wrestling / Columns
Handicapping the News 05.04.12
Hey look, I survived another week. That means that once again, I get to take up valuable time and space with my rants and opinions on the world of wrestling. It’s like winning the lottery, only without the money! And you, dear reader, have decided to come along for the ride once again. I couldn’t be happier. After all, if nobody were reading this, it would just be more like a weird diary than a column. See? We’re helping each other. I give you something that lets you kill a few minutes of your day and you prevent me from making this a glorified livejournal.com account.
You’re new to the Handicapping The News experience, you say? Have no fear. Here’s what’s going to happen. First, I’m going to pull some headlines from the last two weeks, and organize them into sections. Stay with me, this is where things start getting good. Then, I’m going to give a brief recap of what these news reports actually entailed. After that, I plan on giving “odds” on the aftermath of each happening, using my brilliant powers of deductive reasoning and preposterously large vocabulary. Finally, I’ll check back in a couple of days to see what delightful anecdotes and brilliant bits of comedy have been sprinkled amongst the vitriol in the comments section below.
After perusing the comment section below, I’ll pick one to respond to. Now, as hard as it is to believe, being nice to me doesn’t increase your odds here. If you can mock me in a way that I find entertaining and isn’t just a rehash of Triple H’s attacks on the IWC (fat/parent’s basement/virgin/don’t understand the business/etc.), then you’ve got a good chance of making the spotlight. I expect more from you. Don’t be a self fulfilling parody that was defined by one of the IWC’s easiest targets of the last 10 years. Be a star!
This week’s reader spotlight is anon22.
anon22 says, “When I heard about this accident, I immediately assumed the worst; that Buff had been high or drunk and caused a fatality, either in another car or his own”
REALLY smh? Now even if he has a not so clean past or whatever, (don’t remember him to have an addiction, but if he did then nevermind ) now forget the Orton comment (which I kinda agree with) the above comment is why folks makes asses out of themselves when they just blindly assume sh*t just cause the situation they assumed happened in the manner it did has happened before with the said person or their other peers. Now has it with Bagwell is what I’m trying to ask? Now that’s a question for you.
That’s a fair question and a reasonable response to what I said. Part of my immediate reaction to the story was being conditioned by the media in general and wrestling media specifically. How often do we hear about celebrities getting in car accidents where they were rear ended and weren’t at fault, or where there was a genuine “accident” where you can’t point to one mitigating factor or another? In particular, we’ve seen more than one legitimate superstar killed in car accidents – Junkyard Dog and Randy Savage spring to mind – and rarely do out of the ring incidents involving wrestlers make the news in a positive manner. I’m not blaming the media for making me think a certain way, because I’m certainly able to think independently of say, CNN or Fox News. It was just an honest insight into my knee-jerk response. I heard about a celebrity having a car accident and jumped to what was an unfair conclusion.
My opinions of Randy Orton aside, because we’ve well established how I feel about him as a person and a performer, my immediate reaction to the Buff story had some basis in reality. I’m not going to drag the guy’s name through the mud, and I’m not going to go into details. All I feel comfortable saying is that I have first hand experience that leads me to believe that at least at some point in his life, Marcus Bagwell had a problem with one or more substances.
I don’t know if Marcus Bagwell ever was truly addicted, if what I saw was a one time thing, or if he got help if he was addicted. For all the things I speculate on in this column, that’s not my business. I saw a headline and assumed the worst. I’m not sure relieved is the right word to use, considering that what caused the wreck was likely a medical condition that can be unpredictable at best, but I’m glad that it didn’t appear to be substance related and that there were no fatalities. I was very much sincere in wishing Marcus Bagwell and his family well in making a quick recovery. I’ll work harder at not making snap judgments.
Time for headlines!
Hernandez completed the hat trick of released tag team partners in TNA, as Anarquia joined Machete and Homicide in leaving the company. Realistically, of the three, Homicide was the only one that was ever even remotely over. LAX, version Homicide and Hernandez, was one of the better teams that wrestling has seen over the last decade. Homicide played off of Hernandez exceptionally well and provided a modicum of promo ability after Konnan was gone. They proved they could work as heels or faces, and had some outstanding matches during their run. Machete barely looked like a wrestler, and Anarquia had a stupid name and things just never got going with him. He was bland in the ring, on the microphone, and wasn’t ready for the big time, if you consider TNA big time. What now?
