wrestling / Columns

411 Fact or Fiction Wrestling: Should WWE Do Away With Extreme Rules?

April 30, 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 Scott Rutherford and Jack Stevenson!

  • 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, pizza and hydroponics.

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    1. Due to the PG nature of the product and the fact that the company is afraid to upset advertisers, WWE would be better off to drop the “Extreme Rules” PPV.

    Scott Rutherford: FICTION – You don’t need blood to be violent. Sure it can add to a match if used in the right circumstances but a good performer and good booking will always get around it. I look to Sheamus vs. Daniel Bryan a few years back in the 2/3 falls match at Extreme Rules. It had no blood but was intense. It was also a fantastic match because it was well worked. Maybe WWE can do a deal with sponsors that one time during the year they can be non-PG. I dunno, I can see ways around it and since it’s become a strong b-level show it would be silly to get rid of an established brand name.

    Jack Stevenson: FICTION – I think it’s entirely possible to put on a fun PPV of zany gimmick matches without violating the terms and conditions of the PG rating. Certain matches should probably be avoided- ‘chain’ matches really need barrels of blood and guts to disguise the fact the central weapon looks rather flimsy, while ‘Kiss my Arse’ matches are just a bit stupid. But there’s no reason why you can’t have a good Falls Count Anywhere match without a naked lady ripping someone’s face open with a barbed wire baseball bat. The Shield and Evolution had a superb one nearly a year ago. Ladder matches still work, Tables matches still work, Steel Cage matches could still work if some effort was put into them, and then there’s probably some more comedic stipulations I haven’t thought of that they could tack on as well. The main problem with this year’s event was that the build for it was lacklustre and the matches suffered as a result, but ‘bad booking’ is not a problem endemic to PG pro wrestling.

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    2. WWE bringing back the King of the Ring as a Network special is the best way to bring back the gimmick and also to add content to the network.

    Scott Rutherford: FACT – The King of the Ring is PERFECT for the Network and I’m looking forward to watching it tonight (as I type this). Further more, back when the Network debuted just over a year ago, we did a Special Feature talking about what we think the Network could add. I said back then that original programming is what will drive subscriptions. I’ll amend it slightly to say it will drive them outside the WrestleMania season. I think there’s mileage in getting Christian, Edge and Chris Jericho doing commentary to old PPV’s or the shitty WWE Movie releases. These are guys that have an encyclopaedic knowledge of WWE from back in the 80’s and 90’s, get along fantastically and can make anything sound fun. There is literally a thousand ideas you can do that cost very little to do.

    Jack Stevenson: FACT – Everyone seems to really like and miss the days of King of the Ring as a big five PPV, which is weird because it usually made for a fucking awful show. The 1995 and 1999 iterations of the event are genuine contenders for the title of ‘worst WWE PPV ever,’ and even the more fondly remembered ones pin their reputations on stuff that happened outside the actual tournament, like Mankind plunging off the Hell in a Cell and Shawn Michaels and Steve Austin having a mat clinic. The only genuinely great things that the King of the Ring tournament has ever contributed are the Austin 3:16 promo and three tremendous Bret Hart matches in 1993. Neither Steve Austin in 1996 nor Bret Hart in 1993 seem to have any imminent plans to return to the wrestling world of 2015. So, King of the Ring is traditionally bad and there’s no real reason for it to return, but nostalgia is a powerful thing and so the concept is never going to be buried entirely. In that case, the WWE Network is probably the best place for its zombified corpse to stumble around. As a designated PPV event with four weeks of Monday Night Raw devoted to building it up, it would only ever be an anti-climax, but even with its somewhat shoddy track record it’s still more enticing as original Network programming than Jerry Springer fronted clip shows. Live wrestling is generally a good thing, especially if said wrestling seems consequential, and it has as good a chance as anything realistically does of tempting a few more viewers to try the Network out.

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    3. You like that TNA has hired Billy Corgan as the Senior Producer of Creative and Talent Development.

    Scott Rutherford: FACT – It couldn’t hurt, right? Seriously, we all know Corgan is a massive wrestling fan and put large amounts of his own money into keeping the indy scene in Chicago going. The fact he has some name value doesn’t hurt TNA and their relationship with Destination America. The other side it, if he completely fucks it up no one will know the difference.

    Jack Stevenson: FACT – Billy Corgan is a mainstream name who has already brought a little publicity TNA’s way, and he clearly adores pro wrestling, having even gone to the lengths of kick starting his own indy promotion. At the moment, TNA is legitimately good, Impact is a really fun and refreshing watch every week, but if all Corgan does is clog the show up with heavy handed, do gooder storylines about race and sexuality, or make every wrestler share the catchphrase “and then I’m going to smash your pumpkin,” I’ll shrug it off as just another set back for a company that has suffered so many set backs in its time that by all rights it should be existing in 1994. So, it if goes well, great, if it doesn’t, no harm done.

