wrestling / Columns

Watry Q&A: Total Divas Facts, Jinder Mahal Done, Internet Favorites, More

December 3, 2017 | Posted by Justin Watry
India Jinder Mahal WWE Smackdown 101717

“I have been reading your stuff on 411mania and nodq.com for the longest time now and I have never felt inclined to email in. The general consensus of you not being most popular is harsh at times but also can be well-founded too. But I still read your stuff because I do enjoy your articles and find your perspective interesting most of the time.

That said, your article about your friend Megan and trip to Wrestlemnaia was the greatest thing you have ever wrote. Forget about the predictions you brag about getting right. This is your crowning piece. Maybe it is because I can relate as going to Wrestlemania is my ultimate dream and it will be happening next year. But I genuinely loved your article.

Thank you for the great stuff.”

– Jay’s Ways reader

Backstory

Once a month, I reply to the comment section. No cuss words or insults allowed. This is from my November 2017 columns.

Previous Q&A

duh: Stock prices are not an accurate measurement of any business. They reflect how investors think a company is going to do going forward. For example, when they announced the WWE Network, the stock went up, but when the initial subscription numbers came in, the stock plummeted and Vince lost 350 million dollars in one day.

Saying the stock price proves Roman is the guy doesn’t make sense. They never talk booking on financial calls. The WWE business model is bigger than one wrestler

I am well aware. Unlike most, I actually listen to the lengthy (boring) conference calls and stay involved with the stock market to understand all of that. Here is the problem though.

Chicken and the egg. Which came first? We are both in agreement that WWE can survive and thrive without Hulk Hogan, Shawn Michaels, Stone Cold Steve Austin, John Cena, etc. Things change, rosters change, and everything evolves to stay current. However, we are also both in agreement that the company is making a profit right now and is posting record revenue numbers. Those are both facts, so there can’t be any argument.

All the while, you are stating that “Stock prices are not an accurate measurement of any business.”

Um, sure. I guess that means it is silly to compare the Disney stock price of $159 billion versus a stock like Enron which collapsed itself into bankruptcy worth pennies. One business is doing extremely well, and the other is a punchline due to various issues. Or in your mind – the stock price means nothing? All the while, fans (including yourself) want to point out Vince McMahon lost $350 million once their latest television deal was announced. That would certainly indicate the opposite effect.

Long story short, you can’t have it both ways. I sure saw a lot of celebrating when the stock plummeted. Yet, here it is doing amazingly well and now worth north of $2 billion…and it apparently means nothing. Right. We can debate Roman Reigns being THE GUY (which he is) all day long, but business is business, and with The Big Dog leading the charge, WWE is no longer a one billion company but a two billion dollar company.

As an aside, I hope people recall that their 2014 TV deal was the biggest ever in professional wrestling history. Still paying years later. The only reason the stock went down so much when the news was revealed was because of some ridiculous quotes and expectations from those within WWE and by the stock holders. The actual deal they received from NBCU was great and a MAJOR INCREASE from any TV contract ever seen before.

SashaBanks-GOAT: TL:DR It may not be an exact correlation with the show and who’s champ. However, you cannot deny that Total Divas has influenced the booking of the main roster women’s division.

I did read your entire comment, but it is way too long to post in its entirety. Sorry. Since you gave it an honest effort, here is the easy rebuttal:

Total Divas debuted in summer 2013.

AJ Lee held the title for nearly a year then – she never appeared on the show.

Paige won it from here – was NOT on the show until later seasons, which had ZERO to do with WWE story line and more for her boyfriend(s).

AJ Lee and Paige traded the belt back and forth for months – again, nothing to do with Total Divas.

Nikki Bella held the Divas Championship for nearly a year from November 2014 through September 2015 – she had improved a lot and was clearly the most ‘over’ female on the roster at the time. If you want to try and spin it into some sort of AJ Lee or Total Divas vendetta, go ahead, but I have already debunked that internet conspiracy theory many times with facts. Google that.

Charlotte won the Divas/Womens Title and held it for a long time – no correlation to the E! reality show at all. Earned her opportunity through NXT and has proven a million times her spot at the top of the division is well deserved.

Sasha Banks and Charlotte traded the belt back and forth – surely, Sasha is the star of Total Divas, right? Wrong. Not on at all.

Bayley – well, I mean she walked into WrestleMania 33 as the title holder. Obviously because of that pesky Total Divas! Oops, Bayley is not on the show either.

Alexa Bliss – if you want to say her spotlight is because of a reality show, you can live in your own fantasy world. History, as outlined above, proves that means nothing. Bliss has earned this chance and is doing a fine job.

Becky Lynch – first ever Smackdown LIVE Womens Champions? My, oh my. Talk about WWE showing favoritism for the Total Divas cast!!!!!!!! Wait, Becky isn’t on the show. Sorry.

