wrestling / Columns

411 Fact or Fiction 10.25.12: Lesnar, Ziggler, Honey Boo Boo, More

October 25, 2012 | Posted by Steve Cook

Hi, hello & welcome to 411 Fact or Fiction! I’m Wyatt Beougher!

His opponent is the man that instantly analyzes Raw for the people of the 411 Universe…Chad Nevett!

  • Questions were sent out Monday.
  • Participants were told to expect wrestling-related questions.

    1. Brock Lesnar will appear at Hell in a Cell.

    Wyatt Beougher: FICTION. Sadly, I think the WWE is hell-bent on wasting all of Lesnar’s dates prolonging a pointless feud with a part-time wrestler who should just stay behind the scenes. Wait, Triple H is screwing up what could be a huge storyline and lead to a big Wrestlemania match (Lesnar/Ryback) to get his heat back on Lesnar? I’d be shocked…if he hadn’t been doing the exact same thing since 2000 or so.

    Chad Nevett: FICTION. I don’t think the WWE will want to slow down Ryback’s momentum or use up a Lesnar appearance, especially not one that they didn’t advertise. Lesnar is a ‘special attraction,’ basically, and part of the point of having someone like that is so you can promote his appearances and, hopefully, gain viewers (and buys) that way. The WWE may have him appear unannounced on Raw, because that’s a tool to promote him on pay per view (the key word being ‘pay’). To have him make a surprise appearance on a PPV doesn’t seem like the right call. And definitely not as a supporting player in another story/feud.

    Score: 1 for 1

    2. CM Punk & Ryback will have an acceptable match for a PPV main event.

    Wyatt Beougher: FACT. I’m a big fan of Punk the wrestler, although Punk the character has been pretty hit-or-miss with me since the Kevin Nash/HHH angle nonsense. I have faith in Punk’s ability to bump for Ryback’s offense while getting in enough hope spots to string the crowd along. And while Ryback is still too green to really lead this match, I think with Punk calling the shots, he’ll keep the pace moving at enough of a clip that it won’t drag, but that a longer match won’t expose Ryback either. If they can maintain a decent pace until the inevitable run-in that’ll be done to retain Ryback’s heat (even though it’ll take away from both guy’s heat and the match result, unless it’s something that actually makes sense, like Lesnar coming out to help a fellow Heyman guy and firing the opening shot in World War HOSS), then I think it’ll be perfectly acceptable wrestling for a PPV main event. Ryback will land his big offense to make the little kids gasp and cheer, Punk will get enough offense in, probably by way of counters, that he’ll still be able to claim to be the best in the world, and while it probably won’t be a Match of the Year contender, I don’t think anyone’s really expecting that at this point in Ryback’s career.

    Chad Nevett: FACT. Ryback seems competent and CM Punk is one of the best wrestlers in the world. That seems like a recipe for, at least, an ‘acceptable’ match. I think they’d almost have to try to deliver a crap match to not be ‘acceptable.’ No one is expecting a five-star classic or anything. The bar is not raised high here. They’ll deliver a solid match most likely.

    Score: 2 for 2

    3. Steve Austin is right when he says that Sheamus isn’t ready to be a top champion.

    Wyatt Beougher: FACT. It pains me to agree with a guy who fought so hard to prove all the people who said the exact same thing about him wrong (especially when he’s a drunken, misogynistic redneck that I despise as a person), but Sheamus really ISN’T ready to be a top champion. In the ring, Sheamus is a HOSS, and there are few people I enjoy just shutting my brain off and watching than him (please let Mark Henry come back soon so we can get a Sheamus/Ryback vs Lesnar/Henry tag team match, and I’ll take back every bad thing I’ve ever said about Triple H), but in terms of charisma and character development, he’s just not there. I’m not sure if anyone else has noticed, but Sheamus is probably the most casually racist character in the WWE over the past couple of years, and all of his “comedic” stuff with ADR and Ricardo was offensive and not funny at all. I think he’d just work better as a heel at this point in his career, as the taunting, mocking personality would be better suited to someone we, the audience, SHOULDN’T like, and that’s really damaging his ability to connect with the fans, which is definitely something you want your top face champion to be able to do. If ECW was still around, he’d be the perfect ECW champion, allowing him to further develop his character and add some personality to his interviews that would actually make him more worthy of one of the company’s top spots.

    Chad Nevett: FICTION. I’ve been a big fan of Sheamus’s title reign so far. The way he’s been written has veered a bit into goofy territory, but his basic ‘fella who loves to kick arse’ character has been a great base for heels to work around — and a good contrast to CM Punk’s more character-driven stories. Sheamus shows up, kicks someone’s head off, and walks away with a grin on his face. It’s a bit of a throwback as far as world champion goes, but he does it well. Look at his match with Punk on Monday: he looked like an absolute beast, someone that the heels were all afraid to touch if he wasn’t already beaten down. He can deliver in the ring, makes a good impression in media appearances, and is someone that fans have gotten behind. And, he’s been booked strongly. What else do you want?

    Score: 2 for 3

    4. Dolph Ziggler will cash in his MITB briefcase at Hell in a Cell.

    Wyatt Beougher: FICTION. From a storyline standpoint, I suppose it would make the most sense, as Hell in a Cell matches are supposed to be perhaps the most grueling in the WWE (give me the old-school blue steel cage matches), but for some reason, I think Ziggler waits. HiaC isn’t a major PPV, and Ziggler, being the showoff that he is, should wait to cash in his shot at a bigger event, like the Royal Rumble, when more eyes will be on him.

    Chad Nevett: FICTION. He’s a heel. Heels lie. Besides, they’ve already had the other MitB briefcase cashed in with a warning, so why waste the element of surprise for this one?

