts around an ad-hoc team of the week who’s held them since Oc-f*cking-tober. As much as comes close to your Lobster-Every-Night rule, I’ll take the Team 3D/AMW/Canada stagnation to the hands-thrown-up abdication of the entire division in both halves of the E.
I feel sorry for Homicide, too … the guy who took a top-rope muscle buster from Joe in RoH shouldn’t be Gonad’s Namelsss Gang-Banger Stereotype #1 in LAXative. I just recently saw his first match with Steve Corino in RoH, and holy leaping f*cking Christ on a crutch … why do they have him in such a bitch role under Gonad? They HAVE to have seen that match … they have to know what he can do. He deserves to be in there with AJ and C-Dan and Joe and Sabin (I don’t forget Sabin, either).
Speaking of tag teams, if I’d told you when they broke up La Res that Conway would be Epilepsy fodder and Dupree would be stuck down in OVW while Grenier would be getting a huge amount of airtime on Smackdown, would you have signed the committal paperwork? That, in microcosm, is what gets me about WWE’s tag scene and midcard scene: their apparent neurotic compulsion to break up teams that only required a little more work to get over (or to release them altogether, as Jed said viz. the Dicks; maybe if they hadn’t been pissed at each other, there could have been a rebook), then give singles pushes to the wrong guys. And this is happening because the guys getting the pushes have sugar daddies backstage. Grenier’s got Patterson, Murdoch has FatDust, etc. We constantly bitch and moan about the non-wrestlers on the writing and booking staff f*cking things up on a regular basis. That ends up giving the wrestling guys a free pass, and they’re doing some abysmal things too, just on a less-noticeable scale.
Signed and personally doped you up with enough Thorazine to put Gary Busey in a haze. Same with Murdoch and Cade. Dupree, to me, is no loss; never liked him, so him slumming it in OVW has no effect on me. But Conway has real talent, both in charisma and in the ring … and yet, he’s yukking it up in the online graveyard, while Sylvan gets real screen time borrowing Rick Martel’s Model gimmick. It’s like some sick, Bizarro reality where George Bush’s idiot son and his equally idiot former Secretary of Defense somehow gain control of the White House … er, scratch that.
The Dicks is an even bigger heartbreaker, if only because we never even got to know how good either guy could be, and they got fired for disliking each other when there were other solutions available: splitting them up, putting them on different shows, sending one or both back down to OVW for a repackage, ANYTHING other then hitting the abort button after a shot of shitty Starbucks espresso on the main roster. I’d cry out for a solution, but aside from either flooding both shows with new talent, or a scorched earth mass firing and rebuilding phase, there isn’t one.
Agreed about the “free pass” provision, Jed. Just that turns the whole program into a complete waste. I’m glad that I had the chance to take the mickey out of it on Tuesday. It’s a joke, and people should see it as one.
Yes, and after Stephanie using drugs on Shawn on Raw, they now have a potential PR nightmare for the eagle-eyed (something you pointed out, too). I know I repeated most of what you said in my excoriation of the “free pass” provision, but, really, it can’t have enough attention drawn to it.
I just wonder what will happen the first time someone pisses hot (after the free pass expires) that they don’t want to. Say, Sylvan (since he has his benefactor in Patterson) or Batista … or HHHead Of Creative. You know they could piss hot enough to burn up the sun. It’ll be interesting to see how fast they trot out the excuses to let one of the upper echelon slide by while your Paul Londons and Shelton Benjamins get nailed for eating a poppy seed muffin, or try to sneak past a little something-something to maybe increase their visibility in comparison to the big boys.
Also, Jed, who said that I didn’t turn My Beautiful and Beloved into Eva Peron? I’m thinking of taking the final step and turning her into Eva Braun. Or at the very least, Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS (tits will be provided). If you combine that with John Barrowman reprising his role in “The Producers” and singing “Springtime For Hitler”, I’ll just about
have successfully covered all my fandoms and kinkiest fantasies into one package.
If anyone could morph Stacy’s image from the brainless blonde cheerleader she’s been presented as (I’m not saying she IS brainless … just her presentation is as such) to Stacita, Champion Of The Descomisados In The WWE, it would have to be you, Eric. However, I need to sleep at night just as much as you. That extended fantasy may lull you into the arms of nocturnal, erotic bliss, but I may need some of your K-Dawgs and a bottle of Petron to wipe the memory banks clean.
