So I’m trying to get back on track with having a column ready to go every week. It’s surprisingly difficult, given just how much wrestling there is out there to watch. But I promised myself when I started writing this column that I didn’t want to end up doing the same old rehash of the weeks news mixed with show recaps. Not my strength, nor my style. But I want to avoid beating dead horses topic wise too. So basically what I’m saying is, for the next couple weeks, you’re getting the column equivalent of a long running sitcom’s clip show. I’m gonna take a quick spin through a couple of my old columns, and check in with how my opinions may or may not have changed since writing some of it… case in point, from my second ever column, about CM Punk and Straight Edge:
And then of course there’s the question of whether or not Punk using Straight Edge to become a mainstream wrestler is selling out Straight Edge and the hardcore scene or not. That‘s a can of worms I‘m not even going to touch (at least not this week), and in the end, my quibbles are minor. What really matters to me as a Straight Edge kid is that CM Punk isn’t a wrestler who was assigned the Edge as a gimmick. He’s an actual Straight Edge kid who decided to be a wrestler, using that aspect of his personality.
There’s a difference.
Well, since then, the WWE did in fact actually give the Straight Edge gimmick out to wrestlers who weren’t actually Straight Edge, namely Serena and Luke Gallows, and paired them up with Punk as the Straight Edge Society. And yet it worked wonders. The initial assessment from most of my Straight Edge friends that watch wrestling was that this was a bad idea. I mean, they go from Punk ripping things up with the Jeff Hardy to feud to sticking him with the dead weight formerly known as Festus and claiming he had only been an idiot savant because of pills? It didn’t seem like it was going to work. And yet it did.
The former Festus started dressing like a wrestling skinhead, and serving as a bodyguard instead of a full time wrestler helped make his “hoss†ring style tolerable, as it allowed for small doses of power moves to help out Punk rather than attempting full blown matches on his own. And then when the pair plucked Serena out of the crowd, shaved her head, and started bringing her to ring side as well, everything clicked into overdrive. It became one of the best three way pairings I can remember, week in and week out. Everything the two of them did complimented Punk’s stellar work as a savior, to universal acclaim from those same Straight Edge kids who weren’t into the idea of Punk having a crew before. So you know what? I’m gonna count myself as wrong on that point, at least partially. I don’t think it would have worked without Punk being involved, but it DID work, to the point that to a man, my friends and I were devastated when the group imploded.
And then there were my many columns about NXT and the version of Michael Cole that accompanied it…
Maybe the growing pains can actually turn out to have just been regular old growing pains, and “season two†can actually fulfill the promise of the NXT concept. Because awkwardly executed as the show has been, the concept has potential, and junking it because of creative indecisiveness would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. A good second season with even a minor ratings upswing could maybe even help the show find a new home, and next chapter.
Well, I don’t know if you can say that the promise of the NXT concept was ever fulfilled. Sure, we ended up with Nexus, but they already seem destined to take a seat next to the Angle/Stephanie/HHH love triangle on the “could have been great†scrap heap, and the season two rookies with, exactly three exceptions (Kaval, Riley, and Husky Harris), were painful to watch. It was amateur hour to begin with, but season two was amateur hour for beginners. And then when season three was announced as an all diva edition… yikes. Fortunately, this junking of the concept has actually led to some of the most entertaining WWE television in years. Thanks largely to the work of one man…
That dark horses name is Michael Cole. Not the Michael Cole of Monday Night Raw, but Michael Cole the announcer of NXT. If the WWE still believed in heel managers, they’d have a great one on their hands.
Oh, to be sure, I had my doubts. If you go back and read my initial column regarding WWE NXT, I found Cole’s heel aggression towards Daniel Bryan to be bordering on overwhelming. Well, I am not a man who is afraid to eat his words. I have come to love and enjoy Cole’s over the top revulsion at the claim that Daniel Bryan was the best NXT rookie, let alone the best in the world.
It was really this past week’s in ring confrontation between Cole and Bryan that pushed me over the edge, in part because of the EXCELLENT video package that preceded it, with its slow motion, black and white zoom in on a cackling Cole. And then when we got to the ring, Cole was doing the ultimate in cowardly heel actions: hiding behind 4 bigger (and presumably stronger) men. And then he began to talk. And he was the smuggest, smarmiest man you could ever see.
So far we haven’t seen any real payoff with the heel Michael Cole I spoke of itching to see move from a strictly NXT only role. His heel persona has spilled over into his other announcing duties, sure. And he is approaching “Excuse Meeeee†levels of heat whenever he asks for the crowds attention so that he can quote the anonymous General Manager of Raw (who, like almost everyone else, I am hoping turns out to be Cole himself. But I doubt it will happen. The supposed “evidence†found in the quick turnarounds in the GM’s email responses to the live events I think is just a deliberate creative oversight, not a master plan). But his Daniel Bryan hate has jumped farther than I initially imagined, to the point that it is back to being almost detrimental. No, NXT is still where Michael Cole shines, and never brighter than in the last 2 episodes of the all divas version of NXT. The man randomly pulled out a GONG and proceeded to trash the entire show and everyone involved, for crying out loud. His broadcast partner Josh Matthews (and as of last week, the aforementioned CM Punk) only add to the bizarre awesomeness, as both more than hold their own in the divas bashing goodness. One more sensitive than I might argue that it is borderline misogynistic to treat the all divas version of NXT with such contempt, but the seeds for this were sown towards the end of season 2, as Cole and Matthews began to openly rag on goings on (case in point, Lucky Cannon’s heel comments in the “season finaleâ€, and Cole immediately jumping on his sudden change).
There is no doubt whatsoever that NXT 3 is horribly, excruciatingly bad. It’s not the fault of the talent that they’re being called up too early and are being undertrained. It’s just that there’s something spectacular about trainwreck television, especially if you have an able conductor to help keep things in perspective.
Michael Cole is that conductor for season 3 of NXT. It’s not the full blown heel role I’d been hoping for, though that still seems to be in the works, but his unabashed glee and revealing how much the show sucks is, in a word well loved by Cole’s favorite wrestler, AWESOME.
More next week.
