Hello again, my Common Denomi-Nation! Back for the second week in a row of on-time column delivery, so let’s get right into it… Like a lot of you, I’m a Scott Keith fan. I’ve been following him since his “Netcop” days on Rantsylvania and the like, so I feel like I’ve got a pretty good handle on his tastes and such. We are roughly the same age, and although he was weaned on Stampede Wrestling, while I was brought up with Old School Memphis, we tend to agree on a lot of things when it comes to wrestling.
Like Scott, I was a WCW fan. In fact, I stuck with the company to the bitter end, even watching Thunder when it was obvious they had no direction and everything was in a complete state of “well, we’ve got two hours to fill, lets send Chuck Palumbo and Disco Inferno out there and put Jeff Jarrett on the top of the card” type desperation/apathy.
That’s one reason I’ve been more into TNA than ever before. Not only has TNA always served as a WCW-esque alternative to the WWF/WWE, especially in the early days when Jarrett was the de facto face of the company, but as Scott recently put it, when describing a confrontation between Bobby Roode and James Storm: “This couldn’t be any more Memphis and I’m loving it.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still enjoying a good deal of what WWE is doing these days, including what seems to be a revival of the tag division that I and others have been clamoring for for some time now, but getting some other things right, like the pairing of Kane and Daniel Bryan, which is going well.
I think Punk as a heel (even if no one will boo him) is a smart move as well, although Cena’s injury appears to have mucked things up a bit in the short term.
But anyway Scott recently posted a review of “The Best of Mid-South Wrestling” here on the site, and boy did that bring back some memories. I don’t think I’ll be forking over $20 for a DVD of Mid-South/UWF matches any time soon, but I’m glad to see that footage getting some exposure. I remember seeing the Ric Flair/Ted DiBiase match and Dick Murdoch-induced bloodfest that closed out the review (read it if you haven’t). Here it is courtesy of YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_7kFO98t0I
They ran cool angles like that all the time. For whatever bad things people might say about Bill Watts (and there are plenty), he sure knew how to write good “wrestling drama.”
And that, my friends, is exactly where TNA is currently getting it right and WWE is getting it wrong as of late. Unless TNA just completely botches the payoff to the current Aces & Eights storyline, it has been interesting from a viewing standpoint. The Bound For Glory series was also a fairly unique concept that worked to make standard matches more meaningful and important. I don’t know if it was a direct “borrowing,” but Memphis had a similar series called the “Renegade Rampage” back in the late 80s, although I think the point system and standings were just kind of made up for that deal. Scott Steiner won that one back in the early days of his career.
One might criticize the Aces & Eights program as a rehash of every “Invasion” storyline ever, and I guess there’s a bit of truth to that, but there’s a fun factor in the mystery angle and people can get into that. Like I say, as long as they don’t completely botch the reveal…
Which seems to be the WWE’s biggest problem…closing the deal. Putting the belts on Kane and Bryan, or Team Hell No, I suppose, which I get is sort of clever with Kane being a monster from hell and Bryan’s catchphrase being “No!” and all, but whatever. Striking when the iron is hot is the smart move, and giving the fans what they want is never the wrong move. I still think someone should have called an audible and put the World Heavyweight Championship on Santino at Elimination Chamber, even if it was for a one-day or one-week reign.
Unfortunately, they never seem to be able to get the big payoff. Back in the day, like when the aforementioned Mid-South was a top regional promotion and during the days before monthly pay-per-views, there was time to develop a story and pay it off. Now, honestly, I don’t fault the WWE entirely for fast-tracking things a bit. It is almost completely unrealistic to compare today’s audience with audiences 25 years ago. But, I still wish they could get their timing right.
Last summer, I think the WWE completely dropped the ball and burned through the CM Punk leave-with-the-WWE-title storyline far too quickly. And I won’t even get into how botched the whole Kevin Nash-HHH-texting thing became. It did lead into a fairly successful program with John Laurainitis as the Evil Authority Figure (and that angle played all the way out, to their credit), but things like the Anonymous Raw GM and the Nexus just kind of fizzled.
What are they going to do with AJ Lee? For a while she was actually the hottest commodity they had (or pretty near it), and she’s still getting a decent reaction, but I think her character and storyline has gone way down the rabbit hole to the point that I don’t even see how you could explain to someone who is unfamiliar with the product how she got from where she was to where she is now.
It does look like they’re trying something that the IWC crowd seems to be buzzing about all of a sudden. At the end of Raw, Ryback made a surprise appearance backstage getting all up in CM Punk’s area. Cena’s out of action (at least in having actual physical confrontations and/or matches) for a few weeks, and Punk needs someone to spar with in the interim. I thought Mick Foley might be that guy. In fact, part of me (well, actually a lot of me) was kind of hoping Cena would have to bow out of Hell in a Cell and we’d get Foley/Punk in the Cell, which would be enough for me to buy one of the non-Big 4 pay-per-views for the first time in years.
So, what about Ryback? Is he a good candidate to be a foil for Punk. It kind of reminds me of when both Goldberg and Bret Hart got knocked out of Starrcade and Vince Russo wanted to put the WCW belt on Tank Abbot out of nowhere. His plans got trumped, but I always kind of liked the idea and wonder how things might have gone had Russo gotten his way. Abbot was very bad as a wrestler, but he had legit badass credentials from the MMA world, and really with the belt on Abbot, they could have gone in any number of directions, most likely with Goldberg getting the title back in a brawl sold as a shoot.
Is Ryback ready? He’s not exactly Golodberg, comparisons notwithstanding, in terms of heat or ability. He’s getting over, but not at rocket-to-the-top-of-the-card levels this kind of push would seem to indicate. But I like him, even if he does look like a Create-a-Wrestler from a WWF Game Cube-era game. Let him step up and take Punk on, I say. I just don’t think they should put Punk over him decisively (and no, I don’t think we’re ready for WWE Champ Ryback either). Let them play cat-and-mouse for a couple of weeks, portray Punk as the righteous-but-cowardly heel (again, shades of Memphis), and maybe even give Ryback a tainted Cena-interference-laced win over Punk. When the time comes, give Cena and Punk their feud back. Put the Intercontinental title on Ryback and build him back up to a feud with Punk down the road, maybe as early as Survivor Series or between then and the Royal Rumble. If they’re sold on Ryback as a potential main eventer, he could even have a big Diesel moment in the Rumble itself, especially if Punk is still champ then.
Of course, this might all be for naught. Someone might have gone “what the hell were we thinking?” and the Ryback cameo will be forgotten by next Monday.
