For Your Consideration…You Know What Grinds My Gears

Welcome to Week 42.

I’m foregoing all of the normal extraneous stuff I put up here this week because of a significant time crunch, which means next week you’ll get concert reviews for “Foo Fighters” and “Guster” ad well as discussion of the Oscars. All I will say now is that I hope the Giants crush the Patriots this weekend and bring the trophy back to New York, setting up a NY/Miami Super Bowl next year. So, without further ado:

For Your Consideration…You Know What Grinds My Gears

I’ll make this one easy for you; in the past few weeks there have been five things that have set me off and rather than spread them out over five columns, let me just throw them together.

5) The Royal Rumble

This is usually the best pay-per-view event of the year outside of Mania because it’s fun and unpredictable. The WWE knows that it locks up a big buyrate with the Rumble match itself so they often use it as an excuse to bump up random people to main event slots. 2008 was no exception as the main events saw Rey Mysterio return to the title picture and Jeff Hardy enter for the first time (for real) in the WWE. Neither guy won the belt, but then again neither guy was expected to win the belt. Rey was supposed to go out there and job his little heart out, and that’s what he did. Mysterio is not a legit main eveneter in the eyes of the WWE, but that little Mexican sure can sell merchandise. Jeff Hardy? Hardy was a pure midcarder who caught on with the fans with his two big moves and limited mic skills. He’s just as phony as John Cena, but he’s an acceptable level of phony for the fans to cheer him on. Should they have pulled the trigger and given him the belt? Not a chance. Like Orton or hate him, he’s the WWE’s guy until Mania and there’s no reason screwing up their guaranteed top heel for a potential new face in Hardy. Especially when we look at the Rumble itself…

The Royal Rumble match made a few points very, very clear. First, the WWE has no true confidence in Jeff Hardy. How so? Look at who won. John Cena was called up in an emergency situation to fill a slot on their hammock PPV because the thought of headlining a show with Hardy was too much for Vince to stomach. Yeah, maybe Hardy will win MITB and continue to have to jump through hoops, but there is no chance I hell that he was going to hold on to the top slot for two whole months. Cena’s unexpected and unbelievably stupid return will no doubt pop the buyrate on a show that’s already going to draw thanks to the Elimination Chamber. People will bitch about how this cheapens the Rumble win (which it does) and how this demonstrates the WWE’s complete lack of confidence in anyone besides Cena, Hunter or Michaels (it does), but all the bitching in the world can’t change the fact that the matches set for NWO will bring in a decent amount of buys. In the end, that’s all that should (and does) matter. Cena is not going to make it to Wrestlemania because I don’t think Cena is fully healthy. He was the last participant in the Rumble and worked a grand total of 5 minutes with a guy that the WWE knows can protect John from injury. Then the next night on RAW, Cena does about as minimal of physicality as possible. Watch as Cena and Orton have very little contact over the next few weeks, yet again confirming the fact that John isn’t healthy but his potential draw is. He’ll be one and done for the WWE, go film his flick, pop up at Mania to make an appearance and once he’s healed up he’ll be back at the top. Oh, and don’t feel too bad for Hunter not winning it all because we know he’s main eventing the show but now can get the “big win” in the Chamber. Yawn.

The Rumble itself was too cutesy and not enough action, with Hornswoggle’s running under the ring nonsense and the Piper/Snuka fossil-fest (though not as embarrassing as watching Flair gas out in about 20 seconds and just flop around the ring with Porter for what felt like an hour).

4) ECW

Even though I grew up a comic book fan and should know better, I still don’t get continuity gaps. Never understood how Wolverine could be trapped in a space station in X-Men and be fighting Russian mobsters in his own book at the same time, but then again I don’t think I cared all that much. ECW’s lack of continuity, on the other hand, is just illogical. Can anyone explain to me why Chavo Guerrerro was in the Royal Rumble match? Anyone? I understand that Punk needed to drop the title so that he could be in the match, but why Chavo? Isn’t Chavo a world champion, and thus doesn’t need a title shot? How much more bush league can the WWE make ECW look? Even worse, no one doing commentary pointed this fact out. When the highlight of your show every week is a jobber getting beaten up to evoke Whipwreck-esque memories, things are getting bad. Hey, I’m just as glad as any that Chavo is getting his shot at the top, but let’s not have it happen at the time when the company completely devalues the belt. It was almost as if they finally conceded that ECW wasn’t really a third brand but rather Velocity on a new night and time.

3) Big Guys Back

John Bradshaw Layfield and the Big Show are both back on the regular roster and I gotta just ask why. JBL was doing fine on commentary but he tends to bore a crowd to tears in the ring. Not only that, but he seems to be tangled up with Jericho in the highest profile go-nowhere feud that we’ve seen in a long, long time. JBL coming back to the main roster means that he’s taking another top slot away from people who probably deserve it and could go somewhere. Wanna blame someone for the Chris Jericho return flop? Blame JBL. Wanna blame someone for Jeff Hardy not getting the top slot? Blame JBL. Wanna blame someone for Beth Phoenix holding the women’s title? Blame JBL. Look, Bradshaw is obviously not the cause of all the woe in the company right now, but his return certainly isn’t helping anything either. Bradshaw is not coming out of retirement to be a glorified jobber, but on the other hand who wants to see him enter into a long world title hunt? Exactly.