Hernandez gets a new partner: 30 to 1
I honestly think they’ll feed him to Crimson at this point. I’m not sure why they’re holding on to him, as he hasn’t developed like Brutus Magnus has and his singles “push” against Morgan fizzled quickly. And really, how many more Latino thugs can they find to pair with him?
Anarquia takes to the indy scene and improves dramatically before returning to TNA, RoH, or WWE: 3,000 to 1
Suffice to say, I’ll be stunned if this happens.
Konnan accuses TNA of racism: 5:2
I’m not sure that even Konnan cares about Anarquia. If he does, though, you know what’s coming.
This probably bothers me more than it should. It doesn’t bother me that Jerry Lawler piledrove some random guy at a Grizzlies game and may have “exposed” the business. It doesn’t bother me that he was at a Grizzlies game, supporting his hometown team. OJ Mayo is a hometown guy for me and I’m not a Lob City fan. And Barkley and company’s reaction was one of genuine enjoyment and was fun to hear. If it gets us a Cena and Barkley vs. Lesnar and Shaq matchup at Summerslam, then even better. What does bother me, though, is that WWE still has their stupid ban on piledrivers. If (what I’m assuming to be) a local indy worker can take a piledriver on a basketball court, then the best sports entertainers in the world should be able to manage one in the ring. I’m aware that there have been several neck injuries – Angle, Benoit, Edge, Austin, Droz, Hardcore Holly, Cena, Lita, Test, Scotty 2 Hotty, Hurricane, Rhyno, Lita, Test – that made WWE cautious about moves such as the Vertebreaker and piledrivers. The frustrating part to me was that there were more power bomb related neck injuries on that list than piledriver related injuries. Do I think the piledriver should be casually thrown into matches? Absolutely not. I was gorilla position at an indy show last summer where a guy used a piledriver three minutes into a match as a setup move. He hasn’t been booked with us since. Use it to sell angle spots, use it sparingly, use it in main events or Hell in a Cell matches. Banning it totally? Well, the Memphis Grizzlies just proved that it’s a dumb idea. What’s in the future for this glorious move?
A return as a devestating finisher: 40 to 1
Sadly, I don’t expect to see this. Sparingly used by the Undertaker and Kane in big moments is about as good as we’re likely to see. It may not be a bad idea to give it to one of the crop of guys coming up from FCW to make them look absurdly dangerous, but I don’t expect it.
A return as a heat generator that gets no sold: 100 to 1
Only Road Warrior Hawk (RIP) gets to no sell the piledriver. Right Jerry?
Goes the way of the flying hammerlock and the heart punch: 10 to 1
Three of the greatest finishers in wrestling history, just collecting dust. This makes me feel both sad, and old.
If you’ve never seen a Sara Del Ray match, you’re depriving yourself of some excellent wrestling. Del Ray is probably the best female wrestler in the United States right now, and is easily in the top 10 worldwide. This past week, she took on El Generico, who finds himself in the enviable position that guys like Reckless Youth and Bryan Danielson have held as arguably the best indy worker going, for CHIKARA. Del Ray pulled off the win in a very good match that establishes her as not just one of the best female workers, but one of the best workers in the country, period. What’s next for the Queen of Wrestling?
Jump to TNA: 500 to 1
Never say never, but to this point Del Ray says she’s not going to work for TNA. This disappoints me, because a Sara Del Ray vs. Gail Kim program would be phenomenal.
Jump to WWE: 45 to 1
Del Ray doesn’t have the WWE “look” for Divas, but neither does Kharma. There seems to be a renewed emphasis on getting wrestlers that can actually wrestle, though, which increases her odds. Here’s hoping.
Increased demand on the indy circuit and a title in CHIKARA: 10 to 1
CHIKARA booking is tough to figure out if you don’t watch the product regularly, but I can see them being offbeat enough to put a singles title on someone as talented as Del Ray as more than just an attention getting gimmick.
Contrary to what Morgan Freeman said in The Shawshank Redemption, I feel like nostalgia is far more dangerous than hope. Nostalgia has this way of only letting us remember the good parts of things, and blurring the bad in such a way that items and events from our youth are remembered far more fondly than they deserve to be. An excellent example of this is the Masters of the Universe cartoon. I was a He-Man fanatic when I was a kid. I owned every figure and playset they released in North America with the exception of Eternia, never misisng a beat until the series that included the Sorceress and King Randor. I would run to the television set any time I heard the show coming on. I read and reread the mini comics that came with the figures. I had a Masters of the Universe blanket on my bed, I was He-Man for Halloween one year, I had a Skeletor birthday cake for my birthday when I was five or six years old, I had a He-Man toothbrush, and Castle Greyskull still resides in my attic. I. Loved. Masters of the Universe.
