2011 Pro Wrestling Thread

Problem is that Cole is a PBP guy, not a color guy. You need your PBP to be the straight guy. It's all fucked when he's driving the show with his personality.

 

Heel Cole sucks. Big time.

 

Since we're on the topic of Michael Cole, and since I don't recall seeing it mentioned on the thread yet, he might not make it very far past Wrestlemania. He apparently called Josh Matthews a "faggot" in a Twitter post last week, which has caused the expected backlash from the gay community. According to some of the sheets, his ego has also been growing to Hoganesque levels from his recent push, which is drawing backstage heat and eroding some support he might have been able to fall back on.

WWE has too much invested in the Cole-Lawler match at this point to just shitcan him or suspend him right now. But don't be surprised if Cole goes away for a while after either Wrestlemania or Raw to "recover from his injuries."

 

As a WWF announcer, yeah, he was. He wasn't bad, but it was a pain to listen to him and Vince together. By the mid-90s, listening to Vince was like hearing scratches on a blackboard. King was better as a heel once JR came on board permanently.

And the funny thing was, for a long time, while he was a heel in WWF, he was still working his Memphis territory, where he was a face. He had his feud with Bret, and in Memphis, Bret was the heel.

As for Miz, I've really enjoyed his title reign. Yeah, he hasn't really beaten too many people cleanly, but he's been very good as the cocky, yet vulnerable champion, as Flair did so well in the 80s.

 

It's weird to think of Lawler as a face back in the day. As an old-timer fans appreciated, as he certainly is now? That makes sense. Back then? Had to have been a funny thing for sure. In Bret's autobiography, he mentions when he and Owen had a tag match in Memphis and totally milked the heel aspect of it. It seemed like Bret dreaded going there at first, but ended up loving it and looked forward to going back.

 

The thing is, Flair could get away with that because he was wrestling one-hour matches from time to time, and people knew he could wrestle. I'd love to see an old-fashioned, long title bout, like when Cena and HBK had the iron man match a couple years ago. I think the WWE needs a smidge more of that.

You can make the argument, "Well the Miz isn't ready for that type of match," but how will he ever be if you just keep priming and priming him and don't push him? For similar reasons, Kofi Kingston's push stalled completely, and Morrison will probably turn stale unless you do it soon.

 

Exactly my point. Agreed.

 

That's probably why they've had Josh Mathews on Raw so much lately.

 

That is also true. For years, Cena had the "You can't wrestle!" chants. You don't hear that any more. His mini-feud with HBK is what gave him the credibility as an in-ring wrestler.

You also have to remember, Miz has only been really a full-time wrestler for about seven years, plus some early time a year earlier.

Flair was in his eighth year when he first won the NWA title, and he admitted himself that he had crediblity issues with his first title reign. Other top stars didn't want to put him over. It wasn't until his second title reign that Flair really gained the credibility as a great champion.

 

If I remember from his book, he was the guy who won an election that had 10 candidates, in essence. The NWA board determined the champion, and the promoters had their favorites -- Jim Crockett backed Flair, Fritz Von Erich backed one of his doped-up kids, Bob Geigel voted for Harley Race to keep the title, Don Owen in Portland voted for one of his guys, Billy Jack Haynes or Buddy Rose or someone, Florida booker backed Dusty Rhodes, and so on and so forth. Flair was the default guy; he beat Race in Kansas City far away from the fans that would have gone batshit for the local boy winning his first title, and yeah, credibility problems and uncomfortable moments abounded.

 

Between that and the heat they've received with Cena's homophobic takes, you have have know WWE has Cole set for a slow boat to China. Would be interesting to see if this would force their hand and bring back JR to reunite with Lawler with what could be one last extended run with the duo.

Question is, what do you do with Cole if/when he comes back. Do you bring him back as a heel manager (Swagger?) or as a rehabilitated announcer? Doing the latter would basically make everything leading up to WM as if it didn't happen. Kind of like how if WWE pretended that Taker and Trips never fought at WM. Oh, wait....