Take up thy wrestling boots and walk - RAW, Masters, Cena, More
Submitted by Pt2 on Tuesday, April 4, 2006 at 2:46 PM EST





Welcome once again to the column that thinks Bertha Faye is the prettiest girl in the whole trailer court, Take up thy wrestling boots and walk. I’m the columnist with the strange obsession with old WWF theme music, Pt2, back once again to stone the literary goliath and write of the merits of that sport of kings, professional wrestling.

Might not be the usual deal today. Just going to talk about some things, as they occur to me. Might seem a bit structure-less, but hey, it’s my column. I’ll change it when someone buys me cake.

I find that life is much better when you’re an optimist. But when you’re a wrestling fan, it can just get confusing.

You see, anyone whose been reading my columns recently will know that I’ve been slightly less than optimistic about the WWE product heading into Wrestlemania – and once again, I am speaking in euphemism. Speaking plainly, I pretty much slammed the product and said that for the first time in my long fandom I wouldn’t be watching Wrestlemania.

And after what I could only consider to be a piss-poor (to use Steve Austin’s words circa 2002) build up to the most important show of the year, I tuned in to the Post Wrestlemania RAW, more in hope than expectation… and was pleasantly surprised.

OK, it’s not the best RAW ever. It’s nowhere near. It’s not even as good as the RAW’s in the build up to last year’s Wrestlemania. But in this RAW, the WWE managed to do a few things that they simply had failed to do in the build up to the “granddaddy of them all”….

I actually cared about what they were doing.

The main event was actually pretty entertaining. HHH may have buried his two closest competitors in some people’s eyes, but you know what I see? The best all rounder on RAW establishing himself as the top heel, and if nothing else, the crowd seemed to like it. If you want no other proof as to why he should be at the top, look how easily he controlled the crowd just by sitting on the turnbuckle…. Edge and Cena’s action in the ring almost became secondary to watching him there, waiting to make his move… HHH is starting to remind me of a less charismatic but better in ring Hulk Hogan, in that his greatest asset is his total understanding of how to control a crowd. Like it or not, if you can do virtually nothing and still have the fans more interested in you than two guys brawling, you have some skill. If I had that skill, I’m pretty sure I’d still be in wrestling today.

If I had to pick the main flaw in the RAW last night, it’d be that it seemed very promo heavy – but lets be honest, you could say that about any RAW since…. Well, since Austin vs. McMahon. But although the one that jumps out of me didn’t really do too much for me (although seeing Shane McMahon’s face when Vince called him the product of his semen was worth it), the others were none too offensive.

I could live with the Ric Flair segment, primarily because it actually achieved something, namely the debut of some fat fella who looks like he should have been part of the Head Shrinkers. Now I know a lot of people don’t like this guys who have gimmicks, but I think they are useful, and this guys is promising because he adds a new dimension, in as much as he doesn’t wrestle like everyone else – the clash of styles has always been a useful tool, especially for wrestlers such as the samoans, the early mankind character… anything with a sense of “other” from the typical wrestler throws up more and more combinations, which is always a good thing.

The women’s feud might actually be the best thing on the card at the moment – although Trish and Mickie aren’t up the level of a Molly Holly, the booking has been, so far, impeccable. Having Mickie come out as Trish Stratus last night was beyond great, and builds on the existing heat that feud has. I’m not the biggest fan of the way that the WWE has handled the women’s division over the past few years, but I must take my hat off to them, since they have really handled this well.

I don’t really have opinions on the RAW tag division, because RAW don’t really have a tag division.

I suppose the last thing that sticks out in my head was the match between Chavo and Shelton, and the aftermath. You know, I’m quite interested to see where this is going. I’m not usually a fan of involving Eddie in storylines…. But when I actually think of it I’m fairly convinced that Eddie would love to help Chavo’s career in anyway that he could, and when you think that Chavo Guerrero is legitimately one of the best packages on the WWE roster who has been criminally under-utilised in his WWE tenure, then anything that gets him to a spot on the card that he deserves is ok with me – and especially if we get to see him work with Shelton Benjamin more often. Just one small thing, if those two do feud, let Chavo carry it on the mic, because one thing is for certain, Shelton may be an athlete, but a public speaker he ain’t.


That’s pretty much the end of my RAW thoughts, but never feat, your Take up thy wrestling boots and walk fix doesn’t have to end just yet, because I do have a couple of other things on my mind, that I might want to go into in a bit more detail.

The first is Chris Masters. Watching RAW, something struck me during the Masters and Carlito entanglement. I don’t often watch wrestling in such close detail the first time around, instead just enjoying it, and restricting analysis to the things I get to see more than once, but I couldn’t help noticing something on this occasion.

