wrestling / Columns
The MeeThinks Friday FreeThinks 10.16.09
Howdy, folks. And welcome back to your weekly dose of intrawebz rasslin’ optimism. It’s Bound For Glory week for TNA, which means we’ve got plenty to discuss. And as usual, we’re taking the biggest stories of the week (plus the PPV preview), cutting through the typical barrage of knee-jerk pessimism, and searching for silver linings wherever they may be in order to bring you a fresh and insightful perspective on what is and what all may be.
Oh yeah, and there’s a PPV this weekend! We should probably talk about that one, too.
Sound like a plan?
Rock & Roll.
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The SELL of the week goes to Jillian Hall. Sure, the Divas Championship (aka “the Butterfly Belt”) isn’t exactly a prized possession among the WWE ranks. But you sure wouldn’t know it buy the way that Miss Jillian celebrated like crazy once she managed to pick up the momentary victory and claim the championship as her own this past Monday night on RAW. From the second her hand was raised, Jillian went out of her way to fawn all over her newly won prize as if it were her very reason for being. And when Melina was announced as an immediate challenger to the title, Jillian totally hammered home just how much the belt actually meant to her by desperately trying to strap it around her waist before the title defense began. It was almost as if her character *knew* she was doomed, but wanted once — just once — to wear the belt if even only for a moment so as to claim her rightful place as Divas Champion. Really, really, well done. |
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The TELL of the week goes to Melina, whose guillotine-split legdrop on Jillian Hall was about as botched as a move can get on national television without anyone ending up seriously injured as a result. I’m not sure whether the fault lies with Melina, Jillian, or a simple communication breakdown between the two ladies… but the bottom line is that the botched legdrop made Melina look just as flukey and ameteurish as a champion as Jillian did just seconds before. The only problem, of course, is that we’re all wise to the fact that Jillian’s character is mere comic relief, while wrestling fans are actually supposed to take Melina *seriously*. |
None – Despite a three-branded trade of WWE Divas earlier this week, there are no “new” performers to debut in the past seven days.
Captain Lou Albano – Obviously the biggest news of the week came late on Wednesday morning, when wrestling fans the world over learned of the passing of the legendary Captain Lou Albano, who died of natural causes on Oct. 14 while under hospice care at the age of 76.
As a lifelong wrestling fan, I can remember most vividly how Captain Lou was truly an icon in the early landscape of Vince McMahon’s early 1980’s World Wrestling Federation. Years before Hulkamania’s heyday, Captain Lou had already begun to transform himself into one of the loudest, most brash ringside characters in all of Vince McMahon’s traveling circus, and his colorful personality and managerial abilities made him a bona-fide “larger than life” superstar long before such a term became commonplace.
Bobby Heenan may have been “The Brain,” and Jimmy Hart was unquestionably “The Mouth” — but Captain Lou was, without question, a full-blown cartoon come to life. And his gimmick was an unmitigated success far beyond the mere realm of professional wrestling as a result.
Most famously, Captain Lou is best remembered among professional wrestling fans as the lynchpin to the famed “Rock ‘N Wrestling” Connection between what was then the burgeoning World Wrestling Federation and a little-known startup cable network known as MTv. Long story short, Captain Lou was on a plane to Puerto Rico when he happened to run into then-megastarlett Cyndi Lauper. The two quickly forged a friendship over their shared love of “colorful” personalities and “larger than life” performance art, and Lauper invited Albano to play the role of her father in her “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”
Flash forward to 1983, and Albano’s boss (Vince McMahon) decided to cross-promote the hell out of Albano’s MTv tie-in. Whereas previous “wrestlers” had been disciplined, fined and fired for “breaking kayfabe” by appearing in such non-wrestling ventures (Hulk Hogan, for example, was pink-slipped by Vince McMahon, Sr., for appearing in Rocky III), Albano’s crossover project was greeted and promoted with open arms (and open wallets), and the professional wrestling business would never be the same as a result.
Breaking from their “closed business,” treat-it-like-its-real roots, the World Wrestling Federation saw a real potential in cranking up the showmanship and loaning out their performers to mainstream projects. And since MTv was really becoming something of a hit with the key demographics, McMahon decided to throw caution to the wind, admit that his business was more “show” than “sport,” and partner with fellow showbusiness outlets in order to broaden the appeal of his young wrestling promotion. A full-on cross promotion followed, and Cyndi Lauper and her MTv ilk did wonders to help boost the national profile of the World Wrestling Federation as both companies made serious inroads with all sorts of mainstream media and celebrities as a result.
