January 1, 2003
Hello, everyone. This this is my first wrestling rant of the new year, so I'm gonna try to talk about a little bit of everything. Things I haven't commented on previously, and go back on things I have mentioned.
Let's start off right now with what I'd like to see WWE doing. For starters, on the RAW side we have Scott Steiner will be facing off against Triple H at the upcoming Royal Rumble pay-per-view. Hopefully Triple H will finally do the right thing and do the job to Big Poppa Pump. There are ways to get yourself over and still not win the match. I'd even be happy if something like that happens right now. Having Triple H beat everyone in his path is a huge mistake, it makes any hope of "real" competition for the World Title nonexistent, thus leaving everyone else in the mid-cards. Shawn Michaels doesn't really count, he's already thought of as a modern-day-legend.
Now, what I would do is put Scott Steiner over at Royal Rumble. Then we'd go about the Royal Rumble event. What I would do with this is make it inter-promotional, and if a RAW or SmackDown guy wins it, he gets the "Rumble Championship", a big fancy trophy, like when a guy wins a big match in Japanese promotions, he'll also get number one contendership for the respective singles championship on his brand, in the main event of Wrestlemania. Which also means it guarantees the winner and the winning brand the main event of the biggest show of the year, the most coveted spot for a match in all of WWE. That, if you haven't guessed will also give Eric Bischoff or Stephanie McMahon some bragging rights as well. As for the winner of this show, I would give it to Batista. Give him the Brock Lesnar/Bill Goldberg-type push. Prior to this, of course, I'd have him kill everyone in his path... Booker T, Goldust, Rob Van Dam, Kane... everyone. Even possibly a mock-injury/hospitalization angle with Jeff Hardy. Make the 6'5" 320lb beast a real monster. Hell, I would put Batista over against Scott Steiner as well. Making things really interesting. You see, this would lead to Ric Flair, who accompanies both Batista and Triple H into their matches and plays the "manager" role, have to choose between Triple H or Batista, one has a guaranteed main event match, and the other who doesn't. Naturally, Flair and Batista turn on HHH, leading into a program there. Then by the next pay-per-view, I'd have "The Game" go over against Batista. In what appears to be your usual swerve, Flair will help Triple H win... just to start a program with Flair and HHH starting with the "Nature Boy" saying "You can't win without me, Triple H. And I know all your secrets." This would bring us up to another pay-per-view and I would then have Flair win this one. This way we could lead up to a retirement angle where "Nature Boy" Ric Flair actually goes out on top, with the 20lbs. of gold around his waist, retiring the big gold belt. I think even Triple H would go for this, since he doesn't mind letting a couple living legends beat him. Especially if it leads to a great send up for his idol.
Now that you'd see what I'd do for RAW, let's do the same for SmackDown! We've got a great swerve just occurred on SmackDown, featuring Kurt Angle going over the Big Show. Then siding with Paul Heyman, killing off all possibilities of a future full babyface turn for the foreseeable future. This gives us Kurt Angle, who if I were writing things would be, like Chris Jericho before him, doing everything possible to hold onto this belt for the time being, old-school, Ric Flair style. Including going over against both Big Show and Brock Lesnar. This would lead to an angle in which Brock Lesnar has to work his way back up, from the bottom, or at least the lower end of the mid-card. Along the way, we'll have Kurt Angle and Paul Heyman taunting him, and have the man with the most ridiculous mega-push of all time, Albert, or A-Train as he now wants to be called, attack Lesnar. I'd have Lesnar sell the attack big time. When it looks like he's gonna be get his chance to be champ again, another attack, possibly even including another newly pushed heel, Bill DeMott, Lesnar sells it further, and loses. But he gets a rematch this time. In the rematch he'll dig down deep and get the win over Kurt Angle.
As you can tell, the Master Of Darkness style of booking is very old-school. Reduce the 20 minute promos to 10 minutes, this way, you can have slightly longer matches, and do more detailed physical angles. I also have no problem with the silly and/or farfetched stuff... just save it for the lower-end of the card... people like Test and Raven and Steven Richards and people like that should be the ones getting the silly vignettes. Not Kane and Triple H. The top of the card should be more fierce and have more to do with the wrestling and the "competition" than the other stuff. They can still have promos and storylines, but they shouldn't be so idiotic.
