The Rant of the Week: Ted Turner needs to listen to me
Submitted by Phantom Lord on Saturday, April 24, 2004 at 3:09 AM EST





Greetings conversationalist’s all across the fruited plain, it is I your personal Harvester of Sorrow Phantom Lord and this is my Rant of the Week. As always I am coming to you from the Capitol of the World…New York City and spring is in the air. There’s just something about when the weather gets warm, but no matter your view on the world you just can’t help but cheer up. Now if you’re a regular reader of my column, you’ve probably guessed by now I’m a pretty miserable person at times. Well suffering from Depression will do that to you. But when it’s suddenly in the mid 80’s and women are wearing loose and revealing clothing…you can’t help but feel happy. Sure the world around us is falling to shit, but who cares since it’s the spring. The only down side to all this warm weather is all this damn pollen in the air. Ah well, enough of the cheerful stuff cause it’s ON TO THE RANT.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can’t wait till Mordecai debuts. This is the best hype job on a new wrestler that the WWE has done in a real long time. Vince finally got the message that generic big men with no real gimmick and the same boring moves cough::MattMorgan::cough just won’t cut it these days. I’m convinced someone from the WWE is reading my column and pitching idea’s to Vince cause I swear I said something along the lines of a “Moral Heel would be so huge right now”. Well instead of a Jim Baker type, they went a step further and have a guy who damn near saying I am Christ and I am doing the bidding of my Father…The Lord. See I’m a Lapse Catholic. I have a sense of humor about religion, so this gimmick in no way shape or form offends me. But I hope it offends others because the more heat this guy gets The Bigger he will be. Hell if they really play their cards right and mold this guy correctly, he could be this generation’s Undertaker.

Speaking of The Undertaker, where the hell have Old Man Inc. and Paul Barer been. They come back to the biggest pop of the night at WM 20 and then they come out and tombstone Paul Heyman and now for the last couple of weeks…nothing. Paul Barer under his other name of Percy Pringle III had a great message board and he would give you the honest truth about anything. Well suddenly he shut down his message board because he said he just wouldn’t have the time to dedicate to it like he used to. Now it makes you wonder what exactly they have in mind for The Undertaker: Texas Ranger (I couldn’t resist). On Smackdown last night his lights came on and the bell tolled and the smoke rised and he damn near gave Booker T a heart attack…but still nothing. Word has it the Smackdown Locker room was not to thrilled to have The Deadman back since he would now have an excuse to no sell offense since he’s The Undertaker and he feel’s no pain. All I know is, if The Undertaker is going to be reduced to just coming in and tombstoning people and going on his merry way then he should of hung up the black hat and trench coat once and for all after WM 20.

Speaking of things that aren’t working, the JBL push continues to boggle the mind. Sure it’s a great gimmick but is JBL worthy of a World Title match so soon? Hell no. It appears this is another case of Vince coming up with an idea and the Peanut gallery not having the balls to tell him “You know this probably won’t work”. I love the JBL character, but they should have done a slow build rather then the Hardcore Holly push of “Well, you’ve been here so long so have a shot at the title”. You know maybe if Vince told Triple H to shut the fuck up…you’re staying on Smackdown we wouldn’t be having this problem right now. Smackdown has been in the dumps ever since Triple H cried like a little bitch to go back to RAW. So lets assume Eddie beats JBL at Judgement Day…then what’s gonna happen? See the one month approach to feuds just doesn’t work. You know I came to the conclusion that the feud I’m having in the PWA with my fellow main page columnist Raw is Snapple is the longest running in wrestling right now. I mean think about it, I’m working on a feud with him that has been going on for 8 months and truth be told we’re just getting started. I miss the days of seeing a feud go on for months. Sure we’re getting a good one on RAW with Benoit and Michaels, but with Triple H in the mix what could be the feud of the year gets reduced to Triple H having to look dominant at all costs.

Speaking of HBK, TURN HIM HEEL ALL READY. I’m tired of seeing the nice Shawn Michaels. I want to see the Shawn Michaels who was an egomaniac and damn proud of it. If they turn him heel now, it will give a whole new demention to this feud. I’m all for great sportsmanship and who can one up who, but come on Shawn. Be the Showstopper. Be the ICON. BE THE MAIN EVENT.