In fact, you might even argue that the mainstream success and marketability of concepts like celebrity appearances at WrestleMania and the RAW Guest Host program would never have been possible were it not for the early efforts of guys like Captain Lou. Love him or hate him, his impact on the landscape of professional wrestling is undeniable.
None – In a welcome development, there are no new injuries to report over the past seven days’ time.
In this segment, I’ll be firing off a handful of micro-commentaries at some of the industry’s biggest stars and stories. For those of y’all who aren’t familiar with Twitter-style posting, the format is simple:
@Recipient’s Name – 140 character message goes here. #MessageTopic
And before you ask: No, these aren’t actual tweets.
FAKE TWEETS OF THE WEEK
Ooh… speaking of Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/411wrestling
http://www.twitter.com/411moviestv
http://www.twitter.com/411music
http://www.twitter.com/411games
http://www.twitter.com/411mma
Mick Foley – Word out of TNA this week is that Mick Foley lobbied to have the finish of one of his matches changed during the most recent taping of TNA iMPACT!, but the match came off so poorly that they had to re-shoot the show on the following night.
Here’s the scoop —
The Plan:
Mick Foley is booked into a tag team match alongside Kurt Angle and pitted against Abyss and Matt Morgan. When the match is announced, Foley is told that he’ll be taking the fall. Foley says “that’s not a bad idea, but how about…” (whereupon he proposes an alternate ending), and the finish of the match is changed accordingly.
The (First) TV Taping:
Foley participates in the match as scheduled, but TNA agrees to go along with his plan for an alternate ending to the bout. Midway through the match, Foley steps out of the contest, grabs the house mic, and announces that Stevie Richards will be taking his place. Stevie then eats the pinfall in Foley’s place.
The (First) Outcome:
Foley is protected in the loss, but the match comes across as terribly convoluted, and the crowd craps all over it. TNA officials decide that the bout is simply not worth airing on television, and they decide to re-shoot it all over again the following evening using the original finish.
The (Second) TV Taping:
Foley competes throughout the match as scheduled, and eats the pinfall to close out the broadcast as was initially planned.
The (Second) Outcome:
The match is much better received by the live audience, even if Foley’s onscreen stock fades a wee bit, as his character gets beaten fair and square just two weeks prior to TNA’s biggest PPV event of the year.
MeeThinks?
On one hand, I can totally see where Mick Foley is coming from. Much like Chris Jericho’s famed longstanding “non-feud” with Bill Goldberg, Foley is playing the role of the antagonist here, and it makes perfect sense (from a storyline perspective, at least) that his character would do everything in his power to avoid any actual in-ring confrontation with the guy he’s supposed to be building to this giant showdown against in just a few short days. By looking like a weasel, Foley gets the fans to turn against him all the more, and they can’t wait to see (read: PAY to see) him finally get his comeuppance one-on-one against Abyss at the Monster’s Ball at Bound For Glory.
It’s actually a really smart booking approach.
That said —
Foley rolled the dice on this one, but the gambit didn’t quite pay off when the actual match ended up looking more confused than controversial. As a result, TNA was pretty much booked into a corner. And since they needed the strongest television product possible going into the Bound For Glory PPV, they decided to reshoot the contest and move ahead with the original ending — even if it came at the expense of a clean loss for one of their main PPV draws.
Had this one come out the other way, Foley would probably have won the fans ire as intended. So it’s really no harm in trying — especially if the end result sees Mick eating a decisive loss at the PPV when all is said and done.
Since it DIDN’T, however…
Foley looks “political” and “sneaky,” and it casts a certain degree of doubt as to whether or not he really is “in it for the good of the company” in the long run or if he is just another veteran performer looking to keep his spot and his star-power intact, even if it hurts the larger momentum of the promotion in the long run.
Hopefully, the payoff to this feud will see Abyss getting that much-needed win over his de-facto “mentor.” By so doing, fans will see that Foley’s only goal in meddling in match outcomes before the big dance was simply to help tell the story of a power-drunk authority figure in serious need of an ass-whuppin. In which case? No harm, no foul.
But stay tuned.
