Five-Star Conversation 02.10.10: ECW is Dead Again, What’s NXT?

THE END OF EXTREME…AGAIN
And so ECW dies once more. Although, whereas the first time was somewhat akin to watching Achilles fall in the midst of battle, I’ve yet to view a comment or discuss the topic with anyone who doesn’t agree that putting down WWECW is a mercy killing. I’m not going to run down the different ways McMahonagement decided to play with this once-proud franchise-turned toy of Vince’s, but what it ended up being was a damn site different than what it was originally intended to be, at least in the eyes of the old school ECW faithful, such as myself.

I eventually made peace with the fact that WWE had turned ECW into its’ televised developmental (one can’t help but wonder if that’s how Vince saw Heyman’s ECW in the first place) for two reasons, 1) like I had a say in it…! I figured I could either accept the reality of it and cope or just be all bitter about it, and how would that help?, 2) judging from the first wave of “graduates” (Jack Swagger, Sheamus, The Miz, John Morrison, Kofi Kingston), the system seemed to be working, so maybe McMahonagement was on to something…? But once WWECW was forced to “restock” its’ proverbial shelves after having promoted talent to the top two brands, things seemed to go awry and many of us found our Tuesday night calendar open up wider by an hour, notwithstanding the desire some of us may have had to enjoy Christian as a champion, William Regal as a stable leader and the evolution of Yoshi Tatsu and Zack Ryder. I mean, when you start a show off with Abraham Washington, you’re going to lose viewers and likely not get them back. I admire WWE for trying something and sticking to it, but Washington was almost 100% completely panned. I still have yet to read or hear anything positive about the guy’s performance.

So, moving forward, what can we then expect from the demise of WWECW? Of course, we all know all of the brand’s performers will become free agents to be picked up by either Raw or SmackDown!, but who might be best-suited to go where? Before we even dig in to this, I have to admit that I’ve no knowledge whatsoever about Trent Barreta (Really? Barreta? Does he come to the ring with a cockatoo on his shoulder…?) and Caylen Croft and have only seen Tyler Reks once in some benign surfer gimmick, I guess it was, and, while I’ve never seen him as Vance Archer, I am familiar with and rather enjoyed him in TNA as Lance Hoyt/Rock, despite some less-than-kind things I’ve heard about his ECW tenure. That said, I’m just going to refrain from mentioning much about them, as it would be tantamount to feeling my way through the dark.

It strikes me as unlikely that, considering how much time has been afforded to building The Ruthless Roundtable, the trio will be split by this turn of events, although that’s assuming there’s a plan in place by which to break them up, which may very well not exist, the demise of ECW coming as a welcome opportunity to accomplish the task. We’ll see, but it would be a shame to not give Vladimir Kozlov and (especially) Ezekiel Jackson some kind of momentum out of the fall of The Roundtable, whether they’ll continue on as heels or turn on their leader, which is kinda what I’m expecting on Zeke’s behalf. I think they’ll all fit rather nicely onto Raw, as will The Bizarre Goldust, who can be utilized, if nothing else, as very unique comic fodder for the guest General Manager spots. Remember when Goldust and Booker’s tag team exploits were the only reason to tune in on Monday nights…? It strikes me, too, that Zack Ryder would likely find a nice home on Monday nights, despite his size, but, really, when do we actually see wrestling on Raw anymore…?

On the other hand, Shelton Benjamin, Christian, The Hurricane and Yoshi Tatsu all seem tailor-made to jump into the more athletic waters of SmackDown!. Of course, we’re still waiting to see what exactly goes down between WWE and The Hurricane as it relates to that little brush with the law a couple weeks ago, although if nothing official has gone down yet, nothing likely will. Aside from Tatsu, all three other performers have experience on The Blue & Silver and I, for one, would love to see a match or two between Christian and John Morrison, or perhaps the history existing between Captain Charisma and Matt Hardy could give the latter performer something to do in an entertaining fashion, since he seems to have petered out some, despite having a solid fan base behind him? How about some ring time between R-Truth and Shelton Benjamin? I’m not saying we could have a resurgence in a new generation of SmackDown! Six or anything, but with Chris Jericho, Edge, John Morrison, Rey Mysterio, Shelton Benjamin and Christian on the same brand, good things could very well start going down in the ring!