Naomi – she is on Total Divas but again, that had nothing to do with her title victory. This was just WWE rewarding a girl who had been waiting for years to get a championship win. Not my cup of tea but whatever, good for her.

Natalya – as I write this, she is still champ for the blue brand. That is unlikely to last much longer but whatever. Total Divas surely is the reason…which might be true if it wasn’t for the fact that the reality show premiered in summer 2013, and it is now November 2017. Guess the writers were slow to realize Nattie was there or something. Who knows? In the event Nattie does soon drop the belt to Charlotte (which I suspect), that only furthers my point. Ms. Flair has ZERO to do with Total Divas right now and never has.

That was my point. Clear as day. If you want to whine over quick one and done feuds with Cameron or segments with Eva Marie and Lana, be my guest. Filler is filler. The actual WWE story lines and the Total Divas/Total Bellas ‘story lines’ are a world apart. Always have been.

Jinder Mahal As WWE Champ

Two Face: Short term, Kevin Owens makes the most sense as AJ Styles next challenger. That could easily cover the Royal Rumble SmackDown Title Match after Styles gets done with Mahal. They could even play into how Shane McMahon screwed Owens at SummmerSlam, with Owens claiming “AJ can’t beat me (and Sami Zayn) clean”.

Beyond that, Shinsuke Nakamura makes a ton of sense for WrestleMania. Not only would the fans want to see that match, but Nakamura could easily be a “dark horse” upset Rumble winner. The heavily rumored Reigns/Lesnar Mania program on RAW doesn’t need a Rumble win to establish itself.

Pretty much. WWE could extend the Jinder Mahal main event run to the Royal Rumble is they really wanted to get some mileage out of it. Hope not though. That can end in December. My only fear is the Kevin Owens/Sami Zayn thing is becoming too much like KO and Chris Jericho last year. In my opinion, that dragged. Hope more is in mind than the usual breakup and fight thing.

Nemesis_Hunter: Let’s just face it, Jinder will probably go down as the worst WWE Champion ever and will probably win 2017’s Most Overrated by a country mile (with Orton being the only person that could catch him). His promos were bad, he had a decent look, but his in-ring work perfectly describes Bruce Prichard’s “…And then the bell rang.” phrase in that everything decent he had collapsed when he to actually wrestle.

Over rated? That would imply there are those who rated him highly in the first place. I think many recognized his talent ‘level’ early on and while some improvements have been made, it was clear the WWE Championship deserved better. AJ Styles (in my opinion) was always going to make his way back to the top, so it was just a matter of time.

As for Randy Orton, his year sure fell off a cliff outta nowhere! Coincidentally, right when his feud with Mahal began. Strange. From a compelling feud with The Wyatts to winning the Royal Rumble to defeating Luke Harper to becoming WWE Champ at Mania to the House Of Horrors to losing to Mahal repeatedly to pointless Rusev RKOs to Aiden English matches on television.

Fact Or Fiction (Part One)

Justin Watry deserves to win this Fact or Fiction in a landslide.

#ThingsINeverThoughtIWouldWrite

#WonderfulThingsYouShouldHaveBeenWritingForNineYears

Whisker Biscuit: When did Watry become a decent writer with well thought out and written responses? Not bad.

Nine years ago when I started writing. You must have missed it. Or are you still stuck in 2006 and John Cena “can’t wrestle” or something or another?

i8mypants: FoF is one of the few articles i can’t wait for. suffice to say, it looks like i’ll be waiting a little bit longer. :/

Still waiting?

Trevon Burtch: Idk why WWE doesn’t bring back the hardcore division. Hardcore division matches were actually usually PG back in the day. A lot of people don’t realize that.

WWE Smackdown was always PG during the Attitude Era. As noted a million times, the actual television ratings has next to nothing to do with a product’s quality. I will take an excellent Disney/Pixar movie with great writing over a tawdry R rated slasher flick any day of the week. The Hardcore Championship and division just got…eh, pointless. The ladder matches, table matches, TLC matches, Heck on a Deck matches, etc. All of that happened with or without the Hardcore Title. By late 2001, the belt went to guys like Rob Van Dam, Jeff Hardy, and The Undertaker. Clearly, the purpose had lost its way by then. When summer 2002 hit with the brand split in full swing, it was just time to move on. Yeah, it was fun with Crash Holly and Steve Blackman but really, I don’t miss it. PG rating or not.

WWE Survivor Series 2017 Review

Ken Wood: I enjoyed SS but not as much as I enjoyed TLC and I enjoyed War Games more than TLC.

It is tough. I have flip flopped all week on the events. In the end, what does it matter? It doesn’t. NXT Takeover War Games was very entertaining, as was Survivor Series the next night. Houston got a stacked weekend of shows, and that continued with RAW and Smackdown Live. No reason to ‘rank’ them. Just enjoy the events we got and be thankful they are spoken of in a positive light.

