2012 Pro Wrestling Thread

Probably the worst since the early days of the celebrity hosts back in '09.

Bringing back Vince isn't going to raise ratings, even less when you consider it's a three-hour show. Raw needs a major overhaul, and having 20-30 minutes of Vince and John's Excellent Adventure won't solve matters.

Did see a replay of Smackdown. Damien Sandow has the makings of being a major star. Kind of reminds of me a Lanny Poffo upgrade, but he has the potential to be a serious heel in a short time. I just hope they don't ruin him like they did with ADR by rushing him to Raw too soon.

 

I liked Sandow, definitely a Poffo/Genius-type vibe there.

Loved the two jobbers in the Ryback match looking for some cheap heel heat in Baton Rouge by chanting "Roll Tide!"

 

Huge Sandow fan. I never really saw much of Lanny's in-ring work (though I saw plenty of Genius as Hennig's lackey), and I definitely got a Poffo-/Genius-upgrade vibe as well. Ryback's also growing on me in that Goldberg sort of way, though instead of two local jobbers, they should move him toward facing some actual talent. IIRC, even early on Goldberg was squashing the lower midcard.

I referred to Sin Cara as Mistico when I was watching SD on DVR, and my girlfriend was like, "Who's Mistico?" I pulled up one of the Mistico YouTube highlight videos, and she was quite impressed. So now she's a Sin Cara mark, but she was disappointed with Monday's match...she wanted Hunico to do more of the flying luchador stuff as well instead of playing the rudo with power. My goal now is to show her Rey Mysterio's early work and have her be thoroughly disappointed with the current product (if he ever stays off the drugs).

 

After taking about two months off (partially due to baseball, partially due to a disinterest after Wrestlemania), I sat through a full Raw last night.

I found it annoying that there are really only two storylines to follow, and just one of them got any additional airtime outside of its scheduled slot. Right now you have the Cena/Laurinaitis/Big Show storyline and the Punk/Bryan/Kane/AJ storyline. And unless I missed something, the rest was just filler that served as an opportunity to talk about Cena/Laurinaitis/Big Show. From what I understand, Ziggler is sort of trying to break out on his own, but that got barely a mention. And Del Rio attacked Sheamus, so I'm assuming they're feuding. But if I don't care about Cena and Laurinaitis, why both watching?

 

The dirtsheets are buzzing with talk that Orton and WWE uppity-ups (specifically McMahon and Triple H) had a very heated discussion Friday in the wake of his second Wellness Policy failure. There's speculation that WWE might cut ties with Orton, thinking that with two strikes they can't risk keeping him in the main event scene for fear they'll have to release him abruptly for strike three in the middle of a major program, and that they're paying him way too much to make him a midcarder.

There might have been a time where they would have kept him out of fear that he could reinvigorate TNA after the no-compete expires, but really, Orton has been on a slow decline for the last few months anyway as popularity goes. He's only above average in the ring, his promo work needs a lot of help and he has failed in adapting to being a face both times he's turned. Hardy and Angle were hotter in WWE when they left and joined TNA, and it didn't have that much impact (tee hee) on their ratings. TNA would be dumb(er) for not grabbing Orton if given the opportunity, but he's not going to turn them into a player overnight any more than any of their other big signings.

 

I figured that. I hope they're not phasing them out, because I think, if they found some women who can work and were pushed prominently, they'd be able to have a good spot on the show. Especially during those dry weeks when it's too far ahead of a PPV to really push the storylines.

 

I'd much rather have them use AJ and Eve in their current roles than trot them out there for two-minute matches nobody cares about.

I actually think the WWE has done a better job lately of pushing the Divas.

 

The problem WWE has with their Divas is their personalities are undeveloped and it's difficult to point to a single one and explain what makes them unique. It's not as bad as it was a few years ago when everyone was blonde, but there's still very little identity with them. Does anyone miss the Bellas? Kelly Kelly has been MIA and nobody seems to mind. Eve was ordinary as an occasional top face wrestler and hasn't done much for anyone until she buried her stiletto deep in Zach Ryder's little broskis and became Big Johnny's second-in-command.

I wonder if they're in a holding pattern until they figure out if/when Kharma returns. She made her surprise appearance at Royal Rumble but with the exception of one throwaway reference by Eve a few weeks ago, she's not been talked about and the dirtsheets have no info on her. Maybe they'll turn her into some sort of Aretha Franklin-type character and pair her with the Funkasaurus.

 

To me, Orton is a bigger name overall and a better pedigree than Jeff Hardy, but he fits the TNA style worse. Also, I'd argue that the problem with TNA right now isn't a lack of talent on the roster, it's a lack of coherent short-term and long-term planning. Say what you will about the WWE, but you do get the feeling they have a plan at least, whereas with TNA things seem to change depending on the whims of Hogan, Dixie Carter, Bischoff, Russo or whoever else is running the company that week.

 

I'd agree that some consistency with planning would make for a more enjoyable product, but I don't know that they'll ever get past the 1.3 barrier with any regularity. The problem is that both WWE and WCW's best runs were kickstarted by an iconic angle (nWo, Austin vs. McMahon), and now everyone's looking for that instant offense to propel them to higher ground. That's why WWE banks on big-name returns (Rock, Brock, HHH and McMahon to a degree), while TNA engages in schizobooking in a desperate effort to find something with immediate legs.

Taking Impact on the road would help the atmosphere, even if it didn't directly translate to better ratings. But it needs more than an indirect monetary benefit to justify the major investment and related risk.

 

TNA would be a lot better (and maybe even generate a little more ratings) if they emphasized what makes them different than the WWE, actually came up with a short and long-term gameplan and stuck with it instead of mashing the panic button. Put the younger guys (such as Roode) on top while keeping the older guys (Angle, Hardy, etc.) around to give some rub. Even though his character has been beat down a lot over the past few years, they could possibly still get Samoa Joe over again if they just book him in the right way.
But, as I like to say, "If frogs had wings, they wouldn't bump their asses when the jump."

 

But they've pushed Booby Roode pretty strongly in the last year, starting with the Bound for Glory series, and now he's the longest-running TNA champ of all time (which granted means little in the current era, where titles change once every other month). Storm got a pretty good push in that time too, though they really don't know what to do with him. Which is a shame, because his Heartbreak Kid Stone Cold P.S. Hayes character has loads of potential. Austin Aries is getting a pretty nice push, and at least they're trying to build some intrigue (albeit in a corny way) with Styles vs. Daniels/Kazarian.

Samoa Joe is a chicken-and-egg question. On the one hand, they've definitely done a not-stellar job keeping his aura from the first year of his TNA run. On the other hand, he was never in great shape and he's only degenerated from there. Remember how much criticism WWE got for repackaging Jamal into an over-the-top archetype Samoan, and how that would have been Joe's fate had he jumped? Well, for as long as Umaga was around, they did a better job pushing him and getting fans to buy in.

Hardy and Angle are still too popular to relegate them to strictly torch-passing duties. Besides, a lot of their young guys aren't really worth it (Gunner, Rob Terry)