Worst finish ever

With WrestleMania just a few weeks away, there are pieces being written about past shows and which ones were great (as well as not so great).  There's also nonstop speculation about how this year's main event is going to end.  Now with a less than enthusiastic reception for the match itself (Roman Reigns challenging Brock Lesnar for the WWE title for those who haven't been tuning in lately) and for the man poised to win the title that night (Reigns), there's little chance that it's going to be remembered as one for the ages.  The only thing that could change that is if the finish delivers something more palatable to the crowd than Roman Reigns walking out as champion.  But whether some twist like Seth Rollins crashing the party with his Money in the Bank briefcase happens or we get a straightforward Reigns victory, I can guarantee you that the end result won't be as bad as the way the match I'm about to talk about went down.  This match was the biggest squandering of fan interest ever, and started a once proud company on it's road to ruin.  The match I'm talking about is:

Starrcade 97 - Sting vs Hollywood Hulk Hogan

             

This was supposed to be the big blowoff to what had been the hottest angle in wrestling since Hulkamania was running wild.  For over a year Hulk Hogan and the NWO had run roughshod over the entire WCW roster while Sting stayed away from it all, disgusted by his WCW mates losing trust in him.  Then in the fall of 1997 Sting returned with a new look and began doing run-ins to bail his former friends out of the group beatdowns that had become a weekly occurrence.  Everyone knew where it was headed, of course: a showdown between Sting and Hogan.  And for anyone who watched wrestling for more than five minutes knew, the finish was going to be obvious: Sting taking it to Hogan and ultimately beating him in the middle of the ring to win the championship and set the dismantling of the NWO.  But whether it was because Hogan's legendary refusal to job or just some bad work by the creative team what should have been a layup became a turnover.  Hogan hit his big move and then instead of Sting kicking out and demolishing Hogan we got a botched supposed to be fast count that wasn't very fast at all, and sloppily executed submission finish that would be invalidated the next night on Nitro and a rematch two months later that didn't end clean either.  This was the beginning of the end for WCW as they never got on track again.

The lesson here is that sometimes you have to do a clean, decisive finish.  Yes you have to start moving towards the next big event immediately afterward.  And yes, this was long after the day of loser leaves town matches where Hogan would have left the company or just been taken off of TV for six months.  Hogan would have had to come out the next night on TV a loser and done something to stay relevant going forward. But that's wrestling; the competition had done that very thing multiple times before so there's no reason they should have deviated from the tried and path here.  Sometimes the fans really do just want the straightforward storyline, and not some twist and turn laden enigma.  The ending to this match was the bastard child of Hogan's unwillingness to do a straight job to Sting (and again I'm assuming here - Hogan had creative control over his matches in WCW and had already used it in the past so it's not crazy to believe he employed it here) and the infamous Dusty finish - a finish employed by Dusty Rhodes where run-ins and rulebreaking would lead to a false finish where the good guy appears to win a title only to see it overturned shortly after.  I remember watching the show with a group of friends and when it was over we were all like 'really?'

And like I said earlier they never recovered.  At the time of the show they were regularly doubling up Monday Night RAW in the ratings, but the WWE was starting to right it's ship as they fully embraced the Attitude Era.  A strong effort was needed in order to keep from losing any major ground and they totally screwed the pooch here.  The end result was a show that came off looking really lame next to what the WWE was doing and made it clear that Eric Bischoff was not in Vince McMahon's league.  From there the downward spiral started and never ended.  The NWO as a faction and a storyline was kept going and going when it should have been wound down over the next year.  Invasion angles aren't hard to transition from, really.  Once the outside group has been vanquished you simply come up with an avenue to transfer them over to the main roster and keep it moving.  But their inability or unwillingness to do that led to the same people dominating the main event scene long after they after some new people should have been cycled in and the product looking very stale next to the WWE's new stars in Stone Cold Steve Austin and the Rock.  Within a year the war was for all intents and purposes over.  So a finish can erase tons o f goodwill in one fell swoop, or restore it just as quickly.  It'll be interesting to see if the WWE takes that kind of gamble this year and sends Rollins in with the briefcase to change the end result of WrestleMania 31.

Fastlane to WrestleMania 31!

That's the image that closed the show at WWE Fastlane on Sunday night, Daniel Bryan congratulating Roman Reigns on his victory in the main event and his looming title match with Brock Lesnar.  That match is taking place much to the chagrin of many fans, as they wanted Bryan to prevail and move on the face Lesnar.  There are legit reasons beyond just being a fan of Bryan to want him in there instead of Reigns, but at this point barring some switchup in the next few weeks it looks like that's going to be the title match.  Now I will be the first one to say that a Bryan-Lesnar match or a three-way with Bryan joining Reigns and Lesnar will be much better than what it appears we're going to get.  I totally agree that Reigns is not ready to carry the load in the ring like Bryan, John Cena, Seth Rollins, or Dolph Ziggler can.  The match between Reigns and Bryan was very good, and that was all Bryan's doing.  Anyone who's been watching for a long time can tell when a real pro like Bryan is leading the way in a good match.  Reigns and Lesnar are two guys who need to be led through a good match, so having them together in an one on one match probably won't result in a Match of the Year candidate.  Do I think they can put together something decent?  Yes.  Neither man is Sid Vicious or Goldberg; you haven't seen bad until you've been subjected to a series of matches involving either of them.  Vicious may have wrestled two very good matches in his entire career, both against Shawn Michaels, and Goldberg never had one, not even against Bret Hart.  However this match turns out it won't be as that bad.

The real reason it seems that people are anti-Reigns is not any personal dislike towards him but because he's not ready.  I get that, but Vince McMahon doesn't think that way.  If you want to see what things look like with great workers who don't look like Supermen at the top of the company there's an era for you - the New Generation Era.  That's when Hart and Michaels ruled the roost and worked against each other a lot when they weren't carrying Vicious, Kevin Nash, and others to good matches.  It's also a time when the company didn't make as much money and became ripe for the beating they would get from rival WCW that necessitated the Attitude Era.  If you're Vince McMahon you don't want to go back there, and Daniel Bryan probably reminds you more of that era than he does of the Hulkamania Era, the Attitude Era, or even the John Cena era.  When it comes to picking someone as the face or co-face of the company Vince has always wanted someone who could transcend the wrestling business and cross over into movies, television, etc and while Roman Reigns may not be that guy he has a better chance of doing it than Bryan does.  Nobody's casting Daniel Bryan in a movie or TV show. 

Now you might think that's a bad way to do business, but Vince would likely point you to the evidence of history.  The New Generation Era has more than it's share of good ring work, but it's the one period Vince would gladly give back if he could.  The realty is that the ring work matters but it's only one aspect of things.  On the same show where people bemoaned the Reigns victory there was a lot of Twitter anticipation of the Bray Wyatt-Undertaker match that's going to happen at WrestleMania 30.  Now if you're complaining about workrate re: Reigns and Lesnar but are drooling over the prospect of Bray Wyatt getting in the ring with the Undertaker.....just stop already.  Really, just stop.  I hope Vince puts Bryan in the main event so we an have a better match, but even if that happens then what?  You gonna have Bryan win again in the same fashion as last year?  Doubt it.  Bryan wins, and then Seth Rollins cashes in Money in the Bank the same night?  Possible.  Reigns goes over?  Won't stop the booing from Bryan fans and then you sill have to do he Rollins cash-in by July.  If I was writing it I would have kept Bryan out until after WrestleMania and then you could have had Reigns go over without someone around that a vocal group of fans prefer to poo poo it.  But that ship has sailed.  Bryan is back, and lots of people want him to win it again but I just don't see that happening. 

The next Black world champion is.......

