THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLY, AND MORE
by Buck Woodward 7/25/2003 1:24:00 PM
The Good...
Sometimes, you have to be thankful for the little things. This week, I am thankful that both Raw and Smackdown gave us at least one match that made the show worth watching. While there was plenty to not like on both shows, the matches between Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels on Raw and the tag team match between Rey Mysterio & Billy Kidman and Matt Hardy & Shannon Moore were both pleasant surprises.
Jericho and Michaels, though, really shouldn't have surprised me, given their spectacular performance at Wrestlemania. However, the pessimist in me feared that the two week buildup would result in a short, screwy match to set up future storylines. Instead, WWE allowed both men to put on a performance, and gave them enough time to tell a story in the ring, while still setting up what appears to be a future Michaels-Randy Orton match. You could point out that their Raw match wasn't as good as their Wrestlemania bout, and you would be right, but for a match on regular cable, I doubt many would (or should) complain. The finish, with Jericho and Michaels recreating the Stan Hansen-Rick Martel AWA World Title finish from the 80's, is one of my all-time favorites, so obviously, I popped for that. At the same time, they ended the match in a way that kept both men strong. Michaels can say he was the victim of outside interference, while Jericho can say that it was he who made him tap out, not Orton or Flair.
The Smackdown tag match was more of a legitimate surprise, as I did not expect such a competitive match between the four. With Mysterio & Kidman challenging for the Tag Team Championship on Sunday, I figured on them having a short, decisive victory to lead them into Vengeance. Besides, its not as if Matt Hardy and Shannon Moore have been getting a mega-push lately. Heck, they're not even invited to the APA Brawl on the Pay-per-view. Instead of a glorified squash, we got a hot tag bout, with both sides working hard to make for a believable encounter. The highest compliment I can give the match is that at one point I thought Hardy and Moore might win, despite all logic saying that Mysterio & Kidman had to win going into the PPV. They delivered some great false finishes, and they even managed to inject some drama into what (over the last few weeks) has become a predictable "619-Shooting Star Press" finish. Hopefully the powers that be in WWE noticed the great reaction this match got, and how a pure tag team wrestling match can get over with a crowd.
The Bad...
The ironic thing about professional wrestling is that a match can go for ten minutes, be excellent for nine minutes and thirty seconds, and then go down the drain in the last half minute. A great match can be killed by a horrible finish. It's happened over and over again. Mick Foley has often said that his 1996 "Mind Games" PPV match with Shawn Michaels was his best bout ever, however rarely will anyone else mention that bout. Watching it, the two men go at it for 25 incredible minutes. Foley, healthier than he had been in years, and Michaels, who was in his prime, tore it up, bumping like madmen and telling a great story in and out of the ring. Then came the lame disqualification finish, with Vader and the Undertaker interfering. Their efforts, while noticed by some, were disregarded by many because of the ending.
Watching NWA:TNA this past week, I felt as if D'Lo Brown and AJ Styles had been put in a similar position. Both men worked hard in their two out or three falls encounter, especially Brown, who has followed Raven's path of showing WWE what they missed out on. The work in all three falls was good, and the result was over 20 minutes of enjoyable action. For some reason though, TNA felt the need to overbook the falls and have Sonny Siaki interfere in each of them. I can appreciate that they want to elevate Siaki, and it would seem his actions set up a feud with Brown, but was it necessary to do it in every fall? If anything, it makes Brown look like a fool. If Siaki interfered in the first two falls, wouldn't Brown have found someone to watch his back, especially with there not being disqualifications for outside interference in the bout? To top things off, the planned finish, with both men falling off the ladder to the mat while holding the title belt together, was botched when they bounced away from each other, and could not maintain a grip on the gold.
As I have written in the past, NWA:TNA has a lot of potential. The talent is there, and the effort is there, but until they realize that clean finishes in main events will not hurt anyone (look at AMW vs. XXX for an example), they will continue to come up short on fulfilling it.
The Ugly...
John Cena is gearing up for the highest profile match of his career, with the exception of his title bout with Brock Lesnar. He is facing The Undertaker, the standard bearer of WWE, at the first Smackdown-only Pay-per-view. So, what does WWE have him do? Last week, he sucks up to Vince McMahon. This week, he acts like a teenager who finds his Dad's Playboy stash while sucking up to Stephanie McMahon. While I have never been a fan of Cena's rap gimmick, he has done a good job using it to set up his Undertaker match in pre-taped vignettes. However, WWE's insistence on having him play "McSuckUp" every week is hurting his character. I haven't even mentioned the fact that one week he is sucking up to a heel and the next a face!
3 Live Crew? Konnan, BG James and Ron Killings may make for a few chuckles now and then, but I am guessing that most of the fans who plunk down their $10 every week would have preferred to see a X-Division match in place of their weak attempts at humor. "Total Nonstop Action" to me doesn't mean long pre-tapes of BG James as a pimp.
And, to end on an up note ...
Last weekend, I had the pleasure of doing commentary for an ICW event in Queens, New York with Mike Johnson at the infamous Elks Lodge (ECW's old "Madhouse of Extreme"). ICW is gearing up for the "Impact Cup", a tag team tournament, and as a result their were several tag team matches on the show. What I saw in those bouts (and other matches as well) made me smile. Instead of the "spot-spot-spot" style that had taken over the independents for a time, I saw more selling and matwork. It would appear that many of these wrestlers had spent their time watching videos of Ricky Morton in his Rock N' Roll Express prime, rather than Sabu tapes of highspots. Not to say that there weren't highspots, but there were fewer of them, and they meant something in the context of the match. It would seem that this new generation of talent realizes that "less is more" sometimes, and that it is more important to tell a story in the ring, rather than just see who can do the most flips and take the sickest bump.
The best part of it all? The crowd loved it. There is hope for wrestling.
You can reach me at
bwoodward@1wrestling.com.
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