I’d leave the tits, though. I applaud her natural form. Tits are nice, don’t get me wrong (my wife had a DD-borderline-DDD rack prior to pregnancy … now, she’s somewhere in the Greek alphabet). But Stacy’s got a nice form without ’em. Then again, she’s your Beautiful & Beloved, so craft away as you see fit, Pygmalion.
Mark: F-E-U-D. Please, dear God, get it right.
I’ll make sure to scold him. Or enable his spell-check.
You’re both right about Carly-Masters having to team up if Kane-TBS are to defend the tag titles at WM. It’s the only solution. Of course, I wrote the stuff in my column prior to Raw under the presumption that Carly would actually get a slot in MITB, thus having me play Go Fish with trying to find someone, anyone, to face Kane-TBS. And it may still turn out that way. After all, SD hasn’t had MITB qualifying matches yet, but that could happen next week. Teddy shows up on Raw to talk to Vince, etc.
And we know now the answer to this. Sadly, we were right. The depths to which they will go to forcibly inject credibility into those two stiffs is just uncanny … but then again, we have the main event choke artists of Kane and Big Slow on the other side of the mat. This is a serious, mind-bending case of “the lesser of two evils”, and unless my math is wrong, the numbers are a push; Kane/TBS are too unstoppable in their position, as evidenced by Creative not even trying to get them any credible contenders in the past 4 months. When there’s a tag division to speak of, long reigns are acceptable (and in some situations, a lack of tag teams can still be excused … Owen & Bulldog’s reign in 1997 was acceptable, and the tag scene wasn’t exactly robust then either); right now, with these guys as the champs, the reign is abysmal to the point of inducing amnesia as to exactly who holds the belts. But the option of putting them on Razor Lite & Narcissist 2.0 leaves me with the kind of body-shaking chills you rarely see outside of people quitting heroin cold-turkey. They are the only two who could make the belts go from “forgotten” to “wishing they were”. So, naturally, they’ll do that to spite me.
Here’s something you didn’t discuss: yes, it’s only two data points, and you can’t draw conclusions from that, but it’s still enough to speculate. Why is it that when WM shows up in Chicago, UT automatically gets the biggest stiff on the card to face? First Sid, now Mizark. Thank God this isn’t for the title like the last one was. God, did WM13 turn out to be a total waste (and don’t try to pump it up with Overrated/Wife-Beater, please). You know, I actually remember Vince and JR on local sports radio trying to pimp that waste of time. This is even worse.
Until you mentioned it, it never occurred to me. That is a scary parallel. The only plus side is that Mizark’s contract comes to an end this summer, and long, dark bog we’ve had to pull ourselves through for the past decade (Christ, a whole f*cking DECADE of Mizark … how did we piss off Vince so badly?) will finally come to a close.
Can’t agree with you on Bret/Austin, though. I like Bret (not to apologetic-fanboy levels like much of the IWC, but I enjoy his matches), and despite the presence of Wifebeater, I enjoy the match. I also will admit to liking the Chicago Streetfight with Ahmed, the Road Warriors and the Nation. I know, I’m a sick, sick man. But everything else on WM13’s card is uglier then a Hubble close-up of Rikishi’s thigh cheese.
Jesus, I’m rambling. Sorry about that. Again, good column, and great points brought up.
Many thanks, sir. Always like getting feedback from our peers, especially one held in such high esteem as yourself.
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The NWA Title: 1 belt, 100 contenders
Jed: If you scroll down to my grades, this topic is kind of overlapped. But, for your convenience, let me summarize: the upper tier of TNA is over-crowded, and has the potential to be worse. Counting current NWA Champion Christian Cage, Sting and new acquisition Scott Steiner (?!?WHY?!?), TNA has no less then EIGHT upper tier players, all competing for valuable TV time and a piece of the NWA Title pie (and more then a couple others sitting on the sidelines with injuries or other issues). This is a far cry from the WWE, where bad booking and glass ceilings have put them in a position where they have to give people like Chris Masters and Lashley Jesus-pushes just because the roster is thinner then Calista Flockhart on TrimSpa.
