You Can Put Diamonds On A Dog But It's Still A Mutt

The Miz: Former WWE Champion

Michael "The Miz" Mizanin, to me, is the embodiment of the current state of the WWE roster. That is not a compliment.

"The Miz" is a former reality television star, that some people may remember from MTV's The Real World: Back to New York in 2001. On that show is the first time we saw Mizanin portray the character of "The Miz." It was corny & hokey then, with him looking like an idiot in front of the other cast members (which is to say something as they were all ignorant, alcoholic apes & sluts). It was cringe-worthy & uncomfortable to watch as he made a fool out of himself on national television.

Who would have thought from seeing him then that he would one day not only become WWE Champion but would also headline a Wrestlemania?

"The Miz" was also on several other MTV reality show spin-offs after that & in late 2004, joined the fourth season of WWE Tough Enough. Another reality television show, only this time relating to professional wrestling instead of drunken frat parties & promiscuous sex while cameras were rolling. Now instead of throwing back a Heineken, he was literally being thrown on his back. He did not win that competition. Of course, that has never stopped WWE before, all you have to do is look at previous Diva Search contests to see that. So WWE gave The Miz a developmental wrestling contract & sent him to Deep South Wrestling in 2005. He became the first ever DSW Heavyweight Champion. In 2006, The Miz was sent to Ohio Valley Wrestling. Also in 2006, The Miz made his debut on the main roster, on WWE Smackdown.

So The Miz had achieved his dream of becoming a WWE Superstar! Not a professional wrestler in the wrestling industry, mind you, but a WWE Superstar. No one really wants to be a wrestler anymore, you see. They all want to be television stars, or movie stars. So now the reality TV star was on wrestling TV.

The Miz has achieved a lot of success in WWE. He started at the bottom rung of the WWE ladder, hosting Smackdown events with Ashley "The Horse" Massaro, including Diva Search segments. Then he started wrestling undercard guys, like Funaki & Scotty 2 Hotty to build up a little winning streak, which was eventually thwarted & ended by The Boogeyman at WWE Armageddon but that meant The Miz was on a Pay-Per-View. The Miz was then drafted to WWE's version of ECW where he worked in mostly tag matches with John Morrison & they eventually won the WWE Tag Team titles. The Miz even won a Cyber Sunday vote giving him an ECW World Title match against C.M. Punk, which he lost. After some other tag team feuds, The Miz was drafted to RAW.

Once on RAW, The Miz was in a little feud (that he lost) with John Cena. Then he started chasing after the U.S. title, which he eventually won. He feuded with Kofi Kingston, John Morrison & MVP. Three other guys that I would put into the same category as The Miz as it pertains to the current WWE roster. Due to the brand split, there were two sets of tag team titles & The Miz won them both with The Big Show. Then The Miz won a Money in the Bank match, which he used the briefcase to cash-in on Randy Orton to win the WWE Title. He then feuded with Jerry Lawler, of all people. The Miz also picked up a lackey during this time in Alex Riley. Then he had his Wrestlemania main event title defense against John Cena at Wrestlemania XXVII before losing the title in a triple threat cage match at Extreme Rules in May. He then teamed with R-Truth for awhile, which was one of the only times I saw potential in him but WWE quickly squandered that shit.

Do you, dear reader, remember any of this? I sure as fuck don't! I have been using Wikipedia as a resource the whole time, which I am sure you already was aware of, to "refresh" my memory about most of it. Why? Easy, because The Miz is completely forgettable in every single way. He's boring, bland & has no star power whatsoever. Who would ever pay money to watch The Miz? Who would buy a ticket to see The Miz headline a show? Who wants to buy a Miz t-shirt? Or watch a movie, like a shitty Marine sequel (not like the original is any good) starring The Miz? This is a guy from an MTV reality show, that went to developmental for a couple of years, that WWE felt deserved to not only be WWE Champion but headline a Wrestlemania!

"Awesome Truth" 

The Miz is a perfect example of the lack of star power in the modern era of WWE. In my opinion, the roster is full of guys just like The Miz, such as the previously mentioned Kofi Kingston. WWE does not currently employ MVP or John Morrison anymore but when they left, WWE made sure to fill their boring shoes with the likes of other "Superstars" such as Wade Barrett, Jack Swagger & Alberto Del Rio.

The problem does not fall solely into the hands of Mike Mizanin. He has shown glimpses of brightness through his WWE career, WWE themselves, or the creative team, just never capitalize on them when they happen. They can't adjust the script any, they have to follow each & every little thing down to the letter. Nothing is organic, so if something could work, WWE won't pursue it to find out because they didn't write that part.

Some examples:

Alex Riley turning babyface on The Miz - Alex Riley was SUPER over after this. The Miz, basically, made Alex Riley. He could have been a big star. Instead, WWE put him in some throwaway jobber matches with no build on TV & then took Riley off of TV altogether. Riley never got a real chance & then The Miz just became another midcarder.

"Awesome Truth" - The picture I posted above was from when The Miz & R-Truth "invaded" WWE Hell in a Cell & did a beatdown on Pay-Per-View of John Cena, C.M. Punk & Alberto Del Rio. They were flogged & handcuffed & escorted out of the area by security while the whole roster emptied out to see them off. They looked like stars & instead it led to them being lackeys for John Laurinaitis so John Cena could wrestle HIM on Pay-Per-View...yeah, that will put asses in seats.

The JBL promo - One of the best promos The Miz ever cut on TV. It made him look like a star. A guy with a future, a serious contender, but it also showed he had entertainment qualities about him & it got over his feud with MVP:



Now for the second act...

The problem is not The Miz, himself. It is the creative team. It is the fact that no one on the roster seems to care enough to stand up & make a difference anymore. They all just go with the flow & collect a paycheck like it's a normal job. It's not a normal job. It's professional wrestling. The roots go back to the carnies. It is its own world; a bubble. When WWE tries to make it legitimate, like it's just any other TV show like Lassie or Seinfeld, that's when the magic goes away.

