Stuck in the Middle With You - The "Fantastic" Four
Submitted by Da J-Train on Monday, April 19, 2004 at 1:50 AM EST



Welcome back to my column everyone. Sorry for my irreverent lateness. The last two weeks, I have given two different people the exact same tour of New York City. Both weeks we went from Central Park, down to Battery Park, up to Ground Zero, then the Village including Soho, Noho, Chinatown, Little Italy, and the NYU area, and finally Times Square, all in one day. Considering the fact that I have been at school all semester, and 1. I haven’t been to New York City yet at all, and it’s like 12 miles away and 2. No one from Syracuse has visited me until the last two weeks… and considering the fact that I just started a new job, plus papers, impending finals, a girlfriend, a mouse in the house, $472 of repairs on my car, and the big party weekend on campus which included concerts by Bouncing Souls and Ghostface Killa amongst others, and mud wrestling inside an on campus apartment… I am really fucking exhausted. However, I really wanted to finish this column this weekend because I started it like two weeks ago.


So what’s on my mind this time? Well, I want to talk about the “Fantastic” Four. Why are they “fantastic”? Because I am gonna talk about four wrestler who were supposed to be fantastic, but for some reason or another, they haven’t really been fantastic in the WWE.


BUT FIRST...


Letters! I get Letters! I get sacks and sacks of Letters! LETTERS!!! That's right; it's time to answer some of my Love, Hate, Kind-Of-Care-For, and I-Only-Like-You-as-A-Friend-Mail…

Well, it seems that people like to go from one extreme to the other. The last time around, I got one bit of useable feedback, which caused me to stray from my usual three feedback system. Now, I got a hell of a lot more, which, again, causes me to stray from the system and bump it back up to five! So, here we go…



Feedback O Rama


Letter 1 :

Hi, I'm a big fan of WWE and as a result am a fan of your column and LOP. I have been watching for many years and I think that the product is starting to get some magic in it again. As I was watching Royal Rumble, No Way Out and Wrestlemania this year I noticed something. They were all about the same caliber. Usually the Royal Rumble is an 8/10, No Way Out is between a 6 and a 7 and Mania is a 9 or a 10. This year, all three have been (all other opinions aside for a moment) "good." By good I mean better than television but nothing major to die for. I think that this is what Vince is aiming at with his toning down procedure. Take a look at last year for example. The only pay-per-views that any fan (even some of the writers on the main page) cared about were the joint productions. Why? Because they were so much better than the split brand shows. So I'm asking you if you think that having 12 good pay-per-views a year is better than having 5-6 great ones and 6-7 sub-par ones. Thank you for taking the time to read this letter and keep up the good work.

A Canadian who's over the Bret Hart thingy


Canadian who’s over the Bret Hart thingy,

Thanks for the kind words about my column and thanks for reading. I think what you’re asking is that whether or not I think the brand-only shows are a good idea. I think it’s only logical that the joint production pay per views will be better than the single show pay per views. You’re working with more marquee and more popular wrestlers in a three hour span.

But, I do think that the joint productions are a good thing, for the same reason that I am a supporter of the brand extension. Not all WWE pay per views will be 5 hours like Wrestlemania. Sure, in the span of 5 hours, the WWE could fit basically every member of their roster on a pay per view, but with the joint productions, it gives wrestlers the opportunity to work a pay per view who might not be able to because they’d take a backseat for more “important” wrestlers. I would much rather see more wrestler get opportunities, but I understand where you’re coming from.



