DaveyBoy’s Wrestling Menu – TNA Impact, When Will CM Punk Cash In + More
Submitted by DaveyBoy on Wednesday, April 9, 2008 at 1:03 AM EST






THE WRESTLING MENU #266

Welcome one and all to the 266th edition of The Wrestling Menu, the column that is sure to satisfy your taste buds when it comes to discussing all things wrestling.

I don’t know why, but I’m in a ‘bits & pieces’ kind of mood today. So today I will sort of have 4 topics which I write about, even if a couple of them will be a little shorter than usual. It’s something different I suppose.

With a smorgasbord of topics coming your way, I better not mess around and get on with the show…..


APPETIZERS

The Last Week Or So

The week or so after WrestleMania is an eventful one seemingly every year. Even if it isn’t, it is an important one. This is because it is so vital for WWE to capitalize on the momentum that they have gained leading up to the biggest pay-per-view of the year. Furthermore, those more casual fans that don’t purchase the big dance tend to tune in the night after because they know that they will most likely get a highlights package or 3 to show them most of the big occurrences.

It has sort of got to the point where wrestling fans practically demand eventful happenings in the week following WrestleMania. In the late 1990’s, the promotion would not only plan months in advance for their biggest pay-per-view of the year, but also for the night after. They almost set the bar too high in fact as many fans have been left disappointed of the quality of the Raw the night after WrestleMania of late. Even with Ric Flair’s big farewell this year, it has appeared to have occurred once more in 2008.

Personally, I was rather pleased with all the goings on over the past week or so. While none of the 3 shows last week stood out as exceptional, they all had a splattering of this, that & the other which made for good entertainment. And it began from the get-go on Raw with a nice little surprise from Matt Hardy attacking WWE Champion Randy Orton. This was totally unexpected, yet logical. I liked the booking of it and it eventually resulted in a pretty good pseudo main-event. Throw in the surprising return of Cryme Tyme early on and I was entertained.

Of course, the highlight of the night was indeed Ric Flair’s farewell and it didn’t let anyone down. As Raw is not televised live down under, I had been pre-warned to keep the tissues nearby by a few readers. Offended, I replied that I was a big strong man and would not need them. Unfortunately, in a totally unrelated coincidence, this big strong man was under the thumb at the time and forced to peel some onions. Those darn things get your eyes watering every time. Anyway, it was a fitting farewell for Flair and definitely held my attention in between onions!

ECW didn’t include anything nearly as memorable as Raw, but I thought it was a good solid show overall. I liked the opening promo involving Kane, Punk, Chavo & Shelton, while also feeling their eventual main-event match was solid as well. SmackDown was probably the most disappointing of the 3 shows actually, but it was sufficiently solid, while containing a very good face to face segment between Batista & Shawn Michaels. There was a 10 second hint of what was to come backstage at Raw on the Monday night, but that was just a pre-cursor to this terrific segment.

It’s actually quite amazing how bad Batista can be on the mic some weeks and then how good he can be at other times. I presume it may have to do with how scripted his promo is, but it could just be whether or not he feels natural with what he is talking about. Either way, he is clearly at his best when he has the intensity about him, which was clearly apparent here. It is an interesting little feud as well and could very well lead to anything, with a potential heel turn for either man on the cards.

And a week of wrestling cannot pass without a couple of amazing things occurring. Those happenings which leave you shaking your head whether it is in a good or bad way. To me, the first occurred Monday night on Raw where my ears may have deceived me, but I could swear I heard a “Lets Go London” chant. Then again, Paul London was wrestling Hardcore Holly, so maybe it was a chant by default! But then, I almost fell out of my chair while watching the opening promo on SmackDown. It wasn’t anything Edge said, it was what he was wearing; A Chavo Guerrero t-shirt! Seriously, who in their right minds would purchase a Chavo Guerrero t-shirt. Even if you are one of those people who believe Chavo can get it done in the ring, I am certain you would admit that a merchandise seller, he is not! Mind-boggling!


ENTREE

When Will CM Punk Cash In?

Never let it be said that I don’t address the burning topical questions. Apart from general & specific feedback concerning my WrestleMania 24 review over the last week, the #1 question asked by my readers is when CM Punk will and/or should cash in his Money In The Bank contract for a shot at a World Title. Or should that be any title as there has been talk that he could use it against Chris Jericho or MVP. Let’s hope not as it would seriously undermine the whole point of the annual WrestleMania match in the first place!