The beauty of professional wrestling is that it is not a sport & it is not a television show. It is not "sports entertainment" either, no matter what WWE tries to say. It is its own entity. WWE & the creative team, including brain dead, clueless Stephanie McMahon, need to stop trying to make pilot episodes to sitcoms or solve C.S.I. cases & focus on actual professional wrestling. Physical drama based around the most basic story-telling. David Vs. Goliath. Good Vs. Evil. Revenge. Respect. Love. Professional wrestling is not meant for a politically correct world, with a TV-PG rating. It is not meant to be a publicly traded company, with wellness tests. It is not meant to be overly produced & scripted in an effort to create a false public image due to political aspirations or appeal to sponsors or potential investors.

WWE try to make their own rules & then wonder why they're the laughing stock of society. The wrest...sorry, superstars on the roster are "Independent Contractors" so WWE don't have to give them any benefits, yet they can't go & work elsewhere. Not without being punished. You think a pro-wrestler that gets thrown around for a living & travels 300+ days a year can just walk into any place & get health insurance? The Wellness Policy? That only exists when WWE wants it to exist. You think The Rock could have passed a piss test? You think it was a coincidence that WWE held onto Rey Mysterio, Jr.'s negative test for three months until releasing it, coincidentally right when they wanted to punish him because he didn't come back from an injury fast enough for their liking? But we're supposed to think they're great because of their involvement with Make-A-Wish foundation, or their bullshit Be A Star campaign? Or maybe because for a month they told us they cared about cancer, with their involvement with the Susan G. Komen? In that month, apparently anyone that had previously wore pink wasn't allowed to wear it anymore because now it belonged to John Cena!

Here is the bottom line & this is a tough pill to swallow as a wrestling fan & a hard realization: WWE is not a professional wrestling company. 

I can't hold it against The Miz. I can't hold it against Kofi Kingston. I can't hold it against any worker on the roster. It's not their fault. They have families to feed & bills to pay. They're going to do whatever it is that they have to do to keep the money coming in. It might have been a passion of love initially, but now it's about necessity. They have become cogs in the machine & they're sacrificing their bodies & time in the process just to be digits on a piece of paper.

At one time, WWE used to be about building stories. They would take two people, give them characters & motivations, give them a reason to hate each other, draw you in as a viewer with the story-telling & then ask you to pay to see them finally clash. That is basic pro-wrestling. That is the model that we are used to in this day & age. In the previous era, instead of getting you to buy the PPV, they would get you to buy a ticket. WWE does not do this anymore. Instead, we get matches for no reason. There is no story, there are no consequences for the outcomes. The titles are as meaningless as wins & losses are. The matches on TV now are just to kill time because WWE have three hours to fill every Monday night. There is still a PPV every month, but there's no reason to order them anymore. When WWE comes to your town, there's no reason to go see the show. It is just "WWE Live!" without a card, if you're lucky you'll get a few names. No, now it's all about money generated from other revenue streams for WWE. DVD sales, Shopzone sales, contracts with various companies for toy lines or video games, being available in more countries so more people can contribute to them all. Wrestlemania, the biggest show of the year, is not even about the card anymore. It is about the glitz & glam, the extravagant sets, costumes, fireworks & celebrity appearances. Because when I think of professional wrestling, I think of Donald Trump, P. Diddy & Snooki.

If you watch an episode of WWE Monday Night RAW live, for all three hours (bless your heart), in-between commercial breaks, replays, "Did You Know?" segments, shilling for Domino's pizza, shilling of Twitter, shilling of WWE.com, patting themselves on the back for Susan G. Komen, Be A Star, Make-A-Wish, shilling of new merchandise on Shopzone.com, WWE films, cameos on other shows like Jimmy Kimmel, how much actual show, original content, do you get? Even that content is constantly beating you over the head with shit you can buy, like the next Pay-Per-View, John Cena's shirt, hat, arm bands, necklace, new movie, etc.

It's not a wrestling show, it's a home shopping network. They are not professional wrestlers, they are salesmen. We are not fans, we are potential customers. You think that is a wrestling ring in the middle of an arena? Nope, it's a traveling pedestal that moves from town-to-town to put shit on display to hock it to locals. You're no longer paying for wrestling or paying for stars, you're paying for the WWE logo. Wade Barrett, Kofi Kingston, John Cena? They're just walking billboards.

So why then did I choose to write about The Miz? Well, because he's been sculpted by the machine. He is the mold of a WWE superstar. He will take any shit sandwich they present him & swallow it whole with a smile on his face. When it comes to being a company shill, pandering to WWE, spreading the corporate, politically correct & hypocritical message to the masses, doing whatever he is told without questioning it...The Miz is awesome.

Non-Fans, Alternatives & Creatures of Habit

Hiroshi Tanahashi

 "Why do you still watch that? You know that it is fake, right?"

If you are a professional wrestling fan & if you are reading this you probably are, then you have undoubtedly had this question arise at least once during your fandom over the years. These particular questions seem to pop-up most frequently when a non-fan first finds out that you are a professional wrestling fan.

After awhile it does get to the point where you feel like it is not even worthy of addressing questions like these anymore. Why humor a non-fan that is looking to belittle you & look down on you regardless of your retort? The best you can possibly hope for with your logic & rationale is for them to make a statement like "I used to watch that." Then you are listening to a mark reminisce about "Stone Cold" Steve Austin or some other big name & you really do not want to be in that situation either. That is if you are anything like me.

For the sake of this blog entry, however, I am going to answer this question, along with some other infamous ones that I have personally encountered over the years, be it on-line or in person.

So, why do I still watch? Well, that's easy, because I am still a fan. Yes, I know the outcomes are predetermined but most wrestling fans would say that the word "fake" is a little hard. Pro-wrestling is no more fake than an episode of "Seinfeld" or "Friends." Do people question others when they watch that? Yet, the actors on those sitcoms don't have multiple concussions, don't suffer torn ligaments, broken bones or have their families shattered due to life on the road. Professional wrestlers literally break their bodies to provide us, the fans, with entertainment. It is a very physically demanding job & contrary to what some people may believe, there is an art to it all. So, it is not fake, the winners & losers are just chosen before hand so as to dictate the direction that the feuds & rivalries go. They are telling stories. Ultimately, it is good guy against bad guy. The bad guy has to do something to make the good guy chase him that also makes the fans hate him. Then the good guy eventually gets revenge. Basic storytelling as old as time itself. The only difference is that instead of an old western shoot out or a dual of swords, you get a Piledriver or someone going through a table.

