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The Wrasslin’ Countdown 12.29.10: Snow Way Out
Well, Christmas has passed, the holidays are nearly over, the WWE wrapped up their television year with Smackdown and NXT last night and TNA has been done taping for what seems like ages. The year is almost over and it seems like most wrestling news is either insignificant or nearly non-existent. The good news for you is that I’m still here with The Wrasslin’ Countdown. Now let’s get to the weekly review.
December 22 – Rocky III was on Versus. I love Hulk Hogan’s part as Thunderlips in this. It was all-time cheesy but it was perfect. The fight scene between Stallone and the Hulkster was pretty well done too. I like this movie a ton despite getting into it 20 years after it was made. Professional wrestling should steal some characters from this movie series. The seven year rule even allows it! I wouldn’t complain if someone copied the Thunderlips character completely. Put that guy on Superstars or Impact every week.
December 23 – Kaval’s firing didn’t really incite a response from me. Sure, he had a decent following and he won NXT but he never showed anything special in a WWE wrestling ring. I can’t name one decent match he had but you can’t really place the blame on him. He lost all of his matches on Smackdown and NXT2 was really hard to watch. I’m sure people on the internet made a big fuss over the “heartless” WWE firing him so close to Christmas but it was obvious from the start that it was a mutual decision. The money may not be as hot but he’ll be better utilized in the independents. Probably happier based on the stuff he’s re-tweeted.
December 24 – Waking up and seeing WCW TIE-IN AT WRESTLEMANIA on my RSS was more than welcomed. It was like an early Christmas present from the Wrestling God. Sadly, there wasn’t a ton of information that came with the report. I don’t know what this would bring but as a dude who watched WCW in the nineties, I welcome it. Hell, WCW was trending on Twitter last week and I marked out just at that. I want all the non-TNA WCW guys they can get. Put them in some sort of Battle Royal, induct the worthy ones into the Hall and they’ve got my buy regardless of the card.
December 25 – The only wrestling-related Christmas present I got wasn’t really a present. I went a day earlier to go buy someone something and saw the Randy Savage DVD set from a few years ago for the more-than-reasonable price of 5 bucks. I have no clue why it was so cheap but I bought it for myself. I haven’t had the chance to watch it but I look forward to that sit-down.
December 26 – The day after Christmas is always a pretty slow news day so it was pretty shocking to see “AWESOME KONG ARRESTED” over all of the dirtsheets I visit. Fortunately for her, and unfortunately for a news column like this, it was just a suspended license. The independent scene will always be better with her than without and this minor arrest keeps open the (very small) window of hope that she’ll someday be in the WWE.
December 27 – So CM Punk is the new leader of Nexus, huh? It’ll be interesting to see what becomes of Wade Barrett. I just wish his destruction was bigger. The chair thing didn’t have enough impact to “kill” off a character like Barrett. I mean, the guy has done some big things kayfabe-wise. I hope New Nexus isn’t as lame as Old Nexus. It was cool seeing beat-downs at first but that got tiring after week three or four. Last week I mentioned that Nexus actually debuted during a Punk-Cena match and Punk was beat down there. One could complain that this blatantly disregards that but it happened ages ago in the WWE Universe. Besides, Punk has an issue with Cena and Nexus had an issue with Cena. It makes sense for them to pair up.
December 28 – I find it hard to imagine a DVD set dedicated to a manager would maintain the attention of the WWE Universe for long but I guess if anyone can make it work, it’s Bobby Heenan. Of course people familiar with his work will probably love this as much as they love Heenan. Most of my exposure to The Brain is Youtube videos and his commentary work from WCW. His infamous call from the 96 Bash in the Beach was sadly before my time (I started in late 97) but it probably would’ve been a much-quoted line by the younger version of me. I’d give this thing a shot just so I could appreciate Heenan more than I do right now. He doesn’t really make my list of must-see guys and from the people I’ve spoken to, I’m wrong. Everybody describes him as an electric personality that could get anyone over.
According to The Charlotte Observer, Jeff Hardy is set to plead guilty to drug charges when he returns to court next month. Word of this has come from the Moore County district attorney. Moore County deputies raided Hardy’s home in September 2009 after Fayetteville police received a tip about drug use at the residence. Found were 262 doses of Vicodin,180 Soma prescription pills, 55 milliliters of anabolic steroids, a residual amount of powder cocaine and drug paraphernalia.