Watch Masters sell Carlito’s turn. He sells it in two stages. First, he does it… at almost the highest level possible; it just looks great, and is done really professionally. Then give it a second, and all of a sudden he is over-selling, and is just not performing as well, and actually detracting from the scene in the ring. You can only get away with overselling if you are selling a move like the Stone Cold Stunner, a move that’s so over it hurts the fans in the nosebleed seats (Hi Random); when do it for an every day move, the fans won’t buy it and you won’t get as much out of them as you could.

Or should, in this case, since the very first second or so shows that Masters has that almost instinctive ability to be able to make you believe it, which means that in working with a second generation star like Carlito whose probably been building up to this his whole life, that they should really be able to get the most out of their work together.

My question watching it is, is Chris Masters overthinking Wrestling?

For the most part, wrestlers are not great actors in the sense that they are not trained. Their acting ability generally comes through tricks of the trade picked up by experience and their natural talents.

So if Chris Masters were to be making the mistake of over-thinking the acting portion of the sell, he would be undoing anything given to him naturally (which I think we see in his first reaction) and “hamming up” the rest of it by over-acting, because of… well, I don’t know why. I’m not in Masters head. It could be paranoia that he’s not making his opponent look good enough, or it could be because it feels effortless to him that he needs to put more into it to sell… whatever the reason, it certainly isn’t helping him, and if he is to go on and become a major player in the WWE, then it is something that he will certainly have to address, and pass, quickly, because if he starts to make his way higher and higher up the card without being able to win the fans over with his performances, then once he falls down he’ll never find his way back up again.

The other guy on my mind at the minute is John Cena – and as a face world champion getting the biggest negative reaction since… well, ever…. There’s a reasonable chance that he would be on a lot of peoples mind, if they think about the WWE product at all.

See, I’m usually not the biggest fan of John Cena. I think he’s not ready for the attention and position on the card that he has received. But I think he has potential; along with that group that includes the likes of Randy Orton and Chris Masters, I can definitely see the positive aspects that the WWE sees. With John Cena, it’s his charisma – it just oozes out of him.

That’s why they’ve forced him down our throats. But he’s not ready, so a sizeable amount of the crowd resent it. The McMahon ego has so far dictated that Cena will remain in the role that they want, and they will try to ride the storm in the hope that we are abated.

I forget who said it, might have been Jim Ross, “In the end the fans decide everything”. Vince and Stephanie McMahon can try and make John Cena the top babyface in the company if they insist, but it won’t work. And as someone who really thinks that with a little more seasoning John Cena could be the guy they want him to be, I worry.

That’s right, after all the negative things I’ve written about John Cena, I worry about his career. Frankly, he’s better than a lot of will ever be and he could be even better, and I don’t want to see anybodies career cut off in the ascension by decisions that are not theirs to make.

How long can Vince and Stephanie try to ride the tidal wave of crowd resentment before they realise that John Cena’s long term worth the fans will be affected? Remember, here is possibly the most charismatic man on the whole roster and a valuable asset to invest in, but if they try to get us to like him too much now, will they eventually back themselves into a corner where we resent it so much that they can never turn him back? It would be a terrible shame for John Cena and such a waste for the WWE.

Remember, even The Rock had to eventually be turned heel due to fan reaction – but they got to the Rock in time, after only 6 months or so. Cena has been receiving mixed reactions for some time now, and not only does it appear that there are no plans to turn him, but even that the McMahon’s wish to try and use this – I feel pretty confident in saying that it won’t work. OK, he doesn’t care what we think about him, and that may have worked before, but this isn’t 1996 and John Cena isn’t Steve Austin.

This isn’t about liking or disliking John Cena, or the McMahon’s. This isn’t about enjoying or disliking the WWE’s current product. This is only about the long term future of the WWE and the business sensibilities surrounding one of their top assets. As a long term fan of the company I don’t want to see throwing money away – and to me that looks like what they seem intent on doing.


That’s it this time. If you’d like to send feedback (all of which I will reply to) then you can do it at takeupthywrestlingboots@gmail.com

Don’t forget that Rich Warner-Frost makes his first defence of the YBTB championship against former champion BC in the upcoming week, so I hope you’ll all join us for that. Just a reminder that it will be the first defence under the new system, so if for no other reason, it’ll be worth stopping in to see how we do things now!

Also, if you’d like to apply to take part in YBTB, feel free to e-mail ybtbapplications@gmail.com and J-Man will tell you all you need to know.

All right then, take care.

Pt2









*NEW GALLERY* Must See! Lots of Rare and Hot Photos of Randy Orton's New Wife Samantha!

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