That is just a blanket, general & generic answer to a broad question. A more specific question might be "Why do you still watch WWE Monday Night RAW when you think it is usually bad & just complain all the time?"

The answer to that is a little longer.

I'm going to be completely honest: WWE Monday Night RAW sucks. It is bad television the majority of the time. Especially now that it is three hours long. It has been that way for at least a year, sans one or two moments, which do not make up for the ridiculous amount of time given to us, the viewing audience, that is just terrible programming but I would argue it has been that way since about 2005, maybe even longer. We tolerate it because that is what wrestling fans do. The same way a fan of a professional sports team with a losing record does not just abandon them because they are having an off year (or 100). Plus, I can watch RAW & still seek out other options as well.

So, why do I still watch? Let me pose a hypothetical question: "If Will & Grace sucks, would you keep watching it?" Most people would simply answer with a "no." To that, I would answer it is not the same thing in comparison to pro-wrestling. Will & Grace does not dictate, control & influence the entire industry that it is in. WWE Monday Night RAW does. If you miss an episode of Will & Grace, it does not really matter. If you miss an episode of RAW, you can be out of the loop as it pertains to storylines or you might miss big moments. Seeing them via replay is not the same thing. You also will not pick-up on it when other companies rip something off or when wrestlers are adding psychology to a match or feud or paying homage to others. The wrestling world is like one big family, they all give & take.

You know why, even when I know that it will be bad, that I continue to tune-in to WWE Monday Night RAW, without fail, damn near every single week? Because I am a professional wrestling fan & like it or not, RAW dictates the wrestling world. It is thee wrestling show. The A-show from the A-company. Without RAW, you're out of the bubble for a week. If I miss RAW, I don't feel like my opinion is as valid around the internet on various message forums, talking to friends, whatever. Without RAW, a lot of the podcasts & radio shows that I listen to don't make as much sense or are talking about things that I didn't see & I have to ask if I want it spoiled for me. Without RAW, I always feel like I'm a week behind and can't catch up until I do finally watch RAW & then it's not the same because I didn't watch it live.

There's always the possibility, even if it seems to get slimmer & slimmer over the years, that WWE does something incredible that you don't want to miss live. I missed the C.M. Punk shoot interview when it happened live & I kicked myself for missing it for quite some time. I had to watch it later on YouTube & it wasn't the same. I missed the immediate excitement over it & all my wrestling friends talking excitedly about it. Even just that first initial fifteen minute rush that came post-show, I hated myself for messing it up. I saw the debut of The Nexus live & it was great. I don't want to miss moments like those, when they happen live, regardless of how it plays out down the road. This last Monday was an episode of RAW that I am glad that I watched live, as it was a lot of fun & served as a good reminder to why I tune in each week.

I have been watching wrestling since, oh, 1987 or so I guess. I have been posting/talking about wrestling on-line since the end of 1998. Over that time, from 1987 to today, I have seen a lot of wrestling. WCW, ECW, TNA, AWA, NWA, Mid-South, Smoky Mountain, Memphis, AJPW, NJPW, CMLL, AAA, NOAH, FMW, XPW, PWG, Shimmer, Chikara, SMASH, stuff from the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's... you name it. The one constant is that RAW will be on TV on Monday night & for better or worse, most wrestling fans, including myself, will be watching it.

That is why I still watch RAW. We, as fans, are loyal, we are passionate, we are creatures of habit. We are also a community & as a community, we enjoy conversing with one another, discussing moments & memories, speculating on the future, all of those sorts of things. If a show is bad, we can talk about why it was bad, what could have been better, or just have fun making fun of it. If a show is good, we can talk about why it was good, where things could be leading, that sort of thing.

Kazuchika Okada

We, as wrestling fans, as a community, sometimes question the validity of WWE as a wrestling company. Now, more so than ever, they are an "entertainment" company. Why Vince McMahon, Jr. & company have come to think that "wrestling" is a dirty word over the years, I have no idea. I think he has it in his head that he will never be taken seriously by the mainstream & will always just be known as a wrestling promoter. What is so wrong with that? It has made him a multimillionaire but instead, he keeps trying to venture out into other areas, like body-building, movies, politics, even professional football (remember XFL?) They all fail. WWE today is all about buzzwords & trying to get someone outside of the wrestling bubble to mention them. WWE does not have fans, they have a "WWE Universe." They do not have wrestlers, they have "superstars." They do not have female wrestlers, they have "WWE Divas." You get the idea. Did you know that WWE is a publicly traded company? You can actually buy stock in WWE. Granted no one would but it is available.

I complain a lot because I care. I complain because I am critical of the product but passionate & loyal. I complain because I have seen better & I don't want to accept mediocrity.

There are other options to WWE as well, which not everyone knows about. Some fans of the past might remember WCW. They remember Sting, Hogan, the nWo, that sort of thing. Well WCW is no more, neither is ECW. They both went out of business. A lot of pro-wrestling promotions over the years have went out of business. There are still a lot that exist though. I mentioned quite a few above. TNA, Impact Wrestling, still exists & is even on national television every Thursday. Some people argue that it is better than WWE. A couple friends & I prefer New Japan Pro-Wrestling & still get together to watch their internet Pay-Per-View shows. They provide us with a great in-ring product, which WWE does not always provide, at least not on free TV. Yes, there is a language barrier but after a couple of years, we know what is going on, who is who & whatnot. It is a lot of fun. There are a ton of Independent promotions that a fan could seek out as well.

"What, are you gay, or something? You like to watch half-naked oiled up dudes roll around in a ring?"

I have actually had this question come up more than you would think when people find out that I watch wrestling. I usually just chalk it up to immaturity, ignorance or both. Gay as in a derogatory slur against homosexuality? No, I am not gay. I do, however, know some gay fans that watch & it does not make their opinion any less valid or their fandom any more or less relevant. There are even some gay wrestler in the industry! Shocking, I know. I bet there are some gay fans of UFC as well as all other professional sports. There are also female fans, female wrestlers, even entire female promotions in professional wrestling.

"I tried to watch it before & I couldn't get into it. Why should I watch?"