Well this was the big news of the week, and rightfully so. Just a few years ago Jeff Hardy was the WWE’s top guy, getting receptions that made John Cena jealous. It’s a shame to see where he is now but he’s still one of TNA’s top guys and still has a very successful career. I’m sure there is some sort of plea bargain that accompanies this but how can he avoid jail time with all of the stuff found on him? It’ll take a ton of legal maneuvering to help him but he’s got the means to get that maneuvering. Like Jim Ross said in his blog, it’s best for Hardy to take his medicine and hopefully, start fresh when he’s done paying the price for his drug use. I really disliked Hardy, the wrestler and person, for most of his career but he won me over during his last WWE days so I’m rooting for him.
Spike TV has reportedly canceled Reaction. The final episode will air tomorrow. (The Wrestling Observer)
It’s never a win when a wrestling program goes off the air. I stayed with Reaction until Ken Anderson appeared on screen and I once again found myself satisfied with what I was watching. No matter how good the program is, I won’t watch Anderson, so that’s why I stopped.
I questioned why TNA went with this Reaction program instead of adding on an extra hour to Impact but you’ve got to give them credit for trying something new. I think the WWE showed us with Raw that three hour programs are fun every now and then but when they’re close together, they start to drag. I can’t remember the last time the WWE tried something like this and even though it failed, it benefited TNA for the short time it was on air.
The only complaint I had with Reaction was having their Impact main events run into this show. It was awful all around. This is a DVR generation and I doubt many people are going to DVR two shows just to catch an extra few minutes of wrestling. I’m sure they edited their Impact program for the folks overseas but they really screwed the DVR people with this.
The WWE has removed the “Guest Stars” section on the Raw superstars page. (PWInsider)
The end of the Guest Host angle probably began when they changed the name to Guest Stars. I’m sure in the future we’ll get a random Guest Star here and there. It’s just the nature of the business. Anytime the WWE can get a semi-big name to appear on their program, they’re game. Hell, Snooki tweeted about CM Punk last night. I’m sure somebody in the WWE hit her people up and asked about a possible hook-up between the E and Snooki. I thought the Guest Star deal was fun while it lasted. I loved seeing Shaquille O’Neal, Bob Barker and David Arquette do their thing on WWE programming. Really cool to know someone you really dig is a fellow professional wrestling fan. I didn’t think this would last as long when it was introduced by Donald Trump in mid-2009.
WWE issued the following statement after Newsday’s Alfonso Castillo called them out on their decision to go forward with their Madison Square Garden house show last night during the blizzard:
WWE tries its best not to let down our fans due to the weather. After weighing several factors and consulting with Madison Square Garden management, The Garden was in favor of us running the event as they have a good track record of doing so during inclement weather, rarely postponing them. Public transportation was running, and this is a show in which a significant amount of ticket holders live in the city. All top WWE Talent had made it in to New York for the event. (Newsday)
It’s probably because I’m from Texas and the last time I really saw snow was when I visited Arizona a few years ago but I fail to see why such a big deal is being made about the WWE holding a show during a blizzard. Surely the WWE wasn’t the only thing in town that was going (it’s New York!) and it couldn’t have been that bad if 13,000 of the 14,000 people that purchased tickets attended. It’s impossible for me to know how bad the weather was because television doesn’t do it justice but this is 2010. Nobody died on their way to or from the WWE show and most of the talent was able to get there (Heath Slater didn’t, but that’s a win for the crowd).
I’m one of those people that thinks Vince McMahon is a genius and I’m sure he would’ve canceled the program if anyone was in danger. They’ve canceled shows in the past and will cancel shows in the future. Governor Ed Rendell was right to call out America.
The Christmas Eve edition of WWE Smackdown, which was a replay of the Tuesday episode, scored a 1.15 rating, with 1,618,000 viewers. . (The Wrestling Observer)
How in the world is a replay of Smackdown getting such a decent rating on Christmas Eve? I didn’t even know this thing was being aired on Friday. This is fantastic news for the WWE as it shows there is a hardcore fanbase that actually enjoys Smackdown. It was in my home town, tickets were cheap and I didn’t even go. So that speaks well for the future of Smackdown and the WWE’s relationship with the SyFy Network.
“When the creative process is successful, the talent gets all the credit. When it is unsuccessful, creative gets all the blame. There’s always got to be a healthy mix. When you’re doing 52 shows a year that process is hard to balance. Sometimes you go too far one way, sometimes you go too far the other way. It’s a healthy criticism at times but at other times it’s not.” Jeff Jarrett on TNA Impact having more wrestling. (UK Sun)
I get what he means when he says criticism can be healthy and unhealthy at times. A ton of people like to rag on TNA just because it’s so easy to do so. The Hulkster is a lightning rod for criticism, the programming is subpar at times and they’ve got loads of talent doing absolutely nothing. This is a perfectly acceptable answer when being asked about Impact’s wrestling time. I think we can all agree that wrestling shows should have more wrestling than not but we don’t really get that. I don’t see why he’s talking about creative here because frankly, creative should always be getting criticized. It doesn’t matter if they’re writing for TNA or the WWE. You can always improve in that area.