That's what I'd be doing with WWE right now. Let's take a look at two other promotions. Neither of which have any chance of usurping WWE as the top dog, but are drawing some attention to themselves. These being NWA: Total Nonstop Action and XPW. NWA: TNA, has taken a turn for the worse right now, unfortunately. They're basically going to do their own version of the New Blood vs. Millionaire Club, featuring former writer and World Champion of WCW, Vince Russo. Basically, they're going to crap even though they were pretty shitty to begin with. Need I say more? Usually there is a glimmer of hope, but even the X-Division looks bad anymore. They do their one hour and forty-five minute show which combines some decent action with some complete and utter B.S. and hopes it gets over... I can't imagine it doing too well, but taking the good with the bad is what wrestling has been all about for years.
XPW, on the other hand, is a little different. I don't believe I've mentioned XPW in my previous wrestling rants. But here's the gist... you take an "ultra-violent" wrestling show similar to that of CZW, and then add in some familiar faces from the old ECW... Shane Douglas, Danny Doring and The Sandman to name a few, then book it in the former ECW arena in Philadelphia. Taking the good with the bad is what XPW is all about, really. Unfortunately, the action is where the bad comes in. We'll have a match between XPW's TV champion, "Rock Superstar" Kaos against Danny Doring, both are excellent athletes; what ruins the match is that Kaos uses outside interference throughout the match to get his victory. Just from watching one or two matches featuring Kaos, you can tell the man has skills, but he insists on retaining his title by having his ringside attendants G.Q. Money (who looks like a reject from "A Clockwork Orange") and Veronica Caine interfere in his match, attacking both Doring and the referee to get the fall. On the same card as that match (XPW's "Exit Sandman" event) Shane Douglas, XPW's World Champion retained his title against Chris Candido in an extremely dull match. If you didn't know, Candido is still accompanied by Tammy Sytch, who has gained roughly 40 to 50 pounds, and is, as you can imagine nowhere as hot as she used to be.
One thing going for XPW is that they now own the former ECW arena, meaning that no other company can book matches there. I'm sure that CZW (based in Delaware) and 3PW (based in southern New Jersey) who have used the arena will still run shows in Philadelphia, but they'll have to find a new place to do their shows. Ring Of Honor (ROH), of course, isn't affected by the purchase, of course... because they do their Philly shows at the Murphy Recreation Center, which is walking distance from the now "XPW Arena". Also, XPW has recently done deals with Jerry Lynn (former WCW, ECW and WWF superstar), Devon Storm (former WCW superstar as "Crowbar"), and Bill Alfonso (former referee in WCW and WWF, and manager of Rob Van Dam and Sabu in ECW.) Not to mention that the matches are booked by Shane Douglas. If you ask me, the one thing Shane can do to make his company better would be to take himself out of the top spot or possibly out of wrestling for XPW completely and book other stars into possible greatness. He saw what Paul Heyman did with ECW as good as anyone else did, if not better... with time, he can possibly bring XPW to the level ECW once was. Keep in mind that former XPW booker and adult film producer Rob Black still has a lot of money invested in XPW, and nothing would please him more than having XPW become more recognized than ECW ever was.
If this was a true "year in review" for wrestling in general, I'd have to rate this year very carefully. WWE had some excellent matches, most notably Shawn Michaels vs. Triple H and Hollywood Hulk Hogan vs. The Rock, but were they any more entertaining than other matches I've seen this year? It's hard to say. Earlier this year, I saw a suprisingly workrate-intensive match between then-CZW wrestler Jay Briscoe and one of CZW's franchise players, Justice Pain... this match suprised the hell out of me. It wasn't a very long match, but the way it played out was beautiful. Also quite a few of NWA: TNA's X-Division matches were quite similar, but it's hard to compare matches when one was a complete and total "high-spot" extravaganza, another showed what two wrestlers can do when they've got the attention of thousands upon thousands of people, and another match still can show two wrestlers having a match in some high school or youth club gymnasium somewhere and giving it everything they've got and quite possibly more.
That's the big problem with me. A couple years back, the "big three" in wrestling, would've been called "ECW, WCW and WWF". But now, my tastes have changed and the big three in wrestling that does it for me are "high-spots, working the crowds and wrestlers giving it everything they can." When it comes to the current state of wrestling right now, for the most part, I believe us as wrestling fans, can all agree that now is the time to look forward to what the industry and it's stars can bring us, rather than who's going to come out on top.