411’s Worst Wrestler of the Week 04.28.09

Welcome to 411’s Worst Wrestler of the Week! I am your humble host, JP “JP II” Truss.

In the Worst Wrestler of the Week, I will focus on all things concerning wrestling. Every aspect of the product will be considered and in the end, two things will be decided. One will be the top event in the wrestling industry (the Worst of the Week) and the second will be the wrestler whose actions make him/her the Worst Wrestler of the Week.

After a week on hiatus to cover the Small-for-All report we’re back to our regularly scheduled 3W. I enjoyed the time I got running Jeff Small’s spot and hopefully he’ll be able to fill my shoes with his dry wit and obsession with The Great Khali. Good luck pal; you’re going to need it. It’s going to be a pretty short edition this time around due to the April workload, but we’ve got plenty of meat on the bone! Let’s get this show on the road!

Now, for the past four weeks I have done my best to live up to my word. I have avoided TNA Wrestling and their programming, “washing my hands” of them so to speak, because the build up and execution of Destination X so tainted my view of the product I knew I could not be objective. Now with Lockdown in the books and just over a month of avoiding TNA Wrestling I feel almost cleansed of those bad memories and I’m ready to go back into the TNA fray. Unfortunately for me I have come back at a moment where TNA Wrestling appears to still be in transition. Where they score; they score big. No matter how long the TNA World Championship is on Mick Foley, it’s almost guaranteed that it’ll create interest in the belt and the main event picture until a TNA Original (most likely AJ Styles or Christopher Daniels) is called up to carry the ball. However, once you leave the main event picture you find that the fundamental issues facing the other championship divisions (sans the Legends Championship, for obvious reasons) suffer for severe shortsightedness. The simple fact remains that TNA Wrestling is reluctant to plan any further than the month’s pay-per-view for the Knockouts, Tag Team and X Divisions. I am sure there is a faction inside of TNA that believes this will maintain interest in the division; however that is extraordinarily far from the case.

This can be seen in my pick for Worst of the Week. While I believe that TNA made the right call in taking the Knockouts Championship off Awesome Kong, who was no longer an effective champion, the question then became ‘Who would be the next challenger’? The answer came in the form of an impromptu Ladder Match between Sojourner Bolt and Taylor Wilde. Yes there was a match at Lockdown that was supposed to create credentials for the winner of that match to challenge the Knockouts Champion; please ignore that for the time being. For all intents and until stated otherwise, that match is pointless.

I can only imagine both Sojourner Bolt and Taylor Wilde were told about the stipulations involved five minutes before hitting the curtain and were told, “Give it their best shot”. For Ladder Match veterans, such planning is questionable at best. For rank novices it is absolute insanity. Because of the history involved with this particular gimmick you cannot throw any group of competitors in it and hope for the best. You need more than basic wrestling skills to create a decent Ladder Match; you also need a sense of innovation that cannot be taught or trained. It has to be instinctively apart of whom you are when you are in the ring; otherwise the ladder becomes a misplaced piece of hardware and not a part of a spectacle. Bottom line; if you are not willing to go into the ring and break something, whether that be your arm, or your foot, or your back…you should not be involved with Ladder Matches because you are putting yourself into a lose-lose situation. Both Wilde and Bolt were in that lose-lose situation thanks to their superiors and no matter who won, there would be nothing gained for them or the already weakened Knockouts division.

It almost make you question if this particular match was made to make the Knockouts look bad…nah, that would never happen.

So going into the match I already wasn’t expecting much at all and that is what I got. The bottom line here is that both ladies were intimidated and performed according to their fears just like any one would do if put into that situation. It would be easy to sit here and pick at the faults but I cannot do so when the entire match seemed designed to showcase those faults. One particular incident comes to mind that has to be discussed and that is the spot with the brass knuckles. Fortunately, TNA Wrestling has been kind enough to provide us with video footage via their YouTube page. Let’s take a look!

Clearly Sojo has never been in a situation where knuckle dusters were a necessity.

The end of the match was the icing on the cake as far as I’m concerned. Really, what better way to top off this abortion than with a overtly fake punch from backward brass knuckles? Simply beautiful.

Now I am not being too hard on Sojourner Bolt and Taylor Wilde because, as stated before, they were put into a lose-lose situation. My venom this week is directed at the creators of that scenario. While TNA is progressing on some fronts, it’s still a long way home for the promotion as a whole. It is my hopes that with the crowning of Angelina Love as Knockouts Champion signifies something of a shift because, and again mark my words on this one, if TNA is not careful their myopia could be what nails them to the cross. The Knockouts Ladder Match embodies that myopia and because of that, that match is the Worst of this Week.

Moving forward now to the Worst Wrestler of the Week. If you picked up the Small-for-All last week you’d know Hulk Hogan completed his three peat as Worst Wrestler of the Week. This week, it was actually about as simple since we have a tie.

Hornswaggle/The Little Bastard (WWE)

Look, I’m as entertained as the next guy with the Little Bastard. (You can call him Hornswaggle all you want. He’ll always bee Little Bastard to me.) However, once the line crosses from out of the ring shenanigans to in the ring competition, I start getting a little concerned. Despite the limitations or lack of limitations of his wrestling skills, whatever match he is in damages his opponent. I actually kind of feel sorry for the guy because I believe he does what he can with the role he is given. But, reality is reality and it is unavoidable.

His match on WWE Superstars highlights this. Both Nattie Neidhart and Tyson Kidd have the potential and the pedigree to do well in the wrestling industry. However, they were handed over to Finlay and Hornswaggle to give the duo and their fans a final hurrah. Considering the weakness of the match the post-match is all that could make for a nice scene, but in the end nothing is really gained out of the match. Finlay will most likely go to back to his roots as ‘The Man who LOVES to FIGHT’. Hornswaggle will most likely end lost in the shuffle that is Monday Night Raw and two talented superstars will have to live with getting beaten by ‘the leprechaun’. And all of this will come back to Hornswaggle being in the match.

It may not be fair but considering everyone involved The Little Bastard had no business in the ring. He’s a great entertainer and a decent wrestler considering but he needs to learn his limits as well as the unintended consequences of his actions, which he may nave not choice in doing now that he’s on his own.

Who’s the other part of the tie, you ask? Well, if you need a reminder;

I’ve already explained my issues with this match. It certainly did not help that Sojourner Bolt completely cracked under pressure and botched the easiest spot of the match. I understand there was little she could to, but she could’ve at least done that.

LB, Sojo congratulations! You’ve created history by tying for the Worst Wrestler of the Week!

No comment section this time around. We’ll get to it next week. You got questions, comments, or just want to bite my head off? Leave a comment and I could answer it right here next week. And be sure to drop by this Friday for the Weekly Smackdown Report! And don’t forget that 411 Mania.com is available on Twitter and Facebook, or just bookmark this site to get instant news from the most reliable wrestling source on the web!

Until next week; JP is DONE SON!