The Wrestling Analyst: Issue 3, 9/30/08

Columns

Quick News

According to the UK Sun, the Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho feud will climax at No Mercy

If anything in the WWE is going to knock The Undertaker vs. Edge Hell in a Cell off of its Match of the Year perch, this will likely be it.

<CM Punk will be challenging for the tag titles.

This was pretty obvious after Raw. Kofi Kingston will likely be his partner, but it’d be quite cool if it were somehow Colt Cabana, perhaps now more known as Scotty Goldman.

More from the Observer (subscribe here):

Jack Swagger is being mentored by Arn Anderson and considered to have the best upside of the new guys.

Big guys who have sudden and impressively quick movements always seem to get a chance to shine and Swagger fits the bill there.

Batista wanted time off after Wrestlemania, feels he will never be as hot again as he was a few years ago, and is making retirement noise.

All of this sounds like Batista has realized how badly those injuries hurt him and wants a major push back to that status. It seems his complaining has gotten the job done as he’s getting a god push on Raw. What happened to Carlito when he complained again?

WWE is trying to slow down storylines to prevent overexposure

With five hours of original programming a week, I somehow doubt this will do the trick, though it should make for some better storylines.

In other news, out of the corner of my eye you may think JBL is kind of, remotely like Stan Hansen, but you would be entirely incorrect. JBL is still not Stan Hansen.

For more WWE news, including what’s on the new Eddie Guerrero DVD and Edge return news, check This Week in ‘E.

Wrestling the Issue

The WWE has recently (again) banned wrestlers from blading. The reason for this is (supposedly) that with the majority of the current audience being kids (see here for more on the kid-filled audience), blood is not an appropriate manner to cater to the audience. Naturally, the internet being what it is, an uproar has broken out about the WWE’s lack of brutality. To this I say, what exactly have you been watching?

Blood and brutality are simply not the same. The WWE has recently had a cage match (Jericho vs. Punk) a Hell in a Cell (Taker vs. Edge), several street fights (Michaels vs. Jericho) and unbanned flying maneuvers (Evan Bourne). A ladder match between Michaels and Jericho is on tap, as well. All of these speak to an increase in flashy brutality within the product, giving children what they want. Further, blood isn’t entirely banned, it’s merely being kept extremely rare. Michaels vs. Jericho recently ended in a referee stoppage due to blood. This wasn’t an accident. With blood less regularly flowing about, when it does occur, it’s flashy and memorable. Blood showing up in all of these matches would have a quick impression, which would just as quickly fade. By keeping it extremely rare the WWE has taken something that had become normal and expected and elevated it to the notable.

Blood is regular for a lot of children, being regularly seen in movies and on television. There is a huge difference with blood in wrestling though: its real blood. There is, to many people, a substantial difference between fictional violence by grown men acting out characters and these same men, rather than keeping the action fictitious, instead choosing to engage in what is, at best, borderline self-mutilation. With the current sensitivity of the public and political correctness of the era, having men in what is supposed to be just “sports entertainment” regularly cut themselves is simply bad business. More, it’s hard to see how this can’t lead to some form of litigation, though I’ll wait for Andy Wheeler (the law student) to finally write a column again to comment on that.

Ultimately, blood is an addition to wrestling that can help sell the crowd on intensity and hatred. Overuse, however, has essentially robbed it of its effectiveness in being shocking and memorable. Cutting down on the usage of blading in matches not only makes the rare occurrences seem more special, but also protects WWE in marketing to their core audience. If blood is that important to fans and really makes the product, there are always hardcore independent wrestling federations like CZW and IWA-MS which feature buckets full of blood regularly, or, overseas, the best hardcore company on the planet, Big Japan Pro Wrestling (check the bottom feature). WWE is, as they proudly advertise, “Sports Entertainment.” As a mass media conglomerate, the outmoded blading has overstayed its welcome and outrun its purpose when used on a more than occasional manner.

The Smarkish Raw Ranty Short Review Thing for Raw, 9/29/08

Batista kicks off Raw and he’s in a match!

Match 1: Batista vs. Santino Marella with Beth Phoenix

Honk-a-meter instantly makes this Raw open classic and we now go to the Brain Barometer! He has 10 trillion brain cells, twice as many as average. Batista has 12 and Santino will knock out 10!

Quick squash into a Batista Bomb for three.

Batista defeats Santino Marella (Pin, Batista Bomb, Squash)

Beth distracts Batista post match as JBL gives his flimsy girly couldn’t be less Western style lariat out of nowhere.