Now there’s also the matter of the non-wrestling personalities: Abraham Washington, Byron Saxton, Josh Mathews, Tiffany, Tony Atlas, Rosa Mendes and Savannah. The easiest to appropriate is Mathews, who will likely continue in his role as backstage correspondent on one or both shows, although it strikes me that he should be allowed to settle on one brand or the other and give Savannah custody of the other, let’s say Mathews to SmackDown! and Savannah to Raw…? Rosa Mendes could come to Raw, as well, and be something of an unofficial Bella Twin, since she really isn’t all that in terms of wrestling, either. She can hang around and be eye candy for guest host segments.

Tiffany is a tough call for me, too, because I’ve no idea if she can wrestle, either, although it strikes me that, if she could, she’d likely have been doing it by now, since they don’t seem to have too much of a problem sticking women with little better than a basic grasp of how to work in the ring. What if she was made official Raw Ambassador, someone with really no power to make or decide matches, but a concierge of sorts who greets the guest GMs and makes sure they’re looked after, etc.? I think that’s as good an idea as we’re likely to see, especially since SD! has too many cooks stirring the broth right now.

I can see Byron Saxton in some kind of host capacity for the new show replacing ECW, which we’ll discuss in a moment. From what little I’ve seen, the guy has a good voice and presence and comes across as favorable, if somewhat nominal and the new show has to have someone as a kind of host, even if just in voice-overs.

What really troubles me is what can will and should be done with Abraham Washington and Tony Atlas. Would it be too overly and incredible done to move Atlas to Raw to manage a stable of African-American wrestlers in Kofi Kingston, Mark Henry, MVP and Ezekiel Jackson? I like the dynamic in that group and the purpose behind it doesn’t have to carry such a militant vibe as The Nation of Domination did back in the day. Rather, Atlas could just simply be giving back and looking out for the best interests of the next generation of talented black men in the business, offering them his experienced guidance? It could be this story that eventually sees Zeke leave Regal and Kozlov, who, in turn, recruit a couple of non-American allies…Sheamus? Who else…Carlito? Just brainstorming.

I just shudder to consider that Washington could be headed to SD! to continue his pointless, meandering banality with Atlas playing the hapless Ed McMahon.

I can just hear Vince, “Hell, no! SD! would benefit from a little more sports entertainment!” Let’s all just cross our fingers and hope Washington slips away and finds himself back in development.

More importantly, though, what’s going to happen to The ECW Championship? There don’t seem to be any concrete ideas pouring out of Titan Towers at the moment, although the general consensus seems to be in favor of keeping it somehow in some capacity. There has been talk that it might even continue to be referred to as The ECW Title, even though the show, the brand itself, will cease to be. That, to me, seems foolish. After all, The WWF didn’t keep the WCW Title around after Vince McMahon acquired the company, why should ECW’s belt, even WWECW, remain in tact to represent a dead brand?

We’ve seen WWE go a bit “unification-mad” over the last decade as McMahonagement scrambled to make sense of the post-Monday Night Wars-era, and even so again more recently with the World and WWE Tag Team Titles, an experiment of which I’ve become quite fond, because I’m of the opinion that The UTTTs are being handled quite well.

That said, here’s my two beans – at the risk of seemingly ripping off Ring of Honor’s idea (although this is something I’ve been thinking would benefit TNA quite a bit more than having introduced The Legends/Global Title for a good long while now), if I had my way, I’d alter the current ECW Title and turn it into The WWE Television Title. Because Christian is retiring The ECWT, he shall automatically be the first TV Champion. The TVT would only be defended on television, but, as is the privilege of The UTTCs (congratulations, BTW, to The Big Show & The Miz!), The TVC would be allowed to appear on either Raw or SmackDown!. It would give Christian, a solid crowd-pleaser, the opportunity to perform in front of twice as many peeps and to work with a myriad variety of other wrestlers before he settles into one exclusive brand upon eventually dropping the belt to someone else. He could even eventually defend the belt on WWE NXT once the kids populating that show are ready for such a guest appearance (indeed, should the show be set up that way, but more on that in a moment). I also believe it would be beneficial to have some titles that are sole rights to the brand it represents, while there are others that flow freely between brands, helping to keep things fresh and unpredictable, but that’s just me. Well, that and I can’t think of a better way to introduce a new singles belt into the grand scheme.

