The Seventh Dimension 04.18.08: Joe’s Journey – Justified?

All is calm. All…is calm…

Joe’s Journey – Justified?

Early in my stay here at 411, I wrote about an old classic motto that is used in booking – “The money’s in the chase”. You can read it in full here, but here’s the gist of what I think. The phrase “the money’s in the case” is usually exploited as a very lazy and very cynical way of justifying either an unproven face’s failure to reach the top, or an unpopular heel’s unwillingness to relinquish his spot. While it’s true that in many cases a face’s quest for a belt/redemption/love has made a lot of money from those wishing to see the resultant success, the idea that this is ALWAYS the case is quite simply preposterous. You only need to look at the WWE Championship’s overall history to realise this, as in its early days faces would hold the belt for years at a time and heels would only get a sniff when it was time to transition it to the next hero a few weeks down the line. Where was the chase there? When Hulk Hogan held the belt for more than four years in the 80s’, I can guarantee that the millions of dollars he is contributed with having made for the company were NOT raked in because fans were desperately seeking a Bundy or Orndorff championship era. The fact of the matter is that a face title reign can be done just as effectively and financially-beneficial as a heel title reign, as long as the writers and bookers are somewhat competent.

With that in mind, let’s have a look at Samoa Joe’s long but ultimately fruitful route to the top of TNA’s food-chain.

The Ascent

Most of this is pretty well-known fare already, but a recap is traditional. Joe debuted in TNA at Slammiversary 2005, on the back of a legendary 21-month spell as Ring of Honor Champion. He won the X-division Championship later that year, and remained undefeated until Destination X when Christopher Daniels won the title. Still, this was Ultimate X so Joe was yet to lose via pinfall or submission. He’d earn the title back on Impact’s first ever Thursday show, though only held it for one month this time before losing it to Senshi (again, he wasn’t involved in the decision). During these ‘glory days’, he was in the classic triple-threat match at TNA Unbreakable, partnered Sting in a winning effort, pinned then-champion Jeff Jarrett clean on pay-per-view in non-title singles’ action, and won the ever-brutal Monsters’ Ball match. Overall, he managed to remain strong and, importantly, completely undamaged for seventeen months.

Then came what is seen by many as being the decline. Some think Vince Russo is to blame, and some pin it on Kurt Angle. As I explained in my TNAnalysis series, I reckon the big problem was that they BOTH entered the fray at the same time as each other and both were over-zealous in trying to prove their respective worth, but that’s beside the point right now. Angle’s first big match in the company was against Joe at Genesis 2006. It was a great match with a decent build, and Angle got the win. I have never had a problem with this, whatsoever. As established as Angle was in the WWE, he had to be seen as a threat within TNA as well – especially if the company insists on seeing itself as true ‘competition’ for the WWE. Having him lose immediately would make him seem inadequate and past it, much more than it would have established Joe any further. Also, I feel that Kurt’s win lent Joe some much needed vulnerability, lest he become another Cena-esque domination machine. So far, so good.

The Turbulence

Unfortunately, once it had been determined that Joe was no longer invincible, TNA took it too far in the opposite direction. A couple of weeks later on Impact, Angle would follow his earlier submission victory over Joe by becoming the first man to pin him. I personally feel that Joe’s first pinfall defeat should have been utilised as something more momentous than a storyline tool on free TV, but thankfully it’s mostly been forgotten about. All this was en route to their big rematch at Turning Point, and you can see that the build this time was nowhere near as strong. At Turning Point, Joe got his win back when he made Kurt tap to the Coquina Clutch – but only after Angle’s attempted chair-shot ricocheted off the ropes and hit his own face. The ‘sports entertainment’ nature of the finish took away from many fans’ enjoyment of the match, and sadly things would only get worse as the build to their ‘rubber’ match was simply atrocious.

