The Wrath of Tito - K-Fed in the WWE, TNA failing with Angle, and more!
Submitted by Mr. Tito on Monday, October 23, 2006 at 12:04 AM EST
IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN! Welcome to one of the few, last, remaining Wrath of Tito's. I'm guessing that something like October 30th will be my last column. I figure that I'll piece together the last column next weekend full of "thank you's" and a wrap up of my views on professional wrestling over the last 8 years.
Before I go onto today's column, like Tom Wilson answering questions about being Biff on Back to the Future, I am going to answer questions about my pending retirement...
Am I retiring for good? YES.
Am I writing for another webpage? HELL NO!
Will I be opening up my own wrestling webpage? NO WAY!
Will I write an occassional column? NO... but if I ever get the urges to write, I'd probably place it in the Columns Forum of LopForums.com. Potentially unlikely, but we'll see.
Are you keeping the BLOG open? I wasn't, but the readers talked me out of it. It will remain open and I'll post there on occasion. I didn't think people actually read that, especially when I've been neglecting it lately.
Will we find out your true identity? NO.
Will we see a picture of you? NO!
The problem with me right now is that "time is a luxury that I don't have" (Khan, Star Trek 2) and that my DEMAND for wrestling has been waning lately. It's not that I think that wrestling has been bad lately. Well, the McMahons vs. DX was a bit too much and TNA sucks, but 2002-2003 really sucked and I almost retired back then from watching wrestling because of the poor product. Just last week, for instance, I probably watched more of the Bears vs. Cardinals (before the miracle comeback) than RAW, and throughout this year, I've been going to bed, sometimes, around 10:30. It's a damn good thing I stopped doing television reviews!
By the way, for the MR. TITO CLEARANCE SALE, I've sold the bobbleheads, Wrestlemanias 1-18 has been sold, several are in negotiations for the book library... but how about Wrestlemanias 1-17 on VHS? Get it now before I try to auction it out elsewhere. What's great about this deal is if you have a VHS to DVD converter, you're set with official WWF tapes that are in good condition. No stupid logo blurs or heavy edits that the official Wrestlemania DVD's are currently seeing. This is a goldmine! If you'd like to make an offer on the Wrestlemania tapes, please have "Wrestlemania 1-17 Tapes" in your subject line to your email to wrathoftito@yahoo.com.
-Enough about my drowning sorrows or selling tapes. Let's talk about something more pathetic and that's Kevin Federline... Actually, I'm kidding. Everybody should admire K-Fed. He's the guy who scored Britney Spears, one of the best looking females to ever exist on the planet. Not only did he get an incredibly hot chick, but he's got her money as well. Double yum! How could you not be jealous of the guy? And the thing is that Britney really loves the guy and doesn't care if he's a loser. He's got it MADE and every American male knows it. That's why the WWE made a GREAT decision by bringing him in. Imagine if he costs John Cena the World Title at Cyber Sunday? Oh my...
The WWE could be potentially sitting on a goldmine, especially given that media outlets actually ran WWE footage this week because of K-Fed's appearance (great comment by Joel McHale on the Soup about how Melina got pregnant by standing near K-Fed). He's Mr. Britney Spears and he'll bring outside attention to the WWE, and thus good business could be made. The WWE must calculate K-Fed's appearances and use jealousy to the highest degree. A good example would be Austin flipping Tyson off or Jerry Lawler slapping Andy Kauffman on David Letterman, as well as the involvement of "Rock N Roll" wrestling to set up Wrestlemania 1. Celebrities in wrestling can be wasted... but they can also bring that much needed outside attention and help in the creation of new fans.
Believe it or not, worthless K-Fed might be onto something in the WWE. He may have found his calling...
-Nothing but hate in my inbox about NWA-TNA (that's right, I called it "NWA-TNA"! Take that, TNA fans!) All I can say is... The news about Kurt Angle exploded on September 24th at TNA's Pay Per View. Basically, Angle's jump to TNA has given wrestling fans something to chat about for weeks. But like "Snakes on a Plane", it's ALL online hype! Get this... The 3 NWA-TNA Impacts have NOT drawn interest since Angle joined the company:
-September 28: 0.9
-October 5th: 0.8
-October 12th: 0.9
(Credit Wrestling Information Archive for the info.) I don't know about you, but I don't see a ratings bump? TNA has been in the 0.8 to 1.0 range all year, and if you've taken a statistics course, you'd know that there's not much difference when considering sampling error.
When Angle signed, I made it quite clear... He's a big name but he can't fix this company. Jeff Jarrett has to be the worst promoter ever, making the likes of Dusty Rhodes, Kevin Nash, Ole Anderson, and other failures look intelligent! The ongoing battle of bad booking versus improper wrestlers pushed continues to haunt NWA-TNA. With the low 0.8 rating after Angle joined TNA, what that tells me is that non-TNA fans tuned in and instantly did not like what they saw. Already, TNA has blown Kurt Angle's debut and the WWE is probably laughing at Angle as he unprofessionally buries the company that made him. Vince McMahon probably can't wait until TNA folds and Angle will have to come crawling back. I hope Angle will have the knee pads ready...