SO NOW…WHAT’S NXT…?!
The initial word that broke soon after the imminent demise of WWECW was announced was that WWE would be replacing that hour of programming with an hour of original content focusing on younger performers. Initially, I thought this might be a sort of “increased spotlight” Superstars, where a redundant Byron Saxton would host a slick, fast-paced, souped-up magazine show with matches (taped in lieu of ECW and at the Superstars tapings), live and taped promo and vignettes, produced promo packages, etc., all focusing on already-introduced, needing-to-be-firmly-established performers like Evan Bourne, Kofi Kingston, The Miz, Jack Swagger, Drew McIntyre, John Morrison, Slam Master J, Dolph Ziggler, The Hart Dynasty, Zack Ryder, Yoshi Tatsu, etc., or help to debut new talent altogether.

I still rather like that notion, to be honest, to give these youngsters their own platform without the established guard present to steal their thunder. Quite frankly, it sounds as if this could have been the 21st Century version of the old school ‘80s Superstars/Wrestling Challenge formula where you’d see new talent introduced in vignettes and squash matches, allowing fans the chance to familiarize themselves with the basics of a character and his move-set, etc., before he’s actually unleashed them into integrated play where their true talent would be tested. I still think that formula holds merit and I was looking forward to seeing this sort of neo-classicism at work.

However, here’s what has been reported right here at 411Mania as to what we might expect from WWE NXT:

As of right now, WWE has not decided what to do with the ECW Title. The belt may continue on as some are lobbying to keep the title, but in the end this will be Vince McMahon’s decision. Some feel that they should keep the belt so that they can use the title for the undercards of secondary PPVs as an attraction.

Here is the latest on the “WWE NXT” series. Right now, the series concept is said to be a “reality” based series featuring new talents who viewers will be able to follow both in and out of the ring. The hope is that fans can get to know the talents from day one, get insight into their goals and personalities, so that the fans can create a connection to them.

In a way the concept will be like a combination of WWE Tough Enough and the UFC’s Ultimate Fighter, with the talents feuding with each other to become the next big WWE star. WWE has been working on the concept since November, and as of now, this seems to be the main theme behind the show.

Now the appeal in Vince’s mind is obvious here, finally here’s the opportunity to take a successful facet of the UFC machine and tweak it such that it works in the so-called WWE Universe, with a nostalgic nod to Tough Enough in the process. If nothing else, it gets WWE-TV on the reality show bandwagon, which, for better and worse (mostly worse) is the programming choice du jour among the majority of television viewers at the moment. It also ideally serves to remedy an ill plaguing WWE for a good long time now, and that is, the creation of new stars, and here, it seems as if we’ll be watching almost from scratch.

I’m incredibly curious (notice that necessarily equate to “interested”) in exactly how McMahonagement plans to pull this off. Both reference points, UFC’s Ultimate Fighter and WWE’s Tough Enough, hinged on the premise that all the contestants were forced to co-exist under the same roof during the entire season. Will we see this same dynamic employed here in this instance? If so, the whole “televised developmental” will be taken to a whole new extreme.

But, if this ends up not being the case, isn’t Vince in danger of tipping his hand in a big way? I’ve read that one of the reasons McMahonagement wants to introduce completely unseen talent developmental talent in this manner is because they’re hoping fans will latch onto some of the performers being introduced, learn to connect with them and then be compelled to follow them into WWE as they start to compete. That’s a great theory and it could very well stand to succeed.

However, what we’ve seen in recent years has been McMahonagement shooting itself in the foot before the new developmental kids were even brought up. Colt Cabana didn’t connect with fans not because he can’t wrestle an impressive match or cut a convincing promo, it’s because he was given some lame ass name like “Harris Bueller” by McMahonagement and was disallowed the opportunity to show off that which he’s capable before being drilled to the mat by Kane. It’s little wonder why fans weren’t bringing signs to the next show saying “Save Harris” for the return squash the following week. It was also reported that Creative wasn’t too high on that crop of developmental wrestlers to begin with, so why were they allowed to be moved to the main roster if they weren’t to be given a fair chance to succeed?

These occurrences had nothing to do with the talent or with the fans, it had to do with poor management and direction, from the top on down and, unless McMahonagement has learned from those mistakes, it doesn’t matter how many hoops they set up for themselves and everyone else involved to jump through, they’ll still find themselves back at square one wondering what the hell happened.

