wrestling / Columns

411 Fact or Fiction Wrestling: Balor Main Roster Ready?

April 16, 2015 | Posted by Larry Csonka

Welcome back to the latest edition of 411 Fact or Fiction, Wrestling Edition! Stuff happened, people loved/hated it and let everyone else know. I pick through the interesting/not so interesting tidbits and then make 411 staff members discuss them for your pleasure. Battling this week are Len Archibald and Wyatt Beougher!

  • Questions were sent out Monday.
  • Participants were told to expect wrestling-related content, as well as possible statements on quantum physics, homemade pharmaceuticals, the Turtle Total Trip Theorem and hydroponics.

     photo Balor_zpsohnifkgi.jpg

    1. Finn Balor is main roster ready and needs to be brought up and used as soon as possible.

    Len Archibald: FACT – Finn Balor has been WWE roster ready since 2013. He has the look, a unique style that can translate for a heel or babyface, and an already established fanbase that can only grow once he appears on the main roster. For anyone who has checked out the artist formerly known as Prince Devitt, I implore you to just check out some of his entrances from WrestleKingdom 8 or the promotion I can’t think of right now where he came in as a crazed Hannibal Lecter. Balor GETS IT. He clearly understands the sport of professional wrestling, but understands the nuances and spectacle of it as well. Just by telling from his performance from entrance to final bell during his tag match that pitted Balor and Hideo Itami against The Ascension, Balor could have shown up on RAW the next week and wrecked shit. Bring Balor on SmackDown! as the penultimate opponent for Sheamus who has been talking smack about “little fellas” and have Balor scare the white off him. If there is ONE current NXT talent that I can see headlining WrestleMania, this is the guy. In fact, I will go so far to say that if WWE actually plays their cards right, Balor is THE GUY they’ve been looking for to “replace” John Cena.

    Wyatt Beougher: FICTION – In my opinion, Balor is as close to being a “can’t-miss” prospect as the WWE has in their entire developmental program – he’s excellent in the ring, he’s got charisma in spades, and he’s got a larger-than-life persona that kids will love while still appealing to adults. So why did I go “Fiction”? For two reasons, really – Balor has unfinished business in NXT, and I don’t want him rushed onto the main roster with no direction or long-term planning.

    To the former point, Balor still needs to unleash the demon on Kevin Owens. If he wins, Owens can goad Balor into fighting him without the paint again by claiming that Balor can’t beat him without it, and if he loses, then Owens truly is the better man. Either way, it has to happen before he gets called up, or it will be one of the rare instances where NXT sets something up and then doesn’t pay it off, and both Balor and Owens deserve better than that. And speaking of deserving better, I’m content to wait for Balor to get called up until the main roster creative team actually has something long-term in place for him. He’s not going to be able to use the body paint twice a week every week or it’ll quickly lose what makes it special, but if Balor is stuck wrestling a best of 1000 series with Fandango or the Miz without the paint, he’s quickly going to get lost in the midcard shuffle, and that would be one of the biggest wastes of talent in the WWE in recent years.

     photo Seth Momentum_zpsqvfiegwc.jpg

    2. WWE has lost all momentum following the WrestleMania weekend.

    Len Archibald: FICTION – This is a mark and smark response at the same time; it is easy, especially considering the events of this past Monday’s RAW to Chicken Little WWE and proclaim the sky is falling at Titan Towers after WrestleMania. I do try to live with a glass half full mentality and assume positive intent. Even though we are going through a rough patch, I am enjoying Seth Rollins’ run as WWE Champion. I am digging heel Mohawk Sheamus and his sweet sweet entrance theme. I very much appreciate Daniel Bryan single-handedly attempting to make SmackDown! his own show. Ryback is slowly being built up again. Kidd and Cesaro are awesome tag champs with the Lucha Dragons hot on their trail. John Cena is doing his best to make the U.S. Title mean something. All that considered, I think to say WWE lost “all” momentum following WrestleMania is a Sith-like statement of absolution that is just not true. Then again – and here is the smark in me – for WWE to have lost any momentum going into WrestleMania, they would have had to have some in the first place; and honestly – the build for WrestleMania Play Button was the very opposite of momentum building.