Firstly, I will make it clear that I don’t believe that WWE have a rock-solid plan as to when Punk will cash in his contract at this exact moment. While I would usually come down on the promotion like a ton of bricks for the lack of long-term booking, I will not be so harsh in this case as I believe it was practically a last minute decision to have Punk go over at WrestleMania due to the Jeff Hardy suspension.

I think my answer to when WWE will have Punk cash in his contract could be different to when he should in fact do it. I think it’s important to remember that Punk is a face. While every wrestler is going to attempt to gain some sort of psychological advantage in cashing in their prize, I think WWE has already begun to develop a pattern of sorts as to the extent which a wrestler will do so. Heels will do anything at any stage to reach their end goal of becoming World Champion. See Edge on both occasions for the obvious example.

But let’s take a closer look at how Rob Van Dam cashed in his contract when he was a face character as well. There is no doubt he got a clear advantage on the then face champion John Cena by having the title bout take place on his home ground of sorts; the ECW One Night Stand pay-per-view. However, RVD was straight up about the match taking place at that event holding true to his face character. I think something similar will occur with CM Punk.

My guess as to who Punk’s eventual opponent will be in the title match is Edge. I am fairly certain that at some stage in 2008, Edge will regain his World HeavyWeight Championship. Edge vs Punk seems like a natural match-up which would be good in the ring, while the SmackDown brand would make more sense for Punk to move to, whether temporarily or permanently. This is especially the case since the 2 brands share talent already. As for whether or not Punk eventually wins the title, I am currently guessing not, but things could change down the track.

While I wouldn’t necessarily be against a plan similar to what I have outlined above (to most likely occur between June & October), I wonder if it wouldn’t be wiser for WWE to play more of a ‘wait & see’ approach with Punk. It’s a dangerous tactic and probably is contradictory with my thoughts on long-term booking, but I am interested to see how much Punk can do for his character with that briefcase hanging by his side constantly. He just gives me that feeling that he will use it rather well in a cocky face kind of way. If that is the case, then the longer he takes to cash it in, the better it will be for him and ultimately WWE.

Of course, there is one huge X-Factor in all of this; A possible heel turn. From what I understand from his Ring of Honor days, Punk has no trouble whatsoever playing a heel role and could actually be more suited to it due to real life arrogance. While I have been pleased that WWE hasn’t pulled the trigger on that turn just yet, they may be tempted to bring it forward just because it would all be an occurrence full of impact. Think about it… Imagine if one of the World Titles is held by a face later in the year. Punk could come out, turn heel immediately & have the turn be cemented by a World Title win. It’s an intriguing thought and if it is pulled off correctly could herald the dawn of a legitimate main-eventer for years to come!


MAIN – TNA Impact

It took quite some time, but TNA Impact has finally made it to Australian cable television! I always couldn’t work out why Impact had yet to air here as we have been able to purchase the promotion’s pay-per-view events for a couple of years now. From what I know, the TNA ppv’s do not sell too well down under. I believe there was initial interest (including from myself) and the likes of Bound For Glory & LockDown get a little peak, but I believe figures to be very low otherwise. This makes sense because how the hell are we meant to be involved in the ppv in the lead-up if we don’t get to view the weekly shows?

Of course, it may still be rather useless as the timeslot given to Impact is the terrible one of Saturday nights at 10pm. If by chance you do happen to be at home, there is still live local sport to be watched, not to mention the beaming in live of English Premier League soccer games. So I don’t expect ratings to be high for TNA Impact in Australia for that reason more than any other! Of course, that’s where videotape, DVD recorders and whatever new technology that I do not understand comes in handy.

Anyway, the videotape was indeed set for record this past Saturday night and because it has been a while since I have mentioned TNA at all in my column, I thought this was a good opportunity to write on the promotion. I will attempt to just give more general thoughts, rather than actually review the weekly episode in question. Point form may be the best method to do this, so here goes:

- A lot (& I mean a lot) of talking begins the show. There is first a backstage segment near Cornette’s office, then an in-ring segment hyping an upcoming ppv bout, then a backstage interview of Kurt Angle, before finally a car-park interview of Scott Steiner! It was clearly way too much time to be taking up at the beginning of the show with non-wrestling & to be honest, not a great deal was achieved apart from some ppv hype. I will sum up what I made of it all (apart from the fact that Tomko should never be given a mic) in my concluding thoughts later on in this section.