A couple of years ago, I made the wretched mistake of watching one of the old episodes. All of the fond memories were treated like the printer from Office Space, or Jodie Foster in The Accused. The animation was bad, the sound was bad, the plots were absurd, and it was nothing like I remembered. What a difference 15 or 20 years makes, no?
ECW was a cutting edge, rebel promotion that revolutionized the way professional wrestling in America was presented. It introduced a brand of hardcore to the mainstream, it showed that there was a place for adult themed angles and characters, and it proved that guys that don’t necessarily look like bodybuilders and prototypical professional wrestlers could be used to build a successful promotion. Amish Roadkill, anybody?
Ask a fan what they remember about ECW from that era, and you’ll get a range of responses. You’ll get the Raven vs. Tommy Dreamer feud. You’ll get Sandman entering the arena to Metallica, beer in one hand and Singapore cane in the other. You’ll hear about the epic Rob Van Dam vs. Jerry Lynn matches, the Triple Threat, Sabu’s antics, and brilliantly booked guest spots for everyone from The Steiners to Terry Gordy to Jerry Lawler. From New Jack’s stage dives to the blue World order, ECW turned out a lot of great stuff and is remembered much as Kurt Cobain and Nirvana – as a snapshot of all that was right with the 90’s, and something that was better off burning out instead of fading away.
Unfortunately, Kurt Cobain was a mumbling goon that I had no use for and ECW had just as many rough spots as golden shining moments. Nobody is clamoring for the return of Bilvis Wesley. Justin Credible as a world champion? No thank you. The Mass Transit incident? The Danbury Fall? The Dupps? The TNN era in general? Look, don’t take this the wrong way. I loved ECW, and when ECW was good, it was really really good. It also had rough spots, though, that seem to be glossed over and forgotten. When people want ECW back, they’re not thinking about any of the negatives, they’re thinking about the lightning in a bottle that was captured for five years or so before time and money ran out. Why bring this up?
Because events like Extreme Reunion prey on people’s desire to relive Raven vs. Dreamer’s epic feud and the beautiful chaos of New Jack matches, but instead gives people the worst of ECW. When New Jack’s behavior is arguably the bright spot for your promotion and event, you’ve got a serious problem. Sabu went to the hospital and Justin Credible was in no shape to perform. Raven went into business for himself, and the whole night was generally considered a train wreck that turned a group of Philly fans that’s about as loyal to the ECW name as you could ever hope for anyone to be against THE ECW original himself, Shane Douglas.
Shane Douglas has burned his fair share of bridges, and Shane Douglas has earned his fair share of criticism. However, Shane Douglas understands this business. He knows how to generate heat, he knows how to book matches, and he understands that the ultimate goal is to make money by entertaining fans which allows you to make more money. I think that Shane Douglas had the best of intentions for this poorly planned resurrection of the ghost of ECW. I think that Shane Douglas, despite turning a profit, genuinely regrets what the show turned into, if for no other reason than the loss of potential future income. Shane Douglas, though, is blinded by nostalgia.
Shane Douglas thought that with a mix of original ECW guys and some new young talent – the same sort that ECW once highlighted – that he could start to build something, and maybe catch lightning in a bottle one more time. He couldn’t. Nobody can. If Paul Heyman has given up the ghost on ECW, it’s time that we all did. Remember it for what it was and don’t try to bring it back. ECW is dead. Let it rest in peace.
What’s in the future for Philly area wrestling?
Extreme Reunion runs a second show: 75 to 1
I can see Douglas trying one more time, and offering tickets at a discount price. Do I think he should? No, but it’s his time and money. If he runs a second show, the microscope will be on. Every flaw will be picked apart and everyone will be beyond cynical going in. It will be almost impossible for the show to be a success, even if it succeeds.
ECW is allowed to die: 35 to 1
More likely than you think, right? We’re getting to a time frame where it will no longer be worth the trouble of dragging up the name of ECW. Think about it. The height of ECW was nearly 15 years ago, which means an overwhelming majority of today’s fans never saw it. The guys that were at the heart and soul of ECW are well into their 40’s, and the style they wrestled doesn’t lend itself to having four and five star matches at advanced ages like Ric Flair. In the near future, ECW will only be brought up at Raven and Dreamer appearances at conventions and by the smarkiest of smarks.