Shawn Michaels cuts a promo about knowing how good Lance Cade is and not letting him show it against him again and will win the title at No Mercy. HBK teases his partner tonight being Hogan, Austin, Bret Hart… but he’ll settle for someone who likes him. Paul London maybe? Hope it isn’t God again… Triple H is backstage, so it’s probably WWE’s version of God the son.

Match 2: JTG with Shad vs. The Miz with John Morisson

Miz and Morisson on their “Dirt Sheet” web show mock JTG and Shad with racism for cheap heel heat. Well… it’s better than…. Blood?

JTG gets fun fast offense while Miz often controls with standard heel beatdown stuff. Morisson distracts JTG and Miz hits the Reality Check to take the win. It’s awesome that half of JTG’s offense seems to be borrowed from Dragon Gate’s Masato Yoshino

Miz defeats JTG (Pin, Reality Check, * ½)
Inoffensive, but short face vs. heel stuff.

Jaime Noble is backstage and he ask Jillian Hall to back him up, but don’t sing. Jillian calls him a loser in song until Dolph Ziggler introduces himself again. Noble walks away from the introduction and needs a partner for his intergender tag match.

Match 3: Jaime Noble and ???? vs. Paul Birchill and Katie Lea

William Regal and Layla come out to watch the match. Mickie James comes out to be Noble’s partner.

Noble immediately ends up taking a beating and James is tagged in to beat on Katie Lea. Birchill interferes and now James ends up worked over.

Noble gets the hot tag and nearly wins with a missile dropkick. The faces are a house-a-fire. Noble hits a northern lights suplex and makes Birchill tap with a cross armbreaker.

Noble and James defeat Birchill and Lea (Submission, Cross Armbreaker, **)
Perfectly acceptable, if short, tag formula.

Cody Rhodes leads Manu and Ted Dibiase Jr. backstage to go talk to Kane. They invite him into the stable because, since his father is Paul Bearer, he’s a second generation star. They really just want Kane to be able to work with them for their big match tonight. Kane warns them to stay out of his way and he goes to find Mike Adamle.

Lance Cade is out and gets a mic to cut a promo about learning from Chris Jericho. Good quick practice in front of a live mic.

Match 4: CM Punk, Rey Myterio, Evan Bourne, and Kofi Kingston vs. Cody Rhodes, Ted Dibiase, Jr., Manu, and Kane

Punk did the “What time is it? It’s Clobberin’ Time!” on the way to the ring and I accidentally had kittens. Anyone want to adopt?

Bourne begins by being smashed by Manu. That works until Bourne and Rey Mystery use their speed to take out everyone. Kofi and Punk dive on Priceless, while Rey hits one onto Kane. The faces are rolling with actual different offense. That leads to a break.

We return to Evan Bourne being worked over. Punk gets a hot tag and uses his strikes to control Manu, but when he stops to kick Dibiase, he gets chop blocked and it’s a Horsemen style leg workover. Sweet. Kane gets in to ruin it by hitting Punk in the head. Its okay, he’s a veteran, it must be the right thing. The workover continues with quick tags and a mix of high impact and old school (Spinning Toe Hold Funkin’ it up!) moves.

Punk finally gets an enziguiri, but Kane kicks the crap out of Mysterio and stops that. Punk is beaten on some more. Kofi gets the hot tag shortly thereafter and he gets maybe his biggest pop ever after that awesome heat segment. He nearly wins, but Manu breaks up the pin, so Bourne takes Manu over the top, revenge from earlier in the match. Kane goes for a chokeslam, but Rey hits him with a dropkick instead. He’s taken out by Dibiase and Kane catches Kofi in a huge chokeslam finish.

Kane, Manu, Dibiase, and Rhodes defeat Rey, Bourne, Punk, and Kofi (Pin, Chokeslam, *** ½)
That was done to perfection for what it was. The faces offense was all flashy, new-style, while the heels used older style moves, mixing in body work and weardown with quick tags and great heel work. The crowd really got into it and the comeback was pure fire. I’m probably over-rating this, but considering that it did what it intended with near perfection, I think it’s warranted.

Adamle is in the ring and gets pretty good heel heat. If Kane wins, then Rey Mysterio has to take off his mask. That needed so much more build. Ugh.

Randy Orton comes out to make sure Adamle has his cell phone on him to make sure everything he does is okay with Shane McMahon. Orton threatens Adamle to make sure he stays on his good side. JBL manages to come out to interrupt why talking nonsense about the economy and saying he’ll be next champion, while all Orton will have is the past. Well, JBL has “Cowboy” Bob Orton’s past, so I’m not seeing the complaint. JBL promise Orton will never get a shot at the title. Batista comes out behind JBL and spears him. He promises things will get worse for JBL. Batista is going to be a huge star again soon if he’s continually handled in this manner.

Santino is talking on the phone to someone he pretends it’s a sick kid named “Frank” so Beth Phoenix won’t be upset. Santino offers to walk Beth out, but she refuses since he cost her the match last week. Santino says she’s twenty-two years behind in the non-existent Fabulous Moolah Meter and stays behind.

Match 5: Candace Michelle and Kelly Kelly vs. Beth Phoenix and Jillian Hall

Candace throws ridiculously bad kicks. It’s my column and you can’t make me play-by-play this nonsense. The face team are actively terrible. Hall standing on Candace’s head made me happy. Candace is naked online. Go find it if you care and get over her so she can get off my television. Beth eventually reverses a roll up to a flying hammerlock slam for the win.

Phoenix and Hall defeat Candace and Kelly Squared (Pin, Hammerlock Slam, *)
Whatever!

ECW has moved to 9:00 PM from now on.

Match 6: The Great Charli vs. Deuce

Haas is awesome in this role and I really bought it for a second. Charli promo time begins while his translator explains curry is delicious and nutritious.

Haas tries Khali’s offense, but as he isn’t huge, he just gets beat down for his troubles. Haas gets a quick top rope clothesline and wins.

The Great Charli defeats Deuce (Pin, Flying Clothesline, dud)

The Great Khali comes out post-match to kill the Great Charli.

The MyNetWork TV debut is Thursday with a Wrestlemania special and Friday with an all new Smackdown.

A Wrestlemania promo-video airs.

Match 7: Chris Jericho and Lance Cade vs. Shawn Michaels and Mystery Partner… Triple H, oh joy

Jericho cuts a pre-match promo. He has Cade get a ladder and has Cade act out how he’ll hurt Michaels with it. For a hard sell, this went on a bit too long.

The announcers sell this mystery partner like a shock. I don’t feel so shocked. DX yet again. Would London getting a logical push kill them?

Triple H quickly makes Jericho his bitch, as usual, before Michaels is in to play Ricky Morton. That goes on until Jericho misses a lionsault and Triple H makes the hot tag. Since Michaels is in the title match for this brand, wouldn’t it have made sense for him to receive the hot tag and looks strong going into his title challenge? My mistake, then Hunter would have had to have sold.

Triple H is a house of fire, but is taken out with the Codebreaker. Micheals takes out Cade, but with Triple H down, he gets assaulted… for the DQ? Alrighty then.

Michaels and Triple H defeat Jericho and Cade (Disqualification, Overt Beatdown, dud)
What the hell was that.

Post-match the heels get out the ladder, but Triple H has the sledgehammer. He gets a Sweet Chin Music and Pedigree. Well, that had nothing to do with the actual feud that they’re selling for the PPV and actually took the intensity of the HBK Jericho feud down. Bad ending to an otherwise very good Raw as Michaels jumps off the ladder with a splash on Cade. So much for Cade’ big win last week.

The Middle W

This isn’t a reference to our soon to be ex-President, but rather the Wrestling in World Wrestling Entertainment. Jim Cornette once said “Wrestling fans tune into a wrestling show to watch wrestlers wrestle.” For me, at the very least, this is certainly the case and I watch a ton of wrestling from all around the world. Each week I’ll be attempting to broaden WWE fans horizons with a review of a great match they might not have ever seen or even heard of.

This week, with the lack of blood in the WWE, we look elsewhere for our violence fix. The following introduction to this week’s match comes from Anthony Delebreau.

FMW (Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling) headed by Atsushi Onita was the first real Japanese independent wrestling company. They were very successful for a short time before going under. Filling the ultra-violence void is Big Japan Pro Wrestling. Takashi Sasaki is the company’s Ace and Champion. With Sasaki as champion, many of the main wrestlers in BJW (specifically Jun Kasai and Jaki Numazawa, who are regarded as the two most insane in BJW) began to bring Yukio Miyamoto into the fold of deathmatch main events. Miyamoto quickly impressed, scoring the pinfall in his first and second big tag team deathmatches.

Takashi Sasaki, the deathmatch champion (in red pants), did not have a challenger for his title that he had not already beaten, and believed that Miyamoto deserved a title shot. Miyamoto, who had been gaining popularity in his “7 deathmatch trial series” accepted, even though he was intimidated by the superior Sasaki. Miyamoto was given the privilege of choosing the match stipulation. Miyamoto chose a light tubes and scaffolding match, calling it the ~One Night Carnival~, stating that no matter what, he was going to leave everything he had in the ring. The opportunity to face the Sasaki meant so much to Miyamoto that he brought in his family from Hiroshima to see the match.

Takashi Sasaki (c) vs. Yuko Miyamoto 3/14/07
Scaffolding and Light tubes ~One Night Carnival~

A quick feel out process shows both men being cautious. Miyamoto then, realizing this is his shot, suddenly turns up the effort, attacking with light tubes and taking a surprising early advantage. A dove has the crowd firmly in Miyamoto’s corner and Sasaki is already a bloody mess.

The hardcore sets up his speed until Sasaki gets pissed and catches Miyamoto. He then slams him into the light tubes back first, whips him into them, and destroys one over Miyamoto’s head. Well, there’s a guy to not piss off. A bloody Miyamoto hits the floor for a respite, but the assault continues immediately upon his re-entry, as he gets numerous light tubes kicked into his face! Poor bastard.

It looks bad for Miyamoto, but in his big match he isn’t going out like this, so he battles back, even grabbing a light tube, before that too is kicked into his stomach and he’s again grounded…. but its fighting spirit time as his quickness allow a belly to belly. Sasaki decides to try and kick him down again, but, hey, when it’s been done with light tubes, the normal kicks aren’t so bad, and Miyamoto nails a capture suplex! A piece of scaffolding is crushed on Sasaki’s head, leaving Miyamoto now firmly in control.

The speed of Miyamoto is on display with a missile dropkick and a nasty frankensteiner that hits shards of glass left in the ring. That coupled with a German suplex still isn’t enough to keep the ace down, so Miyamoto grabs a huge light tube and climbs the scaffolding.

He’s met at the top by Sasaki and we have a battle atop the scaffolding. The fresh Miyamoto wins and trashes Sasaki with the huge light tube! Sasaki falls off into the ring filled with broken glass and rolls around in agony. Miyamoto then hits a freaking double stomp off the freaking scaffolding and Sasaki should be dead… but somehow kicks out. Well, I guess you don’t watch deathmatches without expecting some overkill.

Limping, Miyamoto’s offensive flurry took away his greatest asset: speed. He takes so long to get Sasaki up that he takes a backdrop driver instead. In a classic combo, Sasaki tries to finish with a big lariat, but a relatively fresh Miyamoto is fired up. They battle for the next move and Miyamoto fires off a wicked lariat. Two chairs hold a light tube and Miyamoto is going for the kill.

They battle for who goes through the light tube on top, while Sasaki tries a sunset flip bomb through the light tube, but fails on his first attempt, only to hit it cleanly a moment later. Another filthy lariat gets two again. A powerbomb on broken glass and Miyamoto refuses to stay down in his big shot.

A big light tube kick to the head is dodged and Miyamoto uses his speed to keep ahead again, setting up an emerald frosion on a lightube. Somehow Sasaki escapes this!

The battle continues, back and forth. Miyamoto hits a moonsault senton, then grabs a light tube and hits his finish, the moonsault, with it. Even that doesn’t finish. Sheez. Miyamoto then hits a moonsault off the freaking scaffold. That has to be it… but still no.

Miyamoto puts Sasaki on a table and climbs the scaffold. This way he gets caught up top. Oh my. Sasaki hits a facelock emerald frosion off the top of the scaffold through the table. That’s the sickest head drop I’ve ever seen… and Miyamoto kicks out. Sasaki kicks a big light tube into Miyamoto’s head… and we’re finally… still not done.

Sasaki finally hits the face-lock emerald frosion through a light tube for the win.

Sasaki defeats Miyamoto (Pin, Emerald Frosion through a light tube, **** ¼)
If you love overkill, crazy blood, and sick spots, then this is for you. This makes the original ECW seem like Saturday morning WWF Superstars. If you miss blood in the WWE, just check this you for your fix… and then some.

As always, contact me for more information on anything within the column, including where to find the match reviewed, and be back Friday for Ring of Honor Weekly, as well as next Tuesday for more of The Wrestling Analyst.

Glazer is a former senior editor at Pulse Wrestling and editor and reviewer at The Comics Nexus.