Thursday Sports Entertainment News Report 04.11.13

Greetings, folks, and welcome to another edition of Thursday Sports Entertainment! Today is April 11, making it 4/11 on 411! Yee haw! WrestleMania week has come and gone, and what a week it was. I was there for a lot of it, so let’s get right into the swing of things shall we?

WORLD (WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT) NEWS TONIGHT

FRIDAY

WrestleMania weekend started off with a pretty cool story. You see, my sister was in Florida on business and flying back home on Friday afternoon. When she landed, I got a call from her.

“Hey, have you ever heard of a wrestling organization called NXT?”

“Yeah”

“The plane was full of guys from there. We chatted the whole way back”

“Cool! Who’d you meet?”

“Jack Carter (Vader’s son), Luke Harper, Kassius Ohno (Chris Hero) and Sami Zayn (formerly known as El Generico) and some other guys”

So my sister got to meet WWE’s Superstars of tomorrow. She took some pictures with them and everything. The funny part was that she thought they were in a band because of the way they looked and dressed. According to her, they were very cool and seemed like really nice guys. So those fellows get a big old thumbs up from me.

Funny story: My sister told them that I was a big wrestling fan. One of them replied, “yeah, he probably never heard of us.” Not true!

SATURDAY

I went to the Hall of Fame ceremony at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night. Traffic on the way there was awful. In fact, I know people that went to a concert in New Jersey that was cancelled because the orchestra was caught in “crazy WrestleMania traffic.”

But you’re here to read about wrestling, not New York City traffic. I’ll try to stick to points that weren’t already covered in 411’s Hall of Fame report. Here’s my Hall of Fame Experience:

MICK FOLEY

Mick Foley was inducted by Terry Funk, who gave a short, very funny speech. Mick came out next and gave a very long, very sincere speech. He covered his career arc, making sure to thank those along the way that greatly impacted his success in Sports Entertainment. The absolute highlight was when Foley lamented that he never beat Chris Jericho, so Jericho lay down on the stage for him. Foley hit an elbow, and CM Punk made the three count. It seemed impromptu – if this bit was planned ahead of time, they sure fooled me. The crowd went nuts. Overall, Funk’s speech and Foley’s speech took up about 55 minutes of time, meaning they were behind schedule from the get-go. Foley’s speech didn’t feel like 45 minutes, however. He was very charming and captivated me the entire time.

TRISH STRATUS

Trish was inducted by Stephanie McMahon. Nothing memorable about the induction or much of Trish’s speech until the end. Trish was her normal, charming (somewhat bland) self until she mentioned her husband Ron. Oh man. Big mistake. The MSG crowd booed the shit out of poor Ron. However, I want to point out that this was all in good fun. No one really dislikes Ron, the jeers were a light-hearted jab at the guy that crushed the unrealistic fantasy of fans ever “landing” Trish Stratus. When Trish revealed the good news of her pregnancy, the crowd cheered, even chanting “Ron! Ron! Ron!” to show him they meant no ill will and were genuinely happy for the guy. Jerry Lawler, the host of the event, capitalized on the mood by quipping: “I think I speak for every man in the building when I say I love Trish Stratus…and I hate Ron!” Big laughs for that one.

BOOKER T

Stevie Ray inducted Booker T with a heartfelt, emotional speech. Out of all the inductors (is that a word?) that evening, Stevie Ray did the best job by far. Stevie made the moment personal, recounting how their father died when Booker was just a baby, and how their mother died when he was a young boy. Stevie recalled how Booker followed him everywhere he went because Stevie was the father figure Booker never had. After years and years of Booker following his brother, things started to turn when they began pumping iron. Ivan Putski approached Stevie Ray in the gym and suggested that he take up pro wrestling. Stevie brought Booker along with him, and watched with pride as the boy who followed his became the man who led. Man, what a great job by Stevie Ray. Booker’s speech was great as well, and I have a lot more respect for him now that I better understand his background.

BOB BACKLUND

Okay, let me set the record straight. Maria Menounos was booed mercilessly by the MSG crowd, and she deserved every bit of it. A lot of people have commented on how disgusted they were with the jeering that Maria received, but I whole-heartedly disagree, and here’s why:

Maria spoke for nearly a half hour. Think about that. Except for Mick Foley, no one else before her spoke for that long. Mick’s speech was 45 minutes but it felt like 10. Maria’s was nearly 30 minutes and it felt like an eternity. She rambled on and on and on. She spoke longer than Vince McMahon and Donald Trump COMBINED. Not only that, she framed a lot of it around herself, coming dangerously close to bragging. For example, there was a lot of this:

“When I was competing for the Miss Massachusetts title…”

“When I was on the Today show…”

“My Hollywood experience has taught me…”

“When I was on Dancing with the Stars…”

While she did say a lot of complimentary things about Backlund, she was including a lot of complimentary things about herself as well. Toss in the fact that she kept droning on and the crowd grew restless. And I don’t blame them. I personally didn’t boo her, but I definitely understand why others did. People called it disrespectful. Maybe it was. But it was also disrespectful of her to take up so much of our time and focus a lot on herself, whether it was intentional or not.