Before I get to the main point of my column this week, what the hell is up with the tag team titles. On this week’s TNA broadcast, the NWA World Tag Team Titles change’s hands for the third straight week on a bullshit DQ rule. On RAW Chris Benoit and Edge won the tag titles from Flair & Batista. Now If they were smart, they would dive into the old WWF rulebook and dust off the “No Duel Champion” rule. Basically The most famous example of this rule happened in 1981 and it was Bob Backlund & Pedro Morales against The Wild Samoans at a WWF Event at Shea Stadium and I think in front of 30,000 fans Backlund and Pedro won the tag titles. But because Bob was the World Champion, he and Pedro were promptly stripped because the world champion could not hold two titles at the same time. Of course odds are we will see a rematch and Shawn Michaels will cost Benoit/Edge the tag titles because it’s not like tag team wrestling is important.

The only lone bright spot in tag team wrestling came on Smackdown when Charlie Haas and Rico won the Smackdown Tag Titles from Too Stale…err I mean Too Cool 2k4. Granted it was a pure comedy match (And a damn funny one at that). But it’s a start especially with The Dudley Boyz being reawakened. I still see no need for separate world tag team champions on RAW and Smackdown especially since there are barely enough teams on both shows to make a full division on a single show.

Well the main point of my column this week was the news that Ted Turner is thinking about starting up a new wrestling promotion. Basically he got screwed over by AOL-Time Warner and if it were up to him, he would have never gave up control of WCW. Well Billionaire Ted, I am purposing this. If you give me full creative control of this company from the ground up, I can beat Vince and the WWE in a year. See I understand the audience. I’m not some schmuck net writer. I actually do have a degree in Television Production and Editing.

The simplest thing to do is to buy NWA-TNA. You take an established promotion like that and move it to a new base of operations. It worked in the 80’s when you bought out Crocket and got his territory. Once you have the established company and stars that are known, then you go after the big money guys like Austin and Goldberg. But you could sign all the big name talent you want, and it wouldn’t make a difference if you don’t have the marketing behind it. Assume this new promotion is on TBS. Are you willing to promote the hell out of it like you used to with WCW? But most of all if you truly want this thing to succeed if your serious, you need a chain of command which is why I demand complete creative control. The problem with WCW towards the end was everyone was booking what ever the hell they felt like and what ever got on the air needed to be approved by some middle manager at AOL who probably didn’t have a clue about wrestling since all they saw was RED.

If this boom period in wrestling is ever going to happen, we need competition and pronto. NWA-TNA is taking the right step in trying to land a deal with Fox Sports…the only problem is they are going to end up with a low budget version of WCW Worldwide and if that happens the company will be dead in the water by the end of the year. Plus the fact that they toned down to the point where the shows could be on Disney sure doesn’t help when there is a craving for Adult themed wrestling. I could go on an on, but I don’t feel like it since my back is killing me right now. If you don’t believe me when it comes to my creative skills, Check out the archives of the PWA. My work on PWA Schizophrenia speaks for it’s self.

Before I go, it’s about damn time A.J. Styles won the NWA World Title. But what was the point of building up a road to the cage and the winner of a tournament in Chris Harris if they didn’t have the faith in him to pull off the big money match. Styles is very deserving of the title, but if there isn’t a huge pay off to this I fear this will tarnish a much deserved win especially if Jeff Jarrett is going to end up getting the title back cause it's not like we would want Raven as champion or something.

Oh yeah, I’m tired of people saying Lita is not hot. Ok, her ring skills have fallen to shit and that’s probably all her fault. I can’t wrestle, but I’m pretty sure I could pull off some of the moves she tries to a lot smoother. But yeah, I suggest getting the Divas 2004 magazine or if you know where to look, obtain them off the Internet. Lita still is a vision of perfection. Now maybe if they spent as much time on her with learning how to be a better wrestler then doing photo shoots…we wouldn’t have this problem now would we. On a side note, Gail Kim should have got the cover. Hell I voted for her, but the WWE scammed us on that one.

And someone was curious as to why I said Billy Kidman is Ralph Machio’s long lost twin. Look at a pic of Kidman and Machio and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

That is it for this week. Until next time take care and remember someone has to provide you with this information so it might as well be me {S Bob Grant

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