But this is the reality TNA has backed themselves into: a top-heavy roster, and only ONE singles title to fight over for all these guys in the span of one hour-long TV show. Examining the title scene is almost an exercise in futility, in part because it’s so over-crowded you can barely hazard a real guess, and partly because you can never guess when TNA is going to throw money at someone else for a few months. Still … the point of this is to prognosticate where the future of the TNA Title might be. For the sake of simplicity for me, I’m going to do this bass-ackwards: looking at the contenders, and their future in the upper echelon.
Christian Cage: His notoriety as the first person from the WWE to purposefully jump to TNA is still enough for TNA to ride him through the transition to Thursdays. Beyond that … difficult to say. A few months with the title, sure, but the sidelines are filled with others who need the title just as badly. I’d be surprised to see him escape the summer still champion.
Jeff Jarrett: Part of me believes he’s removed himself from the title picture for the time being. I should say, part of me WANTS to believe that. God only knows if this is the case. Part of me knows that as long as he is on the Creative team, he is only a heartbeat away from another reign … but with Panda’s recent commitment to turning TNA into a viable entity with better timeslots and acquiring big-name talent, I really have to believe they’re looking beyond Triple J. If he gets it back, it’s only for transitional purposes. Jarrett’s value as a centerpiece is diminishing fast.
Rhino: Rhino’s two world championships have both been under the most dubious of circumstances: one a passing thought during a company’s dying gasp, one a last-minute hotshot to make good on a PPV hobbled by a last-minute card change. It’s bloody amazing that TNA has been able to salvage his monster appeal after his disastrous run in the WWE, but Rhino suffers from one huge problem …
Monty Brown: Disregard Rhino being acquired and Monty being home-grown. What puts Monty above Rhino (and I’m a huge Rhino mark, so this is hard to admit) is the fact that Monty is charismatic in a way not seen since The Rock. Couple that with a surprisingly decent workrate (much better then even his fans in the IWC seem to want to admit), and Monty would seem to have all the tools … except that TNA keeps getting these huge names like Christian, Sting and Steiner. Monty is hovering perilously close to Jake Roberts/Ted DiBiase territory: the best wrestler to never be World Champ. I have to believe that TNA knows this and intends to give him the title by the end of the year, unless they want to see him on Raw. Of course, we said that last year.
Abyss: Comparisons to Kane are numerous. Athletically, it’s unfair; Abyss is, by far, more athletic, a superior wrestler in every sense. But in terms of his career, Abyss will mirror Kane; always just under the top, inexplicably stuck beneath the rest of the crowd. Maybe a hotshot title reign, but any monster reigns are a fond dream.
Ron Killings: Residual appeal from 3LK and his flashy, dancing arsenal will always keep him in the mix … but he’ll never be the main ingredient. There’s simply too much in his way.
And I’m not even including Steiner or Sting in this.
So where does this leave the future of TNA? Well, it certainly is an odd quandary … normally, promotions find themselves with a belt and few contenders … TNA has too many. Cage is your man for a while … I’d bet on another Jarrett reign sometime near summer, but not long … by year’s end, I imagine we’ll see Monty get it. Unless the recent tapings are saying Samoa Joe will be moved from the X-Division into the big dance. If that’s the case … hooboy, all bets are off.
Mark: Following that same pattern…
Christian Cage: Seems to be TNA’s big face champion that they seemed to be struggling to find in past years, which is a big part of the reason people think Jeff Jarrett held onto the title as long as he did. Sure, you had AJ’s short stint as NWA Champion, but they needed Styles back to continue to elevate the X division, which is why you saw near the end of the year, October of 2005, when TNA had its big, self-proclaimed “WrestleMania of TNA”, their “most anticipated event ever”, AJ Styles was X division champion, facing Christopher Daniels in an Ironman match for that title. You had Raven, which didn’t last, and eventually, now, he’s fired. You had Rhino, who had his spotlight moment to shine at Bound For Glory after Kevin Nash was hospitalized with chest pains. I see Christian holding onto it for a while, if he can cleanly defeat Monty Brown, like he did at Against All Odds (keep in mind how in an earlier PPV he defeated him WITH help from the exposed turnbuckle), he can defeat just about anybody. With (spoiler) Abyss as the number one contender now for Lockdown, it will be interested to see what happens afterwards.