    Wyatt Beougher: FICTION – At first glance, this should be an easy “Fact”; however, after thinking back to how I felt immediately after WrestleMania had ended, I think it’s less that WWE has lost all of their WM momentum and more that there was just so much less momentum coming out of WrestleMania this year than there was last year. My first column for the Wrestling Zone was about how WrestleMania XXX and the follow-up RAW were a clear demonstration of how the WWE was consciously making a youth movement, but then twelve weeks later, I wrote a column about how they’d squandered all of that WrestleMania goodwill and were back to putting on boring, largely meaningless weekly shows. If you saw RAW on Monday, I think we can agree that it only took them two weeks to get to that point this year, making it a “Fact”, right?

    Not so fast! Coming out of WrestleMania XXX, wrestling fans believed that they had changed the future of wrestling by catapulting Daniel Bryan into the main event scene and sparking off a youth movement that trickled down throughout the card. On top of that (or, more to the point, because of it), WrestleMania XXX was one of the best-wrestled, most engaging WWE PPVs in recent years (I’d wager you would have to go back to Money in the Bank 2011 to find another event that felt like it shook up the status quo of the WWE as much as XXX did, and, on the whole, XXX was a far, far better show). Contrast that with WrestleMania 31, which featured Big Show, Randy Orton, John Cena, the Undertaker, and Triple H all winning their respective matches, and there just wasn’t as much for the fans to get excited about. Sure, Daniel Bryan won, but winning the Intercontinental title less than a year after his amazing WWE World Heavyweight Championship victory just wasn’t the same. Outside of that match (and a fun tag team scramble match on the pre-show), the only real highlights of the show belonged to Seth Rollins, who had a curbstomp countered into one of the most memorable RKOs of all time and cashed in on the main event to become WWE Champion. That said, yes, Brock Lesnar is out for the foreseeable future, but Rollins is still on the show, Cena is trying valiantly to bring prestige back to the United States championship, and Bryan is still on the show (though injury rumors continue to haunt him), so at this point, to say they’ve lost all of their momentum just doesn’t ring true with me. Yes, Monday’s show was largely boring to the point of being nearly unwatchable; however, that was a pre-taped show from the UK, so I’m willing to give them another couple of weeks before I write off all of that WrestleMania momentum

     photo CJ-Parker_zps56p3wprg.jpg

    3. Considering his age (26) and the way he had been used in NXT, CJ Parker made the right call to ask for his WWE release.

    Len Archibald: FACT – We are living in a very exciting time right now where it is becoming very evident that WWE is no longer the only game in town. Sure, no promotion is as BIG as the ‘E, but there are promotions that have value and would value a talent like CJ Parker and his attachment to WWE. If Parker wants to ply his trade as a grappler and perhaps learn how to perform in front of hostile crowds, a move to Ring of Honor will work. If he wants instant television time to build character, there’s always TNA. If Parker wants to hone his skills against a different style than what he was trained, Lucha Underground exists. Perhaps Parker wants to become a badass and would like to trade blows with the gods at New Japan. Either way, Parker is young, still has time to find a niche, still has time to make money doing what he loves (and perhaps even more than what he was making before) and make a name for himself outside of WWE. Even if he is no AJ Styles or El Patron, there is a template and precedence set to make his continued venture into professional wrestling not as difficult as it could have been even five years ago.

    Wyatt Beougher: FACT – When I first started watching NXT regularly, CJ Parker was one of the performers that I couldn’t stand – he was a bland face who didn’t understand that a hippie gimmick should’ve been more than peace signs and terrible dancing. But, as NXT has a way of doing, Parker was given enough of a tweak via a heel turn that his character made perfect sense – gone was the pseudo-hippie preaching about free love, and in his place was a perfect caricature of the clueless Milennials who blindly dedicate themselves to a cause, but only to the point where it doesn’t actually inconvenience them in any way. Parker’s portrayal of the character has been spot-on since the turn, and while I will miss cardboard signs like “There is No Planet B”, it is hard to fault Joe Robinson for wanting to get out of the WWE’s system while he’s still relatively young. When a guy asks for his release because he wants to improve himself outside of the WWE and gain more experience both internationally and domestically, that is only going to benefit him in the long run, and realistically, he could work his way around the world for the next 3-4 years and then get re-signed to the WWE. Though that would likely put him back in NXT, he could likely escape being named after Pamela Anderson’s character on Baywatch. Plus, Robinson was probably right that the Parker character was not likely to make it out of developmental, and after already spending four years in the WWE’s developmental system, I can understand why he would want to break from the company and perhaps start fresh in a few years’ time.

