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Archive for March, 2010

It’s impossible to know for sure in the world of professional wrestling, and for all we know he’ll show up next week on TNA Impact, but for now at least, the retirement of Shawn Michaels seems to be legit this time. Michaels gave a farewell speech to close out RAW that seemed to mark an end to a remarkable career.

Oddly, Bret Hart indicated he was leaving WWE again, too, earlier in the night, but no big fuss was made over that; likely because everyone knew it was a WrestleMania gimmick return, not a permanent gig.

Either way, with both Michaels and Hart out of wrestling, those addicted to nicotine can light up their electronic cigarette at the news of perhaps a final retirement for these two stellar superstars, and rejoice that the new Hart Dynasty, Davey Hart Smith and Tyson Kidd seem to be cut from the same cloth as not only the rest of the Hart family, but also from the same bolt of fabric as Randy Orton, Ted DeBiase Jr. and Cody Rhodes, just to name a few of the more prominent second- and third-generation superstars WWE seems to be brimming with these days.

The storyline her is simple, yet compelling.

The Undertaker has a 17-0 streak at WresteMania coming into the night; and this is two WMs in a row for ‘Taker and Michaels to face off against each other. Taker is 45 and Michaels is 44, but Michaels put his career on the line if he fails to end ‘Taker’s victory streak at WM.

Classic wrestling storytelling. All in-ring stuff without the contrived storylines. And the in-ring execution was Wii-worthy. Energetic, epic and memorable as to veteran performers offered their all.

With nearly 26 minutes to tell their story, the match had an appropriate WrestleMania epic feel, and although the outcome wasn’t the hoped-for upset, even if it means Michaels is off Raw for a while, this was certainly a worthy match for him to go out on.

For a match 13 years in the making, the long-anticipated Bret vs. Vince match failed to live up to the pre-match hype. Instead of a somewhat competitive display, the “double-screwjob” angle with the entire Hart Family serving as McMahon’s lumberjacks… and immediately turning on Vince… made little sense in its timing.

Worse, however, was the in-ring execution. Now 64, McMahon is no longer able to pull off a convincing in-ring presence. While his match with Hart made storyline and business sense, McMahon simply isn’t up to the job the way he was twelve years ago when he was regularly facing off with Stone Cold Steve Austin.

The entire match had Bret on offense and McMahon barely made a recovery, let alone ever got any offense going enough to put the outcome in doubt and add some drama to the event. As a result, I’d have enjoyed myself more spending that time buying new office furniture.

Hart himself is no spring chicken, either. At 52, he is at an age where he might be in shape enough to take bumps convincingly the way McMahon did twelve years ago when he was 52, but to dominate an opponent like this? Not convincing. The match lacked energy and called to mind the tired, plodding pace of the Verne Gagne-Nick Bockwinkle AWA matches of the mid-1980s.

OK, I’ll get right to the result: Jack Swagger, who vowed to win on Raw last week, actually won just shy of the 15-minute mark. In a field that included Kofi Kingston, Kane, Matt Hardy, Christan, Evan Bourne and IC Title champ Drew MacIntyre, to name a few, Swagger is a bit of a shock as the winner. Most folks were predicting Kingston, and I personally thought Bourne had a decent shot to get the rub.

The match eventually came down to Hardy, Christian and Swagger; in that trio, you can bet your home insurance quotes that I wouldn’t have picked Swagger as the winner, given that he’s such a young guy. Still, WWE does seem to be on a bit of a youth movement and changing of the guards, so this could end up doing for Swagger what the MITB match did for both Edge and C.M. Punk.

Time will tell.

With Randy Orton facing off against both members of Legacy, I was looking forward to this match more than most of the undercard, simply because Orton is in his prime and both Rhodes and DiBiase seem primed to be the next Orton, even if DiBiase is noticeably more polished at this point than Rhodes.

The actual match was more fun that a room full of custom plastic cups! Although it lasted around nine minutes in all, Orton’s in-ring storytelling helped sell the energy and enthusiasm of the younger duo.

Rhodes too a wicked Punt from Orton that may signal a hiatus from TV, and Orton got the win and appears to be headed toward becoming Raw’s top heel, even though this match drew some babyface heat to him. DiBiase lost, but appears ready for the next phase of his career. A lot could be determined about where that will take him in a couple weeks, when Raw holds its annual Draft Lottery event, mixing up the roster.

Stone Cold Steve Austin may be mostly retired from the squared circle these days, but he proved with a simple guest-hosting job on Monday Night Raw tonight that he still carries with him more charisma than ninety percent of the current WWE roster combined.

Sure, Austin’s staying in shape making movies instead of retiring to perform auto insurance reviews and the like, but does he still have “it” – that hard-to-define ability to transform an arena into an electric power plant? You bet.

Even though he did nothing physical and wrestled no one, Austin simply carries credibility – even now. Something much of the current WWE roster would do well to learn from and emulate. Anyone who’d watch Impact instead of Austin is just a loon.