You shouldn't. I don't like hockey, so I don't watch it. Pro-wrestling is not going to be for everyone. It is a small, niche group, just like a lot of other things. For me, I grew up watching wrestling. Wrestling has always been sort of ingrained into my family. Everyone in my family, especially the generations before mine, have stories about wrestlers. Dick The Bruiser, Andre the Giant, Bobo Brazil, Randy Savage, whomever. It has been around for long time & before the internet, people actually left the house to attend shows. Crazy, I know. When I started watching, I was impressionable. Hulk Hogan was like a real life super hero. A comic book come to life. His charisma drew me in & I have been watching ever since. When I was a small child, he was the top good guy, thwarting evil-doers. When I was a teenager, he became a bad guy & fit in with my rebellious years. As an adult, he came back & was a good guy again & I ate the nostalgia up.

I am going to be a wrestling fan for my entire life. It is not something that you "out grow." I bitch a lot but it comes with the territory. At this point, there's no turning back. I have been watching for over twenty-five years. It's a hobby but I also now follow out of habit. I have routines. I check wrestling forums/sites the way most people check their e-mail or Facebook. I read about the news of wrestling instead of the news of my city. Who is hurt, who is suspended for pissing hot, who is fired, new people hired, guys going to another promotion, speculation for future plans, that sort of thing.

Terry Funk

"Who are your favorite wrestlers of all-time?"

I have had this question come up several times as well. Mostly, I think, because everyone knows how big of a fan I really am so they're curious what sort of wrestlers I am entertained by. I like different people for different reasons from over the years. Some guys because their gimmick was just really entertaining, or they were funny. Some people because they were just amazing at what they did, like talking or wrestling itself.

My all-time favorite wrestler is Stan "The Lariat" Hansen. He's not only my favorite but I legitimately think that he is the best as well. His work in the 80's & 90's in All Japan was incredible & his résumé speaks for itself. Great matches with a magnitude of different opponents. He was just the right guy at the right time. A big, loud Texan, with tobacco chew falling out of his mouth, running over Japanese heroes in Japan & taking their heads off with the Western Lariat. He was the stereotype that I suspect Japanese fans thought of when they thought of Americans. I also found him downright hilarious when he would cut a promo or make a cameo. It doesn't matter if he's calling Missy Hyatt a "heffer" in WCW or making fun of "teeny wangers" in No Holds Barred.

I have to give credit to Hulk Hogan. Without him, I would probably have never became a pro-wrestling fan or continued to watch wrestling when I became a teenager. You can not deny the charisma that he had, regardless of all the things that have come to light over the years about his personal life. It kills me a little inside to see my childhood hero doing Comedy Central roasts of David Hasselhoff, making Rent-A-Center commercials with Troy Aikman or running a midget wrestling promotion on the country music television station.

"The Beast from the East" Bam Bam Bigelow (9/1/1961 - 1/19/2007)  is a big one for me. Growing up, I was always a big guy & Bam Bam, to me, made it seem like it was OK to be bigger than everyone else. I loved him in ECW & his feud with Taz or his part in the Triple Threat with "The Franchise" Shane Douglas & Chris Candido, just great stuff. I will never forget when he went through the ring while locked in the Tazmission or went through the ramp off of a DDT reversal. He just came off as a legitimate bad ass to me. Rest in peace, Bammer.

Also a big fan of "Dr. Death" Steve Williams (5/14/1960 - 12/29/2009), for a lot of the same reasons why I like Stan Hansen & Bam Bam Bigelow. He was a bigger guy, with a legitimate sports background, that had crazy matches in Japan & made me mark out more times than most. I have no idea how anyone was willing to take a Backdrop Driver. That move just looked like death to me. I guess that was the entire point.

So, in closing, I hope that answers a few questions. Why I watch, who I watch, what I like, other promotions & all that good stuff.

Currently Listening: Flogging Molly - "Devil's Dance Floor"

Out With The Old...

...in with the old?

C.M. Punk had the longest WWE title reign in the modern era. Well over a year. That title reign was ended at the Royal Rumble when WWE decided that having The Rock as a part-time World Champion was a better idea. A name from the wrestling past, working more in Hollywood than in WWE. Going the world over promoting his movies, like G.I. Joe: Retaliation or Pain & Gain. All the while the active roster would make the T.V. shows, wrestle on house shows & go about their wrestling careers. The Rock, as WWE Champion, does not work house shows. He missed four weeks of Wrestlemania build-up on RAW. He was on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno & didn't mention Wrestlemania or being WWE Champion. This is the guy that gets to main event Wrestlemania in 2013, in a rematch with John Cena from 2012. Back-to-Back Wrestlemania main events, despite not being an active member of the WWE roster.

The same can be said about The Undertaker, whom seemingly only returns now every year just to add a number to his worked accomplishment of winning at Wrestlemania every year at the expense of other talent.

The same can be said about Brock Lesnar, Triple H & even to a lesser extent, Chris Jericho & The Big Show although I like where Jericho & Show are at on the card.

If WWE is wondering why they do not have any new stars it is because they do everything in their power to tell us, the viewing audience, that the stars of yesteryear are better than anyone on the current roster. Triple H comes back & wins. The Undertaker comes back & wins. The Rock comes back & not only wins the main event of Wrestlemania after being in Hollywood making movies for a decade but then wins the WWE Title too, so that he can main event another Wrestlemania.

As a fan, I used to love seeing the stars that I remembered. Just for nostalgia purposes. It was fun. During the lead-up to RAW 1,000, seeing the likes of Sid, Vader & "Diamond" Dallas Page was fun & harmless. They weren't going to wrestle on the Pay-Per-View card that WWE expected me to pay for though.

These part-timers, these stars of yesteryear, are not coming back for fun or nostalgic purposes. These are the guys selling the card. If you're planning on buying Wrestlemania, you're paying because you want to see The Rock, The Undertaker, Brock Lesnar & Triple H.