By now, TNA seemed oblivious as to who to push as the face and who as the heel, which isn’t so bad when you’re attempting a ‘shades of grey’ angle with depth (see: Michaels/Batista), but doesn’t work when you’re making valid alternating attempts to make that distinction. One week, Angle was trying to break a woman’s ankle to provoke Joe. The next, Angle was teaming with the much-adored Rhino against Joe and his partner – Rhino’s biggest nemesis at that time, AJ Styles. It was so confusing, and a lot of that seemed to rub off on the characters themselves, which did none of them any favours. Again, the match was highly entertaining. This time, it was an Iron Man, which was a good idea in principle as Joe could lose this one while also getting two falls against Angle. However, that still meant Joe had taken three falls in the match, and now FIVE falls in the space of two months.

The Descent

At this point there was still no big problem, as all of these falls were taken by six-time World champ Kurt Angle. But all of that would change when, on March the 1st, 2007, Joe lost to Tomko due to minimal interference. Tomko has since managed to do pretty well for himself, but at the time he was nowhere near ready for this type of rub, and Joe’s reputation was dented considerably. This was made much worse by the fact that he would soon be challenging Christian Cage for the World title, in a match we already thought Cage would win (and rightly so). Joe needed every bit of momentum he could acquire to put that element of doubt in our heads, and instead jobbed to the champion’s manager after a clothesline. The match with Cage, which was fantastic, was hindered by the lack of doubt surrounding its outcome.

Joe floundered for a bit after that, although he was never buried any further and was kept at the top of the bill in multi-man matches such as Lethal Lockdown and King of the Mountain. He then won the X-division championship for a third time, and became BOTH of the World Tag Team Champions, leading into his fourth encounter with Angle at last year’s infamously bad Hard Justice pay-per-view. Angle was now the World champion (so every championship TNA had at its possession was on the line in this one, much to the detriment of the rest of the show) and, as we all know but wish we didn’t, the match ended with the inevitable swerve that saw Karen Angle betray Samoa Joe and side with her husband. More than any of his previous losses, this hurt Joe so badly because it made him look like a complete tool for ever trusting a woman who had only even debuted on the show three or four weeks beforehand. He had nothing to hold accountable for his loss but his own naivety, and there’s nothing worse in any profession than being a choker.

The Recovery

Immediately after the match, pundits and viewers alike took to the ‘net and ripped the company a new shitter. There were those saying that TNA would never recuperate from such a misstep, that Angle was destroying the company (well, he WAS holding all of TNA’s gold at the time), and that Joe would never be given the chance many felt he was already long overdue. It seemed that a day didn’t go by during that time when a news item would be published saying that he was demanding a release from TNA, or that he wasn’t entering contract negotiations, or that he’d been offered a deal with WWE and had a ‘verbal agreement’ that he would sign. At this point, it was difficult to see how any of the parties involved would convalesce sufficiently.

Fortunately, Joe’s overall direction since then has been pretty wise, or “wisdomous” if you’re a ‘Friends’ fan. Rather than put him back in the title hunt straight away, Joe was placed in the upper-midcard where he could get back to winning ways while Angle and Sting had one of the most bizarre World title feuds I’ve ever seen from any major mainstream wrestling show. Meanwhile, Joe would lose once more to Christian Cage before, crucially, finally defeating him (and becoming the first man in TNA to do so) at Bound For Glory in another tremendous outing between the two. Although he lost to Cage again the next week on Impact in a #1 contenders’ match, Joe got the better end of it as he began a major character redevelopment and started hanging out with Kevin Nash, while all Cage could do was job to Angle and get swerved TWICE thus looking like an even bigger fool than Joe ever did. And yes, there have been strange decisions – such as having Joe take a pin when Nash was on his team and could have done it instead. But, on the scale of things, TNA did a great job of rebuilding Joe and telling us that they were serious about pushing him the whole time. They just weren’t sure when to pull the trigger.

The Pay-off

All of this would culminate last week at Lockdown, as Joe and Angle would meet for the fifth time one-on-one on pay-per-view inside a steel cage. Now straight away, the booking had a couple of problems. The angle (no pun intended) going into the match was that Joe had to retire from wrestling if he failed to win the title. This meant, on the surface, that we knew Joe was winning and therefore the pleasure of seeing him triumph may not be as heightened as it could have been. However, there was also a great deal of worry because this IS Russo we’re talking about. What if it was going to be a massive swerve, again? Russo’s not unknown for retirement angles, of course – just ask Goldberg. TNA put all its eggs in one basket, and I honestly believed going in that the company’s chances of ever being taken seriously on the grand scale would either live or die on the basis of this one match. That’s still how I feel.

