Sunday, January 2, 2011

Looking Back & What's Ahead In Wrestling

Well another year has past and 2010 has been a very different year in the world of professional wrestling.  There have been changes and new faces, some good and some bad.  It has been a year of off the charts excitement and abysmal disappointment.  For the first time in quite a few years I actually find myself hoping that 2011 is a much better year in sports entertainment.

TNA Wrestling:  It has been a very blah year for TNA.  The promotion started on a high note with the arrival of Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff.  I myself along with a great many people felt that their association with the company would take it to the next level and place the promotion on the same level of WCW in it's glory days, and a return to the Monday Night Wars which made both WCW and the WWF agressive and innovative in their plans to compete with one another.

Well TNA was certainly taken to the level of WCW.  That is WCW in its decline.  It now is a combination of endless WCW Monday Nitro nWo style promos for Immortal, and WCW Thunder grade matches.

For those unaware TNA for the most part rose from the ashes of WCW, built upon both personalities and behind the scenes workers who were not snatched up by the WWF when it acquired WCW's assets in 2000.  Put together by the Jarrets it ran its intiail shows from the Asylum in Tennesse and later Universal Studios in Florida.  For several years it had attained the level of WCW's intital flagship show WCW Main Event, and even featured entrance tunnels on either side of the ring, one for faces and one for heels in much the same design WCW had used for its program.  TNA also incorporated the use of a six-sided Lucha Libre style ring, which most fans and even the promotion saw as an innovation.

Enter Hogan and Bischoff.  Gone on week two was the six-sided ring, forever eliminating one of TNA's signature matches, Six-Sides of Steel.  For the most part TNA had been pushing young and undiscovered talent, but on the first Impact of 2010 the promotion was instantly besieged by a slew of established stars from WWE and ECW which has continued throughout 2010.  From the middle of the year on not only had TNA become predictible, but at many points it became too predictible.  From the moment Abyss first mentioned "They" and 10-10-10 I already knew that "They" were Hogan and Bischoff.

The main saving grace so far has been the fact that Jeff Hardy turned heel and became the TNA World Heavyweight Champion.  Although he has now held the title longer than all his WWE Championship and World Heavyweight Championship reigns combined, and the unfortunate other side of the coin, is that nothing really fantastic has been done with this development.  Jeff needs a manager, because he can't cut a good promo, especially if he has to do it on the spot as opposed to the edited promos shown on the big screen.  Jeff's inability to speak off the cuff makes him an ineffective villian, which makes his feuds with Rob Van Dam, Matt Mogan and Mr. Anderson seem pretty dull, as the apparent faces are the ones doing all the talking.  I know Jim Mitchell is pretty much doing nothing at the moment, and since Jeff is now the Anti-Christ of Professional Wrestling then the Sinister Minister would make a great voice for him.

TNA Wrestling was a hot and innovative, home grown, promotion until the beginning of 2010, and since then it has steadily went downhill.  Without the six-sided ring and an overproliferation of established stars, many of the "veterns" of TNA have been left out in the cold to promote storylines in the hopes of gaining ratings that have yet to materialize.  TNA's other unique quality, the fact that there was a great deal of actual women's wrestling was quickly undermined by the Hogan-Bischoff regime, and I would rather they not have female competitors if their only goal is to clone the WWE Divas division.

On top of this Eric Bischoff himself displayed a lack of faith in the promotion in a recent interview saying (And I Quote), "TNA comparatively is a Kool-Aid stand compared to Coca-Cola in terms of its (WWE's) resources and infrastructure."

Recently on Twitter Bischoff revealed that he and his family had spent a day chasing geese across two states.  Unable to resist I asked if those geese had names like Ratings, Talent and Storyline Development.

In another side note TNA's  TNA IMPACT! follow up show, the boring and lame, TNA Reaction was canceled by Spike TV due to poor ratings.  The main reason anyone watched that boring crap anyway was to see the results of the IMPACT! main event.

The Death Of ECW and The Rise Of NXT:  In 2010 Linda McMahon ran for the United States Senate.  In preperation with this, over the period of the past few years, the WWE made an effort to clean up its image, because although she no longer worked for the company it was a given (and judging from the ads from her opponets a correct assumption) that her links to WWE would come into question.  This in my opinion lead to the final eradication of WWE Extreme Championship Wrestling, because let's face it a hardcore promotion that is not allowed to be hardcore or show more adult content is useless.  So now I know what Captain Kirk meant on the old episode of Star Trek when he stated that it had been hard to watch Abraham Lincoln die again.  Watching the demise of ECW for a second time (the third if you count the WWF Invasion storyline) was pretty disheartening, especially when the ECW Championship changed hands in the last match.  I still can't figure out why WWE storyline development would want to portray Ezekiel Jackson as ECW Champion without it having a relevant purpose, and thus far is has not.