- I must admit that I got a chuckle out of ‘The Monsters of Rock’ wandering around with Guitar Hero guitars… And Christy Hemme looked great!

- I couldn’t believe that TNA allowed Rellik to talk on the mic. It totally ruined his character by humanizing it way too much.

- There was some impressive & fantastic double-team moves from The Motor-City Machine-Guns in the 8 man tag-team opener. Lax were good too… And Salina (aka Ariel) looked great!

- I’m sick of (Super) Eric Young ending up on top every time I watch TNA.

- Following a Sting backstage interview, we see a pre-taped promo of the upcoming Road Dogg vs Billy Gunn feud. I couldn’t think of anything worse to watch as the 2 are so far past their best that it is not funny. More talk follows with a sit-down interview of Awesome Kong & her Muslim mouthpiece, then a backstage interview of ‘Cowboy’ James Storm. For f**k sake, I watched this to see some wrestling!

- Hooray, its AJ Styles… He can’t talk, so we thankfully will get to see some wrestling! And the update is that he is still phenomenal in the ring. Unfortunately, the latest attempt to add some personality to his character is by way of a goofy prince gimmick. That’s not the way I would have gone about it, but I’m happy as long as he is wrestling. Solid tag bout between AJ & Tomko against Christian & Rhino, before the War Machine gets bored of it all & gores the referee. This isn’t the original ECW buddy!

- It’s X-Division time as Elix Skipper battles Shark Boy. These 2 might not be the best there are in the division, but they’re still worth watching on a weekly television show. As for Shark Boy impersonating ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, it is totally useless & ridiculous in the ring, but I must say I did get a kick out of his vocal impersonation when being interviewed afterwards. Of course, I would never support impersonation just for the sake of it… And that’s the bottom line coz DaveyBoy said so!

- Time for the knockouts next as Traci Brooks wrestles Payton Banks. I paid little attention throughout as I know these 2 are nowhere near the best the division has to offer. It is good to see TNA attempting to make something out of the division and I could sort of see the potential from the pre-match locker-room interview and the post-match where practically every female roster member got involved.

- Interesting & effective pre-taped Samoa Joe training promo. Kurt replies in the ring before being interrupted by Scott Steiner who apparently has stolen the Money in the Bank briefcase from CM Punk. For once, Big Poppa Pump was understandable & concise with his mic work. It’s nowhere near as humorous when he makes sense!

- The main-event of the night was Sting vs James Storm. Decent enough match with its main purpose being the face turn of sorts for special guest referee Matt Morgan. While it was rather surprising & I admittedly didn’t pick it, it wasn’t exactly a memorable moment either. Could a turn back to the dark side occur at the pay-per-view…???

Overall, my main conclusion after viewing this episode of Impact is that TNA are yet to learn how to structure a 2 hour show. While Raw and SmackDown occasionally also have 5 matches like this show did, they hardly ever appear as drawn out and definitely do not have as many non-wrestling segments, some of which were annoyingly repetitive.

Maybe more importantly, despite the added length of the show, too many of the company’s important members played nothing but cameos… For Example; Booker T, Samoa Joe, Kurt Angle & Christopher Daniels. Hell, you can even add Jay Lethal, Petey Williams & Sonjay Dutt to that list! By all means, have 3 or so main focus points throughout a show, but intersperse them wisely between more solid matches that are allowed to fully play out. For longtime fans, think 1997 WCW for what I am attempting to suggest.

Furthermore, I think TNA may have gone on gimmick overload. I understand that they are attempting to add character to their lesser lights, but it is way over the top. How about letting some old-school heel tactics get some of the heels over and wrestling talent allowing some of the faces to become successful? It is almost contradictory when you think it through as TNA are apparently attempting to aim their product at a more mature audience, yet are trying to do so via numerous immature means. I know it worked with WWE’s D-Generation X, but when there are so many similar types of gimmicks, the effects are never as strong individually.

Right now, I suppose I can forgive TNA for all the criticisms I have made throughout this section. They haven’t been airing a 2 hour weekly show for all that long, while I’m probably not the best person to comment as I am not up to date with all the characters & storylines. Then again, I am exactly the kind of casual fan that TNA need to win over in order to progress! And smetimes that opportunity for winning over casual fans needs to be done immediately!