Letter 2 :

I have been a huge fan of Lance Storm's for a long time b/c of basically his great mat
skills. What is missing and what could have been to save his career and Justin Credible's when he was around and Dawn Marie's right now was to do the Impact players in the WWE and make them dominating tag champs and rekindle a feud with Tommy Dreamer and Raven from ECW when Raven was still around. Storm needs a mouthpiece like Heyman or eye candy like Dawn Marie. It wouldn't hurt to hook him in a feud with Jericho or Benoit. Benoit vs. Storm would remind me of Malenko vs. Benoit of stone face vs. stone face. Just a cold, bitter feud. I like that Benjamin got a win but what's the point...he'll get squashed in a return match. I have a problem about OVW guys and that's they all come very plain vanilla...there's no uniqueness in them except for a few. I mean Garrison Cade, Rob Conway etc. they have looks but nothing behind them except they wrestle. It would scare me to ever put them as the future. I mean Guerrero, Benoit, Jericho all have spice to their characters. Honestly, I'm tired of OVW and would rather see WWE hitting the indies again. Finding the talent that has established characters and etc. I think my main concern is there are too many titles in WWE as well. It breaks up certain opponents and feuds. The tag division would flourish if they came to gether as well as the IC title division. Some wrestlers make it big without ever winning a major title. An example would be Jake Roberts. That's it for my rant.

Yomez


Yomez,

Wow… nice rant, there’s plenty to pick apart here. First of all, I think Lance Storm does, in fact, need something to counteract his stale personality. The most probable is a valet, because they have tried colorful personalities like Goldust and Val Venis, and it hasn’t been successful. However, a valet may work. I don’t think that Justin Credible is the answer… for anything. As cool as the Impact Players was in ECW, Justin Credible really sucks and Lance Storm is thrown into random tag teams all the time now… what would be the difference if he was randomly thrown with Credible? No, I think they need to work on him as a singles star. Storm and Benoit is indeed a dream match of sorts for me. I would love for Storm to join in a faction with Benoit to counteract Evolution.


As for your OVW rant, the only thing I have against getting established Indy wrestlers is that they all don’t have the WWE’s style. That’s one of the functions of OVW… to retrain wrestlers into the WWE style. That’s what they are doing with former Indy stars like Horshu, Chris Masters, and others as we speak.

I will discuss the tag team situation in the WWE in a future column, so look for that.



Letter 3 :

Hey Train, i just want to ask you a quick question. What do you think about WWE letting Sean O'Haire go? I, for one, think that this is a perfect example of Vince and company shitting on yet another talented superstar. I hope O'Haire goes to some other wrestling fed and becomes that company's biggest star, just to rub it in WWE's face. Well anyway, what do you think?

Julian S.


Julian,

Good question. Many people know that I am a big fan of Sean O’Haire, but as much of a fan that I was of his, I was not mad that they released him. He never conformed well to the WWE style, and that really hurt him from the beginning. I would much rather see him go somewhere where he can wrestle the style he was known for. Maybe it will happen in TNA, but who knows. I hope he and others like Kanyon and Spanky make it in other places to show the WWE great talent that they lost.



Letter 4 :

From The Caboose:
"2. Wrestlers should know when it’s their time to gracefully step aside. If not the WWE should do what’s right for business. That’s right… The Godfather rules."

I'm confused. By reading that, am I to understand that Godfather did decide to "gracefully step aside", and if so, when was this? I don't recall hearing anything about it.

MikeK102


Mike,

What I meant by that whole thing wasn’t The Godfather the wrestler.. it was the film. One of the points that was a central argument of my column was that these people should be released from a business stand point, not a personal. In other words, it’s not personal, only business… which is a common quote and theme from The Godfather, which is also my favorite movie. Sorry for the confusion



Letter 5 :

Hello, it is I, the FEEDBACK man.

It seems that yet again, people are praising Triple H for jobbing to Shelton Benjamin. I am actually one of them! This is amazing for WWE, that finally the 'worst ending man in wrestling, 'the crappy wrassler', the man with many negative nicknames in wrestling, is finally passing the torch to Shelton Benjamin.

I still believe that the singles push could never work. My opinion is that splitting up the Worlds Greatest Tag Team was a giant giant mistake. You see one, you expect the other. Arguing that this was good for the Hardy Boyz isnt true, the fact remains that the two are better together than apart. It's like splitting up Starskey and Hutch, your just gonna go 'What the fuck is this shit?' and not give a damn.

Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin are terrific wrestlers, but they wont be seen as a threat. It's an even bigger joke than Bradshaw actually being seen as a Main Eventer. There are many arguements that Matt Hardy did alright for himself, but look at him! He NEEDS Jeff Hardy! They're only really recognized together, and I'm afraid that people wont care when they see Shelton Benjamin, because they expect to see him with Charlie Haas. The two are an amazing team together! However, splitting them up is bad news.

It's like this: Take D-Von/Bubba Ray, B.G James/Billy Gun, all sorts. Now with the Outlaws, they were absolutely tremendous together. Ever since they split up? Both of them have tried to get themselves on a good single career, and whats happened? Nothing, it just proves that no matter when they split, they always fail. Billy Gun has been sucking ever since, and nobody cares, and B.G James vice versa.

Of coarse it's a good idea in my opinion, but people wont see it like that. If you saw D-Von challange for the World title, you'd laugh your ass off. Why? They'll never be taken seriously as a single star, only as a tag star.

Peace y'all,
Nicky


Nicky,

First of all, I appreciate the feedback, but are you trying to create some kind of bizarre online persona through Feedback O Rama as “The Feedback Man?” Please don’t do that, push your agenda somewhere else please. I appreciate the feedback… but really man, come on.

Anyway, it seems that your contention in your email is that when tag teams break up, they aren’t as good as when they were in the tag teams. Not only that, but their subsequent singles pushes fail. Sure there are certain situations where that’s true, but there are so many examples of wrestlers who disprove your theory. After all, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Edge, Christian, hell… even Scott Steiner were all in high profile tag teams before their subsequent pushes, and they have all been considered serious singles competitors. Those pushes have worked, some have even went on to be extremely credible champions.

The point is, splitting up a tag team can work if one or both of the people have potential to make it as a singles competitor. Some wrestlers are simply put, tag team wrestlers, nothing more, nothing less. The Dudley’s, the Outlaws… people like that have very little singles wrestler potential because they work so well with other people and in a tag team in general.

Both Haas and Benjamin have that potential. Sure, it was a sudden thing to break them up, but they weren’t really doing anything to begin with right? I mean, they were pushed, then depushed every other week. I would rather see them both succeed on their own than to not succeed in their team. Give it a shot, you’ll soon see that both will become legit, such as Benjamin already has.



Well, that’s all the feedback I got this time around, so, I guess it's time to get to the topic of my column:



The “Fantastic” Four


Obviously the title of my column is making people think that I am going to talk about some comic book. Wrong. The Fantastic Four that I am taking about has to do with the bump up to the WWE from Ohio Valley Wrestling from 4 of OVW’s top stars throughout the years, and the reason the word “Fantastic” is in quotes is because these four wrestlers excelled in Ohio Valley and were expected by OVW fans and insiders to become huge players in the WWE, however, that never happened for one reason or another.


To be fair, there really has been two “fantastic fours” in OVW history. The first wave came about in late 2001/early 2002. Four wrestlers from OVW, and from any other of the WWE’s developmental territories at the time, were constantly working dark matches against themselves and WWE wrestlers. It was always the same four wrestlers, everytime. Some would work on Raw, some on Smackdown, sometimes all would work on both. These wrestlers were Brock Lesnar, Rico Constantino, Randy Orton, and Ron “H2O” Waterman, and everyone except for Waterman, were called up to the WWE with their own levels of success.


That was then, this is now, and we’re not talking about those guys.


Now, there is a new “Fantastic” four out there and finally all four of them are in the WWE. After many, many years in Ohio Valley Wrestling, the four men who made up the basic franchise of OVW have come full circle. Now, obviously, the momentum of their OVW reputations would translate themselves to the WWE, and these guys would become almost instant successes. After all, Brock Lesnar, John Cena, Shelton Benajmin and other people from OVW who have enjoyed success in the WWE were never considered on the level that these four have consistently kept in Ohio Valley. In fact, Lesnar never even won an OVW title, and these guys have won a combination of 20 OVW titles. I know what you may be thinking, these guys sound pretty good huh?


