General Pro Wrestling News and Discussion Thread Part Deux!

That stare was EVIL! Sigh. I can't watch Raw now even if I wanted to (and I kind of do) thanks to the stupid cable company upgrades.

 

Jericho is back next week. I knew they would bring out Foley after Johnny Ace was fired. They should have done this a long time ago though lol.

 

Some of the dirt sheets have reported that this is down to Triple H not being a fan of Foley's work. Of course, this has in turn lead to the belief that it is because Triple H resents people saying that his series with Foley in early 2000 was what "made him".

Honestly, it probably comes down to the fact that Foley left WWE because he was sick of getting ordered around while he was doing colour commentary. He then went and joined TNA where he had "one more run" in which TNA slapped the world title on him, put him over many of their talents, despite the fact that Foley was well past his prime and not capable of standing out as a full time performer. He then decides to return to WWE when TNA drys up, so no one can really blame WWE for being wary. It's been common practise in recent years to hold back on returning talent when they've been in TNA and a lot of this might be down to the fact that TNA will push WWE stars to the moon upon signing them and WWE wants to avoid this because it's sketchy practise that alienates loyal and long term employees.

 

I've read and heard that about Trips and Foley. Which is weird because Trips has praised both Jericho and The Rock and his programs with them, maybe there is a little bit of truth to those reports. Foley's TNA run was kind of sad. I'm a big Foley fan but disliked what they were doing with him there.

Wonder if Jericho will continue his JeriTroll/heel role or come back repackaged as a face just to fuck around with us again? I hope they actually do something with Chris, because as I've said otherwise, he really hasn't paid off much since coming back in Jan.

 

^ I honestly can't think of anything new that Jericho can do with his current character. If he were to turn face I'd put him in a programme with Alberto Del Rio, but Jericho is so firmly cemented as a heel nowadays that he could find it hard to adjust.

WWE is again trying to reboot their tag team division, but they put over Titus O'Neil and Darren Young instead of The Uso's who were not only the superior team, but were also the team that recieved the best reaction from the crowd. Don't get me wrong, The Uso's have impressive physiques, but O'Neil and Young look like like they are about to burst and this is probably why they are being pushed (nothing changes). The fact that both of them are incredibly wooden is no big deal because they've put them with AW, who is a talented talker.

Anyone not familiar with the wrestling industry would think that Vince McMahon is a closeted homosexual with a severe case of body envy.

 

I along with I think most fans question the point of even having a tag team championship when you don't have a division, and when Vince does do something with tag teams they don't last for long, or we get heels and faces slapped together for "mega main events". Sigh. This has been the norm for a long while now.

 

^ Yeah the mega main events, in which WWE style tag team booking just doesn't work out.

I'm thinking that the "damage control era" would be more apt a name for this current era in WWE. They fired Dave Finlay because he approved Miz being scripted (by a writer who is probably still very much employed) to interrupt the US national anthem, to which the National Guard disapproved of (seriously, it's a fucking show not a political demonstration). You have Chris Jericho being suspended because he cut a heel promo, not exactly the best way of entertaining but nonetheless WWE should know that their brand of entertainment may cause offense in volatile countries and act accordingly by making sure that offense isn't caused.

What else? Drew McIntyre has been buried because he had an argument with his wife in public, Bryan Danielson was fired because he did a convincing heel job in a situation where several other men beat two other men down, destroyed the ring side area and attacked non performers. But...

Some have speculated that Mickie James was released from WWE because she had a relationship with John Cena. Cena, the guy who has recently started divorce proceedings, broke off his relationship with James and married his currently estranged wife a couple of months later. This sounds like a serious case of WWE protecting "their guy" by getting rid of the problem (James) before she becomes a problem. I'm not suggesting anything, but the apparent time between this relationship ending and Cena's marriage could speak a lot of volumes.

 

Yeah, they've been pandering to too many groups to curry favor and not rock the boat since they've been "PG". It is almost never when I agree with comments online from people, but someone on some site, made the point that they need to stop introducing people or guests right before they come out. It ruins the atmosphere in the crowd. Introducing Foley last night was a mistake, even if people were expecting him...I dunno. I think the pops would be much bigger.

 

I'd be interested in seeing your source, because in the 15-plus years I've been following professional wrestling I have never once heard Trips praise Jericho on any level.

 

I'm pretty sure it was in one of those retrospective clips. I could be wrong. Maybe it was just the Rock.

 

^I went on a search for something resembling praise from Trips for Jericho and all I could find was thread after thread of their backstage heat- real and imagined.

It's almost funny... Jericho is a major draw and has been for years. He almost never gets hurt. When he does he works through it. I mean, he's no Kurt Angle, but he's wrestled with a broken arm. He doesn't seem to have any sort of drug addiction that's effected his life. And, he's consistantly worked 3 - 4 star matches every night with just about anyone on the roster for over the last 10 years. He'll regularlly put over younger mid-card talent and make them look like a million bucks.

He's pretty much the ideal worker.