DESSERT

No More Randomness

This could have been placed in the end section of my column and some readers will most likely believe that it should have. But stuff it, I believe this is significant enough to have a topic all of its own, albeit a short one.

Some readers often question whether or not the staff writers here at LOP get together on yearly vacations, chat on a daily basis or make decisions as to the direction of the website as a whole. In reality, it’s nowhere near that regimented (or fun when it comes to the imaginary vacation) and as far as I’m concerned, I simply write a column, post it and that is it apart from the replying to feedback. Sure, I occasionally will chat to another columnist in the LOP Forums and even leave them feedback via email on occasions, but it is really nothing much more than that. The staff at the LOP Forums have a lot more decisions to mull over than the main-pagers (EG: Who to ban next).

One thing that does catch my attention though when it comes to my colleagues in the LOP column-writing brethren is when one of them is promoted to the main-page and/or one of them retires. This past weekend saw one such retirement with Random (aka Random Guy #5) retiring his column ‘The Nosebleed Section’ after exactly 100 columns. Rumors have been circulating that he made this decision after finally realizing he had no chance in hell to catch my total! Yep, he was not only random, but very stubborn! LOL!

Anyway, what better way to go out than with a bang? No, Random hasn’t gone all psycho and lashed out at the website, the wrestling industry and anyone who has entered his thoughts over the countless hours it took him to write the column. What he has done though is thrown at us the proverbial War & Peace of columns. I think the word count may indeed have reached the 1 million mark! It’s so big that 1 part of it is located here on the main page & another part is located on the forums!

And you know what? I had the pleasure of reading every single word of what I am going to dub an “Enthralling piece of writing”. You can quote me on that when you attempt to sell it to publishers Random. Seriously folks, if you get a spare half hour or so, I highly recommend having a read of this column(s). If you have had the pleasure of reading Random’s columns before, then fine. But if you haven’t, treat this as a sort of ‘Best Of’ as it contains links to what he believes are his best columns, talks about current occurrences in professional wrestling and looks at the industry in general very well. Hell, he even gets rather personal at times, ALMOST requiring me to peel some onions… If you get my drift.

Random has done a lot for LOP. He is a regular over at the forums and is currently a moderator of the Columns Forum which will always be an important job in order to develop the up & coming columnists for this site. Furthermore, he was the main man behind LOP’s favorite radio podcast (is that the term?) called ‘Monday Night Countdown’. So call him a trail-blazer, call him a good guy or just call him retired. Either way, it is one hell of a magnum opus (is that a type of gun?) that he has written upon retirement and I recommend the read. If you don’t have the time now, copy & paste the column (or link) for later use. It can be found by clicking on the following link (remembering that within the column is a further link to even more good stuff in the forums): http://www.lordsofpain.net/news/2008/articles/1207383990.php


On that note, #266 of ‘The Wrestling Menu’ has passed. It was something different & actually ended up a little longer than usual, but if you compare it to Random’s final column, then it looks like a children's book… Trust me! Do you have any thoughts to share on WWE heading towards Backlash, CM Punk cashing in his contract or TNA Impact? If so, email me. I will reply, although you will need to be a little more patient than usual as I have a busy week upcoming and still haven't replied to about a dozen emails sent to me over the past 3 or 4 days! My e-mail address is DaveyBoy123@bigpond.com, but if you are an LOP Forums member, it would be much appreciated if you could leave feedback on my thread at http://www.lopforums.com/showthread.php?t=159

No column next week. Today took a lot out of me, as did reading Random’s column… LOL! I also need some time to catch up on replying to feedback in amongst being flat chat at work. I will be back the following Wednesday on the 23rd to discuss Backlash and a couple of other points I held off on today. Until then, this is DaveyBoy signing off & asking you to remember that dinner is best served in 3 courses.


In the meantime, if you need more DaveyBoy goodness to read, feel free to take a peak at my latest album review, the Grammy award winning ‘Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace’ from The Foo Fighters. Simply click on the following link and then scroll down a little before clicking on the appropriate link: http://www.feeltheword.net/magazine/music/


DaveyBoy’s Wrestling Menu. 2002-2008

Exclusive To LordsOfPain.net / WrestlingHeadlines.com










***DIRECT LINK*** The WWE SD & RAW Divas PARTYING in a CLUB! WOW!

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