                                                 

With it being Black History Month there are sure to be some tributes out there and lists of the best black wrestlers in pro wrestling history.  The WWE does tributes every year during this month on their broadcasts and their website, and there are other sites and blogs that will do the same.  So I'm posing a different topic here: who is likely to be the next black wrestler to become the WWE Champion?  OK, the answer's pretty simple right now: no one.  To be honest, there's no one on the current roster who has any real chance of rising to that level.  Kofi Kingston, Xavier Woods, R-Truth?  Nope.  Titus O'Neal?  Heck no.  Big E Langston?  I won't say never but it sure doesn't look like it right now.  This shouldn't come as a surprise; there are usually no more than a handful of black wrestlers on the WWE roster at any given time and when you factor in how hard it is to climb that ladder in general the odds of there consistently being a black wrestler who has the chops to ascend to champion aren't very good.  The last one was The Rock and he was almost finished before he got started thanks to the horrendous booking he got after his debut.  Only after he and the booking committee course corrected and he became the biggest star in the business.

   

That's been the case for most of wrestling history; even when there were multiple top shelf companies the number of black world champions was pretty scant.  The NWA/WCW had Ron Simmons and Booker T, the WWF/WWE had The Rock, and.......that's it.  Of the WWE's present day competitors TNA has Bobby Lashley, and none before him.  Is it racism?  Yes and no.  Wrestling history is littered with stereotypical roles for most of it's nonwhite performers (and plenty of it's white ones, too, to be fair) so it's been extremely difficult for any black wrestler to progress beyond any comedic or middle of the card roles.  And until not too long ago, that was almost entirely by design. In the 80s we had to endure the likes of Koko B. Ware and the Junkyard Dog, jive talking cartoon characters who had zero chance of ever being taken seriously enough to become champion.  And even more solemn, serious characters like Simmons ran into a glass ceiling for most of their careers.  Today we still have clownish characters like R-Truth and guys intentionally stuck in the midcard like Kingston, whose yearly highlight is a miraculous escape from elimination in the Royal Rumble (which is soon followed by his actual elimination).  And in between we had Booker T, who straddled the fence between the jive talkers of the 80s and more serious characters like Simmons during his WCW run.

 

So for right now things look pretty bleak on the championship front.  Looking at recent history the biggest opportunities came when there was a void of sorts at the top.  Simmons won the WCW title almost on a whim when champion Vader needed an opponent because Sting was occupied with short-timer Jake Roberts.  The Rock got in as the corporate champion to set up Steve Austin's reclamation of the title at WrestleMania XV, and got over so much that they kept him at the top.  Booker T became champion of WCW in it's dying days when they were trying whatever they could to get attention and their biggest names were choosing not to work much.  The likelihood that the one remaining major company in the business will be in such dire straits that such a window will open is very small, at least for the current members of the roster.  Maybe if Lashley comes back over to the WWE fold, but other than that forget about it.

Some stuff I noticed watching WWE Network

The other day I was home alone for a few hours so I took the opportunity to do some targeted WWE Network viewing.  For the millionth time, you can't get a better deal so if you're into wrestling I can't recommend it too much.  Even if you don't watch it now it's worth it for the archives, they have major matches from every organization that mattered, save TNA.  So I decided to take a look at a few matches featuring one Stone Cold Steve Austin, and live tweeted the experience (You can check out my storified tweets here.)  The matches hat made up Austin's rise to top dog in the WWE (then WWF) serve as a good point of reference for the decisions that are being made today.  No, I'm not trying to say that Roman Reigns is the next Austin.  Of course not.  But here are a few things to remember:

• Austin's run almost ended before it began - The Austin character really began to take off in 1997, but he still didn't mature into the Monday Night War winning force that he eventually became until a year later.  And he almost didn't get the chance.  In August of 1997 at Summerslam Austin took a bad bump from an Owen Hart piledriver and suffered a severe neck injury.  Watching that match, you can see that it's fortunate his career survived as long as it did afterward.  The finish had to be performed almost entirely by Hart as Austin could barely move enough to do to very weak rollup that got him the win in the match.  It was one of those endings that anyone who'd been watching wrestling for a while knew was due to a legit injury.  The other thing that's important is to watch how Austin worked before the piledriver; his moveset was significantly more varied (he did a powerbomb during this match, something you never saw from him after) and the level of bumps he could take diminished every bit as much.  For context go back and watch his match against Bret Hart from Survivor Series 1996; you'll see the same level of variance between what he did then vs after he came back.

 

• He almost couldn't go after he came back - His first match was another match against Owen Hart; almost a do-over of sorts from the Summerslam match.  It was not a good match, and it looked like something you'd run for a guy who was retiring immediately afterward.  It was over in under 10 minutes, absurdly short for somebody with the athletic ability and stamina of Owen Hart.  Austin's offense consisted of punches, kicks, and a Stone Cold Stunner.  It was a foreshadowing of what was to come; Austin's greatest career feat was being able to take that punch-kick repertoire and turn it into something that could give us entertaining 20 minute main event matches a year later.    Watching this match explains everything that went once Austin was champion.  His title defenses in 1998 were against Mick Foley, the Undertaker, and Kane - brawlers whose offense mostly could be done against a opponent who was standing up or laying prone.  Austin's style also made it easier for one Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson to rise to prominence.  Austin's first matches after finishing with Owen Hart were with the Rock, and they would hook up again a year later leading up to and in WrestleMania 15.   Rock had a style that meshed well with Austin and the extra flair he added to his pretty basic movset and selling of Austin's offense made for a ideal dance partner. 

• WrestleMania 14 was a nail-biter - And not in the way you'd think.  It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that the main event was Austin's coronation, minus an urban legend that Shawn Michaels notorious penchant for not jobbing when the mood hit put things in jeopardy and the Undertaker was ready backstage to pound him if he acted up.  But given that Austin was only a few months away from not being to work more than a brief match and that Michaels had suffered a severe back injury himself at the Royal Rumble (one that would keep him out of action for the next five years) there was a real chance that a bad bump could have left the company without it's best performer and it's new star.  That didn't happen of course, but that had to leave Vince McMahon scarred in a way that leaves rally apprehensive about putting his eggs in the Daniel Bryan basket. Bryan is almost 35 (not old but an age where an injury history can start catching up to you), just missed over half a year due to injury, and employs a pretty dangerous style in the ring.  Entrusting him as the guy to share top billing with John Cena and maybe  even move ahead of him in the short run isn't a sure a thing as some folks would have you think.

• Running off Bret Hart was the right move - The Montreal Screwjob is a day that lives in wrestling infamy, but the decision to move Hart out of the burgeoning Attitude Era was the right choice.  Not only was he lacking the personality to captivate an audience during the direction that the company was about to embark on - he was never exciting on the mic as a face and wasn't willing or able to engage in the sophomoric act that Degeneration X made famous - his in-ring style wouldn't have been a good fit for Austin post-injury.  Taking the barrage of suplexes and submission holds that Bret utilized would have been hell for someone with Austin's fragile neck and spine at that point.  Bret was indeed the odd man out so it made sense to let him go.  That doesn't excuse how it happened, but hindsight is 20/20 of course.

So that's what I figured out in one afternoon of WWE Network viewing. 

It's never organic

So here we are almost a week later and the fans ire over Roman Reigns Royal Rumble victory and seemingly inevitable WrestleMania victory over Brock Lesnar has not died down.  I've already talked about this some but I feel the need to address one more part of this.  The organic part.  What am I talking about?  Well, one of the main arguments people have had against Reigns push was that it's been forced on them as opposed to more organic ascensions like those of icons past.  And I just have to call bs on that.  Very little of what goes on in the entertainment world is organic, and last year's fan revolt that put Daniel Bryan over the top was an exception, not the rule.  No matter how hard you cheer at a pay per view or house show, you're still rooting for someone who was put in front of you by.....wait for it........Vince McMahon.  Must I run through the list of WWF/WWE top dogs to set you straight?  Apparently so, so here it is.