Mickie James – rumors are swirling all over the place that recently unseated Divas Champion Mickie James has grown increasingly frustrated with her position within the World Wrestling Entertainment ranks and the broader state of the WWE Divas. According to a number of “insider” reports, the company has apparently been making note of Mickie’s weight in recent weeks (a tell-tale sign that a Diva is in the hot seat), and Mickie has returned in kind with an increasingly vocal critique of what appears to be the lackluster direction of her onscreen push and the relative state of women’s wrestling on the whole.
MeeThinks?
This one has all the makings of “Drama” with a capital “D,” as Mickie James is arguably the last remaining female performer on a WWE roster with any real discernible connection to the last time WWE’s women’s division was anywhere *near* credible. The problem is? Mickie is not now — nor really has she ever been — the flagbearer of this division, and that makes it awfully hard to side with her in an argument as to where, exactly, the state of women’s wrestling in World Wrestling Entertainment appears to be headed.
Here’s why:
After Trish Stratus bid the WWE Universe farewell, there was really no female performer left to carry the torch for the company’s best attempt at women’s wrestling. But Mickie was there, and so she was given the role as torchbearer by default. Now sure, women’s wrestling wasn’t ever really a priority in the WWF/E ranks, but the performers who fit the bill really helped keep the division alive thanks to some really well-crafted gimmicks. Before Trish there were starlets like Sunny and Sable, neither of whom could wrestle worth a lick — but both who sure did fit the bill for “T&A.” And while onetime diva standouts like Lita Chyna weren’t conventional blonde-haired beauties, they most certainly more than held their own in the ring.
Not so much with Mickie James.
“Cute” in the looks department, but not drop-dead gorgeous. “Passable” in the ring, but nowhere near amazing. And not exactly the type of “conventional beauty” WWE would be so quick to trot out on posters, magazines, and Playboy crossovers. As such — Mickie remained (and remains) largely at the front and center of the women’s division, but she never really assumes the role as the face of women’s wrestling.
End result?
The “poster girl” expectations are divided between performers, and everyone pretty much blends together as a result. Some divas are “smart” (ala Vickie Guerrero or Tiffany), others are “sexy” (pure eye candy, like the Bellas), while others still are “powerful” (Beth Phoenix, Natalya Neidhart)… but no one performer really embodies all three of these traits, and thus the division suffers overall.
Bottom line —
Mickie James is no Trish Stratus, and hearing that she’s unhappy about her role in a division that’s she’s really doing little to keep alive sounds kind of shady, to say the least. Sure, you can’t really wrestle your way out of crappy booking (just ask Nick Dinsmore), but Mickie really hasn’t done *anything* to give fans a reason to care about her onscreen character or her in-ring abilities since she stopped playing the role of Trish Stratus’ crazy lesbian stalker. If she were making a difference in the women’s ranks, then by all means, she would most definitely have a legitimate argument. But until then — she’s merely campaigning for a spot that she hasn’t really done much of anything to deserve.
So four weeks ago, I compiled a season-long guide to the Monday Night Football matchups and attempted to venture an educated guess as to how WWE’s ratings would likely fare against each game accordingly. Sure, things can change as the season wears on. But basically, I tried to size up the relative appeal of each Monday Night Football offering and anticipate what sort of effect it might have on WWE’s audience as a result.
I’ve found that this helps us set reasonable, positive expectations for each new week’s broadcast. And for five weeks running, the predictions have been dead-on. The goal is to give wrestling fans a good idea of what they’re up against (based on the strength of the competition), and the hope is to save us from the typical “sky is falling” knee-jerk pessimism that is often so rampant among internet wrestling fans.
LAST WEEK’S PREDICTION:
WEEK 5 (Oct. 12): New York Jets at Miami | An AFC East division rivalry should be plenty of invitation for fans to keep a close eye on this week’s MNF broadcast. Whether or not this week’s RAW rating will increase, however, has a lot more to do with the previous week’s rating than anything else. Expect a better RAW rating than the 9 o’clock quarter hour from Oct. 5.
ACTUAL RESULT:
WWE Monday Night Raw scored a 3.4 rating — up from last week’s broadcast, which scored a 3.3. Raw’s main competition, Monday Night Football, scored a respectable 9.74 rating — the largest EVER in cable television history — and an obvious decrease from the previous week’s broadcast of the record-setting 15.3.