The Undertaker came back about a month ago. The real life death of Paul Bearer is what WWE decided to use as the backbone for the storyline between 'Taker & C.M. Punk. So for the past couple of weeks, while The Rock was showing up sometimes (but not always), or Brock Lesnar was showing up sometimes (but not always), C.M. Punk was exploiting the death of Bearer to try to build (cheap) heat for his match with The Undertaker at Wrestlemania, which no one thinks he has a shot to win anyway. C.M. Punk, the top heel on RAW, fresh off his 400+ day WWE Title reign, has been relegated to using cheap tactics to garner heat off of a deceased man so as to go into Wrestlemania, against the just-returned-to-bump-his-numbers Undertaker. The Undertaker has never lost at Wrestlemania. He is a perfect 20-0. C.M. Punk just lost to The Rock at the Royal Rumble. Then lost against at the Elimination Chamber in the rematch. Then lost on RAW to John Cena in a #1 Contenders match. Punk, fresh off of three losses, is going to beat The Undertaker at Wrestlemania & is trying to get under 'Takers skin by exploiting the death of Bearer. The Undertaker, never lost at 'Mania & avenging the death of his 20-year manager. That's the story, I guess? How did C.M. Punk, after just losing the WWE Title to The Rock, the rematch with The Rock & the #1 Contender's Match to John Cena decide to wrestle The Undertaker at Wrestlemania in the first place? Simple, he won a 4-way match on RAW thrown together at the last minute, of course!

Brock Lesnar made his big WWE comeback & then lost in his first match back at Extreme Rules against John Cena (whom had just lost to The Rock at Wrestlemania the month prior). Then Brock did nothing for a few months & had a PPV match against Triple H, another guy that never wrestles, whom came back just to do an injury angle with Brock. Now, at Wrestlemania, we're getting the rematch of a match that no one was clamoring for the first time. Triple H wants to avenge his loss & his arm getting broken. Brock...wants to fight, I guess? This time though, Triple H's career is on the line! You know, the guy that wrestled two times all last year. Oh no, what if he loses!?

Those are the three main events.

WWE Champion & Part-Timer The Rock Vs. John Cena in a rematch from last year.
Part-Timer Brock Lesnar Vs. Part-Timer Triple H with his Part-Time Career on the line.
The Never Loses Undertaker out of yearly slumber Vs. Lost-3-in-a-row C.M. Punk.

And WWE wants people to pay $70 for these rematches, with this build? Where is the effort? Where is the hard sell? RAW, on Monday, the go-home show for Wrestlemania, featured the likes of Santino, 3 Man Band & Zack Ryder in squash matches. The final match of the night was Cameron & Naomi Vs. The Bella Twins. WWE are not even trying anymore. They know wrestling fans are going to watch no matter what. They know even some non-wrestling fans are going to watch. They've even went "all out" with the celebrities this year as P. Diddy dusted the mothballs off himself so he can show up & Donald Trump is going into the WWE Hall of Fame! If that's not worth $70 & a 4-hour commitment, I don't know what it!

So, this year, I'll be secretly rooting for all of the wrestlers that will actually still be with WWE come Monday. I want John Cena to win but not if it means we have to have a rubber match at another PPV with The Rock. I used to never want The Streak to end but if The Undertaker is never going to retire & just keep showing up each year to bury someone to add to his stats, fuck it, end it. I'm tired of it at this point. 21-0 doesn't mean anything more than 20-0 would have.

I remember watching early Wrestlemania shows. When a guy like Harley Race was on the show, he wasn't wrestling in the main event for the top title. He was in the mid-card. Older stars need to establish the new guys & help get them over so that the new guys can carry the company when they're gone. If the old guys keep coming back & beating everyone, the new guys are never going to have any credibility. Just look at C.M. Punk as an example. How long until Steve Austin or Batista come back? Maybe WWE can get Kurt Angle to leave TNA so he can come back & main event some more? What has Goldberg been up to?

The future looks bleak. There are no current credible stars & WWE doesn't seem all too interested in making any new ones. Fandango could work, The Shield could work, Dolph Ziggler could work. At least they all made the card. That's more than United States Champion Antonio Cesaro can say. Also the Intercontinental Championship will be defended...on the pre-show.

50 Shades of Gray

"Stone Cold" Steve Austin

 I am not exactly what someone would call a Vince Russo supporter. In fact, you could pretty much say the exact opposite as I am not a fan of his at all. However, I do feel like one of his concepts from the past is applicable today in the North American professional wrestling scene.  That being his "shades of gray" concept as it pertains to characters. I do not think that every wrestler on any given roster should be a tweener, mind you, but I do feel like the idea of having a superhero babyface & a dastardly heel is a dated concept in the year 2013.

The best characters, in my opinion, are those that have layers & depth to them. It is a big reason why current babyfaces are so boring in WWE. They lack depth. They're just straight-up Captain America only without the shield. Hulk Hogan worked in the 1980's. The same model does not work in 2013 when everyone has the internet & a Twitter account (including the wrestlers). The fourth wall is gone & so is the veil of secrecy surrounding the industry.

What that leaves behind is a show where the fans are "in on it" so to speak. So they're going to be endearing to the funny & entertaining & lambast the unskilled or boring. Realism, is what professional wrestling should be going for in a UFC-popular society. Now, I am not suggesting that WWE, TNA, ROH or any other U.S. promotion should present itself as real, as in not worked, but I am saying that the days of zombies shooting lightning are a thing of the past. The Undertaker is still over because he has adapted over the years. He's a great worker & people feel nostalgic for his gimmick. If a new gimmick were to debut on RAW tomorrow with a guy that could do all the things that The Undertaker has done in the past, he would be ridiculed & laughed out of the building. No, what the promotions should be going for today, I feel, is an athletic feel. Almost sport like. A battle of who is the best between wrestlers. Like NWA used to be or how New Japan feels now. It has never really been what WWE has been about but I think it's time to try.

The days of pro-wrestlers being larger-than-life superstars getting by on presence alone are gone. Nowadays, people want to see talent, I feel. Not just from an actual wrestling standpoint but from an entertainment standpoint. When something feels fake or phony, the live crowds will let you know. When something is boring or not entertaining, the live crowds will let you know. It does not matter if someone is a good guy or a bad guy. If they are cool/funny/entertaining, they are going to get cheered. Just like the nWo used to. Just like C.M. Punk does now. If they're boring/stale/fake they will be booed. Like John Cena. This does not mean that WWE should turn C.M. Punk babyface (again) or John Cena heel. It means that something is working with Punk & something is not working with Cena.

Take Bully Ray's recent heel turn in TNA as an example. It was met with cheers. It was met with people on Twitter talking about how cool it was. No one was angry at Bully & wanted to see him get what was coming to him. They were entertained because TNA did something that they enjoyed & felt like was a good idea, even if it happened months after it should have & doesn't make any sense in storyline. If that same thing were to have happened in the 1980's, a riot would have almost broken out.

