Happy Monday morning, folks.
The purpose of this column is fairly straight-forward: there is, IMO, an abundance of writers in the Internet Wrestling Community (IWC, for those of you who just got here) that have become overly pessimistic. To put it less diplomatically: a lot of writers love to bitch. About anything, and everything, that comes upon their TV screen. Now, you may ask: why does someone put so much time and energy into something they (seemingly) hate? Well, it’s quite simple actually: these writers believe that by criticizing the product, they are driving it to be better in the long run. And honestly, I admire that goal. But, I also believe that the signal-to-noise ratio in this area has gotten way too low: people are whining and moaning about too many subjects that really don’t deserve that level of attention.
Hence comes “Look on the Bright Side”. This will be your regular Monday stop to find out what happened in the past week in the world of pro wrestling that was actually good and worthwhile. My intention here will not be to lavish praise on things that every other columnist has already noted in their recap or review or rant or column: it will be to point out the noteworthy positive developments that have been under-reported.
Now, in case you’re thinking: “Freaking newbie – he’ll learn in time”, I guess it’s time for me to establish my credentials. I’m 36 years old (married with two kids, so let’s forgot the whole “living in his parent’s basement” stereotype, okay?), and saw my first wrestling match in 1980. I still remember that to this day: it was on a WWF Saturday morning program, and Rick Martel won it with a flying bodypress off the second turnbuckle. I have clear memories of Hulk Hogan winning his first WWF title, the Road Warriors being introduced on Georgia Championship wrestling by Precious Paul Ellering, Magnum T.A. and Ric Flair feuding in the NWA, the Rockers debuting in AWA (and dealing with that idiotic “no moves off the top rope” rule), etc. Let’s just say, I’ve been around the block. I’ll never claim to have watched more wrestling than anyone in North America outside of Jim Cornette – but I’m not new to the game either.
Okay – glad we got that out of the way.
The inspiration from this column came after Wrestlemania 22 – which, ironically, I covered live for IP. After finishing my report, I walked away with a very positive attitude on the card overall, especially since there were so many matches that delivered more than I was expecting. But, after reading the various recaps and reports on the Net, I found that there were five storylines that were being criminally underreported:
1. Angle’s performance in the World Title Three-way
2. The overall awesome-ness of the Women’s title match, especially with Micki James
3. Shelton Benjamin’s jaw-dropping array of spots in the Money in the Bank match
4. The willingness of Edge to mix it up in his Hardcore match
5. The return of the D-X Shawn Michaels
I still believe this last storyline is the most over-looked sub-plot of 2006.
So, in any case – we have 3 major nationwide television programs: Monday Night Raw, TNA Impact (now on Thursdays), and (allegedly) Friday Night Smackdown. The purpose here will be to cover those three shows, plus any major PPVs, or anything note-worthy from background rumors/reports and any smaller feds that do something noteworthy. (I’d love to cover lucha libra or Japan, but since those shows don’t show up on my DirecTV, they ain’t gettin’ any love from me. Sorry, folks.) I’ll hit 5 positive developments from each show that should make you want to tune in the next week, just to see if they can improve on what they already did.
Love the concept of the article? Email me. Hate it? Email me. Think I missed something important from last week? Email me. See something this week that you think should be here? Email me by Sunday evening.
Monday Night Raw
1. Yes, plenty of people talked about how good the opening Edge/Cena/HHH promo was. But, have you ever seen a three-way promo, where it made total sense when the last two showed up (being called out: Edge with his “the Champ is here” line, and Cena mentioning “the King of Kings)? Normally, wrestlers just seem to pick a random moment for their music to start playing: but when they actually do what comes down to (admittedly obvious and short-term) foreshadowing, it gets the crowd ready, and the reaction is that much stronger. Not to mention the fact that they took a really uncomfortable situation (Cena being booed), and simply made it part of the storyline: having Edge address it in his new “I’m not afraid to shoot on anything” persona made perfect sense, and almost seemed to disarm the audience.
2. RVD and Shelton are capable of putting on several easy MOTY candidates. I wrote in the WM recap that they are capable of pulling the ECW-level RVD/Jerry Lynn matches, only with a much better athlete in Benjamin. I cannot express how much I’m looking forward to this match.
3. It’s quite simple: Kane was created as an “insane” monster heel, and that’s always been where he belongs. I don’t care what it took to get him back there: this is where he was meant to be.
4. The Masters/Carlito confrontation served to put a great amount of confidence in myself about WWE Creative, since they seem to be going with the concept of “let the audience decide who to cheer for”, which is what made Austin and The Rock into such big stars. And my faith in the audience jumped leaps and bounds when they decided to apparently back Carlito, who is 100 times better on the mic and in the ring. Kudos, Chicago.