BOTTOM LINE:
We suspected a rating that would hold steady if not uptick throughout the night, and RAW’s audience delivered exactly that. Love it or hate it, the guest host gimmick seems to be keeping the ratings exactly where they should be, and RAW continues to see solid ratings throughout the NFL season, with audiences growing (even if ever-so-slightly) when Monday Night Football competition is weak, and shrinking (but again, only slightly) when games are more nationally appealing.
THIS WEEK’S PREDICTION: (Excerpted from my September 11 column)
WEEK 6 (Oct. 19): Denver at San Diego | Western conference football on Monday night? No thanks. The NFL has had some real trouble attracting nationwide audiences when both teams hail from the western US in the past, and I can’t see an also-ran clash in week six doing much to change that. RAW’s rating will probably hold steady here, if not improve.
This weekend, TNA Wrestling will present their annual “Bound For Glory” PPV — basically, the company’s megashow superspectacle answer to WrestleMania. As such, and in light of this most important of shows, rather than recapping the week that was, we’ll be taking this section to shed a bit of light on the upcoming TNA pay-per-view.
Because — on paper, at least — it has some SERIOUS potential.
A minor note to the TNA folks before we get started: The Bound For Glory website doesn’t actually feature a match-by-match listing of the bouts that are scheduled for this year’s card. While this might seem like a nitpicky point (after all, you’re basically trying to sell the show on the basis of the BFG name alone, plus the pending retirement of Sting) — it would really go a long way in hyping your program if you actually took the time to announce which matches would be transpiring at the event itself.
But anyhow —
TNA’s Bound For Glory PPV is this weekend, and website omissions not withstanding — the card really appears to be packed with all sorts of showdowns that could radically change the landscape of wrestling’s number two promotion. The long and short of the past year in TNA has seen a “generation war” between the old guard and the newer performers, and most of the matches on the card play off of this roster-wide conflict nicely in order to inject an “old versus new” feel to the better part of the program.
Now then, to the matches themselves:
Sarita and Taylor Wilde defend their TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship belts against The Beautiful People, represented by Madison Rayne and Velvet Sky.
The Beautiful People have found themselves at the center of most of the TNA women’s division storylines over the past 365 days, but numerous personnel changes and a discernable lack of actual “wrestling ability” could mean that their best days as an active trio of in-ring competition could indeed be behind them once the TNA booking cycle starts anew following the Bound For Glory PPV.
Sarita and Taylor Wilde are two solid hands and two fine additions to the TNA Knockouts division, but neither woman seems ready at this stage in her career to make the jump to the “main event” of women’s wrestling against the likes of Tara or Awesome Kong (yet). As such, it seems to make a lot more sense to keep the belts on the champions here so as to allow them to develop as individual wrestlers worth caring about before throwing them back into singles’ competition against far-better established opponents.
Besides, TNA recently debuted the ubertalented mix of Alyssa Flash and Hamada. Do you really think the company will be shuffling the babyface ladies out of the tag title mix so quickly when there really aren’t any other babyface ladies to take their place?
Kevin Nash squares off against Hernandez and Eric Young in a match to determine the TNA Legends Champion. And regardless of who walks away from this match with the belt in his posession, there really is no way that TNA can book a “loser” here unless Big Daddy Cool manages to bury both of his opponents by the time the final bell has sounded.
Hernandez seems to be TNA’s next big “hot prospect” singles star on the make. The company has thrown themselves into making him the breakout star of LAX with tremendous enthusiasm, and it seems like only a matter of time before SuperMex finally captures a singles championship to solidify his position as a force to be reckoned with among the TNA heavyweights. He’s got plenty of unfinished business with Eric Young AND Homicide, and a run as TNA Legends Champion (even if the belt is something of a sham) would be tailor-made for two instantly marketable feuds to kick off TNA’s new booking cycle.
And let’s not forget Eric Young, who has done wonders to restore the better part of a career’s worth of squandered potential as an undercard comedy act thanks to his recent heel turn and ascent to the leadership role of TNA’s biggest (if not “strongest”) stable. Are the World Elite anywhere near the level of “Main Event Mafia” credibility? Hardly. But that has little to do with the booking and the interviews that either side has given — as the TNA creative team has really gone out of their way to convince us that “Super Eric” is no more and his international band of assasins could really put the hurting on the TNA locker room if given the opportunity.