C.M. Punk

People are not impressed by The Great Khali because of his size anymore. People just think he sucks because he can't talk & can't work. Same with a guy like Rob Terry. The days of a guy like The Warlord getting over due to look alone are over. Instead, someone like Daniel Bryan, whom never would have had a shot as anything other than enchancement talent in years passed, can come out, be entertaining, get over & put on a hell of a show if given the chance. That is what the current landscape of professional wrestling in North America should look like. Take two guys that are good with established characters. Give them big wins & have them talk about wanting to be the best. Then make people pay to see them against each other to find out who is the better man. It is the old pro-wrestling mold. It is the current UFC mold. And even in a worked environment, it will still work in pro-wrestling.

Just give us compelling characters that are competent at their jobs & let them do what they're good at. You don't need to micromanage or over-script every single second. It's 2013, why is WWE trying to get over a racist character preaching about immigration? Just makes the wrestlers look good, make them look strong & make them look like any man can win on any given day. The best should be the best. The best should be the champion. But you always need credible opponents trying to knock him off of the mountain. The fans will get behind their favorites still & will talk about who they think is going to win. Just like they used to do.

The Lost Art of The Monster in Pro-Wrestling

In Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein," Dr. Frankenstein creates a monster out of reanimated dead tissue, surgically stitched together to create an abomination brought to life by the strike of lightning. It could be argued that the doctor himself is the monster but the creature that is created is what is feared by people. He is different. He is a slight against God. A giant, unstoppable entity, The Modern Prometheus. The Monster.

"The Uganda Giant" Kamala

In pro-wrestling, sometimes we don't get the back story & The Monster just shows up. Good story-telling can give you just cause for the actions of any particular character but more often than not, it is just because The Monster is the biggest man on the yard. Sometimes it takes someone else to make him aware of that, sometimes it takes an action to help him see it himself. Whatever the case may be, once The Monster is on the loose, people have to look out.

Throughout my history of fandom, there have been quite a few constants in the wacky world of professional wrestling. Much like an endangered species however, over the years some of them have become a dying breed. One such beast would be the heinous, unstoppable "monster" heel.

The Monster.

Notoriously famous for being men of larger stature, the great monster heels through the years have had several things in common with one another. In addition to their larger-than-life physical prowess, they were also always slow moving, plodding but meticulous. Not unlike Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th horror movie franchise. They are also always hard to topple, hard to conquer, hard to move. Sometimes hard to get off of their feet at all. The psychology of the matches featuring these oafs follows a lot of the same basic guidelines, yet there are so many different ways to tell those same one or two stories that it never really gets old. It is an art, in & of itself,to do well & often times overlooked & under-appreciated by modern era professional wrestling fans.

Any big man match always has a large portion of the contest dedicated to the first time that the big man gets knocked off his feet. Sometimes the whole encounter is built up to that one moment that people can't see being possible (like Hogan slamming André or Goldberg hitting The Giant with The Jackhammer). Yet, the fans always think that maybe, just maybe, *THIS* guy can do it! You'll usually see the big man flail his arms to try to keep his balance instead of going off of his feet. Yokozuna & One Man Gang used to do this all the time. It can create a lot of hope for the fans to buy into the babyface once he can take the big man down. It makes The Monster show weakness & makes it look like an almost even playing field for the first time since the bell rang.

In the classic match-up of a big man against a smaller man, you'll see a lot of the little guy running from the big guy & playing keep-away. You'll see the big guy eventually get his hands on the little guy & squash him like a bug. You'll see hope spots of the little guy looking like he's making a comeback only to get cutoff & squashed again. You usually see the smaller guy have to resort to high-risk offense to get the big man down & even the playing field, or try to take out one of his limbs to "chop him down." It can follow the David Vs. Goliath storyline, which a guy like Rey Mysterio, Jr. or Spike Dudley have done many times over the years, or the behemoth will be too much for the smaller man to withstand, leading to, as Dusty Rhodes would say, "a clubberin'." Mark Henry is a prime example of someone currently doing the monster heel gimmick & not succumbing to the underdog on a consistent basis.

Another cliché is the "Immovable Force Meeting the Irresistible Object" or Godzilla Vs. King Kong. When two planets collide & you don't know who is the bigger/stronger of the two. These matches are usually terrible. You'll see a lot of running into each other with neither man getting advantages. Neither man able to move the other. Neither man able to knock down the other. Tests of strengths, no-selling, Clotheslines galore, etc. Sometimes they're really stiff  too, especially in Japan with a guy like Big Van Vader. These matches in the past resulted in a lot of disqualifications, run-ins or shady finishes to keep both guys looking strong. With the death of kayfabe, thankfully, these matches are a lot fewer & farther in-between, although sometimes WWE still likes to punish us & give us the occasional Kane Vs. Big Show match or The Great Khali Vs. well, anyone. The Ultimate Warrior Vs. Hulk Hogan at WWF Wrestlemania 6 is an example of a match booked this way.

Big Van Vader

Growing up, these feared wrestlers were everywhere. They were a dime-a-dozen. People have tried to add some criteria to what constitutes a "big man" in pro-wrestling, a certain height or a certain weight but it is more about how they are booked to me than anything else. Here is a list of some notorious monsters throughout the years:

NAME DROPPER: (statistics provided by Wikipedia.com)
The Big Boss Man: 6'3", 305lbs.
Stan "The Lariat" Hansen: 6'4", 321bs.
"The Beast From The East" Bam Bam Bigelow: 6'4", 400lbs.
Mark Henry: 6'4", 412lbs.
King Kong Bundy: 6'4", 458lbs.
Yokozuna: 6'4", 589lbs.
Big Van Vader: 6'5", 450lbs.
"The Uganda Giant" Kamala: 6'7", 380lbs.
John "Earthquake" Tenta: 6'7", 468lbs.
The One Man Gang: 6'9", 457lbs
André The Giant: 7'4", 475lbs.

Exact accuracy aside, none of them are under 6'3" tall & all of them are over three-hundred pounds. Speaking of Mark Henry (named above), his latest run in WWE is a rare occurrence nowadays. The Monster is not so common anymore as WWE seems to prefer cowardly heels that cheat to win instead of dominant heels that over-power other wrestlers with sheer size & strength.

