NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: Every month, the Columnist of the Month contest is held in the LOP Columns Forum. The winning columnist gets to have one of his columns posted on the main page. This month, we had a new person join a rather exclusive club. In the past 8 years, only 6 other people have won COTM three times. This month's winner is the 7th. Please welcome the inimitable Uncle Joe.
I'm sick of wrestling. Yep, I really am.
I used to have a real fondness for ROH; well not fondness, but I used to dig it when I saw it. I would look up some stuff on Youtube; ask some of the more Indy-savvy buddies of mine who was who, who was any good and who to avoid; and I would even watch an occasional show, in it's entirety. I don't mean to sound like a self important jerk, but I really had too much on my plate over the last few years to be bothered to sift through hundreds of tapes and figure out who was any good. Sounds strange, because the lot of you know I used to have a big thing for the independent circuit back in the day myself, and I will admit that I am bit shocked that I barely knew who half of these guys were.
Before I got into that, like most of you, I would primarily watch Vince and the boys, an occasional viewing of the Dixie Chicks; you know, the guys from Orlando: and maybe the occasional Japanese match although I will admit they all look the same to me. I was initially happy with the business the way it was, because you had the juggernaut (WWE), you had the young upstarts with the weekly PPV (TNA), and if I Wanted to, I could look up literally thousands of indy matches at my fingertips. As they say, variety is the spice of life, what a wonderful pinch of oregano it was; sure it wasn't the Monday Night Wars era or the Attitude Era, but every 'era' (I hate that term by the way) had it's ups and downs, peaks and valleys, good and bad and so on and so forth.
I can't exactly pinpoint it, but everything started crashing down around me, around you, around ALL of us; and let me tell you this boys and girls: the foundation is still being chipped at, but no one is here has shown to be a competent architect. I guess you can say it started when TNA got it's slot on Spike TV, who had a jonesin' for the wrestling ratings after Vinnie picked his stuff up and left back 'home' to Viacom and the USA network. You would think that getting a TV deal on a big cable network would be a huge blessing, but most of the time, it's a wolf disguised as a sheep leading the rest of the flock to the slaughter. I know the pressures of TV, and I can tell you that TNA changed their product because of the pressure they had from Spike to reproduce the same ratings RAW got, which is asinine and ridiculous; TNA was an upstart company at the time, and it took WCW/NWA/WWF/WWE DECADES to receive the attention those respective organizations gotten, so to expect that so soon is to be disappointed in the length of time it took to build Rome.
But they succumbed; and oh boy did they ever. They changed the formula that I felt early on would make them successful in the long term (weekly Pay Per views, roster full of unknowns with a sprinkle of known veterans), and ended up copying the dying days of WCW; which was to put Tenay at one of the premier broadcasting positions; clog up the Main Event scene with a bunch of ego filled pigs who would rather pass another kidney stone than put over one of the younger guys . . . outside of Sting that is.Man do I love that guy. Back to what I was saying, they fell to the danger that many tv programs fell into; executives and the higher ups. So they did what they felt they had to do, which was to bring in more known stars to attract more fans, in hope of the fans liking the product outside of the known talent. Although I applaud them for trying to be innovative, the six sided ring is a failure and needs to be done away with. Wrestling is enough of a circus what with all the half naked men hugging all of the other half naked men, while doing flips; the six sided ring just makes it looks even that much more ridiculous. Ultimately, their undoing will be the failure to put over new kids, but they are doing a splendid job over the last few months. Let's see if they keep it up.
On the other side of the coin, being a juggernaut isn't all that's cracked up to be either. Yes, you have major networks to display your shows on; the occasional celebrity sighting and pub that goes with it; hundreds of sponsors lining up, and all of that shit. Underneath it all, it's trying. There are board meetings that need to be made, stock holders that need to be pleased; the occasional congressional hearing, not to mention the ingenuity it takes keep yourself at the top. But times are not so happy over there. The WWE is being killed, and Vinnie and the family are killing it. They say that 'those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it'. Vince is so behind the times, like if he were to be standing behind a massive wall of clocks. He is failing to do what he was so great at doing before; building new stars. The Attitude Era was such a tremendous period, that it would be foolish to expect them to recreate that same magic all over again. But it is possible for them to duplicate some of the formula that helped them establish all these new stars.
