2011 Pro Wrestling Thread

Catching up on Smackdown over on YouTube. Just curious ... why do the announcers insist on referring to the upcoming PPV as "the 25th anniversary of Survivor Series"? WWF held the first SS in 1987, which makes this the 25th annual, just not the 25th anniversary of the event. Certainly, I cannot be the only one who isn't at least a little irked by this grammatical error?

 

Off the top of my head: Give interesting, engaging storylines to the midcard talent and guys like Sheamus and Del Rio. Sell us on a match that isn't Cena vs. Rock. Make us emotionally invested in the main event talent. Form some new tag teams and stick with them for the long haul (Kingston/Bourne is a good start, and I'd keep them together for years now). Keep divas off TV until they can competently wrestle a 5-10 minute match, no matter how stunning they look. Stop with the inside references and lame bits like babyfaces referring to the Dynamic Dudes when speaking to John Laurinaitis (maybe 5% of current fans understand it). Get Laurinaitis off TV in general. Bring back Jim Ross and remove Michael Cole from commentating, instead making him the mouthpiece of a heel tag team or faction.

I don't think the WWE is suffering from its "PG" rating or a lack of in-ring wrestling talent. Fans are tuning out because the storylines just aren't reeling them in like they're supposed to. But building around this roster shouldn't be that difficult, as there's a pretty nice mix of established main event guys, fringe main event guys, and young mid card talent.

 

I'm OK with inside references when done right (like Nash's promo last Monday on Trips). Laurinitis would be better off in a Vince stooge role, like Patterson and Brisco were, and what they should do is show a Dynamic Dudes clip on the Titantron, both to get a cheap laugh, and to inform the other 95 percent what these skateboarding references are about.

But otherwise, spot on. Make the tag titles, and US/IC belts mean something again (although Ziggler and Rhodes have done a very good job), and start being unpredictable again. Right now, almost everything on Raw can be predicted. That's not good.

 

Also, Meltzer is reporting that the WWE mid-card guys are majorly pissed off at the Evan Bourne suspension. Apparently, some main event guys were using the same stuff as Bourne did at a party, only they got fined instead of suspended. Naturally, there's a double-standard at play here.

 

Yeah, making titles mean something again is important. Although I don't really mind there being two world titles, one on each show, it's really unnecessary now that SmackDown wrestlers are regularly on RAW. If you have one world champion it just means so much more with all the wrestlers clawing for the lone top spot. Mark Henry doesn't need the title to be a dominant heel force.

If they showed a clip of the Dynamic Dudes to freshen our memories, I wouldn't mind as much. But they are pretty much expecting the audience to remember them. I barely remember them and how would almost anyone under 25 or so, including all the kids they covet? It's a small detail, but it irks me. Some of the inside references aren't completely useless if reinforced through clips and commentating.

 

I guess they're figuring most of the kids at the shows are there with their parents, who probably watched in the 80s and 90s. Problem is, the Dynamic Dudes didn't really hang around that long, so only the hardcore fan parents would remember them at all, much less know that one of them became John Laryngitis. If you want to continue down this road, a more direct way would be to have Punk use video to compare Joe Laurinaitis (member of arguably the most influential tag team in wrestling history) with James Laurinaitis (NFL linebacker and multiple award-winner at Ohio State) to Johnny Laurinaitis (dork carrying a skateboard because he can't ride it).

As for the titles, I don't know that you can unring that particular bell. My enjoyment of a Dolph Ziggler-John Morrison or Mark Henry-The Big Show match isn't affected by whether any of the participants are holding belts. I think you always have to have a organization champion, someone you point to as the kayfabe most important person on the roster, but I don't know that you can get people excited about *any* secondary belt anymore, no matter who's holding it or how they got there. I do think you can do that with tag teams, because that's a different type of wrestling. Of course, nobody gives two squirts about the doubles Wimbledon champions.

 

Because the WWE can't grasp the difference between "annual" and "anniversary." They had that same problem with Wrestlemania 25, which they hyped as 25th Anniversary.

 

I'll say it again: unify more titles, kill the brand extension. This Raw SuperShow and Super SmackDown bullshit has killed it anyway. At least WWE was smart enough to kill off the Bragging Rights concept ... oh, yeah, because the brands don't mean anything!

 

Six years ago today, Eddie Guerrero passed away.

 

I think the WWE is paranoid about cutting the next Stone Cold or something; the only people they seem to let go now are drug addicts and stalled out midcarders. According to the Observer, and their latest stock market conference call, they said they had about 150 performers under contract.

 

Sounds almost like late-90s WCW, where they'd have a couple hundred wrestler under contract, including Leaping Lanny Poffo, who was supposedly making six figures for a couple of years and only worked one time.

 

Speaking of him, if you're into shoots, or want to get into them, his is a great one to start with - The Genius gimmick is somewhat similar to his real personality, and he's very well-spoken. Apparently, WCW got him signed based on Randy's intervention, and he did train for him, and dyed his hair blonde for them... only for them to never call him to be used.