There are a few ways to go about creating a monster. Sometimes, you just have to debut them & their size alone will get them over & make people stand in awe. Sometimes their actions, the beatings they give people, will make the fans take notice. However a good story helps to flesh out a character, instead of leaving him one-dimensional. A man that changes his direction & goals based on circumstances surrounding him can justify his actions more, at least to himself. Those justifications can help build drama & create heat for a feud, especially if what the man is saying makes sense, even if you do not agree with it.

André The Giant was a beloved babyface in professional wrestling for many years. It was not until Bobby "The Brain" Heenan got his ear that he had a change of heart & went into a new direction. Suddenly, the big, lovable Giant was seen as a dangerous monster. But was André the monster or was it Heenan? It led to the biggest house in WWF history.

Sid Justice (6'7", 317lbs) was eliminated from the WWF Royal Rumble by Hulk Hogan after Hogan had, himself, already been eliminated. Then, at a press conference, Sid was overlooked again, in favor of Hogan, for a shot at the WWF Championship. A spot that Sid felt like he deserved. Sid reached his breaking point.

A Monster should not be fast. A Monster should not be doing moves off the top turnbuckle, or throwing out Suicide Dives & Dropkicks. If a big guy can do the same thing as a small guy then what appeal does the small guy have anymore? It's basic psychology & protecting your roster. Just because a guy like Brock Lesnar can do a Shooting Star Press does not mean that you have him do it. There is a fine line. You need to be a threat & you need to be perceived as credible.

A Monster that just wants acceptance only to be shunned, leading to mass turmoil is a pretty basic story. Hey, he wants to fit in & live a normal life, ya know? But everyone is scared of him. He's hideous, he's evil, he's unclean, he's tainted. He can't live a normal life. People flee from him, are terrified of him & want to destroy him. Out of necessity & basic survival instincts, he has to defend himself. Does he make people see that he is no different from you or me, or does he go overboard & burn the entire village down?

"The Beast From The East" Bam Bam Bigelow

Why was The Big Show not treated as an unstoppable force in WWE? Standing at 7'0" & weighing in at 440lbs. he could have been treated as a modern-era André the Giant. An unbeatable colossus. WWE could have had him win battle royal matches, treated him as a special attraction. A guy that fans were just happy to see in person. Instead, over the years, he's lost to pretty much everyone. He's turned from heel to babyface & back again so many times that it will make your head spin. Now he's to the point where when his music hits people groan. How do you fuck something like that up? At one time he was even a comedy character doing a parody gimmick. There was never even one single money match built to with him.We have seen at least a dozen wrestlers perform feats of strength on him & throw him around like a rag doll, to the point that even that is not special anymore.

Sometimes The Monster is dim-witted & doing the bidding of a mastermind. Something The Monster is conscientious of his deeds & knows exactly what he is doing. Sometimes The Monster does not know any better, or does not know his own strength & accidentally creates chaos. Whatever the case may be, professional wrestling is better when there are monsters running around. This is a staple of pro-wrestling that should never go away. Whether you're a fan of seeing The Monster be defeated or of seeing The Monster reign over peasants, he needs to be around in one form or another. Professional wrestling is a circus with characters of all shapes & sizes. We need to protect the ones on the higher end of the spectrum before they're extinct & erased from the industry forever.

Out of Touch

In this entry, there are few different things that I want to address. If I sound like a broken record, or if I am repeating myself, then I apologize beforehand. However when I get a thought, when there's something I want to write down, something I want to say, I'm just going to come here & type it all out.

As a life-long fan, one of the constant things that I have ran into over the years, both on-line & in person, are people telling me that I'm overly negative & then questioning why I'm a fan or why I watch at all. Someone questioning you as a fan because you're disgruntled with the current direction of a specific promotion is even worse than dealing with non-fans questioning why you watch "that crap" before springing onto you their life-changing revelation that "it's fake, you know?" as if we are just ignorant to professional wrestling being scripted in 2013.

As much as I have previously bad-mouthed WWE, another issue is that a lot of the fans themselves are also out-of-touch. No, the problem with WWE is not the television rating. No, going back to the "Attitude Era" is not the solution. There will never be another "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. I have even seen people clamoring lately for WWE to re-hire Vince Russo of all people. How on earth can the most infamously terrible writer in the history of professional wrestling, the guy that people only know what his name is because of how bad he was, possibly help improve things? Yes, what WWE really needs is more pole matches & non-nonsensical swerves!

This man is definitely not the solution.

Society has changed. The Attitude Era worked because WCW was pushing WWF to change their style. ECW was popular. South Park was pushing the envelop on cable television. The music industry was dominated by hardcore rap, metal & people being angry. Everyone was on edge. That's not what society looks like anymore. Now everyone is politically correct. There are focus groups to help educate people on their ignorance toward everything from race to sexuality. We see people losing their jobs almost daily over something they posted on Twitter. Slapping some middle fingers, thong shots & cuss words onto RAW is not going to make it a better show. The older fans themselves, as much as WWE, are simply out of touch.

What we need is continuity & characters that actually have a gimmick & some depth to them. We need a reason for two people to be having a match, not just because they have to kill some TV time. No match should ever happen for no reason. Even jobber squash matches have a point, to get over the non-jobber as a credible threat & show his finish.

That is one of the things that is missing from pro-wrestling nowadays & it's a layover from the Monday Night Wars. Something that the fans themselves are in large part responsible for. Every match now has to be Superstar Vs. Superstar. If a squash match is on free TV, fans bitch. They talk about how it is a waste of time. If a Superstar Vs. Superstar match happens & one guy loses clean, the fans bitch. They talk about how so-and-so was buried & how it should have been on Pay-Per-View. If a Superstar Vs. Superstar match happens on free TV & ends in a fuck finish, you guessed it, the fans bitch. They didn't get a clean finish. What is the point of the match even happening is it just ends in bullshit!?

Yet the fans also then complain that no one is over, no one has any heat & the matches don't mean anything. Funny how that works.