    SWITCH!

     photo Smackdown USA_zpsrqhvumhm.jpg

    4. Smackdown being moved to the USA Network in 2016 will lead to better synergy between Raw and Smackdown

    Wyatt Beougher: FACT – This is probably wishful thinking, but to clarify – if Smackdown improves when it comes to USA, it will likely be because of USA. Since the glory days of the Heyman-booked Smackdown Six just after the turn of the century, when the WWE’s “B” show threatened to usurp the popularity of its flagship, WWE has increasingly booked Smackdown as a completely disposable show where little of import happens (that didn’t already happen on the previous RAW or won’t happen again on the following RAW). The last time I watched a full Smackdown without the benefit of fast forward, it felt like it was about 90% RAW recap video packages and/or repeats of matches that happened on RAW and 10% actual fresh content. With the rumor being that the USA Network wanted Smackdown to bolster its live programming (per Variety, which may or may not know that Smackdown is pre-taped and not as “DVR-proof” – credit: Pete Lazarus, USA’s ad sales chief – as RAW), there’s a strong possibility that the network will push the WWE to actually book Smackdown out of its doldrums. As far as “better synergy”, with both programs on the same network and unified under the “For the Hero in All of Us” advertising campaign, I can only imagine that the big push is for a more unified product between the two brands. In a best-case scenario, that could greatly benefit the fans if it means less second-run programming on the blue brand and the development of storylines across both brands, rather than Smackdown simply rehashing exactly what happened on RAW. Unfortunately, the worst-case scenario is that the WWE continues to book both shows the way it currently does, and we get the same people wrestling the same matches eight times in a row leading up to a blowoff match on PPV…that instead leads to another month of eight equally similar matches.

    Len Archibald: FICTION – I want to say FACT. I really do. It makes all the sense in the world. Plus…SYNERGY! Ugh. I hate that word to be honest. I’ve worked in too many offices and heard that spaghetti-monster forsaken term way too many times from too many people who honestly have no earthly idea what that word means. Speaking of television executives, how many accounts have we fans encountered where professional wrestling is put in a position to thrive on television only for the “Network” to sneak in and sabotage all fans love about the product to make it more “appealing to a wider demographic”? SmackDown! on SyFy is currently the Daniel Bryan show. Sure, we get TONS of RAW recaps, but at least there is a focus on other talents that do not get prevalent airtime on RAW. SmackDown! under the thumb of a major cable channel is going to want one thing and one thing only – money. That is generated by ad revenue. That is generated by the dreaded demographic take, which is considered by the focus group. I shudder to think what a focus group that knows NOTHING about professional wrestling would tell a group of execs that knows NOTHING about professional wrestling how to make the product better. But, yeah. SYNERGY!

     photo rohnjpwrotor_zpsqbaakpm7.jpg

    5. ROH working with New Japan, and bringing in their top names (Okada, Tahanashi and Nakamura) will make you more likely to check out some of the May supershows.

    Wyatt Beougher: FACT – RoH is the one American promotion with a national television deal that I don’t watch on a regular basis, but even if the only NJPW guys RoH brought in were the Time Splitters, it would still be enough to make me check out the May supershows. The fact that the Rainmaker and Nakamura will be there as well only makes it that much more of a must-see for me. The RoH/NJPW shows last year were the best of the RoH shows that I watched by no small margin, and I don’t expect that to change this year. NJPW’s working agreement with Pro Wrestling NOAH means that a special guest like Naomichi Marufuji or Takeshi Morishima could make a surprise return to Ring of Honor; while something like that is far from certain, it does give long-time fans of the promotion another reason to tune in. Say what you want about RoH (and I have in the past), but any time they get together with New Japan, you know some excellent wrestling is going to happen, and that’s more than enough reason for me to tune in.