The other side of this coin is that we’re going to be introduced to an entirely new cast of characters, and by characters, I mean neo-New Generation-type foolishness like we had in the early ‘90s with Rad Radford, Mike “The Goon” Irwin and Duke “The Dumpster” Droese. Imagine following a “reality” show where Barry Darsow was already in the Repo-Man character, but was evolving it more each week. Now there’s gripping television. Even back in the Doink days, we might have seen some backstage footage of a wrestler prepping to come to the ring, and that could hold some interest, but if it’s just going to be a bunch of WWE-PG, one-dimensional faux-pseudo character development, who’s going to care? And yet, should we be seeing the “real” men (and women?) training to step up to WWE competition, what if they reach WWE-TV and McMahonagement decides to give them a character above and beyond who they are, and who we’ve followed for X amount of time? Wouldn’t that kind of negate the point of watching to familiarize ourselves with the performer such that we want to root for them in the ring?

You know what always really appealed to me along these lines was, back when The WWF was just introducing the whole “Raw Is War” TV concept and Jim Ross was really being given the play-by-play reins at the commentators’ desk and he’d offer little tidbits of information about the personal lives and histories of the performers as they came to the ring, or at appropriate moments during the matches, and then the Raw Magazine would follow up with a concise but informative bio piece a couple pages long with a pictorial spread on the interview subject. I’d get to know them a little bit, where they’d wrestled, how they learned and with whom they trained, stuff like that. That’s what drew me to the talent back then, and it was nothing as roundabout as this show concept is sounding, but that’s just me.

There could very well be something I’m missing here, but I’m skeptical. It’s a lofty idea that could turn out to be completely revolutionary and cool…but so could this have been:

I’m not shitting all over this before it even starts, not at all, I’m just dubious. But, as is the case with virtually anything new in the world of professional wrestling, I hope it’s well done and that it succeeds! What are your thoughts…?

And now, a moment of levity before we start the conversation…and just to prove that, yes…yes they do…

COMMENTPALOOZA!
This was an odd week for comments, as, I’m sure many of you may have noticed, for some reason, everything was posted to the site completely out of order, which had me scratchin my noggin trying to make sense of it all such that I might follow the thread of the various conversations and form my own opinion so as to include it all in coherent fashion! So I hope the following manages to make a little sense…

I became a Rick Rude mark back when he was in FCW (before his Crockett days). After his match, he and Jesse Barr were sitting just outside the heels’ locker room in a couple of folding chairs drinking some beer. There was a chain link fence separating us fans from them (maybe 6 ft away) and some fan (with his girlfriend next to him) is trying to insult Rude with some name-calling. Rude gets up, takes off his shirt, stands up, looks at him and says “Hey, it’s bad enough your old lady is going to be thinking of me while you’re sticking it to her later on tonight. Do you really want me to take her in the locker room right now and show her how a real man does things too?” The guy got so pissed off that his face turns red and he’s yelling that he’s gonna kick Rude’s ass (yeah, right) and motherfuck him this way and that way. Rude sits down, laughs, and continues to drink beers with Barr. Great shit.

Not to mention, the guy rocks a Key West Tickler like nobodies business!

RIP Ravishing One. One has to wonder if he’s now wearing airbrushed tights with the (formerly known as, pre-Rude) virgin Mary’s face on them.

Rock on, Ravishing One, RIP.
Posted By: Angry Bear

What is a “Key West Tickler?”

Good story regardless.
Posted By: Joe-Jack

Angry Bear has his terms wrong. It’s called a “Key West Butt Tickler.”

LOL at Rick Rude with air-brushed Virgin Mary tights on!
Posted By: Big Fat Fag

As a post-op transsexual fowl who wears faggotty-ass tights, I am deeply offended by your article.
Posted By: Rudyard Trezevant III

Geoff, great column, you have successfully broken down every gay stereotype I have with some of your comments 🙂 I lol’d pretty hard at the Rude ‘faggoty ass tights’ line.

I think Vince made a lot of those guys a lot of money and added years to their careers by turning them into cartoon characters. Of course he also made them unwatchable if you are over like 14 but what the hell.
Posted By: Carnivore

Bear, that was a HELL of a great story! I’d have LOVED to have witnessed that exchange! Imagine how totally cowed that guy would have been had that all gone down in the digital age of camera phones and YouTube.com! He’d have been viewed (and laughed at) more than the Star Wars kid!

Although, when you mentioned Rude took off his shirt, the first thing I thought about was…

And congratulations, I had never heard of a “Key West Butt Tickler” and had to look it up. I’m sorry I did! I’ll just file that away somewhere between the Hot Carl and the Pink Sock. Thanks for that clarification, BFF! I can always count on you, can’t I…?