5. This has actually been mentioned in a few places, but it bears repeating: as hot as Micki was dressed up as Trish, Trish was *that much hotter* dressed up as Micki. If nothing else, you have to give props to the fact that the skirt Trish was wearing gave us no less than 5 full-on shots of her bare ass wearing just a tiny little thong. And folks, I hope we’re all in agreement that this is A Very Good Thing. (I originally wrote “gentlemen” in place of “folks”, but I really hope that the female audience (what there is on the Net) can appreciate such a sight too. I mean, if I can admire the physique of Batista or Orton or Benoit in a totally non-homoerotic manner, I would hope that the Y-chromosones out there can recognize that Trish’s bootie is indeed smokin’, smokin’ hot.)
TNA Impact
1. Yes, there’s been praise-a-plenty about the X-Division title match. And Eric actually stole one of my points from me when he mentioned the professionalism of Christopher Daniels. But hey, let’s all take notice that the show started right in the middle of the damn match, and the announcers didn’t even take a few seconds to crow about it. I mean, it’s gotten to the point when it’s pointed out when Raw opens with the introduction to a match instead of a fifteen minute promo. To forgo intros and entrances and music and the announcers pimping out the rest of the card? That’s simply unheard of. (Update: it was pointed out to me that there was a segment before the show started that ran down the card, and showed Daniels coming down to the ring. Since I watch 99% of my wrestling on TiVo, I never saw this — but hey, at least it didn’t take any time away from the show itself.)
2. Samoa Joe smearing the blood of his opponent on his arms and chest is quite the disturbing site. They could make a video of him doing only that, and it should establish his rep as a total bad-ass.
3. Nitro has been off the air for a while, so I had begun to miss the “ring the bell 30 times in a row” scene that we saw at the end of the Team 3-D/AMW match.
4. You would think that the number of writers who praised the main event in the upcoming PPV would be equal to the number of writers that talked about how cool it would be to return WarGames to the wrestling scene. That doesn’t appear to be true, but I applaud TNA for doing it.
5. Eric Young showed himself to the best player in the major North American federations at a dying art: the cowardly heel. No one wants to play that part anymore: everyone wants to be a tweener, or a monster, or a bad-ass heel. It was refreshing to see someone willing to show ass all over the screen, and not be afraid of losing his precious heat because of it. It drew the audience in, it got the exact desired reaction, it was perfectly in character, and it drove the storyline forward. Many wrestlers would be lucky to do half of that in such a prominent position.
(allegedly) Friday Night Smackdown
1. Eric mentioned this also, but seeing Booker T take the “James Brown” pose when putting on the King of the Ring cape was simply brilliant. You kids who’ve never seen the Godfather of Soul in his prime — do some Googling, and educate yourselves. (Or, alternately, just look up the “James Brown Celebrity Hot Tub” skit Eddie Murphy did on SNL.)
2. Both sets of tag titles are now on guys that actually can, y’know — *wrestle*. Say what you want about the Spirit Squad, but they are getting exactly the crowd reaction they’re going for, and all four active guys can really go in the ring. Meanwhile, MNM and London & Kendrick are putting on consistently entertaining matches, with a feud that’s actually based on the titles themselves: always refreshing. Nitro’s Stroke into the second rope was a brutal looking move.
3. Burchill and Regal are obviously having a lot of fun with their storyline, which just doesn’t happen enough with upper-mid card guys anymore. And big-time props to Regal for actually walking out in high heels – I have no idea how he didn’t fall down every third step.
4. Kurt Angle continues the awesomeness that has been the defining quality of his career. (Full disclosure: I was in amateur wrestling for almost 10 years – from the fifth grade through my first couple years of college, so I have a special place in my heart (read: bias) for guys like Angle and Benjamin.) He took the unfortunate and potentially awkward situation of Orton’s suspension, and put in a perfectly valid and reasonable explanation for why he would want to break Orton’s ankle (Orton got pinned at WM, and cost Angle his title).
5. Much in the vein of Christopher Daniels on TNA, Orton also could have half-assed it in the main event, but didn’t. He’s already looking at a 60 day suspension, and I seriously doubt he would have gotten anything worse based upon the effort level of this match. But he and Angle obviously put some time and effort into laying out the match, and Orton did quite a few little things right: not going up on the ropes to do his “arms wide” pose at the beginning of the match because he didn’t want to turn his back on Angle, and continuity involved in Orton’s attempts to counter the Ankle Lock (the first time, he rolls through; the second time, he tries to roll through, but Angle is ready, so he goes after the shoulder that was injured the first time; that’s just simply smart story-telling).
Well, there ya go – 15 reasons, just in the past week, to stay a fan. Hope you enjoyed it, and see you next Monday.