Raw easily won its first showdown with TNA Impact on Monday night, now that the second coming of Monday Night Wars has begun officially and in earnest. Raw drew a 3.4 rating and 5.1 million viewers, while Impact managed only a 1.0 rating and 1.4 million viewers head-to-head with Raw.

It’s early and no first-night-upset was expected. A monkey wrench was also thrown into the works, also; History Channel’s runaway hit, Pawn Stars, had its second-season finale on Monday and drew a strong, record-setting 5.8 million viewers, allowing it to edge Raw as the most-watched show in all of cable.

Pawn Stars draws heavily on the same male demographic that Raw and Impact draw, so once next Monday rolls around and Pawn Stars is no longer around during its hiatus, it will be intriguing to see what gains are made by both Raw and Impact. At least we won’t have to see The Old Man on Pawn Stars trying to underbid for a set of 1920s incontinence products. Heh.

Rob Van Dam may be the latest big-name wrestling free agent to sign with TNA; if he signs, his first appearance will be in a couple days, when TNA moves its signature Impact program to Monday nights permanently on Spike TV.

Of course, I wouldn’t bet the stone sink on it; RVD has actually been talking to both WWE and TNA; however, he has made public comments of late hinting that TNA may be the way he’s leaning, and considering how poorly WWE has utilized him in recent years, as well as WWE killing off the ECW brand, it wouldn’t surprise me if RVD signed with TNA.

The lack of a lineup of guest hosts beyond WrestleMania led us to speculate last week that the concept may be coming to an end; not so! At least, not yet, at any rate.

You can bet your sell merchant account that following Stone Cold’s appearance, the final pre-WrestleMania guest host will be Pete Rose; and the first post-WrestleMania guest host will be two of the stars of the movie Hot Tub Time Machine.

So while changes to Raw may be forthcoming, the guest host concept will live at least one episode past WrestleMania, at any rate…

Jim Ross’ future with WWE should be determined in the next few weeks. Now recovered from his latest bout with Bells Palsy, WWE is laying the groundwork for a potential Ross return to WWE Monday Night Raw. However, Ross has been wondering out loud on his blog whether he can keep up the schedule he used to keep when announcing full-time.

One can expect WWE will want him around at least in the short term, with WrestleMania coming up and Ross being a favorite of several important veterans including, most importantly, Bret Hart.

Also, the risk of releasing Ross right now is higher than ever; with TNA Impact moving permanently to Monday nights, it would take only a couple used travel trailers to get wrestling fans to check out TNA Impact broadcasts with Ross on the play-by-play; he’s be an immediate and meteoric improvement over Mike Tenay.

So it’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out; while WWE seems to be wanting to go younger than Ross, his importance to the success of WWE… or TNA… has never been higher.

The WWE has released a total of seven on-air talents so far this year, with five of them coming in the month of February. Maybe some of them can find a new career in insurance advertising.

Anyway, Tommy Dreamer was the first talent released in 2010, followed by Eric Escobar later in January.

That was mild until WWE decided to cut the ECW-brand one-hour show on SciFi, ending the ECW brand for now under the WWE banner. Cutting that show meant imminent layoffs, especially since the replacement show, WWE NXT, will feature developmental talents working with veterans to become the WWE stars of tomorrow. That means some veterans would be cut, and that’s exactly what happened in late February.

The cuts include wrestlers Gregory Helms, Paul Burchill and Charlie Haas, as well as referee Scott Armstrong. Also, WWE Diva Maria was released to allow her time to participate in Celebrity Apprentice, which kicks off on NBC later this month. She also has an album coming out on iTunes in April.

Helms had legal troubles in January that may have contributed to his release; Burchill just never caught on, and Haas had similarly struggled to attract a following.

Expect more releases between now and WrestleMania as the company trims the fat after dropping the ECW show, consolidating talent to Raw and SmackDown, as well as Superstars and NXT.

The Harris County medical examiner’s office in Houston, TX, has released the official cause of death for Umaga, whose real name was Eddie Fatu. The official COD is listed as “acute toxicity,” which means a toxic mix of over-the-counter drugs in a short amount of time.

Specifically, it was a lethal combination of painkillers (hydrocodone), muscle relaxers (carisoprodol), and anti-anxiety medication (diazepam), according to the coroner’s report.

It should be noted that Umaga had been released by WWE for months prior to his death. Most reports were that WWE released Umaga for violating the company’s wellness policy. Kind of hard to secure insurance quotes under those conditions.

While release is a legitimate punishment for such a violation, it’s a shame that in the end, it makes WWE simply look like they are distancing themselves from a wrestler on a destructive path before it blows up. WWE does offer even released wrestlers access to rehab services, but once a wrestler is out of a company’s employment, follow-up and accountability tend to suffer.

While there are no easy answers in the death of Umaga, it is tragic that his was another in a long list of preventable, premature deaths among professional wrestling performers.