Rudyard, props to you for the comment of the week! That was awesome! I totally laughed out loud.

Carnivore, really, watching back in the day, I didn’t really get that The Genius and The Beverly Brothers were supposed to have been a little light in the loafers, so to speak, mainly, I suppose, because they couldn’t just come right out and play it so overly, considering The WWF was playing to kids back then, mainly (kinda like we have now); however, Rude came off WAAAAY more gay to me, despite all of his overtures to “the ladies” in attendance. He looked to me as if he’d fit right in (so to speak) as the sixth Village People member. I mean, even with the airbrushed visage of Cheryl Roberts on his tights, didn’t he still come off even a little queer to anyone…? Although this was the point in history where a guy named Brutus Beefcake, hailing from San Francisco, gets in the ring wearing purple animal-print-and-fishnet tights with the aim of putting his opponent to sleep so he could cut his hair went unquestioned, so who knows…?

Another great read, Geoff. That Macho Man interview made me laugh so hard. Where did charismatic females like Sherri go? Ah, to be young again.
Posted By: ¤ M ¤

Yeah, Kanyon really outdid himself by discovering and sending in that video, didn’t he? And thanks to you, M! You made a really great point about there being a decided lack of women with real personality in the world of professional wrestling today. Off the top of my head, the last woman who really connected with me as a result of her personality was Sharmell, but then TNA had to go and demean her by putting her in the ring, where she clearly never had any business at all.

I think that’s a big reason why I love Mae Young and Vickie Guerrero as much as I do; no, neither are anywhere near mirroring Kelly Kelly’s striking beauty, but they have personality and charisma that really helps to set them apart, and so, thus, makes them much more interesting as characters. Did you see how much “business picked up” when Vickie hit the stage last Friday on SmackDown! to make the ladies’ tag match? Now, I love me some Beth Phoenix and Mickie James, but what they’ve got going on in terms of personality can’t touch what Vickie brings to the microphone. I have a lot of fun at her expense, but that’s why, because she’s so freaking awesome at what she does, which, basically, is prove that there is a place in modern-day sports entertainment/wrestling for women who aren’t seemingly manufactured in Vince’s Boobie Factory.

“Duggan made the fans care not because he was a loveable outpatient living in the halfway house down the street with the snot in his beard and his eyes crossed like a moron”

Even as a kid, I thought there was something wrong with good ol’ Hacksaw. You hit the nail right on the head.
Posted By: son of pillman sr.

Appreciate the write-up on Hacksaw Jim Duggan. I share your enthusiasm for the UWF and guys like Duggan, Dr. Death, Gordy, One Man Gang and just about anyone Skandar Akbar managed were most of the reasons why.
Posted By: JMAC

Add Dr. Death and Gordy to your list of bad-asses Vince ill-used. How hard is to book a legit tough guy? Imagine a tag team of Dr. Death and Hacksaw in the WWF, it worked in the UWF, feuding with the Bulldogs and Hart Foundation. I’ll never understand why Vince futzes with guys who are over in one gimmick. The one time he didn’t, Flair, it worked out well. Why didn’t he learn his lesson?
Posted By: Iron Knee

Growing up and becoming aware of the myriad and various other franchises in America and seeing how the talents who eventually migrated to The WWF were presented in such other franchises had me hating the performers once they debuted in their Vince-tailored cartoon gimmick. That was something that overshadowed the actual talent they possessed, and that led to my having much less an appreciation for Vince’s overall product as a result. Indeed, there are times I look back and wonder why I stuck with it when I found myself disliking so much of what was presented back in the day.

I’d like to look at it now as talent (eg, Dusty Rhodes, Jim Duggan, The Sheepherders/Bushwhackers, Junkyard Dog, Harley Race, Terry Taylor…the list goes on and on) who had bled and sweat and paid the price in the territories system before making it to the big league of The WWF, and so were given a less serious gimmick and situations about which to find conflict as a sort of reward for having climbed to the pinnacle of their business, but that seems backward to me.

No, it seems to me that Vince would rather saddle legitimate talent who are proven successes in other franchises with ridiculous gimmicks to make fun of the fact that they’d dare compete against him. It also makes me wonder what Vince thinks of his audience if he trots out a couple of dipshits like The Bushwhackers and expects us to connect with them (and what frightens and repulses me is that so many DID!).