Thankfully, sanity prevailed and we ended up with a match that far surpassed anything else TNA has attempted in the last several months. And I don’t mean in terms of the overall match, as the workers have had some classics in spite of booking. I mean that TNA itself totally nailed this one, and I am proud right now to be a fan of wrestling thanks to their achievement. Firstly, the build was tremendous as they made sure Karen Angle was taken out of the equation, and made Angle look like the badass he ought to be with those takedown challenges. Secondly, they built it throughout the night and made it 100% clear that their match was the big one on this night, and that a Joe victory would be special. And finally, the match itself was just excellent. I really liked it, anyway. It was what I expected, it started off with the risky worked-MMA style and then transitioned into the pro-wrestling that we’re used to. It worked as well as it could have done, and had it not been for Flair/Michaels and Edge/Undertaker at Wrestlemania I’d be calling this the front-runner for Match of the Year. The win was academic, but it was still highly enjoyable and you could see it meant a ton to Joe, and Tenay and West for all they’re criticised did a grand job of endorsing the enormity of what had happened. A great moment for wrestling.

The Future

The win is obviously only half of the story. Where Samoa Joe goes from here is just as important. I was relieved when I saw that he WASN’T defending it on Impact this week, as we know that Angle (and, before him, Jarrett) has a precedent for winning titles back straight away after losing them. It’s now accepted that Joe will be defending the title against Scott Steiner at Sacrifice, which I’m looking forward to seeing based on their previous encounter. I do wonder whether Angle will be spliced in somehow to make it a triple-threat **UPDATE: I was right.**, but right now the best thing for Angle is to feud with AJ Styles over Karen’s love, and stay away from the title for a while.

If Joe loses his first major defense, then this may all have been for nothing. However, I can’t see that happening. In fact, I see Joe holding onto the belt until Bound For Glory, where he’ll probably face Sting in his ‘Kane push’. In any case, TNA need to really push hard that Samoa Joe is one of its first ‘home-grown’ World champions, because while it’s not a big deal to have older stars win the belt, it IS actively laudable to have someone come from seemingly nowhere (in the eyes of the mainstream) and win a recognised World title in less than three years with the company. And that’s something to remember, as well – for all the missed opportunities, Joe is still just thirty-four months into his TNA career, and has now won everything bar the Knockouts’ title. It’s not a bad record, when put into perspective.

And The Point of All This Was…?

I said earlier that the old adage of “the money’s in the chase” is rather misguided at best and just plain erroneous at worst. Although I stand by that and always will, I wanted to highlight that sometimes it works out, albeit in the most unexpected of circumstances. WWE tried it with CM Punk and Batista last year, and they very nearly failed on both counts and had to rely on unforeseen circumstances (suspension and injury, correspondingly) in order to eventually get there. It’s kind of ironic that by far the most satisfying example from the past couple years of this being true is NOT because of some long-term writing genius, but because the bookers in charge had ants in their pants and weren’t sure when or even if they should make that final thrust towards cementing their star.

But here’s the long and short of it: I marked out. Granted, I didn’t explode like when Cena returned at the Rumble or when Orton retained at Wrestlemania, but the root markery was there for all to see and lick. It was a combination of adrenaline thanks to the match itself, and massive relief that TNA hadn’t shot itself in the foot. But it was effective. So for all the mistakes along the way, the itchy fingers, the changes of heart and whathaveyou, the bottom line is that Joe won a great match at Lockdown and now holds one of only three championships recognised by PWI as being a World title.

All I’ve read since the change took place is that “it’s too late to mean anything”. Try telling that to Joe. Try telling that to the many fans cheering him in the arena, and the thousands grinning away at home. Try telling that to ME, and most importantly try telling it to yourselves without a tinge of uncertainty. You’d need a heart of stone to do so.

Samoa Joe is TNA’s World Heavyweight Champion during its most profitable period yet. That’s all that matters now.