Meanwhile, Trips will sing the praises of Sin Cara's storied career- a guy I'll add that has spent more time on the injured reserve/suspended list than he has on the active roster.

But then, I'm an unrepenant Jericholic.

 

Maybe I was imagining things then...it's just the Rock then that Trips has praised for their program. It's been a while since I read Jericho's first book (don't forget, we have the third one coming out this fall!) and remember him discussing Triple H, but didn't seem very negative about him. Maybe he was being diplomatic.

 

This was actually very much my impression of reading his second book. He always came across as quite diplomatic with guys he was likely to work with in the future. Though, he rib Trips a little bit saying one of his favorite wrestlers in WCW was Terra Ryzing in his first book.

But, there was the bit in the second book about early on Trips told Chris that if he ever needed anything he could just call. So, a few months after Chris started with the company he got lost in whatever city RAW was at that night and had no idea where the arena was or something... so he called Trips and said he was lost and Trips told him to get a (fuckin') map and hung up as he laughed it off with the rest of the Kliq. Things only got worse from there...

 

Yeah I remember that part...that sounds like the old Trips.

 

I give Bleacher Report's WWE coverage a lot of shit due to a lot of the articles not making the least bit of sense for marks OR smarts, but this guy absolutely nails the causes of the WWE's issues head on:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1229282-the-root-of-all-wwes-content-problems

Vastly over-simplifying for summary purposes, WWE essentially grew beyond its britches and wanted to be both Hollywood (in terms of entertainment) and Wall Street (in terms of being a big, publically traded company). The end result is that the wrestling product gets watered down by both, since Hollywood doesn't like rasslin' and Wall Street doesn't like controversy.

 

I love these people who think they know it all and can attest to that by writing articles. It's ludicrous, so much of their material is just re-spun stuff that someone like Dave Meltzer first published in the WON years ago.

I've got not issues with people writing long opinion pieces, making observations and discussing how they would do things, after all I do this myself frequently. I don't profess to know anything though and I will not disguise other's material within my own opinions, rather I'll credit it elsewhere - "the dirt sheets" or "some people have speculated" - things like that rather than passing it off as gospel which is what so many of these "columnists" seem to do.

Any die hard wrestling fan knows that WWE has a polarity shifting attitude towards the concept of "professional wrestling". The article writer dropped a cracker here:

It's not even speculative, it's written as if it is fact, I mean has Vince McMahon actually ever said that he wants WWE to be more Hollywood? No, yet the article writer claims that this was his personal intention (are you a mind reader Justin?). And seriously, WWE as Hollywood? No, that's not it at all, every die hard wrestling fan knows that McMahon has always been about taking pro wrestling mainstream, he's said this stuff numerous times in interviews and it's evidenced by his collaborations with other popular forms of entertainment such as the Rock 'N' Wrestling partnership in the 1980's, the story lines involving Mike Tyson in 1998 and even the guest host thing that has been more of a plague than an aid. As for taking the company public, what's saying that it wasn't a natural progression for a multi-million dollar business?

Vince had already made his fortune by the time the company went public, if anything turning WWE public could have been about fortifying the economics and allowing those who buy stocks and shares to have the opportunity to make their own fortune.

 

I think the commentator was only stating what many fans have felt (including me to be honest) for a long time, that Vince decided to take the company he helped built and move away from the wrestling and focus on getting into hollywood (with WWE Studios) and wall street (with the public stock). I have no issue with what the guy stated. Maybe he was wrong with putting words into Vince's mouth...but the other stuff is what a lot of fans have felt.

 

Well the article writer should have (or at least could have) stated that it was his belief and not a fact...

The fact that WWE is publicly traded would work against Vince if he really wanted to break into Hollywood. Such an undertaking would require enormous resources, man power and diversion of aforementioned resources perhaps necessitating the cessation of professional wrestling in the company. This would work against Vince because most of the shareholders (who bought into a pro wrestling company) would probably sell at the announcement of such an insane stunt and Vince and the rest of the WWE would be committing financial suicide...

WWE films is probably just another way of raising mainstream attention and the profile of the WWE performers who are the stars of the films. It's a shit business venture and has been a colossal bomb so far, but nonetheless it attracts attention.

 

Didn't the WWE hire Hollywood writers with TV experience but no wrestling knowledge in the early 2000's to write the shows? WWE attempted to become more mainstream by "going Hollywood"--in this case it's not possible to separate the two since this is the path the WWE chose to take to continue to become more mainstream. The end result of this is that the WWE has trained its fans that mic skills and funny skits are as important, if not moreso, than wrestling ability. Would WWE be as mainstream if they focused on actual wrestling? Likely not but it's the direction they've chosen.

 

Hell, Vince hired Freddie Prinze Jr. as a Smackdown writer. They have had hollywood writers, and again as I've mentioned several times he has reported (I'll grant there is no confirmation on this) that he refers to the titles as props and has the talent call them props as well. I totally get where the article was coming from.