Of course, we’re all too smart to take guys like Shiek Abdul Bashir and Rob Terry seriously. But a high-profile-PPV win by Eric Young could be the first step in rebuilding his stable’s credibility from the top down. And that could mean that the World Elite is in for some serious “streamlining” and fat-trimming in the weeks to come (I’m looking at YOU, Kiyoshi), which could only help everyone involved when all is said and done, when you think about it.
In X Division action, Suicide takes to the famed Ultimate X against D’Angelo Dinero, Daniels and Homicide in a bout to determine the number one contender for a future title shot.
As a diehard TNA fan dating back to the glory days of AJ versus Daniels and Samoa Joe, I was thrilled to see the X Division’s signature match added to the company’s biggest PPV offering of the year.
However — two major problems with this match?
One, the Suicide gimmick is played out, and should have come to its logical payoff with an unmasking of Frankie Kazarian from the moment he first won (or lost) the TNA X Division gold. Failing that, it should most definitely happen at the company’s biggest show of the year. But given the fact that Kaz/Suicide is thrown into a match with not one, not two, but THREE other competitors at this stage of the game — will anyone even care if and when he finally reveals himself?
Problem number two:
The X Division championship (as of this writing) has still not been announced for a title defense at Bound For Glory — the biggest show of the TNA booking year. While it is great to see the Ultimate X match being dusted off for a “grandest stage” spectacular, this does little to inspire hope that the actual X Division belt itself (or indeed the division on the whole) will receive much in the way of high-profile exposure in the months to come.
Solution (even if it is this late in the game)?
Throw Amazing Red into the match and make it a five-way, put the X Division Championship on the line instead of a “future title shot,” and have Suicide take it all and unmask himself as the returning hero to close out the contest. Sure it’s fantasy booking, but it’s hardly any worse than what all we’ve got scheduled at this stage of the game, no?
Besides, it always looks way cooler to be fighting over a belt than a giant red X, wouldn’t you agree?
ODB will defend her TNA Knockouts Title against Awesome Kong and Tara, which pretty much places three of the most talented TNA ladies into one big match to really hammer home just how prestigious the Knockouts Championship can be (well, as “prestigious” as a belt that spent the better part of the last two months around the waist of a ‘rasslin redneck and his manbeast of a girlfriend can be, of course).
But I digress —
ODB has a definite charisma about her, and the TNA faithful have embraced her accordingly. Awesome Kong was once the most dominant force in all of TNA (and that includes the fellas!), but she’s been spinning her wheels with no real direction ever since dropping the belt and mixing it up with a confused array of midcard bouts (and what of Raisha Saeed!). Tara, of course, is a WWE fanboy’s crush and a solid addition to the TNA roster — but one can’t help but wonder if the company pretty much squandered the drama that could have been her “first ever” TNA Knockouts championship reign by giving the exact same outcome away on free television just a few months back.
So what happens?
Ideally, this match will be used to demonstrate that the TNA ladies are more than just “T&A” and can most definitely hold their own on a PPV stage when given the proper opportunity to shine. The other women’s match on the card won’t likely hold a candle to this one in terms of actual in-ring quality, and so it will be essential that whatever woman emerges from this bout with the title looks like the unquestioned “Queen of the Mountain” when it comes to female performers on the TNA roster who can actually put together a proper wrestling match.
My gut says Kong and Tara have unfinished business, while ODB has been pretty much tacked on as a sometimes-comedic afterthought. As such, I’ve got to believe that one of the challengers will walk away with the gold here — if only to put a decisive end to the last year’s booking cycle of mistakes and give the TNA ladies a fresh start going into 2010 with a belt that looks at least the slightest bit credible.
Samoa Joe is set to square off in singles competition against Bobby Lashley in a submission match. With the pending departure of Scott Steiner and Booker T, Joe’s Main Event Mafia days may soon be numbered. And while Bobby Lashley is unbeaten in the TNA ranks, his burgeoning MMA career and recent backstage discussions seem to indicate that the TNA management has all but decided that “The Boss” is not exactly the future of their promotion.
What does this mean, exactly?