Rubbish Youtube Quote of the Week~!

On this occasion, I’m not going to pick a specific video and just one comment. Oh, no. I’m going to use this moment in my life to throttle the fuck out of a little Einstein on the site who’s really chafed my jaw with his spikey fist of idiocy lately.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the work…of ‘Bricearoo15′.

Exhibit A
On the feud between Shawn Michaels and Batista, Bricearoo15 said the following:

hbk sucks. y2j and batista will kick his scronny little ass

Ok, pretty bad. Overly markish, disrespectful, and doesn’t really make any sense from a storyline point of view since Michaels is the face. Got anything worse?

Exhibit B
On Paul Burchill’s push, Bricearoo15 said the following:

hopefully birchull will lose soon

Right, not great. Not great. A pessimistic attitude towards somebody the WWE is attempting to push in the lower-midcard. Still, not really bad enough for me to include here on its own. Can you top it?

Exhibit C
On Undertaker’s match with Festus, Bricearoo15 said the following:

omg i don’t care if u disagree with me i cant stand the undertaker, he is so overrated and sucks so badly. festus shud of destroyed him. and anyone who gives me a thumbs down is gay!!!

Yes, we’re getting there. A complete lack of awareness of wrestling prowess, total bias against a worker he doesn’t like, and a puerile crescendo that insinuates homosexuality upon those who disagree with him. Surely it can’t get any more cringe-inducing than that? Oh, yes it can. Get ready for this one…

Exhibit D
On Chavo’s new accomplice, who many other Youtube users had already correctly identified as being Justin LaRouche, Bricearoo15 said the following:

its mike knox with his head shaved u dumbasses

Oh, dear. My eyes may look away from that line, but it remains imprinted on my mind. I just can’t believe this has happened. I’m really stunned. The human mind, the same phenomena that brought us Greek mythology and the Renaissance, is somehow diverse enough to produce a being who cannot form a distinction between two people who have completely different faces. And that’s ignoring the steroid fiasco keeping Knox away from television at the time, as well.

Some may try to defend Bricearoo15 because he claims to only be sixteen years old. However, I simply cannot do the same thing. He’s at an age where he’s presumably about to leave school and head for sixth-form college (or whatever the procedure is in the American education system), and yet he’s unaware of how to use basic punctuation and grammar in a coherent manner. On top of that, the kid is an idiot, and he is currently acting as a malignant bacteria eating away at the soul of Youtube. He and ‘Lordme5′, a notorious shit, could probably make a great heel tag team in the Nobheads Wrestling Association or somewhere, but until then just stay the fuck away from Youtube!

On One Hand, With Mike Adamle

This is a new section of the column, in which I list my five favourite lines (hence ‘on one hand’) spoken by new ECW commentator Mike Adamle each week. Adamle is surely the crowned prince of car-crash punditry, but he’s also got some new material that has been a breath of fr…well, let’s say different air. So, it’s only fair that I celebrate this fact. This will be a regular feature from now on, unless of course he’s dropped any time at all soon.

5) “The Undertaker and Kane…!” – …Yes, Mike? What about them?
4) “The crowd is on the brink of delirium here.” – Said in the most deadpan, monotonous voice ever recorded.
3) “He’s built like Tarzan but he probably hits like Jane.” – That’s what ‘we’ have a tendency to think about John Morrison, apparently.
2) “Jamaican me crazy, Kofi!” – I’m a sucker for a race-based pun.
1) “Unos! Dos! Adios!” – Simply put, this is the greatest call for a three-count in the history of the business.

Mike, I salute you. There’s no way you should have replaced Joey Styles, but damn it! You’re a human being, and in the end that’s the real truth. All hail!

Bye.

Right. I have a feeling after the Youtube rantery and the pro-Adamle sentiment that I need to sign off right now and get the hell out of here, while I still have my fingers. The taxi is waiting, and it’s running on Diesel (pun-age~!). So I’ll bid you all good day, and hopefully see some of you next week and all.

R.I.P. Mark Speight (and Natasha Collins). Thanks for entertaining my cousins. You will be missed.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX