wrestling / Columns
Scripted Through Sin 9.09.08: Forceful Calligraphy
An air of unnatural aggression fills the air, stagnate and dark. It fills up the lungs of those who breathe it in turning their innards to charcoal. It’s a lingering breeze that constantly hovers itself over the (internet) wrestling (fan) community.
To simply put it all, fans in this time are far more belligerent than they’ve ever been before, constantly unnerved and on sanity’s frayed ends as they look to discredit one another based upon their tastes or lack of knowledge. Sometimes we even go so far as to discredit others for their lack of years as a fan to the industry, looking down our noses upon the young children who make up the majority of the key demographics. We shun them despite having grown up with this industry and appreciating the product for when it geared itself towards us, then.
We grew up with the boy scout do-gooder, dawned in pink and black gear, a broad leather jacket and curly, stringy hair that just made him look all the more cooler: we never mocked or shunned him for any of his faults and believed him to be every word of his motto, that he was simply excellence in a world that claimed to hold perfection within it. Today, however, we look down upon the Boy Scout decked out in more urban gear, mocking his clean cut, chiseled military presence: we mock his claim of greatness as a champion, call him a disgrace to the industry and note him as being disrespectful of the glorious past filled with legends that made this industry what it is today. We do all this because it’s the cool thing to do and because his target core audience is “women who aren’t interested in wrestling, and children.” What changed? It certainly wasn’t the direction, as Bret was geared towards the children who looked up to him as a mentoring hero and the type of guy we could all hope to be – the one who stands up for what’s right and gets what he deserves through hard work and determination.
I had said it before that we all have grown to become more cynical and bitter than we’d like to admit, but it couldn’t be any more truer than right now. More and more our community grows more hostile by the moment. Sects begin to war with one another over matters such as who is the better wrestler, who in the industry is right when judging talents, which is the better company. Words are exchanged but intellectual discussion falls upon the def, leaving those voices to grow mute as they degenerate to the environment that surrounds them.
We’re left in a warring environment, a rift between the community that leaves us belittling and berating each other for simply having different opinions. We refuse to accept ourselves and the reality we live in, that the children are the core target. They had been before when we were younger and the center of attention, but now that we’re cast off by the companies to look to the new youths we’ve grown bitter, if not also envious of their position, a position they once held when wrestling [in America] was considered good and pure.
A House to Call Their Own
This past Saturday saw TNA make its return to New York as their expansive touring schedule brought them through the Manhattan Center, the former home of ROH events prior the expiration of the exclusivity deal WWE had with the Hammerstein Ballroom [seven or so floors below]. This was to be the second venture to the New York [City] area for TNA and the first time they’d play to a venue that could guarantee seating for all in attendance. Though there was an issue with tickets being sent out, TNA had left promises to take care of the problem despite it being the fault of TicketMaster.com. Having done nothing wrong in the situation, TNA had opted to try and appease their fans making the venture out to see them upon this night by giving out free DVD’s. However, despite all of this I opted not to attend for one very strong reason: the ticket prices after all of TicketMaster’s charges and notes upon how to receive your ticket, the show just wasn’t worth it all.
There is always a note that TNA house shows are completely different from their televised product. So much of a difference that there is bigger buzz around what they do for the live crowds versus what they do for a televised audience as they focus more on the wrestling and less on trying to tell stories that emulate former storylines of past generations, or storylines that try to bridge the gap between casual wrestling fans and disinterested parties to the wrestling industry. It’s almost a complete 180° from what the product actually is and the fans seem to respond to this different environment rather positively.
With this in mind I do have to ask this one question: why doesn’t TNA build from this on their own shows? The fans like the house shows because they are wrestling based and excitement just exudes itself out of these matches but yet every week TNA presents this, sometimes, pompous show that tries to be deep and thought provoking as they give characters that are neither inherently evil nor inherently good. These characters lack the clear goal of why they’re willing to fight one another as other characters are injected into their feuds – that their feud was really just a prop for this third wheel that has entered the fray. A big example of this would be AJ Styles and Kurt Angle’s feud that has seen Sting been interjected to try and press forth this new direction of the new school versus the old school.
It’s mostly just a note of shame that though TNA has its fans satisfied in one aspect of their product [that being their house shows] they choose to continue down a different direction that continues to leave some fans irate and/or frustrated with what they see on a weekly basis.
Buyrate Assassin – The Unforgivable Sin
It’s been an overly ambitious portion of my article, but recently it was practically summed up in a single sitting by TSlay1974, only minus all of the numbers and figures to add some context behind why Triple H is bad for business.
A lot of time has been going into my Buyrate Assassin portion of the column, and every week that I’ve actually done it I’ve really tried to be as accurate with the information as I can be, but sometimes dates and times can slip my mind. But the overall message remains the same, and that is the pursuit to contextually explain what was said in this video; Triple H just isn’t healthy for the company.
I know many will always voice out how the biggest issue with the WWE is John Cena, or that creative just doesn’t know how to create stars but the real truth of the matter is how Triple H is placed into a situation where he’s facing off against a younger superstar and instead of allowing his opponent to look better without having to win the bout, he insists that not only he win the match but that his opponent look weaker than what he did prior to entangling himself with The Game.
Technically I don’t want to include this into series, but after witnessing Unforgiven the previous night I just have to voice out once more, stronger than I could before, about the wrongs of Triple H. After all, it’s not every day that Brian Kendrick is allotted an opportunity to be in a pay-per-view main event championship match, nor is it every day that a man of his size is allowed to look so clever and so dominant over other, bigger workers who have buzz behind them worthy of main event stature. It’s not every day that someone of Kendrick’s abilities is given a chance on pay-per-view, least of all in a high caliber championship match. It is, however, every day that you get to see Triple H involved in the main event, working with men regardless of their size and dominate them.
If you weren’t irate during the last 5 minutes of the WWE Championship Scramble, as Triple H in 3 moves put a stop to Kendrick’s offensive flurry and dominance of the ring as he held claim to the interimship of the title that Triple H’s nameplate was still on, then perhaps you simply don’t mind a mid-carder being made to look like they don’t belong in the same ring as a main eventer of [roughly] the past decade.
Paying attention to the match it was easy to note just how smart Kendrick came off as early on he picked his spots wisely, showing the cunning of a main event heel. He went on to look dominant in action after gaining the advantage over his prey and picking up the cheap victory over Jeff Hardy after someone else [Shelton Benjamin] had done most of the work. To put it simply, in a league of more defined warriors who have had a wave of people crying they should be main event stars, he looked to be king, demonstrating that he was in fact the real deal that he was pegged as being by ROH fans. He even held off an intrusive M.V.P. who was sizing up Benjamin to lay his claim to the interim championship, literally coming out of nowhere to stop the “King of Bling” dead in his tracks. All looked impressive for the young star as he had a lengthy stab at becoming the champion, but no one truly expected him to actually walk out of the building with the strap.
It wasn’t necessary for Brian to walk out as the actual champion as his participation in the match, along with a solid performance to get the crowd behind him, was all he needed to ensure his future role with the company. That was, until an actual main eventer [Triple H] came along.
Against the likes of Jeff Hardy, Shelton Benjamin and M.V.P. Kendrick looked like the big fish that no one expected him to be, but as Triple H appeared to reclaim his championship trophy, it became clear that he was only the big fish of a tiny pond. It was at this point that all of Spanky’s momentum was lost where it was never to be regained again, and this after laying out a strong promo about how he was a smarter wrestler than his competitors and how he would use his intellectual prowess over his adversaries to become greater than them, to become the WWE Champion. The Game simply dominated all but Jeff Hardy, but specifically targeted Brian Kendrick for two of his falls, and it was the least amount of offense utilized to accomplish this feat.
Now it could be easily written off as nothing if Kendrick had looked weaker, showing weakness after being involved in the match for so long and having been the target of so much offense at the time of Triple H’s arrival, but that wasn’t the case. Kendrick was the fresher of the individuals in the ring, even over M.V.P. whom was the fourth entrant in the bout, and was ready for the King of King’s entry. He stood his ground and looked ready to greet the barbarian like champion by using his current momentum to stomp Triple H under his game plan. Flattened to the mats were the all other competitors, Hardy out at ringside recovering and biding his own time, Kendrick was clearly the dominant force in that ring, so eating a small arsenal of Triple H’s power maneuvers and them being as devastating to the fresher warrior as they were strikes up as being very insulting.
If one were to look at the trickle-down effect, the ramifications of Kendrick being made to look so weak at the hands of Triple H is that now everyone that looked to be dominated by Brian now looks weak as well. While that could be the view, personally I wouldn’t want to take that into consideration as the write off is actually Kendrick was cunning enough to slip in and out of situations that would’ve put him into a predicament where he would be dominated or pinned. It was his ability to utilize the rules of the match to his advantage and to maintain his position of power over all of the other competitors.
In the end it was Triple H that put a stop to Kendrick and the hopes of his future being built around this match. The only good that can progress him forward out of this is that during a short brief of time, unofficially in the history books, he was a former WWE Champion. For one night, for a brief moment, he was called a champion of this very company. Beyond that he has no other claims from this bout that he can call upon for future reference, and that’s the shame of it all.