It was Vince’s ridiculous handling of Rhodes that had me hating him during his polka-dot run when I was ignorant to all of his lofty accomplishments prior to migrating north. The character Vince had Big Duthty playing focused on everything that was least appealing about him with none of the passion and drive and dignity Rhodes’ original NWA American Dream character that I didn’t discover and come to love and appreciate within only the last several years (thanks, in large part, to thegunisgood and his respect for Rhodes’ accomplishments, having had a much broader scope in Duthty’s regard, eef you wee-yull).

There’s that part of me that wants to believe, “Yeah, The Dream is out there with Thweet Thaffahhh dancing in the ring and having a good time and he’s worked hard for a couple decades…he deserves to have some fun,” but there’s that other part of me that has to think, “Yeah, but if there’s anyone who can convince me he’s content shaking his rolls in the mid-card and wouldn’t much rather be in that main event challenging for The HWT, I’d sure love to meet them.”

My disdain for Duggan is so deep and so vast, more so than for other similar such situations, because not only did Duggan prove in The UWF that he was capable of being a solid top-of-the-card personality behind who the fans could passionately rally, Vince was somehow compelled to not just dumb down his former persona, but he whacked it in the base of the skull with a mallet a few hundred times to actually incur brain damage, and then ridiculously magnified the whole “proud to be an American” gimmick to ensure Stateside fans would have to cheer him or be labeled a Commie.

Here’s my beef with that, and I’ve always held this belief – if a wrestler has to crutch along with some kind of nationalistic gimmick to appeal/connect to/with fans, it implies to me that said wrestler has virtually nothing else going for him and thus must be saddled with this LCD rabble-rouser to get over. I want to cheer someone who astounds me, who captures my interest, who can do things in his line of work that I couldn’t dream of doing in a million years with twice as much training; stomping to the ring hanging on to a slab of wood (ahem), bellowing HOOOOOO! and waving a flag is something I could manage missing three-quarters of my brain stem missing. This, to me, is the definition of selling out, although, when considering all the factors involved, one wonders how to blame Duggan.

There were other characters that really worked without stifling the ability of the performer, Curt Hennig as Mister Perfect, Randy Savage as The Macho Man/King, the overstatement of Ricky Steamboat as The Dragon (breathing fire from the turnbuckle after coming to the ring in that humiliating dragon outfit, or outright carrying a komodo dragon up the aisle), but these were men so talented and adept at their craft, virtually nothing Vince could have done in terms of characterization could have squelched their appeal and effectiveness once the bell rang.

All in all, it simply seems as if Vince has a compulsion to feel as if he owns the talent he signs presents and feels the obligation to rebrand the majority of known talent he signs from another franchise; this is something we’ve not really seen much of in recent years, as he’s effectively clear-cut the modern wrestling landscape of competition, although, considering what we’ve been seeing in TNA, we may start seeing some new faces on WWE-TV in the coming months…and let’s not forget the treatment of certain indie darlings like Colt Cabana!

The windfall of vitriol expelled into the comments section last week in Lance Storm’s regard was completely unexpected and, quite frankly, displays to me the short-sighted petulance of the modern wrestling fan:

Why does Lance Storm have such a vendatta against TNA.

Lance Storm was a minor note in the Monday Night Wars.

Quite Frankly, Lance Storm EXTREMELY overrated!
Posted By: ronnie

Who cares about Lance Storm’s opinion? The guy is most remembered for Austin totally burying him on Raw by calling him the “most boring son of a bitch I’ve ever seen.”
Posted By: Guest#8801

I am tired of Lance Storm. I guess he hates TNA because he could not land a spot with them.
Posted By: mike

Ronnie, you tool, go read Lance Storm’s commentary! He likes TNA and truly desires that they succeed. He is only pointing out some of the ways they are failing to build a good long-term product.
Posted By: Carnivore

Yes, Lance Storm WAS a small footnote in wrestling history, overall. That’s precisely why I argue that he’s extremely UNDERrated. But let’s get past the glaring logical fallacy of ronnie’s half-assed two-part statement…

Lance Storm’s decent promo aptitude, excellent ring work, strong presence and incredible athleticism led a young KanyonKreist to believe that he would be the next Bret Hart. Yes, in the midst of Storm’s stellar, if out-of-left-field, multi-championship reign in WCW circa 2000 totally had me excited.

I had been a fan of Storm since his ill-fated 1998 ECW Tag Team Title run with partner/nemesis Chris Candido. It was a simple program those two worked, but they did it in such an entertaining way. After that, of course, Storm went on to carry Justin Credible in the fantastically successful Impact Players duo until nearly the end of his ECW career.