In place of ECW came WWE NXT, "The next evolution if sports entertainment."  (Whatever) I had my doubts, even planned on not watching NXT at all because I thought it was going to be a straight reality show like Tough Enough.  However I did start watching it from the first night when I saw that the format had actual wrestling, and learned that all the contestents worked for FCW (Florida Championship Wrestling).  I loved the concept and though it was great, although I was at issue with the emimination of Daniel Bryan and Michael Tarver.

However, then the other shoe dropped.  With the arrival of Nexus, all eight NXT Season One contestants, on RAW the week after the finale, and their hiring a few weeks later proved that the NXT competition was nothing but a joke, and a further slap in the fact of WWE's diehard ECW fans.  Three competitors from NXT Season Two are now a part of the Raw roster.  Kaval, the winner of NXT Season Two requested, and was given, his release from WWE within a matter of months of his first Smackdown appearance.  NXT Season Three was an all Diva competition, and I don't even know who won, nor do I think anyone else on earth cares.  The show was such a lame duck that it was moved from SyFy to WWE.com to give SyFy the room to begin running Smackdown, from Season Three on.  The current Season Four feature Byron Saxton as a contestant.  Hey wait, wasn't Byron Saxton a color commentator on WWE ECW?

WWE Monday Night RAW & WWE Smackdown: It was a fairly exciting year on WWE's two flagship shows, especially during the first part of they year.  However after Wrestemania things began to go a little bit down hill.  When Nexus arrived on the scene it harkened back to the arrival of the nWo in WCW, and when they initallly attcked John Cena this summer I came out of my seat I was so excited.  Unfortunately the storyline went  from exciting to slightly dull.  There were dozens on missed opprotunities by storyline development to build Nexus and make them more fierce and fearsome than they have turned out to be.  I think Cena should have willinglly remained in Nexus and helped Wade Barrett become WWE Champion.  A heel turn for Cena would have given the character some life and rivited the audience to their TVs instead of relying on everyone to watch RAW out of habit.  With CM Punk joining Nexus as apparently their new leader last week one can only hope that Nexus has a larger and more sensable role in 2011.

RAW itself had some great hits, Sheamus's feuds with Randy Orton, Triple H and John Morrison.  The crowining of the Miz as WWE Champion.  I had initially thought that the Miz as champion was a terrible idea, but looking at what he has done with it in the little time he has held the title I now agree with this move by WWE.  Despite all the heirs apparent like Shawn Michaels, Triple H and AJ Styles it is the Miz who actually has that "Flair Factor".  TNA should take note that this is how a true heel and villian champion should speak.

There have also been some huge misses on RAW.  The break up of the Heart Dynasty and Tyson Kidd as a heel.  The anonymous general manager is an irritation instead of an innovation, and this story needs to close real soon.  Michael Cole as a heel announcer.  WHAT?  WHY?

Perhaps one of the worst mistakes as of late was putting the WWE Tag Team Championship on Santino Morella and Kozlov.  One can only hope that the Unified Tag Team title curse remains, because thus far every team that has held the championship has broken up shortly after loosing it with the exception of Heath Slater and Justin Gabriel.

Smackdown brought us Alberto Del Rio, who is probably the greatest Mexican heel since Eddie Gurerro.  His whole introduction, driving to the ramp and his own announcer, is total heel gold.  The feuds between Kane with Rey Mysterio, the Undertaker and Edge have made the show worth watching.  It has also been great to see Edge going back old school in his taunting of Kane with a kidnapped Paul Bearer, and one hopes that his being joined by Christian at the Slammy special is more than just a tease that they will be reuniting as a team.

However, despite winning Bragging Rights for the second year in a row, Smackdown has had its share of gaffs and misses.  Probably the biggest it the overturn of talent on Smackdown: Matt Hardy, MVP, Shad Gaspard and Kaval to name a few.  Currently there are only eight real superstars on the roster, and the show is in need of a more permanent Nexus presence.  I had held out the hope that Smackdown would eventually pick up Samoa Joe in 2011, but unfortunately Joe decided to resign with TNA.

The Future: For TNA the future looks pretty bleak.  Without a return to its signature style and a return to promoting the stars who made the company, such as AJ Styles, Jay Lethal and Samoa Joe, I believe it is going to be going even further down hill.  It also looks a little shaky for WWE Smackdown with the depletion of it roster.  Smackdown needs to increase the size of its talent rather than its broadcast team.  For WWE RAW the future looks fairly bright, especially after the final RAW of 2010.  CM Punk can hopefully take Nexus to the level which it needs to go to.  The feud between Miz and Morrison has been a long time coming, and with the WWE Championship at stake it could be the first real feud of the 21st Century.  Only time is going to tell, so keep on watching.



Master Vyle


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