Hulk Hogan was already over based on his look and natural charisma, and he had name recognition beyond the wrestling world thanks to his cameo in Rocky III as Thunderlips, then he came back to McMahon's company right when he was looking to expand nationally.  That push was happening no matter what anybody said, and given that Verne Gagne had the chance to make the exact same move a year earlier and opted to stop short of putting AWA belt on him, it's pretty clear that Hogan embodied what promoters were looking for at the time and was not rising because some cool kid faction of fans pushed for it.  The character of Stone Cold Steve Austin was pitched at a time when the WWF was getting pounded by WCW on Monday nights and Vince needed a Hail Mary pass to get back in the race. The persona fit perfectly with the direction Vince was going to take the company in with the Attitude Era so it was approved.....by Vince McMahon.  When Rocky Maivia did not get over a decision was made to embrace the hatred being shown by the fans and go with it.  That decision was made in a board room by Vince McMahon before any fans were clamoring for it. 

What am I getting at here?  Basically, that these decisions about who does and doesn't become a big star are rarely made in the stands, or blog posts or message boards.  There was no golden age of star picking.  The people in charge make decisions based on what they think will work, and that's based on history and sales figures.  I remember how many people were happy when Hulk Hogan lost to the Ultimate Warrior because we finally had a face champion other than Hogan, and how half of those happy people didn't support their new champion like they did the man he beat.  I remember how Bret Hart, and then Diesel and then Shawn Michaels did not draw well as champions even though it was supposed to be so great to have workers who could do more than punches, bodyslams, and a legdrop at the top.  I bet Vince McMahon remembers that too, and that colors any decision made about one Daniel Bryan just like it did with Punk.

Look, I get it.  You like Bryan more than Reigns, and you want Bryan to get a title run that explores every possible angle more than any coronation of the next Superman.  But that just isn't how the business works.  The men at the top want Superman.  It's easier to book Superman vs a parade of bad guys than the little engine that could, and Superman will always have the potential to branch out into mainstream entertainment and raise the overall profile of the company.  Daniel Bryan is never doing that, sorry.  Vince McMahon has always seen himself as a competitor to Disney, not some other wrestling company.  That was true whether the opposition was Jim Crockett, Verne Gagne, or Ted Turner, and it's true today.  Same as it ever was.

(Some) WWE Fans are stupid

Get over yourselves already

Things took a real turn for the stupid in the hours following the Royal Rumble.  It's one thing to not like the choice of Roman Reigns to win the Rumble, and you're more than entitled to boo if you're in the building.  But blocking people from getting to their cars after they worked their butts off to entertain you because you don't like the way the show they worked was written?  That's a bush league move at best.  And trying to drop your WWE Network subscription is even more stupid.  As much as I believe the booking for the Rumble match was bad I was still entertained by the show.  And that's pretty much what matters.  It's a show, not life or death.  It's not your job, where someone you didn't want getting a promotion might end up costing you money or advancement.  It's not like you applied for college or a loan and got turned down so someone you think is less deserving could get it.  Do you react this way with everything else you watch on TV or in a movie?  If you wanted Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia to get together would you have turned off the movie and never watched a Star Wars flick again after it was revealed they were siblings?    Did you leave your parents house never to return when you were 12 if they didn't buy you something you wanted?  I'm betting the answer to both is no.  You don't always get the story result you want, but what matters is that the story or the show entertains you. 

Let me take you back to the late 80s NWA.  A lot of fans wanted for Lex Luger to beat Ric Flair for the championship, and it never happened.  They didn't like it then, but years later it would all be explained.  Luger wasn't a good enough worker to be the champ and have to go night in and night out against all kinds of opponents.  Flair made him look great in their matches but being champ means you have to be the one to make people look great and Luger wasn't up to that.  Another example I'll give you is Sid Vicious, or Psycho Sid to WWE fans.  Sid was an impressive physical specimen, and as a result there was constant clamoring for him to be put at the top of the card and challenge for big things.  It never happened; Sid was constantly put in tag team matches or quick squashes and didn't get much of a chance to do anything in WCW.  Again, we found out later why that was.  When he did get to work some big solo matches in the WWF later on.....he was terrible unless he had Shawn Michaels to bump and sell for him.  Try watching Sid vs The Undertaker from WrestleMania 13; if you think Roman Reigns is a bad in ring worker, you clearly have not had the full Sid Vicious/Psycho Sid experience.  In either case had the fans gotten what they wanted the results wouldn't have been so good.

 

Now the situation with Daniel Bryan is different.  In Bryan's case it is really just upper management (aka Vince McMahon) not feeling he is up to the standard of being Face of the Company.  He wants, and has always wanted somebody like.....Roman Reigns.  It's why he never really committed to Bret Hart or Michaels after Hulk Hogan was done, and why there were the constant attempts to go with Luger or Diesel during that time.  It's why he's clung to John Cena and didn't want to go all in with CM Punk.  It is what it is.  He could very well be making the wrong choice, but that doesn't warrant a full on abandonment by the fanbase.  If you like wrestling, and want to see the best overall product, then you have one option: the WWE.  Now if your issue is that it's not as good as it was back in the day then I've got news for you.  Go watch some WWF TV from the 1980s.  And if you're talking about the vaunted Attitude Era, if you haven't dumped your subscription yet go watch some of those awesome RAW episodes from back then.  Watch Mae Young give birth to a hand.  Go watch the Val Venis vignettes or the Oddities or the payoff to the Higher Power angle.  Watch Vince and company botch what could have been the easiest money making storyline ever - the Invasion. The good old days weren't always so good, folks.

Now that doesn't excuse the awful booking of the Rumble match on this year's show.  The fan favorites were all buried early except for Dean Ambrose and even he got dumped quickly when it got down to the final four.  There's no reason to waste two final four spots on Kane and Big Show.  Bryan shouldn't have come in at number 10 just to get dumped less than 20 minutes later.  Ziggler shouldn't have been held until number 30.  No reason to even have Curtis Axel come out just to get jumped by Luke Harper.  No point in having a faux elimination for Rusev just so he can get tossed at the end anyway.  Why even bother with Titus O'Neil?  But one badly booked match doesn't mean you throw the baby out with the bath water.  We watch this stuff to be entertained, and that doesn't always mean it's going to get written the way you want it to.  Sometimes it will be written badly.  My other big subjects on the blog here, comics and movies are perfect examples.  When a bad comic book movie gets made we don't stop asking for more.  Same with a bad issue of a comic series or a bad video game.  We don't stop listening to music because of a few bad releases or because an artist we don't personally like gets blown up.  So just pipe down a little.  You can protest by not watching WrestleMania if they don't make changes, but getting out entirely is a bit much.