    SWITCH!

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    4. You are not excited to see another Cena vs. Rusev match at Payback.

    Jack Stevenson: FACT – Cena and Rusev have had a decent feud but it’s not quite taken off in the way I hoped it would. They’ve still got a very good match in them, but I don’t think the ‘I Quit’ stipulations will bring it out of them. It gives John Cena the opportunity to be really melodramatic, and Cena is not at his best when he’s being melodramatic, gasping and gurning and yet somehow pulling out a seemingly unimaginable victory. The more this feud wears on, the more it seems to be focusing on the dissolution of Rusev and Lana’s relationship as well, which is a short sighted direction to take it in- Lana might be rather over at the moment but the character is so closely linked with Rusev and evil Russian stereotypes that it’ll be almost impossible to break free from them. She has her merits as a performer but she probably isn’t good enough to make a clean, seamless break from such a pungent gimmick. It’ll probably be a *** ish match, reasonable, but not so good to justify dragging another month out of this feud, especially when the U.S. Open is such a blatantly superior direction for Cena to be going in.

    Scott Rutherford: FICTION – I think there’s a great match that has the potential to happen between these two. Is the world really clamoring for another match? Not really but if they can get everything happening at the same time and moving in the same direction, it could really be entertaining. Would I want to see anything else beyond that? No.

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    5. In the long run, the Bray Wyatt vs. Ryback feud will do neither man any good.

    Jack Stevenson: FACT – Bray Wyatt is not as good as we all thought he was. In fairness, he’s been booked as a spooky hologram and he’s had his loyal followers Harper and Rowan stripped from him, but still, he’s had precisely one high profile loss in about nine months, and he’s been given Chris Jericho, Dean Ambrose and the Undertaker to feud with, rich characters with rich histories and genuine connections with the crowd, and he’s not been able to do anything with them. It’s just the same promo every single week and a smattering of decent matches here and there. I like Ryback and think he’s broadly underrated, but he’s definitely not as good as those three that Wyatt has already under whelmed against. Bray probably needs a break from TV and he needs to come back with more mojo and some new material. All this feud with Ryback can possibly generate is some cookie cutter cryptic garbling from Wyatt and maybe one or two OK PPV matches. The Big Guy won’t get any more of a boost from working with him, he’d probably be better off standing up to the likes of Sheamus.

    Scott Rutherford: FACT – Both men have the potential to be much more than their current status would indicate. With Ryback they need to pull the trigger and push the guy right into the main event and have him beat everything in sight. It’s funny; as soon as you give him some wins and momentum the fans get right back into him. Have him win the title, get a couple months as champion and then evaluate how he’s going. If he’s not cutting it by then you can make him a JTTS. Same with Bray, he’s treading water so badly he needs to be given focus for his promos and a series of wins against the bigger guys. If the WWE isn’t willing to give each one a big push, given they have potential to get really over, then they should just release them or at least stop pretending like creative give a crap about them.

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    6. Global Force Wrestling bringing in Eric Bischoff to the mix is a bad idea.

    Jack Stevenson: FACT – I like Eric Bischoff, I think he seems a pretty charming guy as long as you’re not following his sporadically hard right Twitter feed, and he clearly has a pedigree in the wrestling business, having come as close as anyone probably ever will to toppling Vince McMahon’s wrestling empire. But, since the heady days of the mid nineties, he’s not really been enhancing his resume. Obviously I’m not privy to the inner workings of TNA but watching the product now, just over a year after his departure, it’s hard to tell precisely what he actually achieved while he was working there. That’s not to say he doesn’t have strengths and talents. According to Wikipedia he is currently producing a show called ‘Food Fight’ in which wrestlers inexplicably face celebrity chefs in cooking challenges and then even more inexplicably team with them in a wrestling match, and anyone with the vision to realize that a program like that is sorely missing in the world clearly still has something of value. I think everyone following Global Force Wrestling was rather hoping the company might have the bravery to put more ground between itself and the Monday Night Wars, though.

    Scott Rutherford: FICTION – Bisc is a successful businessman. When the cards fell the right way for him he came as close as anyone to beating the WWE. While I think Eric as the man in charge of GFW would be a bad idea, having him be a guy you can work with, throw ideas at and use his business acumen…yeah, I say he’s a good get. Since I don’t see Jarrett letting control of GFW go as easily as he did I TNA, I don’t think Bischoff will do any damage.