Unfortunately, things don’t always go the way they seem, and it seems that this “fantastic” four of Doug Basham, The Damaja (Danny Basham), Rob Conway, and Nick Dinsmore. All of these wrestlers were constant main players in OVW, but, for some reason or another, this hasn’t really translated into anything near it in the WWE. When we once had “The Ironman”, “The Machine”, “The Damaja”, and “Mr. Wrestling”, we now have two guys whose gimmick are that they are basically The Harris Brothers who like S&M, we have a French Sympathizer… ***J Train Note: What the hell is a French Sympathizer anyway? Were we ever in war with the French? No, we just disagreed with their views. That’s hardly a war, so what is there to sympathize? I mean, in the Persian Gulf war, we were at War with Iraq and Sgt. Slaughter was an Iraqi Sympathizer, and that made sense. However, I hate whenever Jim Ross calls Conway a French sympathizer. End Note***. Finally, we have a “special” wrestler in the form of Nick “Eugene” Dinsmore.


If you follow Ohio Valley Wrestling, it’s pretty much known that the Bashams, Conway, and Dinsmore have been continuously major forces in the OVW storylines. In fact, all four have been in many battles toward and around each other for titles and other major perks in the course of the last few years. In fact, all four of these wrestlers were hand picked to partake in the interesting, but ultimately irrelevant Run to the Rumble tournament. This was a four person tournament in 2002 where all four of these wrestlers competed for a shot at the OVW Champion, Nova, to which the winner of that match would have a guaranteed spot in the 2003 Royal Rumble. To make a long story short, Danny “Damaja” Basham won the tournament, the title, and the guaranteed spot in Royal Rumble, which he was ultimately screwed out of because the WWE has no idea how to book for the long term. I suppose that maybe that was a case of foreshadowing for the future.


Despite a few early title runs for The Bashams, so far in the WWE, these four men have been much less than fantastic. So here’s the question that I am posing… is the WWE misusing The Bashams, Conway, and Dinsmore, or is it that they simply aren’t that good?


Let’s assume that this is just a case of misuse. After all, it’s a good theory. None of these wrestlers have had much time on the microphone, save maybe a few spots for Rob Conway. It’s kind of tough to get your characters over when the crowd knows nothing about you or what you’re all about. Sure, some of these people may not be good on the mic, but isn’t it better to allow someone to at least try to get over verbally? The WWE may end up a little surprised if they gave the mic to one of these guys and just let them go. After all, there has to be some reason that these guys maintained a major position in OVW all these years.


Also, none of these wrestlers had very much acclaim or hype prior to their debut in the WWE. They all just kind of showed up. Granted, if you were a member of the internet wrestling community you kind of knew that Dinsmore was going to show up… but for the most part, no one knew who there people were and why they were there. Conway had a decent debut with what seemed to be an interesting gimmick and angle, but instead of him in a short stint with La Resistance, a strictly French tag team, they didn’t allow him to go his own way and he continued to be paired with a tag team that was no where near over. I’d say that he was kind of doomed from the start. I mean, does anyone else think that he looked like he just didn’t belong in the group or was it just me? In the mean time, The Basham Brothers literally just kind of showed up. I mean, there was no hype or surprise what so ever. They showed up, no one cared, then they won the titles, and still, no one cared.


So what does this say about the WWE’s relationship with OVW? Is it safe to presume that they only care about those who can give them immediate results? Do they reward those who have obvious looks and not reward years of work and good talent? I mean, it’s possible, considering who they have called up and sometimes and how long they have been in the OVW system. Does it being called up have anything to do with loyalty, longevity, and acclaim, or does it have to do with whether or not you have a marketable look. Why did Matt Morgan get called up with over a year of OVW experience, and really professional experience under his belt, when Nick Dinsmore was working on years of service? After all, Nick Dinsmore has been called, many times, the franchise of Ohio Valley Wrestling. When the franchise debuts in the big leagues, basically as a retard, what does that really say about how the WWE feels about OVW? Does it mean they think that OVW is just a bunch of retards? Perhaps I’m reading too much into it.