Royal Rumble Recap - Oh Boy We Have a Problem

Royal Rumble is in the books, and for the second year in a row the live crowd was not feeling the end result.  Roman Reigns did not get booed as badly as Batista did last year but he did hear it from a house that wanted Daniel Bryan to take the victory here.  And to make matters worse, Bryan came in and got tossed pretty early and once that happened the boos began to come down.  Then later on the two other guys who they could have lived with, Dolph Ziggler and Dean Ambrose, got tossed.  When Ambrose got eliminated leaving Reigns with no-hopers Kane and Big Show it was clear what the end would be and the fans reacted accordingly.  It's not Reigns fault and he's been put in a real bad spot.  Bryan never got to see his run as champ come to any meaningful conclusion due to his injuries, and the fans wanted to get the win at the Rumble then WrestleMania so he could get that chance.  But clearly, Vince McMahon had other ideas.  My guess is that he didn't see repeating last year's finish with a man he doesn't want on top anyway as the right way to go.  When I watched the Rumble and how it shook out, I didn't think of Vince McMahon.  No, I thought of this guy:

Yes, Eric Bischoff.  Why?  Because of the way the internet fan darlings got treated.  Bischoff coined the term 'Vanilla Midgets' to denigrate certain WCW wrestlers who'd developed a pretty strong following but weren't his guys, and parked them all in the midcard without letting any of them so much as sniff a main event.  You may have heard of some of these guys; the midgets were none other than Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guererro, and a few others like Dean Malenko.  And no matter how they got themselves over in the ring or on the mic they all hit a glass ceiling.  The modern equivalents of this are Dolph Ziggler, Bryan, and it looks like Dean Ambrose.  Ziggler gets jerked around with the Intercontinental Title and usually takes an L if he's put in with a big name.  Ambrose blew up last summer but has jobbed on pay per view shows to Seth Rollins and Bray Wyatt for four straight.  And Bryan, despite his successes, seems to get slapped down whenever McMahon feels he can get away with it.  Last night was no different.  Bryan came in at number 10 and wasn't around long.  Ziggler came in at number 30 but was gone in about 10 minutes.  And Ambrose made it to the final four but was the first one to go.  Reigns on the other hand is the guy who was anointed by Vince a year ago and by god he's going to make it happen by hook or by crook. So now we're looking at a potential repeat of the run up to last year's WrestleMania where the presumptive challenger to the tile is someone the fans just flat out don't want

All that being said, the show was a good one.  The pre-show tag team match and the tag team title matches were good.  The Divas tag team match wasn't bad, and the Triple Threat WWE World Championship match was freaking awesome.  Seth Rollins certified himself as a main event in ring talent last night, and the flying elbow onto Brock Lesnar on the table followed by the Phoenix splash onto Cena in the ring were two of the craziest spots I've seen in a long time.  That match alone was worth whatever you paid for it, the $9.99 monthly fee for the Network or the pay per view price.  That match is why you watch wrestling in the first place and should not be negated because you didn't get the Royal Rumble winner you wanted.  I'm sorry but I refuse to go on a "I hate Vince McMahon...I'm done!" rant after seeing that title match.  They have two months to turn WrestleMania into something all the boo-birds want to see, and guessing they will one way or another.  If you can't bring yourself to soak in he awesomeness of that Phoenix splash from Seth Rollins then I don't know what to tell you.  That doesn't mean you should accept the result of the final match going forward, though.  By all means make your voices heard and get it changed.  Hey, it worked last year.

How I saw Randy Savage

If you were watching RAW Monday night you saw the announcement that Randy "Macho Man" Savage would be posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.  You saw several WWE wrestlers pay tribute by giving their version of Savage's trademark "Ohhh Yeahhh!"  And you may have seen Savage as a member of the NWO in the late 90s.  But if you weren't watching back during the 80s, you just have no idea how great he was.  So what did Randy Savage mean to people like me?  If you started watching wrestling during the Monday Night Wars and the Attitude Era, you really have no idea.  By that point Savage was living off his name more than his current in ring work.  If you really want to see what he was about you need to go back to 1985, when he first landed in the WWF after leaving Jerry Lawler’s Memphis territory.  In the ring he was captivating.  It was hard for 11 year old me to tell whether he was a good guy or bad guy because the reactions he got were that favorable.  His matches on the Saturday morning shows, which were chock full of squash matches against professional jobbers with promos for house shows in between, were the highlight of the show.  The top dogs at the time (Hulk Hogan, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Andre the Giant) did not wrestle on these shows so an appearance by someone with the in ring repertoire of Savage was must-see TV.  Vince McMahon and his top men knew they had something special because they put him in main events against Hogan for the title within months of his arrival and put the number two belt, the Intercontinental Title, on him after he’d been around for just eight months. 

The way he came out of those matches with Hogan was pretty telling.  Save Roddy Piper, Hogan’s opponents usually went out like action movie villains in that by the end of the program they were vanquished in such fashion that there wasn’t any real desire to see them challenge for the belt again.  Not so with Savage; he came out smelling like roses to such an extent that some fans actually preferred him as a performer.  And this was in 1986 at the height of Hulkamania, not 1991 when it was on its last legs.  It was like a guest rapper or duet partner outshining the main artist in a performance, and part of the audience wanting them to stay on while the star exited stage left.  For the next few months he carried George “The Animal” Steele, a comedy act and rudimentary performer at best, to some decent matches for the I-C title before striking gold in a program with another great in-ring worker, Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat.  The two put on an epic series of matches culminating in a show stealer at WrestleMania III that outshone the once in a lifetime main event of Hogan vs Andre the Giant.  For fans of good technical wrestling, Savage was a breath of fresh air compared to the majority of the WWF roster. 

When Savage turned good guy in late 1987, he again brushed up against the threshold of being as popular as Hogan, and it was proven when he was chosen to win the WWF Championship at WrestleMania IV in order for the company to have a champion while Hogan was off shooting a movie.  But from there, it was largely downhill.  Unlike 11 year old me, 14 year old me was able to discern pretty quickly that Savage’s title win was a set up for Hogan to get the title back at WrestleMania V the following year.  For all intents and purposes he was a high level plot device in the ongoing Hogan story.  When the two formed the tag team the Mega Powers it was fairly obvious that Savage would turn on Hogan in time to set up a big match at WrestleMania V.  Once that was done, he would reach those heights again.  He spent the year after WrestleMania V losing rematches to Hogan while winning the Crown, a pseudo-title the company made up largely to have something else to have contested in matches that didn't involve the World or I-C titles.  Under the moniker Macho King he spent whatever days he wasn't busy jobbing to Hogan carrying limited and/or older workers like Hacksaw Duggan and Dusty Rhodes in the main event of B-level live shows.  A seemingly final program with the Ultimate Warrior saw him carry another limited worker to some great matches culminating in a loss in a retirement match at WrestleMania VII.  

There was a last WWF hurrah of sorts when he came out of retirement to take on Jake the Snake Roberts and work a program against Ric Flair that saw him capture the title again, this time without Hogan around to overshadow him.  But even with the Hulkster gone the company still would not make him the number one guy.  By this point, in 1992, the company was looking to move on so Savage's second run with the belt wouldn't last very long.  Flair would regain the title from him a few months later in order to transition it to the new big name, Bret Hart.  The less said about his time in WCW the better.  He spent those years living off his name and putting in the occasional good match here or there but was a shell of his former self.  It was too bad, really.  Had there been an internet in 1986 his career, as great as it was, may have been even greater.  With YouTube videos for the world to see his Memphis work before his WWF arrival, a schedule of live television and pay per view events (where he could have riffed his way through promos in a way that Hogan's cookie cutter act wouldn't allow), and fans that were willing to head to these events and rain boos down on any  events they didn't approve of, Savage very well could have shared or overtaken Hogan on the WWF totem pole.  The men compared the most to Savage, CM Punk and Daniel Bryan, were able to ride all of those and force the company to give them the spotlight and victories over the Hogan of today, John Cena.  But Randy came of age about 25 years too early to capitalize.  

When you get a chance, if you have the WWE Network (still only $9.99!) go check out some of his best work.  You won't be disappointed.  He was truly one of the best ever. 

Who should take down Brock Lesnar?

As we head into 2015 and the Royal Rumble upon us, the big question is who will end up facing and ultimately defeating Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 31 to become the new champion?  Will it be old faithful (you know who), the anointed one (Roman Reigns), one of the new favorites (Dean Ambrose or Seth Rollins), or one of the people's champions (Daniel Bryan or Dolph Ziggler)?  There are reasons for each one to get the shot and for each one to be denied.  Let's run through them, shall we?