Jeff Jarrett: Toyed with the fans at Destination X for being the new number one contender, saying he would face whoever won the Christian-Brown match. Of course this isn’t true after the Big Poppa Chump (!?WHY!?) and Steve Borden incident. As it’s set up (spoiler again), it looks like at Lockdown, as mentioned before, Abyss will be the number one contender, and Jarrett and Steiner will lead a team in another one of those TNA multiple-man tag matches, against a team led by Steve Borden. I, unlike most, don’t expect Jarrett’s ego to reel him in a sixth NWA title, at least not right now with Christian in front of the wheel.
Rhino: Don’t expect him to do anything in the NWA title picture soon. Like I said, Bound For Glory was his TNA moment to shine. Not to say we won’t see him do anything in the future, just not anytime soon. Don’t look for him to repeat winning a Monster’s Ball, then a #1 Contendership Gauntlet, and then defeat the champion, in this case, Christian, like he did last time at Bound For Glory.
Abyss: Will face Christian for the title at Lockdown, will lose. I really do not see any significance in that Abyss was the obvious choice as the next top heel to take on the babyface champion, after Monty Brown. It will be an interesting match though, I look forward to see how the finish looks, as unlike with Jarrett or Brown, I don’t think an Unprettier will exactly do the trick.
Samoa Joe: My ultimate choice to dethrown Chistian, as I anticipated as soon as he lost the Ultimate X match. The Ultimate X was a perfect oppurtunity for Joe to drop the title but still keep his “never been pinned”, or if they continue to market him as “undefeated” strak alive. It might take a few months, but look for Joe as your next NWA World Heavyweight Champion.
Destination Ecch
Once again, I didn’t see it (I don’t have PPV with my cable, and even if I did, I don’t have the $30 to spare). Got a torrent for it, but what I’ve read isn’t encouraging me download it quickly.
For brevity, for the sake of my sanity, I’m skipping even mentioning the bulk of the midcard; the matches on the undercard had little to no heat, either through a tiresome premise (the LAXative/Old-News Outlaws feud), no build-up (Bentley vs. Hoyt) or just being a throw-em-all-together-to-get-them-on-the-PPV mash-up (the four-way X-Division “International Showcase”, or whatever it was called). The only draw on this was the triple main event, so that’s all I’m going to bother discussing today.
First, we have the 8-man train wreck. Everything you’d expect from a Jarrett match/TNA clusterf***: lots of brawling and mayhem. The booking of it … well, the whole existence of the match was more or less a “we have nothing to do with them right now, so…” solution, so who won was never really that important. This was, basically, an Angle Advancement match, serving the AMW/Team 3D feud, the Jarrett/Sting feud, and the Planet Jarrett vs. the world gig. It served its purpose, but a little creative writing could’ve done it so much better.
Ultimate-X … well … the Impact tapings seem to suggest a transition for Joe from the top of the X to the non-X roster, so in retrospect, the booking here seems necessary. However, the problem is that Joe’s momentum is now stunted by not having the belt. Clever booking (Joe using a ladder, maybe) could’ve gotten Joe out Ultimate-X with the belt, and continued his domination of the X-Division, moving on to new opponents. Of course, with the build-up of Generation NeXt shunted thanks to Austin Aries’ and Roderick Strong’s behavior, mayhap Joe’s storyline suffered because of it. This all seems very unfortunate, because Joe killing the X-Division until someone finally got the best of him (like Aries did in Ring Of Honor) would’ve been much more compelling then “You lost the title without being pinned, so we’re moving you”.
As for the main event … can’t comment on the match, other then to say “Saw that coming”. The après, though … oy. Just scroll down and read my grades for my thoughts on it. It’s under “F”, for “Fucking stupid all around”.
Mark: Nor did I catch the event, but where would the column be without the PPV to discuss during its off-week?
Sounded like the usual monthy TNA PPV, really, a crappy undercard with a carried out feud in LAX-James Gang, some random shit to get people on the card who they otherwise had nothing to do with in something like Maverick Matt vs. The Texan. And then you had your usual TNA PPV spotfest in the eight-man tag, -ahem-, excuse me, EIGHT MAN WAR!! Then you had a double dose of the X-division matches with the annual Internation Showcase Four-Way. My opinions on the Four-Way: Put someone else over besides Sabin. I really wanted Alex Shelley to win the X cup qualifying match from Impact before the PPV. Dutt lost the match, and he was still in it, representing India like the last time. Bringing in Puma was an interesting choice, but I’m not complaining. The Ultimate X – as people said, was probably the worst of the encounters between the three before, and sounded highly dissapointing, but that can be excused for the apparent Joe in-match injury that caused the quicker and more abrupt ending.