Maybe it isn’t that the WWE is misusing these guys. Maybe, just maybe, these guys simply aren’t good. Maybe it’s a good thing that the WWE called up marketable people before these four because maybe they aren’t very marketable. It’s possible that the WWE has given these guys, minus Dinsmore… he’s new, many opportunities to get themselves over and the fans simply don’t buy them. After all, The Basham Brothers were tag team champions for a few months and nobody cared. Maybe these guys aren’t as good as we have been told that they are. After all, after many years of wrestling in marquee roles, you’d think that these men would know how to work a crowd and get over. Sure, it may be easy to get over when you’re working in front of essentially the same crowd week after week, month after month, and year after year. They get to know who you are, and after a while, they form a major opinion of you. The world of the WWE may be a little different, considering the traveling.


So which is it? Are these four wrestlers victims of a possible lack of respect the WWE may have for their developmental system or is it that they simply aren’t that good. Did Rob Conway get screwed in his debut or did he screw himself? Are the Bashams exciting wrestlers and all but expert heels or are they just boring? Is Nick Dinsmore getting a shitty chance by the WWE or is he just so boring and unmarketable that the WWE had to go to the extremes to get him on the main roster? What do you people think?



Random Stops Along the Way


I didn’t watch Backlash, basically because I can’t order it at my college and I don’t know of any places around the White Plains area that broadcasts it. However, I heard that it was a decent show. One of the things that I saw, that I have been waiting for for a long time was the Randy Orton match. I have enjoyed Randy Orton from way back when he did the RNN updates, which I have said many times in my columns forum tenure. I think he’ll get a lot of respect for his match with Mick Foley based on the description of the match. The only problem I have with Orton and his push is that he is the intercontinental champion, and he has been in over a 4 month feud with a man with no credibility as an intercontinental title contender. Shelton Benjamin vs. Randy Orton intercontinental title feud anyone?


I’ve mentioned him before, and it’s time I want to talk about him, because if I don’t, it’s like the elephant sitting on the couch next to me that no one’s talking about. In my absence, Eugene has debuted. There are lots of people in the wrestling world who hate Eugene and the gimmick. I, for one, am not offended by it. I love other characters like Jimmy, Timmy, and Special Ed. I think it’s wrong to portray that character if Dinsmore himself is not retarded. However, I dislike the character, not because it’s offensive… I just don’t think it’s funny.


Stone Cold got released by the WWE. He’ll be back. Nowadays, the WWE is like the mob… you never leave for good.



Alright guys, right now, you are reading text, and underneath it, you can probably see the enlarged red text, which is used to symbolize my mood for the section. In other words, it’s time for yet another riveting installment of…



Free Flowing Hostility: Minor cultural items I am Bored With, Tired Of, and Pissed At.



None today guys. I am pissed about many things, but I am way too tired to list them all right now. Next time though, I promise.



The Caboose


Alright guys, I’m done for this week. Be sure to send me some Feedback on whether or not it’s the WWE’s fault or the wrestler’s fault that the “Fantastic Four” hasn’t lived up to their acclaim?

Other than that, I hope you all can tell that I am obviously exhausted. I may take another week off, but if I don’t, I’ll see you next week. Keep on rockin.


------------------------------------------- Da J-Train -------------------------------------


merlinJAP@hotmail.com (If you email me, put FEEDBACK in the email subject or it WILL be deleted)


AIM: JPAW101…. Feel free to talk to me, I am friendly and give good hugs!









*NEW GALLERY* Must SEE VERY HOT Pix of G4 TV's Olivia Munn! WHOA!!

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