In short, Joe should get the win in a manner that establishes him as his own man, or he should get the loss in a fashion that makes it clear that his journey to “the dark side” was but a momentary distraction as he resets his sights on higher goals than being a mere flunky to Kurt Angle and company. Bobby Lashley isn’t nearly as good a professional wrestler (or mixed martial artist, actually) as his record implies, but the guy most definitely has a buzz about him and so it’s hard to believe that fans will be seeing Joe making too short of work out of his opponent in “The God of Thunder” (man, what a lousy string of nicknames this guy has).
Ideally, a hard-fought contest shows that both guys can go in the ring. And win, lose, or draw, the feud is settled and each man walks away looking like a credible main-event talent regardless of which side of the heel/face spectrum he may happen to end up on by night’s end. Joe doesn’t need to be a pushover babyface (AJ seems to have that role down just fine, thanks) — but he most certainly needs to prove that he can go it alone without the Main Event Mafia to keep him looking like a relevant top-level threat. Because failing that, it’s back to the freakishly oversized tribal knife… and nobody wants to see that.
Two sets of TNA Tag Team Titles are on the line, as The Main Event Mafia (TNA Tag Team Champions) will do battle with The British Invasion (IWGP Tag Team Champions), Beer Money, Inc., and Team 3D.
Here’s what I like about this match:
Steiner’s heart is in the right place, but his body is nowhere near in the shape where it used to be. Booker T, meanwhile, has all but checked out of his TNA contract — and so it is hard to imagine EITHER of these men putting on a “five star classic” title defense, let alone putting over an opponent cleanly if it means that they’ll be leaving the show with the loser’s end of the purse.
Solution: throw ’em in a multi-team gimmick match to hide their shortcomings. Smart move here by TNA.
The three remaining teams have been scrapping with one another in all sorts of combinations and contests over the past year’s time, and so it seems only logical to place all three of these duos into a “war to settle the score” and let the chips fall where they may. Only problem, of course, is that there are not just one but TWO sets of tag straps on the line in this one… which kind of takes the wind out of the sails of a singular, “one ring to rule them all”-style victory to cement one team as *THE* definitive tandem in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling.
Obviously, the smartest move here is to have ONE team claim BOTH sets of tag straps to emerge from the PPV looking like the undisputed best that TNA has to offer. But given the fact that there are two sets of belts, four teams, and eight egos involved, perhaps we shouldn’t go getting our hopes up over an undisputed winner.
Matt Morgan will finally get his hands on Kurt Angle in a long-overdue singles encounter which could end up being the sleeper match of the night. Morgan and Angle have one of the longest documented “frenemy” storylines in TNA today, and fans have been waiting a long, long time to see if The Blueprint has what it takes to prove himself as a stand-alone superstar among the company’s best.
For Matt Morgan, “Bound For Glory” is his chance to prove it.
Is “The DNA of TNA” ready for the TNA main event? That remains to be seen. He most definitely has the size and swagger of a main eventer, but a good number of detractors have sounded off against his in-ring abilities and habit for overtalking his promos. Promo work not withstanding, however, Morgan will certainly have no better chance at proving he can make it as a singles headliner than Bound For Glory, as Kurt Angle is (arguably) the single best active professional wrestler in all of Total Nonstop Action.
Regardless of the match’s outcome, fans (and TNA management) need to walk away from this one feeling like The Blueprint can actually hold up his end of a singles encounter. If Kurt Angle just spends the better part of 20 minutes “wrestling himself,” it will do little to boost the staying power of his much younger opponent — which doesn’t bode well for Morgan’s future as a TNA standout. If, on the other hand, Matt Morgan can step up his game and deliver even a remotely “impressive” performance (as I most certainly believe that he — perhaps more than many other performers — clearly WANTS to do), then there could seriously be big things in store for The Blueprint come 2010 and beyond.
Morgan just inked a long-term contract extension with TNA, so there’s no doubt that he’ll be around for a good, long while to come. The question, of course, is just how, exactly, the company plans on using him in that time. And on Sunday night, we might just learn the answer.
Abyss and Mick Foley will go toe-to-toe in a no-holds barred Monster’s Ball match, which is already shaping up to be one of the most violent encounters in recent TNA memory. While Foley is years past his in-ring prime, the “hardcore” environment has always been one of his greatest assets (what with being a “Glorified Stuntman,” and all that) — and a good number of his most critically acclaimed matches have actually come in the years SINCE he first retired as a full-time competitor.