Proof is in the pudding, TNA fans. The numbers don't lie. TNA is a lousy wrestling organization and it will get even more embarrassing when TNA gets 0.8 ratings on a better timeslot. Nobody wants to see horribly booked wrestling in a six-sided ring. Oh wait, a select few do and they'll probably email me after reading this column...
I'll tell you what will get interesting with Angle, though... what if the WWE is successful over suing TNA for Kurt Angle trademarks? While the WWE cannot sue TNA over Kurt's actual name, the "three I's", "it's true, it's true", and "Angleslam/Anglelock" are probably something that the WWE could nail TNA on. Plus, the WWE could probably sue TNA based on Angle's look. That's right, folks, you might not be seeing red, white, and blue tights, as Angle's gimmick of wearing USA colors might actually be a WWE property!
-Did you know that RAW this week will be the 700th episode of Monday Night RAW? I didn't... I'm still getting over the "season premiere" of RAW... Oh wait a minute, the "RAW reunion" special. Can you say desperation? The WWE turned off many fans due to the lousy DX vs. McMahon feud and "special episode" campaigns have been pushed. What's next, a 12 year anniversary show? Of course, if that were so, it couldn't beat the 10 year anniversary show which was utterly awful.
~Apple Dumplings~
-ECW on Sci-Fi is "living dangerously" with a 1.6 rating. Let's make a bet, folks.. Who pulls the plug on ECW? Sci-Fi or Vince McMahon? I say Sci-Fi, as the ratings are dropping, they'll listen to their core audience and kick Extremely Bad Wrestling off their network. The failure of the ECW experiment should not go over well with Universal, who also owns USA Network. The next time the WWE negotiates for a new deal with USA, I'm betting the WWE will lose out...
-Good lord did Ric Flair mess up. His ex-wife attempted to take Ric back into court to obtain his Carolina Panthers season tickets. Huh? Flair's substance problems and abusive behavior towards his wife must have really put the screws to him in divorce court. But to go after Flair for football tickets? What's next, suing Flair for his clothing or the comb that he uses for his hair?
-Saw the premiere of Hogan Knows Best... ugh... Why must I torture myself? After a while, I thought Ozzy's show was horribly staged. Same with Viva La Bam. However, the Hogan family are clearly scripting their show and have been from the start. By the way, to clear up a question I asked a few columns ago, I guess Miami is a good music promoting city. To hell if I know, as I'm not trying to be a music star and the furthest South I've been has been Disney World!
-Sad to hear about Billy Kidman and Torrie Wilson divorcing (though the WWE media division probably threatened Torrie to cease that announcement on her MySpace page). I'll tell ya, though, through my 8 years here at LoP, I'm damn good at using the crystal ball, as quoted from the September 13th, 2005 edition of the Wrath of Tito:
"Billy Kidman, too, is the victim of the WWE legal department. He's no longer allowed to use the name "Billy Kidman", which he had years before entering the WWE in 2001. I figure this legal threat will cause two things to potentially happen. Torrie Wilson will head out the door, too, or by her staying with the WWE, a divorce between Kidman and Wilson will happen over differences in their workplaces. The latter would be a shame, but it appears likely with Torrie seeming like she's staying in the WWE."
I actually hate admitted that I was right in this instance. Best of luck to both during what will probably be painful divorce proceedings, especially since Kidman could probably take her to the grill because Torrie probably earns more of an income than Kidman (especially lately).
-Unforgiven, which was the STACKED RAW Pay Per View held on September 17th, 2006, did around 285,000 buys... Now, while that's above last year's Unforgiven by 60,000 buys, I still say the show was a disappointment in terms of buyrate. You had a TLC match, Hell in the Cell, Trish's last match, among other well pushed match-ups. I guess this just a mere sign that no matter how hard the WWE tries, the over-the-top demand just isn't there?
-And finally... The Marine, starring John Cena, pulled in $3,725,000 this weekend at the Box Office and has made $12,457,000 overall. The movie is likely to break-even with its budget of $15 million and make a profit through DVD and cable TV distributions. Not a bad deal for the WWE, thus far. With these movies, the WWE should just be happy with breaking even or a slight profit, as Kane's movie did. Getting the foot in the door is more important and little by little, the WWE will have some credibility to undertake bigger projects.
I've always said this about pro wrestling and television/movies: There needs to be a movie based on pro wrestling. No, I'm not talking about WCW's "Ready to Rumble"... I'm talking a behind-the-scenes style movie where you have a promoter interacting with wrestlers he may or may not push. Personally, a weekly show or mini-series might work better to show the innerworkings (or sometimes corrupt workings) of pro wrestling. Put it on HBO or Showtime, you wouldn't have to hold back. If a TV producer took the approach to pro wrestling like the producers of Playmakers did to the NFL, we'd have a hit on our hands. Insider stuff on pro wrestling sells... That's why this webpage exists and why Dave Meltzer has a comfortable living selling newsletters that have very small printed font and come stapled together once a week. If you made a show or a movie about pro wrestling in a serious manner, it would do well. Guaranteed!
If I feel like it, I may write again this week... Otherwise, look for a FAREWELL column by October 30th. Have a good week!
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