    Len Archibald: FACT – ANYTHING with ANY NJPW star, especially SWAGsuke will encourage me to watch ANY promotion they are attached to. This was an easy answer – now I must pad it. Um…I want to see Okada nail a RAINMAKAH~! on Jay Briscoe. Could Nakamura and Jay Lethal be given 30 minutes, please?

     photo TNA2015_zps49lfhb1f.jpeg

    6. Following news of Destination America dropping the Saturday programming, and reports of performers getting paid late; TNA doesn’t seem to be gaining any momentum thus far in 2015.

    Wyatt Beougher: FICTIONDisclaimer: Everything that follows in this answer is said from a place of love for TNA. That said, I’m at the point now where I almost wish that TNA would die (with the caveat that all of their roster members get folded into GFW), just so we could stop hearing about how they’re dying/dead every other week. Honestly, the late pay thing is looking like it may have been exactly what a TNA source allegedly said it was – an error on Panda’s end that meant that the checks weren’t sent out on time, and if we’re being completely honest, TNA’s Saturday programming on Destination America sucked. Who could have foreseen that putting a 9000-year-old lizard man on a show that borrowed its format from a VH1 show that initially shot to popularity a decade and a half ago wasn’t the recipe for Saturday ratings domination? Oh, no, wait, Unlocked hasn’t actually been cancelled; it’s just been moved to before the first-run broadcast of Impact on Friday nights. That’s actually not the worst idea in the world, because if someone misses a week of Impact and wants to catch up, now they can do so right before the new episode, with the added bonus of 100% more Mike Tenay Lizard Face. So really, the only show that got dropped was “TNA Wrestling’s Greatest Matches”, which really should’ve been titled “TNA Wrestling’s Greatest Matches (Featuring Guys Who Aren’t Here Anymore…And Jeff Hardy)”. Again, the promotion loses little from this move, so it’s hard for me to say that TNA isn’t gaining any momentum, especially when Impact seems to be doing a fairly good job of starting the long, slow, arduous process of rebuilding their reputation via word of mouth. Sure, it’s still really easy to dismiss Impact, but they did spend the better part of five years destroying the goodwill that they built up from 2005 or 2006 through 2008, so it’s not going to be an overnight process to repair that damage. As long as they’re putting on solid matches and none of the following people are involved with the booking – Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, Vince Russo – I believe they’re taking baby steps forward. They may not ever reach that pre-Hogan pinnacle again, but this move by Destination America is more akin to shedding dead weight or sloughing off dead skin than anything that will actually hurt their momentum.

    Len Archibald: FACT – “Doesn’t seem to be gaining any momentum” should honestly be TNA’s tag line since 2006. There have been NUMEROUS occasions where the Carter-led promotion had chances to sink or swim and follow up on a bold move, but was either met with apathy from the front, cowardice from high up or sabotage from the back. It actually all began with Kurt Angle. I LOVE Kurt Angle. I think he is one of the top 5 greatest performers of the past 30 years, but hindsight is short and has a long memory – he never should have won his opening feud with Samoa Joe. That pretty much killed any chances TNA had dead in the water as it was made evident from that moment on that TNA was where former WWE and WCW stars play on the edge of retirement where homegrown talent was scarified at their altar. This has been a trend that continued all the way up until TNA’s amazing string of shows going back to last year when things were creatively about to turn around. Then…Just as it seemed the promotion had built up a credible champion in Bobby Lashley…Brick wall, meet your Olympic Gold Medalist. This seems to have nothing to do with the question at hand, but it does because it represents a corporate mindset that has lead to TNA consistently being the battered girlfriend who will come back for more abuse just as long as someone acknowledges they exist. The move to Destination America should have given TNA a shot in the arm, but now we are finding out they are no better – or even perhaps even worse than Spike TV. Spike at least paid more to keep TNA afloat and would at least drop the hammer up front about where they stood. DA tossed out lofty promises about programming then yanked it away. TNA then tossed out lofty goals about revenue and now performers are getting paid late. I do not think this is TNA bleeding money – again, this is a management issue. TNA’s lack of momentum has always started up top and until THAT changes, there will not be any real forward momentum. It is sad because I feel the promotion has a lot to offer but they always plateau and do it at the worst possible time and make the worst possible decisions that see them take nosedives. That only serves to lower the height of the plateau at each interval. If TNA cannot survive their tenure on Destination America, that whole Chicken Little vibe I discussed about WWE above? Imagine that at TNA, multiplied by about 1,000,000.