Abyss has long made a living out of being the “Modern Day Mick Foley,” with blood, masks, and barbed wire doing the better part of his gimmick’s heavy lifting in order to compensate for his relatively standard big-man arsenal of offense. That said, The Monster is probably one of the best (if not *the* best) “big men” currently signed with a major North American wrestling promotion today, and so he might just have a few new tricks up his sleeve at Bound For Glory to help offset the typical array of bloodshed and carnage that fans are all but guaranteed to see.
Would this match have been infinitely more relevant (and perhaps infinitely more entertaining) had it transpired, say, five years ago or longer? Perhaps. But we need to remember that Bound For Glory is TNA’s answer to WrestleMania — and some of the most memorable matches in professional wrestling history have been contested on “the grandest stage” despite the fact that at least one of the competitors involved was (like Mick Foley) years past their in-ring prime.
Shawn Michaels versus Ric Flair.
Hulk Hogan versus The Rock.
Heck — there was even that one time when we saw…
Edge versus Mick Foley.
Might history repeat itself? It’s a longshot, I know. But never say “never.”
In the main event of the evening, AJ Styles will defend the TNA World Heavyweight Championship against The Icon, Sting. In addition to being a bout to determine the rightful “top dog” in the TNA ranks, this match is also significant as many are anticipating that it will be the final match of Sting’s long and storied career.
MeeThinks?
Growing up as a WWF-first fan, I didn’t know all that much about Sting or WCW until a number of years later in life (like around age 8 or so, when we got our first WCW action figure — you know, “no movable limbs” Sting in the blue pants). As such, it was always hard for Mee to take the guy seriously as anything more than WCW’s cheap attempt at blending the best parts of Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior into one “super good guy.” (Little did I know how similar the Warrior and The Stinger were).
That said —
As a teenager during the famed “Monday Night Wars” era, I was instantly hooked by the Stinger’s transformation from the blonde-haired babyface to the rafter-lurking vigilante. And even though his in-ring bouts were hardly technical classics during this phase of his career (heck, the guy spent the better part of 12 months merely smacking guys with baseball bats) — it was hard not to find myself sucked in to the mystique and allure of this storied “comic book-esque” professional wrestling hero.
Why the extended introduction, you ask?
Because Sting, like any other great comic book hero, is really only as strong a character as his rich and colorful backstory. Sure the battles were epic, but Batman is classic because of his tortured past. Wolverine’s rage could turn heads, but the character is legendary for his long-lost history. And Sting? Likewise built of a legacy that is just as much storyline as it is actual combat. He’s not the best wrestler in the world by a longshot… but then again, he never had to be. For over a decade, fans have hung on the every move of this greasepainted crusader simply for what his character has stood for.
Justice, heroism, and respect — even if it ends up costing him dearly at times.
This Sunday at Bound For Glory, Sting finds himself across the ring from the most obvious and deserving of successors — a hard-working young talent who’s spent the better part of his career fighting precisely for those very same virtues that Sting had so long espoused. Even better — AJ Styles can actually back them up with a real technical mastery to boot.
Will the match be a five-star technical classic? At this stage of Sting’s career, that is asking for a lot. But the storyline alone seems like more than enough reason to tune in for this most fitting of swansongs: one, final showdown between the beacons of two generations solely on the basis of a shared respect.
You might even say that this is the kind of stuff that comic books are made of.
In a week where the wrestling world lost a veritable icon of its earliest crossover appeal, there really is no excuse not to mention the late, great Captain Lou Albano in this week’s Random Rasslin’ Reference. After all, the guy helped bring professional wrestling (and professional wrestlERS) well into the mainstream, and — with the possible exception of Hulk Hogan and Sergeant Slaughter — there really aren’t any 80s wrestling stars with the same level of crossover success and celebrity as was seen by wrestling’s dearly departed Cap’n.
This Mario’s for you!
And With That, I’m Outta’ Here
And so ends another week of professional wrestling wrap-up-dom. This weekend is TNA’s Bound For Glory PPV, which should deliver some MAJOR shakeups in the landscape of pro wrestling’s number two promotion once all is said and done. Of course, if you’d rather skip the inflated PPV price but still throw some attention the way of TNA’s hometown, you can always tune in to see the glorious return of Junior Seau as my beloved New England Patriots take the turf against the Tennessee Titans.
Whatever you decide to do, have a great week and always stay positive — and I’ll see you back here in seven.
– Meehan