Anyway, Backlund came out and acted like a crazy jackass. Like, homeless-man-having-a-mental-breakdown kind of crazy. He screamed a lot about never giving up and doing your best. Picture a motivational speaker on meth. Definitely bizarre.

DONALD TRUMP

Vince McMahon inducted Trump and did a pretty good job. The best part of his induction speech was when he was referencing the Hair vs. Hair match he had with Trump at WrestleMania 23. McMahon said “I consider myself a handsome older gentleman, but I’m about the ugliest bald man the world has ever seen.” At that point a fan screamed out “What about Hogan?” which stopped Vince dead in his tracks. It’s rare to see Vince almost genuinely laugh when in showman-mode, but it happened here. Great stuff.

The crowd mercilessly booed Donald Trump. I’d go so far to say that the crowd showed Donald more disrespect than they did to Maria Menounos. After all, Donald Trump has played a big, positive role in WWE history. He’s never alienated the fans. Why boo him so passionately? I understand the political and personal buffoonery he’s exhibited comes into play, but in a wrestling context, he’s a hero. Trump handled it with aplomb, though. The difference between Donald and Maria was that Donald knew how to play up being the heel, almost reveling in it. They seemed to be setting up a potential WrestleMania XXX feud by having Trump challenge Vince to a fight. We’ll see how that plays out.

BRUNO SAMMARTINO

Arnold Schwarzenegger inducted Bruno and did an okay job. He spoke in his typical extemporaneous style but kept it short and sweet. His best line was after he gave examples of how much Bruno could lift in his prime, Arnold quipped “and I’m proud to say that even at my age I can lift 400 pounds…the other day I helped [NJ governor] Chris Christie out of his chair.”

Bruno came out and you could tell he was touched by the ovation he received. After selling out The Garden 187 times (as we were constantly reminded), he was happy to be back in the building once more. Bruno’s speech was very similar to the Stevie Ray/Booker induction in that I gained tremendous respect for the man after hearing his background. When Bruno was a sickly child in Italy, he said the Nazis came in and wiped out a third of his village. Everyone else had to escape to the mountains to survive. Many people did not survive the perilous conditions of their new, mountain-based home. Bruno told the gut-wrenching story of how, in order to eat, his mother had to make a 24 hour trip down the mountain and wait until it got dark in their home village. Then, while the Nazis were sleeping, she would break into the root cellar and steal as many vegetables as she could carry. Then, she’d climb back up the mountain for 24 hours to deliver the food to her family. They would ration it for as long as possible to keep their mother safe. Just harrowing stuff. Probably the best acceptance speech of the lot.

Overall, I really enjoyed the Hall of Fame. I went with a friend who’s a wrestling fan, and he called it the best wrestling event he’d ever been to. It’s definitely up there for me. The nostalgia and air of respect for the industry was palpable. If you ever get a chance to attend a WWE Hall of Fame ceremony, I highly recommend it.

Best Inductor: Stevie Ray – he made it personal and touched many with the story of his family’s obstacles

Best Inductee: Bruno Sammartino – same as Stevie Ray. It’s unbelievable what this man went through

Worst Inductor: Maria Menounos – rambled on for too long and was too self-referential

Worst Inductee: Trish Stratus – played it safe with a bland acceptance speech

SUNDAY

WrestleMania has been covered to death. I’ll give you some of the highlights of my experience. For reference, I was seated next to the entrance ramp in the 10th row:

– I sat next to a guy named Bob Kapur from Slam Wrestling. You can read his piece here, where he refers to all the “white guys” around him, including me I guess, as “gorillas.” Bob was a nice guy, very funny, and warned me that his piece would be a little over the top. I mean, what is he gonna do, say he had an enjoyable time cracking jokes with friendly people? The man is in the snark business. So it’s in that spirit that I say: I’m sure all the white guys around you seem like gorillas when you’re a tiny 4’9″ virgin, Bob.

– The Mark Henry/Ryback match had more hugging than a Team Hell No therapy session.

– After the Ryback/Mark Henry match, Ryback was walking up the ramp. He pointed at a guy in the row in front of me and screamed “Fuck you, you fat fuck!” Then this older gentleman came and escorted Ryback to the bottom of the ramp. (Most of the talent left walking beside the ramp, not back up it. This guy was probably telling Ryback to go back down and leave through the side path). So Ryback passes this guy again and screams “YOU FAT FUCK!” on the way out. I have no idea what Mr. Fat Fuck did to piss off Ryback, but it must have been something big.

– My non-wrestling fan friend was very impressed with the Chris Jericho/Fandango match. He particularly liked when Jericho jumped from the top rope to the outside. He thought Jericho’s form was spot on.

– Non-wrestling fan friend also thought the best overall match went was Undertaker/CM Punk, naturally

– The white substance on Triple H’s body caused a bit of a stir in my section. Everyone had a theory as to what it could be, ranging from fire extinguisher residue to baby powder. My guess? Cocaine.

– Shawn Michaels kept away from Lesnar like he had a restraining order against him.