Speaking of useless, Paul Wight is coming back. When the hell will the WWE learn that the Big Show is not going to work out? He’s been everything from world champ to comedy midcarder and yet they keep feeling the need to justify his inflated salary and massive dickish ego. He is going to be thrust into more big-man programs with Kane, Big Daddy V, Mark Henry, Khali and Taker…and none of that is going to light the world on fire. Dragging Hogan out of mothballs to pop the ratings? Okay, fine. Pulling Cena out early and risking future injury? Sure. Subjecting fans to more JBL and Big Show matches? Well that’s just crossing the line.

2) Lashley

I know we’re not allowed to curse, so to appease the higher ups I won’t, but f#ck Bobby Lashley. F#ck him and his entire f#cking gimmick. You wanna know what’s going to get me hot here? They bring him out with zero preparation against Simon Dean and have Dean bounce off this guy like a pinball to make him look like a million bucks. They thrust Lashley into main event feuds with Booker T before making him pay his dues. They decide to bury ECW and can Paul Heyman all for the sake of making this guy a world champion. They build the biggest angle at Wrestlemania around him and make him a national name. They draft him to RAW and give him a main event slot against John Cena in a match that was hyped like Hogan/Warrior. They ignore the fact that no one thinks that he’s over and continue to elevate him. He then gets injured and is on the shelf. Boo hoo, Vince didn’t call him enough when he was hurt. Waa, they fired his talentless girlfriend who wouldn’t do HER JOB. Shenanigans! They didn’t immediately bring him back despite the fact that there was no slot open for him right now. You know what, if anyone knew that Bobby Lashley was going to be such a little bitch then maybe they should have just cut him in OVW. You want your release, Lashley? Fine. Peace out, bro. Call Tony Atlas and ask him if he needs a roommate. Go do your karate bullshit or whatever you plan on wasting time with until you realize that the lack of fame and money is too much and you buckle and wind up in TNA in a ferret on a pole match against Dusty’s kid. You’ll be a speedbump on the long road of wrestling history, Lashley, and you’ll be missed about as much as Techno Tag Team 2000.

1) ROH is promotion of the year

Seriously? Ring of Honor is promotion of the year? You know what, I give up. I do. ROH-bots have taken over and I surrender. How in the hell can anyone truly justify Ring of Honor as THE promotion of the year? They are a regional promotion that isn’t close to being as big as ECW was yet they get the top honor after a lackluster year? Ring of Honor has been around for many years now and while they did break out in 2005 and maybe even 2006, their act got stale in 2007. By this point in ECW’s history, they were a legit threat to WCW as the number 2 company in the world. They had TV deals with what is now the Fox Sports affiliate system and were on PPV doing live monthly shows. ECW was selling out a lot of major cities despite their top talent always being raided. Oh, and by the way, ECW did this without the invention of true high-speed internet and YouTube and torrents and DVD sales. What’s ROH’s excuse? You know, I planned on doing this before their financial woes came public, and I decided not to pull it after it came out because it just magnifies my point. Sure, Ring of Honor put on three or four “great” matches in 2007. Of course they did. They are not under the constraint of the WWE or even TNA. They can hold a three hour show and allow their guys to go out there and do whatever. If the WWE wanted to, they could have Shawn Michaels and C.M. Punk do a Broadway on RAW every single week and draw the love of ROH marks, but they don’t because that’s not good business. Business, ladies and gentlemen, is key. Promotion of the Year doesn’t mean a small company that puts out grainy video of two guys aping Steamboat/Savage. Promotion of the Year shouldn’t be a company you can only watch if you’re willing to pay to order their stuff online based on blind faith. Being an ROH fan is like being a drug addict because they hook you and you keep paying despite the fact that you can never reach that initial high. I watched their first PPV and I wrote a column pointing out the good and the bad. Did ROH learn from their first show? Nope. They still don’t do live PPVs. They don’t have a weekly TV show (which, by the way, Women Extreme Wrestling does). They finally just announced that they are going to put out DVDs like ECW did highlighting the fact that the guy who just got squashed by Mister Kennedy used to wrestle for them. Hey, I wish Ring of Honor would succeed so that they would expand and put on national shows. I wish I would be in town for all of Wrestlemania weekend to see them live for the first time. But 2007 Promotion of the Year? As far as I’m concerned, if they are not even up to their own standards that to just blindly hand them this title makes our site look like a bunch of blind marks. You might hate the WWE, but they are still the default champions until someone proves otherwise.

Oh, and I’m expecting the feedback and I’m sure it’ll be intelligent and thought provoking, so I’ll clear room in the mailbox for it: awheeler316@yahoo.com

This has been for your consideration.