Stone Cold Steve Austin. The Rock. Kane. Triple H. Mankind. Triple H. The Hardys. Edge and Christian. The list can go on and on, but these guys ranged from midcarders to backyarders to giant Christmas tree costumed idiots. The WWF, however, found a way to make them all stars, big stars. They had repeated the cycle they had used to establish new guys after the Golden Era, which saw guys like Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Razor Ramon, Kevin Nash, Yokozuna and others being put over the old guard (Curt Hennig, DiBiase, Piper, Savage, Flair), to help with their credibility in the eyes of the fans. They then recycled the same formula (substitute Bret and the gang for Austin and Co.), but keeping a bit of the old timers around for cred (Undertaker, HBK, etc). And am I wrong for saying the formula worked to a tee? The AE saw unprecedented success, even going so far as to put their chief rival out of business.
Do not get me wrong; the WWE have certainly made stars in the last few years (Orton, Cena, Batista), but not only are they not enough, they don't have that mainstream appeal outside of Cena. The Rock had it, Austin for a time had it, Foley had it, and even Vince himself had it; but none of the guys are even close to having what the Rock had. Which is why it's hard to blame them for sticking to the old guard as much a they have, but even the simplest of men know every dog has their day, but Vince is keeping a lot of them in the cage. They missed the boat on MVP, yes they missed it; he was a fantastic heel with good shtick, but they killed his push for whatever reason, and now he's forced to play an unconvincing good guy; ex con's don't make good guys damnit. They REALLY missed the boat on Rey Mysterio, who may be the smallest guy on the roster, but his actual wrestling ability and merchandise sales are unparalleled to anyone else int he company. Yes Cena is THE cash cow for the WWE, but Rey is not that far behind and has better matches, which is saying a lot since Cena is a tremendous wrestler. His image, his mask should have made for him to be a worldwide phenom, but they doused his flames.
Raw in particular has TOO MANY veterans/old bastards in the ME scene. Triple H, HBK, Batista (who's 50 or something like that) are killing everything. H in particular, who along with his bitch of a wife, will run this organization when Vince ultimately steps down, and everyone better bring umbrella because the sit is going to hit the fan. I would imagine that for his 80th birthday, H would be pinning Jeremiah DiBiase for his 907th World Title Reign, still with the same entrance, same rig attire. If H is so 'willing to do what's good for the business' as his backers say, why won't he quit? His business is bad business, and he needs to go out of it. HBK is old and his offense is pathetic, has never prove to be a draw and he should be putting over the new kids instead of squashing them with his buddy Hunter. Taker needs to go, and Batista hasn't dropped a feud since 1989.
ROH may be the saddest of them all. They had a perfect recipe for success, found a very niche aspect of the business in an already niche industry, and are blowing it like a Chinese hooker. They succumbed to what is fucking up TNA, which was the lure of a TV deal. They should have stayed the course, as they not only are heading down the shitter, but alienated the most important aspect of any wrestling company; their hardcore fans. If they leave, what's to stop Johnny Casual from leaving?
For all of the crap that I talk, I still can't see myself stopping with this for good. I've had too much of my time, life invested into wrestling for it to be any other way. I guess you can say wrestling is like a woman; the times she makes you cum, you look over at her in disgust and roll over to sleep with your back to her. But no matter how much you despise her and flinch at the thought of her cooking, you stay with her until the day you die.
So to sum it all up, The WWE is not repeating their past, while TNA is repeating the current WWE business model while not repeating the past of their own, and ROH is emulating both TNA and WWE's respective pasts, while alienating their future, but I still watch. Confused? Well join the club.
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Paul Heyman is a weekly contributor to the Sun newspaper for over 2 years. Paul Heyman can be reached at P.Heyman@yahoo.com.