Jarrett says creative and talent needs to be a healthy mix and that’s good if it’s fair for everyone. You can’t give some wrestlers all the control in the world and other guys be punished because they aren’t as seasoned as a Kurt Angle. That’s just asking for trouble.
• Ari Berenstein continues his look at ROH’s 2010 in The Column of Honor.
• Steve Cook talks wrestling news and the 411mania readers rank their Top 50 WWE Superstars in News from Cook’s Corner. How could you people vote Austin over Hogan? I thought we were friends.
• Into the Indies begins it’s look into the Top 10 Japanese wrestling stories of the year in this week’s column.
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1. CM Punk – He’s not entertaining us with his commentary anymore but his promo on John Cena was pretty spot-on. I actually found myself kind of disliking Cena because everything Punk said had some foundation of truth. I mean, what kind of person doesn’t leave after losing a loser-leaves-town match? He also reminded me that Batista was gone. I loved heel Batista. Why are you so mean John Cena?
2. Winter – How about winning the Knockout Tag Titles in a match she wasn’t even scheduled to be in? Okay, so it wasn’t too impressive but it stood out in a rather mundane week of wrestling. I don’t even know why titles like this exist. Going back to WCW with the Crusierweight Tag Titles and the rumored X-Division Tag Titles from a few years ago. Completely useless titles.
Unranked – Whoever came up with the CM Sucks insult – John Cena can be awesome at times. He’s got the ability to get the fans to do whatever he wants whenever he wants. To waste all of that on an insult as lame as CM Sucks is stupid. I don’t know if Cena was the one who came up with it or a random member of Creative but it was weak. Cena sounded really angry while insulting Punk. That was great because Punk challenged his H.L.R lifestyle earlier but it was hard not to laugh at CM Sucks.
If the popular ESPN program “Pardon the Interruption” taught us anything, it’s that there’s always time to get happy. This segment is dedicated to birthdays, anniversaries, departures and the like.
Happy 31st Birthday, Justin Roberts! – I don’t really know the internet’s opinion of Justin Roberts but I find myself enjoying his announcing more often than not. He’s one of the announcers that hasn’t really been involved with any of the actual wrestling part of the WWE so that’s a positive. While funny, we don’t really need a repeat of that Howard Finkel/Lilian Garcia feud. He did have a part in the NEXUS’ debut when he was choked by Daniel Bryan. I saw a picture of him wearing one of the Daniel Bryan VIOLENT shirts so one would assume he didn’t make too big a deal out of the incident. He’s actually been with the WWE since 2002. I didn’t know he’s been there that long but I wouldn’t mind him staying another 8+ years. He does good work.
Happy Anniversary, Starrcade ’91! – The ninth installment of Starrcade was held on this date in 1991. It featured the first edition of the long-forgotten stipulation known as the Battlebowl. The Battlebowl consisted of forty men split randomly into ten tag teams. The winners would advance to the Battle Bowl, a very confusing Battle Royal. The brilliant thing about this, and the reason why I’d actually pay money for it, was the fact that no one knew who they were working with or against. This has train-wreck written all over it. I doubt the buys would be good for something like this but it’d probably involve lots of unintentional comedy wrestling that is so bad, it’s good. It’d be funner than some of the PPVs the WWE and TNA put on this year anyways.
THE STINGER was the first person to win it. You can find this on the internet and you should if you like big battle royals or bad wrestling.
I’ve got a love/hate relationship going with The Big Show. There are times when he’s one of my top five favorite wrestlers and there are moments when I can’t stand the guy. I’d be lying if I said some of that wasn’t based on his heel/face alignment. I like most of his face shenanigans (un-masking Punk was pretty funny) but there are a lot of matches when he’s the king of no-selling and, while I dislike the term, burying. Which kind of makes sense since he’s a monster but annoying nonetheless. I don’t consider myself one of those guys that’s pro-heel all the time so this can’t just be me. He isn’t as accessible as other people featured in this section but I saw him last week at a local mall and he does stay in touch via Twitter so he’s featured.
I just hope we get more monster Show in the future. He’s a solid face but he is one of the best when he’s in his ECW Champion mode.
So there you have it. 2010 wasn’t wrestling’s brightest year but it was an improvement on 2009 and I really dig the direction both major promotions are going. I hope both will continue down their respective paths and have a 2011 that’s even better than this year was. Of course, The Wrasslin’ Countdown will be back next week and hopefully throughout all of 2011. Thanks for reading.
