For Your Consideration… A Knockout

Columns

Welcome to week 78.

When I come back to Pulse, I come back in full force. First, had the column last week where I ripped into Foley and ROH, and to my pleasant surprise almost everyone agreed with my condemnation of two sacred cows. Next, I turned in yet another stellar performance in the Roundtable, going a solid 7 and 1 (stupid Big Show match). Lastly, Glazer and I teamed up for his Wrestling Analyst column to pick apart “No Mercy”. That’s a whole bunch of Wheeler for one week…but there’s still more!

Yeah, you’re getting a fresh (if slightly abbreviated) weekly FYC dose. Why abbreviated? Because I’ve got a full day of work and class, followed by going to Temple tonight for Yom Kippur, which means a nice 24 hour fast. No food, no drink, no fun. So under that definition, I could still watch TNA.

Since I’m working on a VERY limited time schedule here, I’ve decided to forego my initial idea of continuing to pick apart “No Mercy” (I did a pretty good job of making my opinions known in Wrestling Analyst) and instead kick a slowly dying horse.

    For Your Consideration…A Knockout

Hmm, that’s one of those titles that could go several ways. Is this a column about TNA’s women’s division? Is it about the finish of the Big Show/Taker match? Is it about the payoff to the Michaels/Jericho ladder match? In a word, “Nope.”

On Saturday night, CBS, the so-called Tiffany Network, put on the latest episode of EliteXC. For the second time ever, the one-man hype known as Kimbo Slice was appearing on free television in what some would call a competition while others would deem it a “freak show”. Kimbo Slice has been compared to Mike Tyson, and rightfully so. Slice crossed over almost instantly from the MMA world to the mainstream media. He generated legitimate interest not just for EliteXC but the sport in general. Slice was just what the sport needed, even though he was exactly what the sport fought hard to not be…a freak show.

Putting Kimbo Slice on free television was an attempt by EliteXC so silence the critics and get people hooked. The curiosity factor was high for Slice’s first match against a tomato can, therefore his second match would need a bigger hook. The braintrust dragged Ken Shamrock out of mothballs and were going to have Slice devour him. Shamrock was so far past his prime that it was almost a 100% guarantee that Slice would squash him like Duane Gill. If Ken won, EliteXC was going to be in a bad position, but at least they could say that Slice lost to a former world champion.

Ken Shamrock’s notoriety from the WWE ensured that the casual wrestling audience would tune in. If Brock Lesnar was drawing big numbers on PPV, imagine what a former WWE superstar and legit UFC champion fighting a media-created monster would draw! Shamrock/Slice was less a marquee match and more of a sham proceeding. It would be like watching Jericho/Hart, but in Bret’s current state.

When Shamrock was unable to compete, EliteXC was screwed. Their “dream” bout was all but shot, but they still had to deliver a Kimbo Slice match. Lucky for them, EliteXC had scheduled some dark matches for earlier in the night, which meant plenty of fresh Christians to be tossed to the lion. EliteXC threw some pink-haired jobber into the ring with Slice, hoping that a 10-second knockout would add to Slice’s legacy.

By making Slice look like a dominant monster, people would be more willing to pay good money for his next fight. Shamrock/Slice was not going to be the colossal disaster that was WCW giving away Goldberg/Hogan because it wasn’t THE top match and there was little chance of disaster. When Ken went down and Pink Hair went in, the chances of disaster went from miniscule to virtually nonexistent. Everything was fine.

Then Kimbo got knocked the hell out. In 12 seconds, EliteXC died. Rather than build a promotion on the shoulders of a skilled superstar or a trained athlete, they built the entire company around a guy who fought bums in his backyard and put it on YouTube. With Slice going down as quickly as he did, he is no longer the unbeatable monster. He is now a very beatable sideshow attraction and not a network television draw. This, folks, is why I love professional wrestling.

Ultimate fighting is not without its charm. Much like boxing, there’s something kinda entertaining about watching two guys beating the crap out of each other. I don’t watch it all the time, but when I do I find it passable entertainment. The majority of the time, its two guys essentially hugging each other on the mat, with most of the damaging punches concealed from the camera. Rarely, if ever, is there the big-time knockout movie style punch.

Sure, pro wrestling is as fake as a three dollar bill. Its two guys acting out a script in a ring pretending to fight each other. But so what? Pro wrestling gives us everything we get from ultimate fighting, only way more entertaining. By sacrificing the “real” factor that doesn’t exist in any movie or television show you already love, in return you are guaranteed to get your money’s worth. No 12 second knockouts. No obscured moves. Everything happens for a reason in a wrestling ring. If a guy gets KO’d in 12 seconds, then chances are there’s a story behind it and you’re not going to really feel jipped.

The theatrics of pro wrestling are such that you’re going to get a fight that you could never see in the real world and you’re going to get a finish of some sort. When the 1-2-3 Kid beat Razor Ramon, it happened for a reason. Kimbo losing doesn’t advance anything. Look at the finish of the Jericho/Michaels match. You had a winner, you had a loser and you had the memorable visual of a tug-of-war. Kimbo getting knocked down happened so quickly that it looked like he just tripped. No great visual. No great moment. Nothing.

Yes, MMA is “real”, but it isn’t always really entertaining. Pro wrestling might not deliver every match, but the guys in that ring work their asses off to be entertaining as hell and put on a show that you’re not going to forget. Give me Austin stunning McMahon over any UFC knockout any day of the week.

This has been for your consideration.