– Both the Lesnar/HHH matches and Cena/Rock matches were missing a certain spark. I’m not sure how it came off on TV, but in person the crowd was very subdued until they started trading finishers and kickouts

– After the event ended, we were all transported to a bad Saturday Night Live sketch. If you attend a WWE event and sit near the front, you get to take home your commemorative chair. They keep the chairs bound together with zip ties until someone from the arena comes over, checks your ticket, signs it, and clips the zip tie. It’s a very arduous process for chair-taking, but whatever. Well, there was this MetLife stadium employee that took his job very seriously. He kept screaming, over and over “If you take your chair! Without getting your ticket signed! They WILL! ARREST! YOU! You will be arrested and taken to jail!” I kid you not, he did this for at least 15 minutes until reinforcements showed up to help everyone get out of there.

Overall, WrestleMania was…okay. It didn’t blow me out of the water, but I didn’t leave supremely disappointed either. I think the problem was that nothing unexpected happened. Everyone thought that Ziggler would cash in his briefcase, but he didn’t. And since they pulled the trigger the next night, it makes me wonder why they didn’t do it in front of 80,000 fans at the biggest show of the year. THAT would have been a major “WrestleMania moment.” What WrestleMania moment was there in WM 29? I can’t think of any. People were looking for heel turns, major angle developments…ANYTHING – but we got a “stay the course” kind of show. Hardly WrestleMania-worthy. The next night’s RAW had more of a WrestleMania feel to it than WrestleMania!

—

So…wrestling fans. They are an odd bunch. You have the ones that are really cool, funny and easy to get along with. Then you have the total marks that wear their hearts on their sleeves. For instance, there was this French guy behind us, probably 18 or 19, who was going batshit crazy in French the entire time. Like, forgot to take his meds crazy. He would stand on his chair for most of the matches (he was really short) and scream like Lemieux on acid.

“ZEES EES AH SOME!”

“AHN-DER-TAIK-ER-SEE-EM-PANK!” Guy couldn’t choose a side, so he chanted for both.

“SEE NAH SECKS!”

“MON DIEU! RACK-BATTAM!”

And so on. I don’t know how the people behind him put up with it. Interestingly enough, he would count along with the ref in English, not French.

So, dear reader. I must ask this question. What is your opinion on grown men wearing replica belts to wrestling events? On one hand, I can understand why they would wear the belt in public. They probably spent a lot of money on the item and want to get some use out of it at an event that fits with the prop. On the other hand. THEY ARE GROWN MEN WEARING REPLICA BELTS. I could never do that. I do have a “winged eagle” replica belt – it was a gift – and I keep it in my Man Cave. I could never wear it in public. Ever. The saddest sight of the weekend for me was seeing an adult male with a terrible beard swaggering around with a CHILD’s replica belt over his shoulder. And he didn’t have kids.

YOUR BIG EVENT IDEAS

Prior to WrestleMania, WWE heavily promoted their “Stars for Sandy” charity auctions on the site CharityBuzz.com. One of the auctions available was an opportunity
to pitch a WWE storyline directly to Stephanie McMahon herself. The auction closed on Tuesday at God-knows-what-price, but as of Monday it was at $3300 and counting. In a nutshell, you get to pay out of pocket to travel to meet Stephanie and pitch her a storyline that she may-or-may-not use. Odds are, she won’t use it, and if by some miracle she did, you wouldn’t get paid for it. Lucky winner!

But the auction got me thinking…let’s say you got the opportunity to pitch to Stephanie McMahon. Maybe you applied to be a member of WWE Creative and part of your interview was to pitch her your best possible idea. What would you pitch to her?

So here’s what I want you to do. Describe your absolute BEST idea either in the comments section below or by e-mailing me at [email protected]. But not so fast, buckaroo. Your idea has to meet the following criteria:

– It has to be a MAJOR angle. A Zack Ryder/Kaitlyn/Yoshi Tatsu love triangle won’t cut it. Think Nexus, Invasion, Summer of Punk. The bigger the better.

– It has to be REALISTIC. This has to be something the WWE could feasibly pull off, so no Tom Cruise vs. CM Punk storylines. Assume you can make ONE talent acquisition, either a promotion from NXT, or signing from TNA, ROH, etc.

– It has to MAKE SENSE. So no Dolph Ziggler wins a retirement match against John Cena angles, please. Check your fanboyism at the door on this one. This is about making money

– Ideally, it would shake things up and make young talent shine, while keeping the spotlight on the moneymakers.

– Time span would be 6-8 weeks at a minimum

– You don’t have to give every little detail. Give the overall arc of the storyline, emphasizing the major beats. Convince her why it’s a good storyline and provide your rationale for each element.

We’ll discuss the best ones next week. I’ll even share with you the storyline I came up with if participation is good. This is Fantasy Booking American Idol, people. Come on. You’re always crying about the stale state of the product. How would you improve it if you were in charge? Knock my socks off. I dare you.

YOU’RE IN FOR A REAL TWEET

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SIGNING OFF

Thank you for making Thursday Sports Entertainment your go-to destination for Wrestling News, Opinions, etc. Stick a fork in me.

Hasta Jueves,

This is Sean.