That is really something to look back on as 2017 begins to wrap up. There was A LOT of wacky news stories this year in professional wrestling. All the apparent ‘rules’ have been thrown out the window. Anything that is supposedly NEVER happening will probably happen. I love that. What is lost in all of the backstage gossip and rumors is that the actual WWE product has been very good for the most part. Of course, we can all pick apart Jinder Mahal becoming a main event act and whine about Raw being three hours. On the WHOLE though, there was so much to like that it is awesome that back to back events in November only 24 hours apart were so good. Says a lot about 2017.

Fact Or Fiction (Part Two)

Charles: For me, it was a close call for three guys that elevated their stock in my eyes, primarily because I have never seen a lot from them. Those three are: Velveteen Dream (I have a feeling he’ll get called up within the year), Adam Cole (who I had heard great things about but never saw his previous work) and Killian Dane (I was very impressed with his agility since he has been protected ever since he’s been on tv).

Nothing from the new NXT Champion Andrade Almas? Dang, I know his big victory appears to be out of nowhere, but I actually made a strong case for him on why the title change makes all the sense in the world right now (on another website). The dude is NOT another Jinder Mahal. I’d certainly throw him in the mix for a person who elevated their stock. I mean, he is the top champion now, like it or not. As for the three you mention, agreed on all points. Good comment.

Stan W: IF wargames bored you then I genuinely don’t know why you watch wrestling at all. I can understand those who rated it lower than Black-Dream or Styles-Lesnar. But to call it boring is a straight up troll job.

Or that is just his opinion? I am not going to call War Games boring. That would be lying. However, I never cared for the gimmick and outside of the cool William Regal announcement, the entire thing got a big ‘meh’ out of me. Probably depended on if you loved WCW growing up or were an old school NWA fan. Otherwise, it was just a nine person spot fest with nothing on the line. I did enjoy it – don’t get it twisted, but I can see the other side of the coin too.

HellloooNewman: I hate it when I end up giving a click to anything done by Watry. If I had known he was involved, I wouldn’t have clicked.

To be fair, I didn’t even know I would be participating until the middle of the week when *somebody* no showed their assignment. Since I tend to boost Fact or Fiction numbers and have never missed a deadline in nine years, I got the call. There, a little behind the scenes nugget to ponder Mr. Seinfeld…

The Man With The Plan: The length of WWE network specials are actively putting me off re-upping, so adding more time to the rumble is off putting, but to not make it a monster, you’d have to present it as 2 rumbles and a match each for the WWE/Universal title and that’s it, I’m not spending my entire night watching a PPV

To those whining and complaining about why Starrcade was not on the WWE Network, here is the counter argument.

“Ugh. More content! Yet another ‘special’ from them? One week after Survivor Series, STUPID!!! Duh. It is TOOOOOO MUCH!!!!!”

Honestly, I get it…but that is still pretty weak. You do not have to watch. That is like saying there is too much content added every month on Netflix. Seriously, nobody is forcing you to watch every little thing. Guess what? I don’t care for Superstars, 205 Live, or whatever other BS is on the WWE Network, so I don’t watch. Problem solved. Silly to say all of that is putting you OFF re-upping. Zero logic there.

Mark Schoeman: Calling anything organic in a fictional world is beyond dumb: Anything I put on TV is meant to succeed, some will more than others, none are organic. I can decide Wargames is an annual event and I can either just throw teams together closer to the show or build up factions over the whole year, neither is organic…and always doing the latter will eventually feel just as forced as throwing teams together.

Hey Mark, hope all is well. Interesting debate about what is organic in a scripted environment. With everything planned out, isn’t everything forced? Nothing is truly organic. At the same time, some feuds/stars do tend to just kinda…happen. Lightning in a bottle type stuff. I don’t know. Feels like a full blown column topic for a later date. Like everything in this world, there is that grey area.

Thomas Stockel: Why all the Watry hate?

Beats me. Nine years running with a great track record, call myself out when wrong and always on time with columns. Strange.

Gerald Moniz: REALLY AWESOME edition this week guys, I truly enjoyed this read!!

Thanks. Loved reading your comment. Great doing Fact or Fiction in back to back weeks. Had a blast and is gearing me up for my long awaited podcast debut in a few weeks. Very excited to get my “voice” out there for the first time ever. A goal of mine in 2017, soon to be posted.

Our Favorites Are Guilty Too

Bobby: I didn’t enjoy this article, but not because the article was a bad idea, or that it was poorly written, or even because it was Watry. I didn’t really enjoy it because there wasn’t enough of it. Instead of one article covering every example you can think of, but not giving a single example enough time, I would rather this be a weekly (or monthly) article that would allow you to focus on one example each article and really go in depth.

