Csonka’s Takeaways From WWE MITB 2017

– Welcome back to column time with Larry. It’s time for one last look back at the 2017 WWE MITB PPV. I hope that you enjoy, and feel free to share your takeaways/future booking plans or whatever from the PPV. The only rules are “have a take, be respectful of other’s opinions and don’t be a dick.” It’s wrestling, we all love it, we all see things differently and will disagree. Just be cool about it, and thanks for stopping by.

NOTE: The column was written after the PPV and before Smackdown aired, and is only discussing thoughts on the PPV and not any of the PPV fallout from Smackdown.

The Kanellis Couple are Already Slotted: Mike and Maria Kanellis made their debut at the MITB PPV. Word had been that they were signed for the last few months, but that WWE was holding them off and that they would be skipping NXT. Skipping NXT is no surprise, they wanted Maria back and they’ll likely end up on Total Divas. But the other thing is that Maria isn’t getting any younger at 35, and for lack of a better phrase, they want to cash in as much as possible on her sex appeal. Bennett is 32, so he could have spent some time in NXT at that age, but thanks to his wife he got to by pass that. Don’t shoot that down, because if we’re being honest, Bennett is a solid hand and above average tag worker that got opportunities in Japan because Tiger Hatori loved Maria’s ass, just go back and watch the camera work during the Kingdom’s NJPW run. I’m not saying that Bennett doesn’t work hard, but I do feel he’s gotten more opportunities than most due to Maria. But after watching their debut, I felt that WWE very deliberately slotted the couple; Maria is in charge & is the star. Mike is along for the ride. He’ll get chances; he’ll likely beat Sami Zayn 3-7 times on TV and PPV because Vince will think that’s hilarious. They are doing a very obvious riff of their TNA act, which honestly got tired in a hurry and was a very mid-card act with a low ceiling. So I hope that WWE has some plans locked in for them and can make more of the act than it is.

I Wanted American Alpha To Be The Fashion Police’s Mystery to Solve: The Fashion Police stuff at MITB was once again very entertaining. They have done a great job with the skits, and have locked themselves into the #2 babyface tag team spot behind New Day. But I was completely disappointed that the angle at MITB was just to set up another match with the Ascension, who they “already investigated and defeated” on Smackdown. They need a team to battle, they need a case to solve and the tag division needs to be reshuffled to maximize what talent they do have. And that’s why I wanted American Alpha to be the mystery team at the PPV, complete with heel turn. American Alpha is dead in the water and can’t even get on TV, hell they can’t find a PPV pre-show or even Talking Smack. Their run has been a disaster, they were brought up without a well thought out plan, and WWE hoped that their NXT success would be enough to keep them over. But after a few weeks, any excitement was gone; WWE delayed their tag title win, gave fans no reason to care about the team and even with the win over the Wyatts, it was too late because the people just didn’t care. American Alpha are a supremely talented team who have a high ceiling as far as in ring ability goes as they have shown in NXT. The heel turn could be a breath of fresh air, having them act like the spoiled/frustrated athletes that feel entitled to everything that they feel they deserve. It would get them back in the mix, it would give them purpose and would slot them as the #2 heel team behind the Usos. American Alpha badly need something, I’m just afraid that WWE doesn’t know what that is, but don’t “@” the Road Dogg on Twitter, because he will get pissed if you question the perfect, almighty WWE.

“Because They’re Heels” is a lazy fucking excuse: I really feel that the “Because They’re Heels” line of thought has become a really lazy excuse. Heels doing heel things is fine, but like anything in wrestling, it has to be done with some control. If you do any thing too much, blading, dives, interference, distraction finishes, it turns into diminishing returns and loses its effectiveness. In 2017, heels constantly getting involved in matches, especially matches that are on their way to being great, has annoyed me to no end. The biggest perpetrators of this in 2017 are the Suzuki-gun stable in New Japan. NJPW is one of my favorite companies to cover, but one of their biggest flaws in 2017 is the fact that the Suzuki-gun stable has continually ruined matches, matches that were either good or on their way to being great. The Suzuki-gun stable booking has become extremely lazy, pre-match brawl, Taichi uses the bell hammer, Suzuki beats on someone in the crowd, Kanemaru tries to mist someone with whiskey and it happens all the time. Yes, they are heels, yes they will do shitty things to babyfaces, but when does it become too much? It becomes too much when it starts ruining your enjoyment of the product, and that brings us to MITB. I was really enjoying the women’s MITB match, WWE was on their big history kick, but once the bell rang I felt that the ladies were locked in, and working hard to make their first ever MITB match a memorable one. And then the finish many feared happened; Ellsworth not only got involved, but also climbed the ladder and gave Carmella the briefcase. They had a good match that I felt was working its way to very good until the finish. You can claim heel heat all you want, but there’s better ways to do it that don’t completely deflate the match. They were doing a lot right, had a hot crowd, no one died and I felt that they were creating some great drama. But I hated the finish; it was the perfect example of taking a match and throwing all of the hard work away with the finish. The bottom line is that this was another potentially great WWE PPV match ruined by shit booking. It also doesn’t help that the Carmella/Ellsworth pairing does nothing for me, that Carmella is not good at all in the ring and that she gets no reaction from the crowds when she enters, but they are determined to push her and are hoping that this leads to permanent heat. It works as a heel finish, and may be what Carmella needs, but comes across tone deaf after all of the history talk and in terms of what the audience wanted. But my biggest issue is that it took away from what was working towards a great match, which has been a big issue with WWE PPV this year. There were better ways to do the finish that could have garnered them some heel heat, but they went with the least imaginative & frustrating way possible.

The Nakamura Angle in MITB Was Risky… But Paid Off: WWE took a big risk in how they booked Shinsuke Nakamura in the main event of the MNITB PPV. We’ve seen matches where a guy gets taken out, returns later, and the crowd absolutely shits on it. They’ve done it with Reigns in the past, and the crowd shit all over it. MITB 2017 was a good match, constantly building to the end. The attack by Corbin during the intros got some great heat on him, and was a theme for the match and finish, where Corbin just shits in everyone’s cornflakes; he’s a spectacular asshole. So after Nakamura was down and out in the back, he returned at the 21-or so minute mark to work the closing 8-minute stretch. This is not booking that you can’t and shouldn’t do all the time, because it won’t always work; you have to have a special performer who has a great connection with the crowd for it to work. And they had that with Nakamura. The crowd went wild when he returned, sang his song long after it ended and brought an amazing energy to the match, wrecking fools left and right with Kinshasas. And then we have the big star down and battle with Styles, their first face off like this in WWE and giving me flashback of their amazing WrestleKingdom match. Between the Nakamura return, the great crowd reaction and the great interaction with Styles, it completely elevated the match from “very good to great” to excellent. Everyone played their role well, and at the end of the day, I feel that they produced one of the very best MITB matches, complete with fun big spots and some great drama throughout. They have a lot coming out of the match to work with on top of the Corbin win; because you can do Styles vs. Nakamura, Styles vs. Owens, Nakamura vs. Owens, and of course Sami vs. Owens. It just worked.

– End scene.

– Thanks for reading.

“Byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye Felicia!”