Something new: 250 to 1
Philly is a hardcore city, no pun intended. It’s a blue collar city through and through, and it’s going to be hard for any independent or regional promotion to flourish to the level that ECW did when it’s competing in the shadow of the original. ECW may die everywhere else, but the spirit of it will remain in Philadelphia for a long time to come. Philadelphia is also a wrestling town, though, so things are going to have their chances. Ring of Honor has managed to get a foot in the door and then some, proving durable and amassing it’s own cult following. If people are honest, though, I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone that thinks that Ring of Honor has captured the wrestling world’s attention in the manner that ECW did. That’s not knocking Ring of Honor. Instead, that is a credit to the level of popularity that ECW achieved in forcing WWE and WCW to acknowledge them. ECW took wrestling by storm because it was different and unique. Odds of defying that tradition and coming up with something else that does the same thing in a different way aren’t great.
Trolling. It may be the only word that gets misused more than your and you’re. For some reason, people have this idea that if anybody says anything that they disagree with or that is in any way contrary to the mainstream opinion, that they’re being “trolls”, and stating something that they couldn’t possibly believe just to get a reaction. Today, I’m going to explain the difference and why I can tell you, with 100% confidence, that I have not, will not, and do not need to “troll” anybody through this column or anything I write on 411.
From Google, under the search “define trolling”: An e-mail message or posting on the Internet intended to provoke an indignant response in the reader
The truth of the matter is that I don’t really care if you disagree with me. When I say I don’t care, I don’t mean that in the sense that I think my opinion is more valuable than yours and that your thoughts are insignificant. I mean that I genuinely don’t mind if you disagree with me. You’ll notice (if you read my contribution to this week’s Top 5, at least) that I’m not a huge fan of Brock Lesnar. The fact that I enjoyed his failed shooting star press, or his beating at the hands of Cain Velasquez, or his initial loss to Frank Mir were all legitimate opinions from me. I was cheering against Brock in those fights. Seeing Brock land on his face makes me laugh. Anybody that has watched or discussed UFC or professional wrestling with me can tell you, I just don’t like the guy anymore. His act has worn thin with me.
If you like Brock Lesnar? Cool. Good for you. Buy his t-shirt, cheer for him, enjoy his matches and promos as much as you possibly can. It won’t bother me. I won’t belittle you for it. If you’re so insecure in your opinions that me not liking the same thing as you has to be justified in your mind by accusing me of saying something that I don’t genuinely believe just to get a reaction from you? Well, I’m sorry. I’m okay with people liking different things.
If you hang around long enough, you’ll probably see a few more things from me that are considered “trolling”. I figured I could get most of them out of the way here and now, that way you won’t be surprised and you can express outrage and shock and comment on what an awful person I am in the comments below if you want. Here goes.
I think the Montreal Screwjob is a complete work.
I think Bret Hart is the most overrated wrestler of all time.
CM Punk bores me sometimes.
Undertaker’s Wrestlemania streak means nothing if it isn’t broken.
I actually like John Cena as a wrestler.
I think that the NWA, from 1986-1990, is the best 5 year stretch any promotion has ever had.
The biggest star in wrestling history isn’t Hogan, Austin, The Rock, Cena, Flair, or Piper. It’s Andre the Giant.
I enjoy TNA.
If you think the fact that I don’t like Brock Lesnar is the best that I could do in an effort to troll the internet, you greatly underestimate me. I’m sure there are plenty of people that won’t believe any of this and will insist that it’s just a part of my plan to continue trolling, especially since Urban Dictionary includes the following: The most essential part of trolling is convincing your victim that either a) truly believe in what you are saying, no matter how outrageous…” If you think it’s truly outrageous that I don’t like Brock Lesnar and Randy Orton, your imagination needs some work.
This isn’t an attempt to get you to be nicer to me in the comment section. You’re free to respond to this column and any other as you see fit. I’m well aware that ultimately, what I write doesn’t matter. It’s not going to affect a great deal of change in the wrestling industry or the world at large, and it’s certainly not intended to do so. I’m just a guy using some of my free time to do something I enjoy – write – about something that I’ve enjoyed for a long time – wrestling. Believe it or not, you won’t offend me either way.
That’s it for me. I’ll try to do better next time. You can message me on Twitter @GavinNapier411 if you want to tell me how much you love me or hate me, or just say hi. Odds are I’ll be back next week.