Fair point. That is why I left so many names out of the column. Heck, just this past week gave us more examples. Lana said Natalya needs work on promos (likely just for Total Divas drama but whatever). We have ALL said that for years. Since it was Lana who said it though, she received backlash. Same opinion, different person, different reaction. Lana is right, regardless of her wrestling background. Then came Kurt Angle saying Braun Strowman could be as good as The Undertaker someday. Rumor (stress the word rumor there) last year had it Vince McMahon had similar thoughts about the big man. Yet, he was called a senile old man who is out of touch. Angle says the exact same thing in 2017 and now it is taken as truth? Makes sense. Meanwhile, WWE stock is now up to $2.22 BILLION as its’ market cap. Yep, out of touch old man that Vinny Mac…

I do like your suggestions. Maybe more columns to come later with added details?

Can I borrow your virginity?: To compare Gail Kim to Trish and Lita is so disrespectful.

Ask anybody respected in the industry who their top five women wrestlers of all-time are. Trish Stratus, Lita, and Gail Kim will be in the bunch right off the top. Then likely Victoria, Moolah, Mae Young, and the current crop of talented women with their legacies to still be written. No disrespect AT ALL.

Mark Schoeman: All of the above 100% true….but one obvious one is missing:

Whenever somebody panders to the IWC conventional wisdom (Punk was mistreated, Bryan held down, NJPW/Omega/Young Bucks are the “best”, etc) those people are telling the truth…but if somebody tries to insert a pin in the hardcore bubble (Reigns, like Cena before him, is a huge star, If WWE hated somebody they would not be on TV, etc) those people are sucking up to Vince, they’re sheep, they’re lying.

Oh, I have a lot of examples I didn’t use. Trust me. Yeah, lucky for me I just avoid NJPW, The Young Bucks, and Kenny Omega – not even going to bother with that debate.

David Ross: I find it hard to sympathise with somebody being paid six figures for ten minutes work moaning about their job.

Especially when said person claims it is NOT about the money but waits to “take a stand” just months before their three year contract is expiring. Hmm…had plenty of time to speak up before then…

MikeK.: How has owens been misused? Being picked as the guy by HHH? Holding the world title for several months? Main event matches at numerous PPV’s? Couple US title runs? Several mainstream feuds? His debut win over Cena? Now being singled out as the biggest heel on Smackdown? Poor guy. he’s basically a jobber.

Come on MIke! He came from the independent scene and is not a muscle guy, so he must be WWE World Champion every day of the year and win every match clean or else he is being mistreated by that mean old boss of his.

AG Awesome: Personally I just don’t agree with walking out immediately. Anyone can put their two weeks in but to walk out is just so selfish. You have co workers with families and bills to pay too that you’re hurting due to your ego.

I blame a lot of this in wrestling on lack of communication. And to be fair, I understand the work place can be tough and borderline impossible to deal with. But you’re being paid. If you don’t like it give your notice. The company will either address your concerns or grant your release. And if they don’t do one of the two, THEN you can walk out.

Pretty much, especially doing so on live television with a salary probably more than everybody else in the ring combined. I have long said that if CM Punk had just given his two week notice and left I would have looked at his situation in a much better light. He didn’t do that though, and well, here we are. For what it’s worth, I just switched jobs two months ago – I gave my boss a full month’s notice to give them time to figure out their next move and even offered to stay longer if need be. Face to face honest meeting that ended with a respectful handshake. Not that difficult.

MeanMrMustardMan: I still think the Sami/KO story was a work to be honest…

Fitting username.

kash 360: Well written man. The passes a wrestler gets for being an IWC favorite is crazy. Punk, Bryan, AJ, Owens… Those guys can do no wrong but the slightest story about HHH or John Cena and its war!

Basically, yeah.

VinnyMacDaddyBaby: Watry’s 411 column is the greatest column ever

Thanks. Truth be told, I thought my November 2017 columns were very solid. Without seeming like I am bragging, I thought it was a good month for me. Better than usual, hit my stride again. Here and elsewhere (on another website). Lots of good/interesting columns to read if you want to pass the time. That does it for me today. What does the next month hold you ask? Last year I wrote one column per day leading up to December 25th. I called it the 12 Days of Wrestle-mas. Not sure I have that in me again. Never say never though…

Podcast Debut Coming Soon!

If you have a question you want discussed, feel free to tweet/email/comment. Wrestling, television, movies, music, etc.

Cheap Plugs

Story behind NRW: https://noahwatry.tv/2017/07/09/the-lessons-of-backyard-wrestling/

Multiple columns posted weekly (on another website).

Follow on Twitter: @JustinWatry

Email: [email protected]

Thanks.