Main event? Well, it sounded pretty solid, as you would expect out of the two like the last time they met when Christian had to use the exposed turnbuckle to get the pin. I was a little surprised it ended after just one Unprettier, kind of makes Monty look pretty weak, after Jarrett had to hit him with THREE (count ’em) Strokes to be able to pin Monty previously.
The Grade Book
Jed gives an A to: the selection of Verne Gagne to the WWE Hall Of Fame. The first time the HoF was around, the “honor” of being selected was barely treated as such, and had next to no pomp or circumstance as it does now. Back then, picks were largely political, less a celebration of wrestling’s history and more of the WWE’s approved and sanctioned history. When the HoF returned a few years ago, the inductions were treated with reverence; old differences were patched up in an attempt to not only appeal to the fans who wanted to see iconic stars with bitter disputes with the fed inducted, but to give the HoF legitimacy as more then a political seal of approval of the WWE’s licensed history. The induction of Verne Gagne is, bar none, the most important induction this year, for this very purpose. Bret’s induction is a milestone of inter-personal politics, a healing of a legendary rift. Eddie’s is largely opportunistic, but not objectionable. The selection of Verne Gagne, once a rival promoter who denied Vince a buyout of the AWA, shows that the effort to turn the WWE Hall Of Fame into a true WRESTLING Hall Of Fame, regardless of any circumstances.
Mark gives an A to: Not only Verne Gagne, but the whole selection of Hall of Fame inductees for the 2006 unductions so far. Bret Hart, Eddie Guerrero, Sensational Sherry, “Well Let Me Tell Ya ‘Somethin” Mean Gene, and now Verne Gagne. Doesn’t sound like a bad lineup to me, nor does it anyone else. It really makes me wish I would have got a ticket to the event since I will be in Chicago during WrestleMania weekend and will be at the event, but I can’t help it selling out that quick.
Jed gives a B to: WWE Talent Relations (I know, a shock, after all the ripping I’ve done on them) for finally pulling the plug on the Juniors Division. Midget wrestling is an anachronism from the carny days, a sideshow attraction that nobody took seriously even back then. Trying to shove it down modern audience’s throats was a New Coke-level mistake, and shoved the wrestlers people wanted to see onto the Velocity graveyard. Ditching it is the first smart decision TE has made in months … years, maybe. Too bad we had to suffer through it in the first place.
Jed gives a B to: TNA for making the wise decision of taking the X division belt off of Samoa Joe, which seemed to be an impossible task, at Destination X. It was set up perfectly so that Joe can still be promoted as undefeated since he lost it in the Ultimate X match, and in my opinion the right man went over in Daniels. Daniels will be able to work well with the other “second rate” X division guys, like Jay Lethal who is currently getting his push after being the token African-American Impact jobbers for a couple months. So, when does Kenny King get his?
Jed gives a C to: the epidemic of talent leaving Ring Of Honor. I can’t begrudge anyone the opportunity for more money, an easier schedule, a more sustained push, or whatever is driving so many people (five in a month!) to sever ties with RoH. Personal ambitions and financial necessity cannot be denied. But in one month, we’ve seen Low-Ki, Milano Collection AT, Jay Lethal, Abyss and Azriel all break it off with the indy powerhouse. You have to wonder if something is amiss in the front office of RoH that’s driving these performers to pull up stakes. I hope not … Ring Of Honor’s product is the benchmark for old-school wrestling purists, and I’d hate to see the promotion suffer (or fold) because the talent won’t stay.
Mark gives a C to: Vince (?) and WWE for firing all of the Junior Division, although the whole process of it all makes you wonder why the midgets were even ever signed originally. Maybe just for a fresh idea, maybe for the thrill of the bouncy ball logo, maybe for comedy and a failed attempt at entertainment on SmackDown for a couple of weeks so people knew there was a division, and then moving Octagoncito, Super Porky and the bunch down to Velocity and dark matches. Either way, it’s a win/win scenario to know we don’t have to put up with them anymore. And yeah, comedy with midgets is sooooo PWI magazine.