Roman Reigns

Reigns got on the fast track as soon as the crowd openly wished for him to win last year's Rumble instead of Batista when they were the final two, and his performance in that match was an obvious indicator that he is the future.  You put him in the match and give him the victory because you want him to be the man.  He looks the part and his limitations in the ring are more along the lines of the Rock than someone like Sid Vicious.  He can work a good match with the right dance partner, but you can't ask him to carry someone like Ryback for 15 minutes.  So why shouldn't they go with him?  The backlash potential is huge here.  In the second half of the year, when it became obvious what kind of push he was getting, some dissatisfaction began to surface among the fanbase because of the old 'don't force this guy down our throats' philosophy.  And even though those people are the same types who will demand someone be made champ and then not support them after they get the title, they are vocal and will show up at RAW or a pay per view event just to rain boos down on management's choice and will write troll commentary on their own blogs or in the comment sections of other people's work.  These are the same people who hate John Cena but when you ask them for a good reason why, they got nothing other than 'feelings'.  But if the performer they're trashing doesn't have a strong enough base of support they infect the rest of the fans.  Having Reigns win the Rumble and beat Lesnar will incur the wrath of these fans more than any other decision the company could make right now so it might be a wise move to hold off that for  little while longer.

Dean Ambrose

Ambrose is on a roll with the fans over the last few months, positioning himself as a 2014 Steve Austin-style rebel.  An Ambrose title shot and victory would not piss anyone off, and he can absolutely work well enough with anyone to carry the championship mantle in the ring.  There are two problems. One, he doesn't exactly look like he could take an imposing figure like Lesnar straight up.  And two, will he be able to generate the kind of post-WrestleMania support needed to be the face of the company even for a short time?  I just can't picture a world where kids and their parents go to see Ambrose headline a house show like they do with John.  And what happens when you have that May pay per view where the champ has a foregone conclusion title defense against someone like Mark Henry or the Big Show?  Can he sell that kind of show?  Your guess is as good as mine.

Daniel Bryan

Bryan already proved he can headline a WrestleMania, and a chance to do it again and get the post-event period right would be a big hit with the fans I'm guessing.  But given that he's been out for several months his ongoing health is a real issue that can't be ignored going forward.  Another title win followed by another serious injury would be a major setback for the company and you just don't want to risk that again. 

Seth Rollins

Rollins is as hot as a heel as Ambrose is on the face side, but him getting the shot would require a face turn that makes zero sense given his current position.  A Money in the Bank cash-in right after a victory by someone else is a remote possibility, but to end the big show of the year with a heel winning the title and in that kid of way is a departure from conventional wisdom that we're not likely to see.

Dolph Ziggler

Dolph is another people's champ like Bryan, and I do think he could deliver in the post-event period.  The only thing holding him back is management, really.  You just get the feeling that they don't see him as main event material despite all the great work he's put in over the last three years. 

John Cena

We know why not, but why would you?  Because he's reliable. Period.  If you want a sure thing who can carry the load until Summerslam he's your man. 

Undertaker

Now this is my bit of longshot fantasy booking.  Having him come back to avenge his only WrestleMania loss then retire as champ would be a great storyline in my opinion.  You can play up the over the hill angle the whole way up to the match for added drama, too.  The only reason not to do it would be that the match itself would not be very good.  Take out the shocking finish and last year's match was nothing to write home about.  You would have to book a killer show underneath it or else you could be looking at a checked out crowd for real.  

Randy Orton

This would only happen if you're going to do the Rollins cash-in.  It seems like Rollins and Orton should have some kind of feud going on once Orton gets back based on what last happened between the two on RAW.  So an Orton win followed by a Rollins cash-in to add some heat to it would be interesting.  Without the cash-in, forget it.  Orton has been tried as champion and did not draw.

So those are my ideas.  If I was in charge I'd go with the Undertaker.  And when he surrenders the title and calls it a career you can move forward with the future in some kind of tournament.  But that's just me.

The CM Punk Interview

So.....the CM Punk podcast interview is all the rage this week.  If you missed it, Punk basically crapped all over Vince McMahon, Triple H, and the company in general.  He gave a terrible story about how lousy the WWE attending physician was with one of his injuries, complained about how he got paid for WrestleMania 29, what they wanted him to do for WrestleMania 30, dumped all over Ryback, and called his own career a disappointment because he never main evented WrestleMania.   How you received this depends a lot on what you thought of Punk to start with.  If you're a "CM Punk is awesome in everything he does!" guy then this interview was a major dose of well earned righteous indignation from a man who was repeatedly done wrong by WWE management.  If you're a Punk hater then this was 100 sour grapes that may not even be all that believable.  If you're somewhere in the middle like me, you saw some of it as spot on and some of it as sour grapes.  What do I think about the big points:

The Doctor Issue

Now this is one area, maybe the only area, where I will totally side with Punk no matter what anyone else has to say on the matter.  In short, Punk was misdiagnosed by the in-house doctor with what turned out to be MRSA.  The doctor was only giving him basic antibiotics and those weren't helping so he went to another doctor who told him he had MRSA and "should be dead".  There is no excuse for this kind of thing to happen.  This is obviously just another case where you should know that the team/company doctor is not your friend.  He works for the team or company and not for you; his or her job is not to get you healthy so much as to get you working again.  Punk was right to do what he did, and would have had every right to sue had he chose.

WrestleMania 30

One of the things that pissed him off was that at WrestleMania 30 he was supposed to work with Triple H, which he absolutely did not want to do.  From Buzzfeed, here's how it supposedly went:   

Punk reportedly told Triple H, “With all due respect, I do not need to wrestle you. You need to wrestle me. I do not want to wrestle you. I seriously resent you for not putting me over three years ago when you should have. That would’ve been best for business. But you had to come in and squash it… I’m in a position now where I can tell you that I don’t have to, nor do I want to wrestle you.”

He told Cabana in the interview, “I don’t care if I was supposed to win (which I was). I didn’t care. I didn’t want to give him the fucking privilege.”
 
Now we all know Triple H was once notorious for not putting people over, except for when it suited him.  For Punk to still be pissed off over a match result from three years ago is a bit much, though.  Before the famed Summer of Punk in 2011, Punk was very much running into a glass ceiling at every turn.  His World Title reigns ended due to injury angles and the company wanting the title on someone else to put a storyline over.  There was the loss to Triple H that he spoke of.  He lost to Randy Orton at a WrestleMania.  His Straight Edge Society angle came to a more abrupt end than he wanted as well.  He was Daniel Bryan before Daniel Bryan, basically.  And he still carried that around like a grudge years later, even after he'd made it, which that quote shows.  But it's kind of hard to keep pushing that line after you've had a 400-plus day title reign (the longest since Hulk Hogan's first run with the title) and numerous clean wins over the top star in the company.  Punk openly taking that kind of stance is like going up to a girl who wouldn't go out with you years later after you've gotten married and have a family.

Working with Part-Timers

Punk also expressed some real resistance to working with, and putting over part-timers.  Everyone knows who he's talking about here - The Rock, The Undertaker, and Brock Lesnar.  Triple H would have been the fourth part-timer that Punk would have had to work with in a little over a year, and that can be read one of two ways.  On the one hand the company keeps putting you in these spots to help get some guy over who doesn't show up very often, but on the other hand you're the one they trust to get a great match out of somebody who likely can't deliver one on their own anymore.  Punk's match with the Undertaker at WrestleMania 29 was easily the match of the night, and his Summerslam match against Lesnar was arguably the same.  He got better matches out of a beyond rusty Rock than anyone else would have.  The downside to these performances is that the other guy went over every time.  And while I do see his point, there is another guy who took on two of those same three part-timers (Rock and Lesnar) and put them over.......John Cena.  Cena jobbed clean to Lesnar at Summerslam this year in a more decisive fashion than he's ever lost to anyone.  And while we're at it the Undertaker opted to end his fabled, legendary WrestleMania undefeated streak by losing to Lesnar this year.  Punk was not the only big name guy putting over part-timers so he needs to just get over that.  This reeks of Bret Hart-ism, aka taking the results of the matches too seriously.