    Score: 3 for 4


    SWITCH!

    5. You’re bored with Vickie Guerrero as an authority figure.

    Chad Nevett: FACT. She’s a good manager, someone who’s there for a segment every night, and adds a little to it. But, given the WWE’s habit of making authority figures the stars of their shows, it’s overkill. We’ve had plenty of Vickie as GM and her character hasn’t really evolved or changed in any way since then. She is a heat magnet, but there’s more to the position than that.

    Wyatt Beougher: FACT. While I think Vickie is a great manager who is able to draw heat for her charges just by being out there and playing the Vickie character, if you look at last night’s RAW, specifically her interaction with John Cena when Cena was NEVER BACKING DOWN from getting answers about AJ’s termination, it pretty much is a microcosm of why Vickie doesn’t work as an authority figure (and why most WWE authority figures, save for John Laurinaitis, have sucked since Mr. McMahon). Vickie struggled to deliver her ‘perception is reality’ explanation for why AJ was fired, there was a painfully long camera pause on her smirking face waiting for a crowd reaction at the end (which isn’t Vickie’s fault, I know), and she, like every authority figure in the past year (save for AJ), got her job by ratting out her predecessor for doing something, only to continue doing the same thing herself (or is her relationship with Ziggler supposed to be strictly professional this week?). Plus, her “Excuse me”, at least when used from a position of authority, is almost as tiresome as Teddy Long making a random main eventer tag team match on EVERY F’N SHOW HE RUNS. (We get it, playa, you like tag team matches.) At least with Big Johnny, he took everything people criticized him for in his first couple of weeks, amplified it to 1000 with a fierce glee, and just ran with it, and while that shouldn’t have worked, for some reason, I thoroughly enjoyed it. With Vickie, it just irritates me, and that sucks, because normally I enjoy her character, but I think it just works better as someone doing underhanded things to gain favor/get what she wants. If she’s running the show, she loses a lot of that appeal.

    Score: 4 for 5

    6. Taping a month of television in England is a good business move for TNA Wrestling.

    Chad Nevett: FICTION. One of the things that seemed to help TNA over the summer was doing Impact live. The lack of spoilers made the show seem more urgent and energetic. While the live crowd is always good for UK shows, those shows also tend to be weaker episodes of Raw, because they’re taped. Something is lost and having a whole month of that, especially when two episodes are taped in a single night, could result in some stiff, stilted episodes. It’s nice to see TNA trying to reward their British fans, but I think the product will suffer.

    Wyatt Beougher: FACT. Anything to get them away from the Impact Zone crowd, who are more interested in getting themselves over and “sticking it to” the WWE by saying everything is awesome than they are with responding even semi-appropriately to what’s going on during the show. If there was a way to watch Impact with only the crowd muted, I’d do it in a heartbeat. They think that they’re replicating the ECW crowd, but those knucklehead Philadelphians and Jerseyites allowed chants and things to develop organically (although they did immediately shit all over anything that they didn’t like), while their Orlando imitators are just coasting by on the same old tropes of mid-90’s crowd participation (with ROH’s now-decade-old dueling chants mixed in for “good” measure). As a result, the crowd reactions feel stagnant and canned, and Impact suffers as a result. Going to England, even if it’s just for a month’s worth of television, should do wonders to liven up the end product and that’s something TNA should never pass up.

    Score: 4 for 6

    7. Bully Ray will be TNA World Champion within the next twelve months.

    Chad Nevett: FICTION. If it was going to happen, it would have happened already. Maybe it will be a transition reign between two faces, but that seems like the only situation that makes sense. Ray’s real talent right now lies in making other guys look better. He’s fantastic on the mic, knows how to get the crowd to hate him, can work a decent match, and anyone who faces him and goes over, looks better for it. That sort of guy doesn’t need a world title. Like I said, using him to get a new face champion over and off to a good start seems like the only way he’ll get a title.

    Wyatt Beougher: FACT. Believe it or not, Bully Ray has been one of the bright spots for TNA over the past few months, and with the revelation that his long-time tag team partner is one of the key pieces of the Aces & Eights group that’s trying to take over TNA, it only makes sense that at some point, someone from Aces & Eights will win the title, and Bully Ray will be the one to win it back and regain TNA’s honor. Do I think Devon is going to be the one to win the title for A&8s? Probably not, but with the way TNA books things, you never know. Hell, who knows, maybe Bully Ray beats Hardy for the strap and reveals he’s been with A&8s the entire time? The only thing I know about TNA booking is that I know nothing about TNA booking.

    Score: 4 for 7

    8. Honey Boo Boo will appear in either WWE or TNA within the next twelve months.

    Chad Nevett: FACT. I hope not, but this is wrestling and James Cameron, sadly, did not actually raise the bar. If only…

    Wyatt Beougher: FACT. This was almost a Fiction for me, because I read an article about Honey Boo Boo’s family, and I don’t think her mom is really all that interested in trying to branch out and prolong her daughter’s fifteen minutes of fame. But then I think about the fact that Robbie E has already invited Alana to be a part of TNA, and I think that it’d probably surprise me if it DIDN’T happen. And really, when your guest “stars” are usually NASCAR drivers and baseball players that no one really cares about, having a tiny tyrant from a horrible TLC reality show isn’t really much of a step down…more like a step sideways.

    Final Score: 5 for 8

    Chad & Wyatt agree most of the time, but part ways when it comes to TNA & Sheamus. TNA & Sheamus are two controversial topics these days, so it doesn’t surprise me that much. Feel free to chime in with your opinions on these topics in our new & improved comment section! Thanks to Wyatt & Chad for participating, and we’ll be back next week with more Fact or Fiction!

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