Jed gives an D to: the WWE Creative department, for doing what everybody dreaded when they had Stephanie spike Shawn Michaels’ drink: using drug testing as a storyline mechanic. Professional wrestling is an entity where drugs are an unpleasant reality that all fans, smarks and marks alike, are all too privy to thanks to the roll call of the dead. Many people even know someone whose life has been affected by drugs or alcohol abuse. To insert it into an entertainment medium requires delicate writing and precision acting to come off acceptable. Wrestling just doesn’t have that feather touch. Remember Droz The Pusher and Hawk falling off the TitanTron?
Mark gives an D to: See “F”, because when I think of recent topics or events in wrestling, and since D and F are both meaning “bad”, it bears taking up the space of two letter grades.
Jed gives an F to: TNA, for bringing in Scott Steiner. No, not because he gets winded breathing … not because his musculature prevents him from the simplest of motions without terrible effort (like blinking) … no, the criminal issue here is that TNA is a federation whose upper-mid/main event scene is obscenely top heavy. Christian, Jarrett, Rhino, Abyss, Killings and Monty are all legitimate players at the top of the heap; Raven will be in the mix again, when he recovers … anytime Kevin Nash or Sabu decide to return, they have instant top-tier credibility, and if TNA decides to dance with Jeff Hardy again, he is (like it or not) among the top. Plus, you can’t forget about the top-tier X-Division guys who could easily transition over (one of whom has in the past), and Sting is a featured player, even if he’s kept out of the title hunt. That’s TEN PEOPLE with the resume to be NWA World Champion … all competing for time with the Tag and X scenes, and the lower tier guys, on a one-hour show. Why, in God’s name, is Steiner needed? I mean, isn’t Abyss, who is ON THE FUCKING ROSTER, a good person to stick in a hulking henchman role? How can he be forced into an already over-crowded scene without costing somebody else their spot? TNA is trying to cash in on shock value and name recognition with a crowd consisting of smarks who don’t get surprised, and don’t buy the Steiner product. This would be money better saved for a future when they have the room and the need for more talent, while they make do with who they have.
Mark gives an F to: Oh boy, Big Poppa Chump. Here is the TNA mutant’s enitial reaction: Yes!! Steiner!!! Sting! Steiner! We are teh c00l! We will utilize Steiner right unlike that awful thing called WWE! Well, actually, you’re not going to get out of Steroid Monkey than the thirteen overhead suplexes he threw at Triple H at the 2003 Royal Rumble, and then dropping Triple H, at that. And maybe, just maybe, if you’re lucky, like at Bad Blood against Test, you might get him slipping off of the apron on a double axe handle attempt.
A Very Special Closing Message from Jed: If you frequent the forums (go, join, discuss, check out the e-fed I help run!), read my LiveJournal or happen to be a friend of mine, you know something about me: my wife is pregnant with twin boys. Well, this past weekend (week 35, for those counting), my wife began to feel some random contraction-style cramping and pains. A doctor’s exam on Tuesday revealed she is 2 centimeters dilated. Her labor pains have subsided a bit since then, but the babies have dropped for sure, which means the real joy isn’t far off … by the end of the month for sure, possibly within the next week or so.
I have one book review in queue (pending me reading the book) for IP. I hope to have that done in the next week, barring the birth. However, I wanted you all to know that, excluding that itty bitty little project (book reviews take me very little time to write at all), I will be taking a leave of absence from the Cheap Seats, and from IP in general. I’m sure with such circumstances as the impending birth of my first children, my absence can be excused. I don’t know when I will return … by summer, I would assume. Time enough to get acclimated and get used to my new double-fatherhood. Many thanks for letting me come into your world, in this form and the many forms of Re-Whatever I’ve undertaken in my nearly two years here in the IWC. And thanks, in advance, for what I’m sure will be a deluge of “CONGRATULATIONS!!!” emails. See ya in while.
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But does this mean the column will be ending, or on a complete hiatus until Jed gets back this summer? NO! Neeley will still be back will TVFTCS, with guest co-stars! Don’t miss it! Oh yeah, and when Jed comes back he’ll be back too.
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