Main Eventing WrestleMania

Punk considers his career a disappointment because he never main evented WrestleMania.  Man, I guess.....  He is the only performer that reached his level with the company to never do it at least once.  Meanwhile, these guys have been in at least one:  Paul Orndorff, Bob Orton, King Kong Bundy, Sid Vicious (twice), Yokozuna (twice), Bam Bam Bigelow, The Big Show, Batista (twice) and The Miz.  In addition others who are more on Punk's level like Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Randy Orton, Triple H, and Shawn Michaels have all topped the card at least once.  At the same time his 400-plus day title reign was longer than anyone not named Bruno Sammartino, Pedro Morales, Bob Backlund, or Hulk Hogan.  I can see why he feels bad about that, but there was always the option of staying with the company until he did it.    Given the way the roster has been decimated by the injury bug he very well may have a shot at it this coming year.  And when exactly when she he have topped the card?  He was a main event level guy (I'm talking status not ability) since 2011; there were three WrestleMania's that followed his ascent.  In 2012 Rock vs Cena was the big event, and there's no way that was going last.   And in 2013 they did the Rock-Cena rematch.  Given how that was a planned two year arc for Rock and Cena there was no way to fit him in. Yes he wanted a three way dance with Rock and Cena at WM 29, and he was deserving, but that would have Undertaker without a worthy opponent.  And this year he was slated to take on and beat Triple H.  If they'd gone with the Batista-Orton without inserting Daniel Bryan I could see his gripe, but they went with what the fans wanted so all was well.  Again, man....I guess.

He'll be Back

Contrary to his final claim, he will be back.  Why?  Because they always come back.  Bret Hart had a much bigger set of gripes against Vince McMahon, and he came back.  Hulk Hogan testified against Vince in a criminal case that could have sent Vince to jail, and he came back.  Next to those two, Punk is just a frustrated employee. He'll find out soon enough that those 'CM Punk!' chants will fade over time, and he'll want those back if nothing else.  He will find no better place to work than the WWE.  Going to TNA or back to Ring of Honor are out of the question.  That leaves the inevitable day when he'll be relegated to doing signings at local house shows for low level promotions or at Comic-Cons.  Punk has a huge ego, despite anything he says, and that will prevent him from staying away forever.  Main eventing WrestleMania is a hell of a white whale and I do no think that if the chance came he would turn it down out of spite.  He is human, after all.  The other things I thought was a little iffy was when he talked about money.  Whenever someone starts a riff with 'it's not about the money' you better believe that it absolutely is about the money.  And of course, after saying he didn't want to talk about money he complained about not being paid as much for WrestleMania as Cena, Undertaker, etc.  So yeah, not buying it.  All in all, it was a great interview and how you take it will largely depend on how much you like Punk to start with like I said.

What I'm thankful for

Being that this weekend is Thanksgiving I figured I'd name a few things that I'm thankful for from the subjects I cover here.

TV

  

Good Superhero Shows - When I was little I watched reruns of the old Adam West Batman show, the Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman, and even some of the George Reeves Superman Show.  The only show that was running current episodes was the Lou Ferrigno Incredible Hulk show.  All of those were enjoyable programming for a young boy not yet 10 years old. Trying to watch them now fluctuates between amusing and painful.  West's Batman was not a serious show so you can live with that but the others were supposed to be and that just makes them worse now than they were then.  After those days other than a very short lived Flash series there wasn't much being offered.  There was Lois and Clark, which I didn't watch so I got no real opinion on, and then not much else until we got Smallville. Smallville ran for 10 seasons so it had a following and I won't bash them.  But after a season or two, I just couldn't stick with it.  And while that was going on there was a short lived Birds of Prey series that I really wanted to like but......in hindsight it wasn't very good.  Now that may sound like a lot, but mind mind you that this all happened over a span of 30 years.  Given the sheer number of series that come and go on broadcast television, that's a drop in the bucket.  So for there to be four quality superhero shows on now (Arrow, Flash, Agents of Shield, and Constantine) on now with more on the way (Supergirl, Marvel's Agent Carter miniseries, and a possible Teen Titans series on TNT) is huge and something we can't take for granted.

Movies

We went four for four on superhero movies this year - Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Amazing Spider Man 2, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and Guardians of the Galaxy.  There was also a lot of stuff that I didn't get around to seeing but was very successful - Godzilla, Transformers: Age of Extinction, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  The Hobbit series wraps up this December as well.  Next year we get Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, Fantastic Four (I'm not particularly optimistic about it but I'll still give it a chance), and we close out the year with a little movie called Star Wars - The Force Awakens.  With the Star Wars teaser trailer dropping today, the Internet may actually break. This is high tide to be a fan of these movies.  For the next five or six years we're going to get a plethora of goodness between the Marvel Studios films and the DC film Universe getting kicked into gear and Star Wars getting jumpstarted.  Don't listen to the naysayers and enjoy it all.

WWE

It's been a tough year for the WWE with major losses financially (largely due to the costs of the WWE Network they started up this year), injuries to key players like Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns, and departures from stars like CM Punk and major contributors like Alberto Del Rio.  But despite all that, the company has given us some great things.  When the fans turned on the originally planned Batista vs. Randy Orton WrestleMania main event, they listened and gave them what they wanted by inserting Bryan into the match and putting the belt on him.  When Bryan went down they smartly put the belt on John Cena as a placekeeper to set up a decisive win by Brock Lesnar at Summerslam.  And when all looked lost heading into Survivor Series they gave us Sting in a WWE ring to turn what would have been a forgettable night into one a lot of us will remember.  Hopefully, the injured players will be able to go again in 2015 and more people will sign up for the network.  The Network is awesome - there is no reason to skip out on it if you are a fan.  You get every current Pay Per View Event, along with access to the entire back catalog of WWE and WCW Pay Per View shows, and old shows from damn near every company that was relevant in the 80s and forward (with the obvious exception of TNA).  I highly recommend it for any fan out there, and hopefully it will turn profitable because it was a great addition in 2014.

Comics

There was lots of good stuff in the print world.  DC's Forever Evil event series wrapped up with a bang, Lex Luthor joined the Justice League, Future's End and Batman Eternal have entertained on a weekly basis and we got another great Superman event with Doomed.  On the Marvel side there was Death of Wolverine, Orignal Sin, and the Axis series.  Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider Man was excellent all year as were some other series that I don't read personally that scored high with those who do - Captain Marvel, Deadpool, Hawkeye, and Superior Spider Man.  As we end the year with new chapters of Captain America and Thor with Sam Wilson and an yet to be revealed lady taking on the titular roles in both books. Both major companies put out some really great work this year and I'm especially thankful for Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's Batman, Gail Simone's Batgirl, Jeff Lemire's Green Arrow run and anything done by Geoff Johns.  On the Marvel side I'm thankful for the Guardians of the Galaxy series, Black Widow, and Storm.  All three have been great reads.

So yeah, a lot to be thankful for in 2014, with a lot more to come in 2015!