Talking with my friend Matt Presnell (@MattPresnell) he believes it's time for WWE to hit the proverbial reset button. I can't say that I disagree with him. In fact, I agree completely. I just think they need to reset everything, including the format of the show & how it is presented. There's no reason that show still needs to have a heel authority figure. There's no reason why every show still has to open with an nWo-style 20-minute promo. Matches should be announced ahead of time, so that we know what matches are going to be on the show *gasp* before it starts! Matches need to have a reason for happening. There needs to be consequences for wins and losses. If a champion just lost a title, he should get a rematch down the road. He should not just come out smiling the next week like it never happened (See: John Cena, Sheamus & Kofi Kingston for recent examples). The characters need to be fleshed-out. Not every babyface needs to come out, smile & tell lame jokes. Not every heel needs to be a coward that does nothing but runs away & cheats. Some of the top television shows on right now are popular because of how strong the characters are. Shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy or Justified.

Rose-colored glasses makes us all remember the past more fondly. We all want wrestling to be like it was when we were growing up. Times change though & so too must the wrestling industry. The days of drinking beer, flipping off the crowd & hitting a Stunner on Vince McMahon are gone. So are the days of Hulk Hogan telling us to say our prayers, train & take our vitamins before slamming a big fat guy. A big difference there was we were all a lot younger, however they were also strong characters that had a direction.

I love talking about pro-wrestling. I still do so on a daily basis, with my friends, or on various wrestling message forums. I still watch the shows. I watched RAW on Monday to see the return of The Rock. I watched the NJPW Tokyo Dome show just yesterday with my friend Eric. I am still a fan. That does not mean that I do not have the right to criticize a show when I feel it is lackluster. Am I overly-negative? Well, I certainly don't think so. If the show is good, I'll say so. I thought the WWE TLC PPV in December was great, as a recent example. If a show is bad though, which lately is more often than not, I'll say that too. I feel like a battered fan. Like I have been beaten down & tagged more times than Ray Traylor in WCW by the nWo. That does not mean that I will just stop watching the shows though. It's more like following a sporting team than it is watching a sit-com. If your favorite sports team has a bad season, do you just not watch them or support them anymore? Of course not. We fans continue to watch because we're waiting for things to improve. We bother to complain because we still care. Sometimes we are just misguided in where we focus our critiques & attention.

The Lost Art of the Cage Match

This upcoming Sunday, WWE are having their TLC Pay-Per-View. Although I am intrigued in some of the matches, it made me start thinking about how WWE, over the years, have really killed off a lot of their gimmick matches, specifically cage matches.

Ryback Vs. C.M. Punk from the Hell in a Cell PPV a couple months ago was the first match between the two. The first match...was in a cage. A match that used to be the be-all, end-all of a feud, culminating in a gruesome, brutal match. Even the very first Hell in a Cell match, between Shawn Michaels & The Undertaker, ended after a run-in from Kane where he ripped the door off the hinges. Sort of defeats one of the main points of a cage match, keeping other people out, no? Another big thing a cage match is supposed to do? Keep the wrestlers *IN* yet the biggest Cell moments over the years seem to be from when the wrestlers LEAVE THE CAGE (like the infamous moment when Mick Foley was thrown off from the top of a Cell).

A cage match should do a few things:
1. Make it so no one can interfere in the match.
2. Make it so no one can run away from the match.
3. Provide a more brutal environment. The cage, itself, becomes a weapon.

You use these three basic elements to build to the match so that it logically makes sense to have the cage match blow-off. Maybe the Four Horsemen keep running in & doing a beatdown on the babyface, so you have to keep them out. Maybe the heel keeps running away, so you need to lock him in a cage so he can't run anymore. Maybe a heated feud needs a brutal conclusion in the rubber match & the cage can provide that environment. The best, of course, is when you can incorporate elements from each of those all at once leading to the cage being the logical resolution.

Somewhere along the way, WWE seems to have forgotten that the basic story is still good triumphs over evil. The good guy wins in the end. That's the story. That's always the story. However, you have to make it so that people care to see the good guy get his revenge. You have to have the good guy show weakness to that point & continually get screwed over & you have to make the bad guy look heinous.

They have also seemingly forgotten the point of a cage match. Why to have one in the first place (as mentioned above). Not to mention, with WWE being PG, they can not very well have blood. A cage match is not very gruesome if it is just a normal, everyday match with the wrestlers not doing anything differently sans being surrounded by a fence. There is also the whole problem of a cage match having a door, so someone can just walk out of the cage at any time, ending the match (and killing the whole point of a cage match).

Whether it is "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka leaping off the top of the cage to hit "The Magnificent" Don "The Rock" Muraco with the Superfly Splash, Magnum T.A. & Tully Blanchard settling their differences in a bloody "I Quit" cage match or a double-ring "Wargames" there have been plenty of great & memorable cage matches over the years. Nowadays, sadly, the normal cage match doesn't seem to be good enough. We have to have an 8-man Elimination Chamber, or a Hell in a Cell. We have to have people climbing to the top of the Cell, on the roof, so the fans think they might get another Mick Foley moment. We have entire Pay-Per-View events built around a whole card of gimmick matches instead of it being the logical conclusion to a heated feud. Matches happen in cages now just because it's that time of the year so, welp, here's some cage matches.

I like the idea of a cage match being the end of a feud. There are no more doubts or questions once the match is over. The better man wins. A cage match should not be used as a cliff-hanger, or a way for a heel to "steal" a win. It should be like Thunderdome: "two men enter, one man leaves." The winner should have to climb out & over the cage & the loser should be left laying, possibly a bloody mess doing a stretcher job. There are different ways to get to a cage match & different stories to tell within a cage match but it really feels like a lost art.

With the raising of the bar over the years, the over-exposure to cage matches & fans being desensitized maybe cage matches are just a thing of the past that have naturally been phased out? Even the arguably best cage match footage is old, grainy footage. We are in a new era & maybe the basic cage match is a dated concept by the standards of today that should not be rejuvenated.

In closing, just for fun & to see the varying opinions, I proposed a question to some people as I was genuinely curious what they would say: What's the first thing that comes to mind when I say "cage match?"

Matt P. - "Mick Foley crashing down off the top through a table like a dumb ass."

Bobby K. - "I remember Hulk Hogan Vs. King Kong Bundy, one of the very first matches I ever watched in my life."

Dice Darwin - "Why waste time climbing the cage when they can walk out the door?"

DualShock - "Superfly Jimmy Snuka." 

John H. - "Old blue."