And when Storm rolled into WCW in such a huge way, I was optimistic. Sure, the entirety of their shows consisted of recycled, if not entirely nonsensical, booking directions. Still, there were bright spots… well, A bright spot: Lance Storm. Come to think of it, maybe I had him pegged as the next Bret because he PLAYED Bret in Team Canada, WCW’s blatant carbon copy of the Hart Foundation. Regardless, I thought this would be Storm’s chance to stake his claim in the industry…

Obviously, we know what happened. McMahon bought WCW, tossed a majority of their roster out on the street, and used the rest as mid-card cannon fodder, with few exceptions. Lance Storm, if you’ll recall, was NOT one of those exceptions. After the brief (topical) success of the UnAmericans in ’02, Storm wrestled the remainder of his WWE career on Sunday Night Heat.

So, basically, I feel like Lance Storm was vastly underrated during his time in pro wrestling. It’s nice that he’s fondly remembered by the IWC, but I wouldn’t call that being “overrated.” I mean, it didn’t do a hell of a lot for him when he was still wrestling.

Of course, that’s just my opinion….
Posted By: KanyonKreist

Preach it, Carnivore and Kanyon!

Lance Storm was a fantastic performer during his active career, holding true to the tradition of technical grappling, as was the case with the majority of performers who graduated from Stu Hart’s Dungeon. I have no issues whatsoever placing Storm in the same class as Bret and Owen Hart, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho and The Dynamite Kid, I have that much respect for Storm’s ability. He was a fundamentalist who could take to the air as easily as he could turn opponents into pretzels on the mat and wasn’t afraid to bump. By all accounts, Storm is a man’s man and wrestler’s wrestler whose only real shortcoming was that he was rising to prominence in America at a time when a wrestler’s ability to talk became a paramount skill, superseding actual in-ring ability in some cases.

Although Storm is low on charisma, he was high on pragmatism and realized he was simply born in the wrong era to be the success he could and should have been (I also seem to recall a nagging back injury being instrumental in his decision to retire from action, but I couldn’t find anything to support that claim on-line). Storm is also extremely articulate and knows the wrestling business, as is evident to anyone who bothers to spend three minutes reading any of his exceptional blogs.

As Carnivore said, Storm, as I’d imagine would be the case with any wrestler, active or retired would feel, really wants to see TNA excel and succeed because it gives the boys more employment options as well as offering fans increased viewing options and, of course, competition is good for the industry. What Storm has said in TNA’s regard is some of the very same things I’ve said about them for years now; once in awhile, we get a wild hair and decide to check out what’s going on in Orlando and, as refreshing as it is to see a different modern, American product from that of WWE, and, especially, to experience some of the fantastic talent signed with the franchise, the scattershod, ADD-afflicted, over-the-top for the sake of being over-the-top writing has us both tearing out our hair. We become frustrated and stop watching, despite the fact that we feel we’re letting down some great performers we want to support. He’s said that several times in the past and so have I. There’s no jealousy or divisiveness or bitterness in Storm, he’s just like we are, frustrated fans who want to see a solid product.

Just because Storm failed to headline WrestleMania 2000 means absolutely dick. The man knows what he’s talking about and if he’s going to say something, I’m going to listen and consider what it is he has to say before I shrug him off because I may not agree with him or because I’m too much of a pompous little puissant to consider the possibility that someone who has actually travelled the world plying his trade might know more about such trade than me. Some of you might consider that while you watch this awesome match from 1995:

Will Eric Young and/or Suicide be considered TNA rejects if they jump to WWE…probably not in your eyes.
Posted By: Greg

No, no they wouldn’t be, but I don’t operate on that scale. When Kurt Angle, Booker T, Matt Morgan and The Dudley Boyz signed with TNA, I didn’t regard them as WWF/E rejects, either. People change companies in wrestling the same as they do in any other industry and there can be any number of factors contributing to a change of workplace. Was Ric Flair a WCW reject when he went north in 1991? Is Bryan Danielson a RoH reject for having signed with WWE? Of course not. People make career changes when a favorable opportunity presents itself. Considering the raw deal (no pun intended) TNA’s X-Divisioners are being given these days under the new regime, I think it might behoove them to start putting out feelers to other franchises.

That’s all for this week…thanks for reading!

RESPEEEECK!!!