WWE Survivor Series - Sting to the Rescue

                   
Well, the Survivor Series is definitely going in the books as a night to remember.  Going in, things were really looking bleak for the show as injuries and departures depleted the roster to the point where there just wasn't much they could do make for an interesting six or seven match card.  Even the five officially announced matches looked like slim pickings.  But boy did they make the most of a limited hand.  That image at the top gave a million wrestling fans goosebumps.  I figured that once Sting signed a WWE deal that he would do at least one match, and once it was announced that he would be appearing at the show it was obvious he'd involve himself in the big match some kind of way, but that didn't diminish the moment one bit.  Seeing two icons of the business stare each other down the way he and Triple H did was an all time mark out moment for anyone who watched NWA/WCW wrestling back in the day.  Sting is the one guy who never crossed over to the WWE; all the other big names had at least a short run there but even after WCW was bought out and shut down he didn't join the company.  A lot of that was because Vince McMahon didn't want to spen the money to buy out the biggest contracts of course.  So when went over to TNA to spend the rest of his full time working days, it was just kind of assumed that we would never see him in a WWE ring. But now, he's here.

If you didn't start watching wrestling until after the Monday Night Wars were over then you have no idea just how much of a big deal Sting really was.  Imagine if, instead of going back home to Cleveland Lebron James went to the San Antonio Spurs.  Or if Derek Jeter's last few years as a baseball player were spent in a Red Sox uniform.  Or going to see Avengers: Age of Ultron next year to witness Wolverine, movie rights be damned, show up in the final scenes to help Iron Man and Captain America defeat the bad guys.  When the NWO was the hottest thing going in the business back in 1996-97 it's no coincidence that the man chosen to be their ultimate antagonist was none other than Sting.  Before then, when both he and Lex Luger were seen as many fans as being on equal footing Ric Flair (allegedly) used backstage politics to keep from dropping the championship to Luger but didn't oppose losing it to Sting.  From 1992 through the end of the decade Sting was as important a figure in the business as anyone out there.  And like I said earlier he was the only one on that level who never set foot in a WWE ring.  Luger, Flair, and Goldberg all gave it a shot at one point or another.  But Sting stayed away, through a combination of failed negotiations and reportedly not liking what plans they would have had for him had he come over.  But all that's gone now and here he is.

Now the first thing the naysayers will bring up is that Sting is 55 years old and cannot be counted on to do anything significant at this point.  I agree with that wholeheartedly and don't expect him to.  I expect a few run ins and an eventual showdown with Triple H at WrestleMania 31.  Triple H can still work a good 10 to 15 minute match, Sting is still decent enough to keep up, and you can make it no holds barred so he can bring out the sledgehammer and Sting can use his trademark black baseball bat.  No one with any sense is asking for a 30 minute technical showcase here.  And once that's done maybe he can do the whole Raw GM thing for a few months and retire to doing the whole legends circuit thing like Hulk Hogan does now.  Win-win for everyone involved.  But for right now, we can just continue to revel in him saving the day one more time like he used to on WCW Monday Nitro every week. Thanks for turning what was looking it was going to be a show that the company itself was just trying to survive into something memorable.

The depleted roster

We're almost to Survivor Series, and it really looks like the depleted roster has finally caught up to the WWE.  Since January, the following people have been lost to injury, transition into a less active in ring role, or straight up quitting or termination:

• CM Punk
• Daniel Bryan
• Christian
• Alberto Del Rio
• Rey Mysterio, Jr
• Roman Reigns

You add in the planned absences of Chris Jericho to meet his music schedule and Randy Orton for a movie shoot, and Batista seemingly ending his comeback after it went south earlier and you've got anywhere from six to nine guys who the company was counting on having around for this event.  (Christian, Del Rio, and Mysterio were rumored to be on the fence after their contracts ended earlier this year.  It's unlikely that they were slotted for major roles in the year's booking decisions but they still might have been around.)  Now there are rumors that the Great Khali may have been released.  This is some major pain here.  Right now we're less than two weeks from Survivor Series and we have the following matches on tap:

• 10-man tag team match with Team Cena vs Team Authority
• AJ vs Nikki Bella for the Diva's Title
• Dean Ambrose vs Bray Wyatt 

There will probably be a Tag Team Title match and two other matches thrown in for good measure if they can find people to put in them.  But this shows just how depleted the roster is.  If the six people at the top were available, or even just Punk, Bryan, and Reigns, things would look a lot different now.  As it stands they have to get through Survivor Series and then TLC before we get to the Royal Rumble when Bryan and Reigns should be back.  I haven't been particularly sympathetic towards Punk's attitude and departure, but even I'll admit that they sure could use him now.  I will say, however, that up until this point they were really overachieving given the roster limitations.  Hell in the Cell was a very good show after a so-so Night of Champions card in September.  But now it looks like the numbers game has finally caught up with them.  If I were them I'd go with Lesnar vs Cena in a TLC match for December; that would be a good way to close that program out.  You can add Orton vs Seth Rollins, Mark Henry vs Big Show, and a bunch of title matches for what would be a good show to close out the year. 

And once we head into 2015 calling up some of the NXT talent would be warranted, especially if there are going to be more releases.  It's been a rough second half of 2014, but 2015 can definitely be better.

Hell in the Cell Recap

 

Hell in the Cell is in the books, and for the third year in a row it's screw the good guy in the main event time.  In 2012 it was Ryback, last year Daniel Bryan, and this year it was Dean Ambrose. It's also the fifth straight time the bad guy has gone over in the main event.  All in all I thought it was a pretty good show.  The matches were good, the results weren't all obvious going in, and the booking was decent although some things didn't make a lot of sense to me.  This show seemed to be a major program-ender of sorts; most of the matches had an air of finality to them in the results.  So what all went down?

• Intercontinental Title Match - The show opened with the two out of three falls match for the I-C title.  Dolph Ziggler won the match to retain the title, which is fine, but the booking was strange.  He got a quick win in the first fall then wins the second fall and the match.  That's the kind of finish you would book if Cesaro was leaving the company.  The match itself was good and Ziggler didn't job so his fans didn't get another knife stuck in their backs.  Maybe one day he can actually get a win over Seth Rollins.  This also looks like that's it for Cesaro this year.  He's competed for every major title without winning any of them and took clean defeats from everyone involved.  Oh well, maybe next year.

• Tag Team Title Match - The Rhodes Brothers beat the Usos again in another good match.  Not surprised or disappointed here.  I would suggest getting some new challengers for the Rhodes' and letting the Usos get a little break before maybe getting the belts back sometime next year.\

• Nikki vs Brie Bella -  The match wasn't bad; the Bellas aren't as bad in the ring as some people think.  Obviously neither of them should be champion but they did OK here.  Nikki wins, naturally, but did so cleanly.  So now we get 30 days of Brie foiling Nikki's plans as her personal assistant as per the match's stipulation.

• US Title Match - Sheamus beat the Miz to retain the title.  Again, no surprise.  Miz and Damien Mizdow are funny in their whole routine and the match was pretty entertaining.  The ending and aftermath again looked to be the last go round for this program.

• Big Show vs Rusev - Show jobbed to Rusev as expected.  The Mark Henry people were expecting turn did not come. Show went out clean so there's no reason to continue this one.  It's probably time for Rusev to get a title match with Sheamus or Ziggler and get a belt around his waist before he goes on to be fed to Cena in a few months.

• Diva's Title Match -  AJ wins again.  It's time to end the AJ-Paige show now.  The matches were good, sometimes very good, but we've seen it a million times already.  Time to send in a new challenger.  Once again I vote for Natalya.  She's a good wrestler and the two of them can have some excellent matches trading submission holds and what not.  After that if they want to bring Charlotte up from NXT, have at it.

• Hell in the Cell : Cena vs Orton - OK, color me surprised here.  I had Orton winning to further the rift between he and Rollins.  Instead, Cena wins with a spectacular Attitude Adjustment through a table to become the number one contender.  And with that, all the Cena haters began to groan with fear that this is the first step towards Cena beating Brock Lesnar to get the title back.  I don't see that happening, honestly, unless the plan has changed to Cena putting over Roman Reigns at WrestleMania.  That would actually be a much better match than Lesnar vs Reigns but whatever.  Once again the Cena haters need to give it a rest.  He's not going to lose every time, OK?  You guys get your share of Cena jobs more than you realize; get over it already.

• Hell in the Cell : Rollins vs Ambrose - Contrary to the rumors, they saved this match for last.  You know, sometimes these guys do know what they're doing.  Loved this match up until the finish.  Lots of cool spots, both guys brought their A games.  The table use was top notch all the way.  Rollins winning with help was one of my expected outcomes, but that help coming in the form of Bray Wyatt left me perplexed.  Wyatt's beef with Ambrose will likely be explained on RAW but it all seems kind of abrupt.  Of course if the intent was to end the Ambrose-Rollins program and move both guys on then some kind of clean break was in order.  What's next for Rollins?  Not sure.  The simmering rift with Orton can continue, with him ribbing Orton for losing while he won and Orton giving it back to him for needing help.  The only question is whether it drags out to Survivor Series or happens in time to set a match on that show between the two.  We'll see.

Overall, my assessment of the show is that it was entertaining but not earth-shattering.  Another WWE Network special, worth the $9.99 you pay a month but not worth the $50 it would have cost for pay per view.  It will be interesting to see what goes on tonight on RAW to follow up.

WWE Hell in the Cell Preview

Hell in the Cell goes down this Sunday, part of what I called the doldrums of Fall for WWE events. Unlike Night of Champions last month, this one actually has a little drama to it and some implications for the near future.  This is also the second year in a row that we're getting two Hell in a Cell matches with Dean Ambrose vs Seth Rollins followed up by John Cena vs Randy Orton.  We also get four title matches, a second Diva's match, another victim for Rusev and the conspicuous absence of the WWE World Champion Brock Lesnar.  As is the case with today's WWE, the in-ring action will be mostly very good and the storyline stuff will be up for interpretation as to its quality.  If you're a regular WWE storyline basher you will likely find fault with the show; if you're not then you should be fine with what transpires as long as you personally like the results.  What do I think is going to happen?  Here goes:

• Hell in Cell: Cena vs Orton - The big stipulation here is that winner gets the next title shot against Lesnar.  I've seen some complaints that this match is going to be the main event, largely from the usual Cena-hating suspects.  Get over yourselves, already.  Cena goes on last because people other than you want to see him up top.  And besides, you're going to get your wish here as Orton will be winning the match.  Of course, the Cena-haters will give John exactly zero props for putting somebody over yet again (this will be the fourth time he puts Orton over since last December).  I'm supremely confident in the result here because Cena already faced Lesnar twice so a third time with the same result (Lesnar walking out as champ) would be major overkill.  Orton wins here, gets the title shot, and that will lead into a program with Rollins as rumored and hinted at.

• Hell in Cell: Ambrose vs Rollins - This is a hard one to figure, as there are reasons for both guys to win.  Rollins won their first match so Dean getting the favor returned makes sense.  Then again, this kind of match is an easy place for match deciding interference from the Authority, be it Triple H or Kane, on behalf of Rollins.  I'm betting on Ambrose here, given my call for the main event.  A Rollins loss plus an Orton win adds to the drama leading to their eventual blowup.  This should be a great match and could join the Hell in a Cell matches that everyone remembers years later.

• Tag Team Title Match: The Usos vs The Dust Brothers - These two teams work great together, the match should be excellent.  I got the Dust Brothers retaining the titles here.  I really hope this culminates in a TLC match either at TLC in December or at WrestleMania.

• US Title Match: Sheamus vs the Miz - I have no idea here, really.  Sheamus has held the title for a while now, so having him drop it probably isn't a bad idea.  Miz is coming off the Intercontinental title program with Dolph Ziggler, and would be fine as U.S. champ.  I like his Hollywood character and Damien Sandow is a hoot as the stunt double.  I just don't want another 24 hour title reign for him (he's had two of those in the past two years already).  I got Sheamus retaining the title by some kind of disqualification; I think he's a big enough deal that him losing a title should come under a different set of circumstances.

• Intercontinental Title Match:  Dolph Ziggler vs Cesaro (two out of three falls) - This could be the sleeper match of the night.  Both are great performers.  I got Ziggler winning here.  The two out of three falls format allows Cesaro to get a win in one of the falls and still look strong.

• Rusev vs Big Show - Show jobs to Rusev here, to continue the march towards being fed to Cena at WrestleMania 31.

• Divas Title Match: AJ vs Paige - These two have good matches, so this one should be, too.  Expect Alicia Fox to get involved on Paige's behalf some kinda way, but for AJ to keep the title.

• Nikki vs Brie Bella (loser has to be the winner's personal assistant) - Nikki wins, but Brie will use her personal assistant job to cost Nikki future matches.  We've seen this movie before.

 This should be a good show, and more interesting than Night of Champions. Enjoy!

The doldrums of Fall

               

I haven't had much to say about WWE for a while, and there's good reason for that.  I'm not bashing it at all; I think they're making the most out of a roster that's decimated by injuries.  No Daniel Bryan, no Roman Reigns, and even no Wade Barrett has made it harder to put things together hese past few months.  And while they made the right call to have Brock Lesnar go over at Summerslam to become the champion, his schedule leaves a whole in a three hour show every week to feature your title holder.  Yes, Paul Heyman coming out to do his thing on Brock's behalf is gold almost every time but without a match to hype it doesn't carry as much weight after a few weeks.  The last month of RAW and Smackdown has been a game of 'how can we rearrange John Cena and Dean Ambrose vs Randy Orton, Seth Rollins, and Kane this time?'  And now we have a big show in two weeks where there will likely be no title match and some mishmash of Cena, Orton, and Kane to go along with the Ambrose-Rollins match in the main event.  And while that match will likely be awesome, it's coming a few months before they wanted to do it because of Reigns' injury.  Ambrose was supposed to out longer due to being put out of action by Rollins and Orton but Reigns getting sidelined forced him to come back earlier.  And once we get through this month, we still have Survivor Series and TLC ahead before they can reset at the Royal Rumble when Bryan and Reigns are slated to return.  This truly is a stretch that makes you wonder if we need all these big shows.  (I wrote about that in a piece for Get on the Ball Sports before Night of Champions.)

The post-Summerslam period is usually a time to tread water until the Rumble in January.  The difference for this year is that everything we're getting now is coming at least a month or two before it would have had the roster been full.  My guess is that Lesnar was going to win the title in August regardless, but the victim wold have been Bryan and not Cena.  Cena would have gotten chances to beat Lesnar in the fall and winter instead of losing the title to Brock and trying to win it back in September.  The Shield breakup definitely got fast tracked due to needing some action near the top to make up for Bryan's absence.  So now we're faced with two months of the company trying to make chicken salad out of chicken you-know-what.  And you can expect two more months of gratuitous company-bashing on the internet, as people take advantage of the current situation to unload every nonspecific gripe they've had about the company in an effort to get clicks.  The decimated roster does not vindicate your 'John Cena shouldn't have gone over at WrestleMania 30' post from April, OK?  The next two months are going to be hanging by a thin thread, by no fault of the company's own.  What they do have going for them is that the in ring product below the main event is as good as it's been.  Dolph Ziggler, Cesaro, the Wyatt Family, the Uso, Gold and Stardust, Miz, Sheamus, etc. can provide plenty of good matches for our entertainment until January.  Let's hope that can hold the fort down for these next two months.