ProWrestlingViews.com

Archive for August, 2010

Team WWE beat Team Nexus at SummerSlam, in a rousing 34-minute spectacle of a five-on-five match. The action was fast and the heat was solid, but then John Cena cleaned house at the end to give Team WWE the PPV win.

However, on Monday Night Raw, the storyline developed as the night was dedicated to Team WWE facing Team Nexus individually. The good news is that many veteran WWE stars jobbed to Nexus to help the newbie heel division regain their heat.

That is, until the main event, where Cena bested Darren Young, pinning him solidly and sending him on his way with a nice Branson vacation package. So it appears WWE wants to slowly focus in on Cena as the one man Team Nexus will struggle to beat.

Can’t say that does much for me in terms of making Chris Jericho, Randy Orton and the like remain credible, but hey, at least a lot of young blood performers are being featured prominently and given a chance to rise to the occasion and prove themselves worthy of being next-generation WWE superstars.

Linda McMahon won the GOP primary for the US Senate seat currently held by retiring Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd, who, it was determined early on, didn’t stand a chance of being re-elected. So the Dems nominated Richard Blumenthal, a popular Connecticut Democrat, after realizing the GOP was well on its way to nominating someone with the name recognition of Linda McMahon.

McMahon received approximately 49 percent of the vote, while Rob Simmons got 28 percent and Peter Schiff 23 percent. The national Democratic machine was quick to attack McMahon along all the predictable lines of attack for a former CEO of a company like WWE. Whether voters in Connecticut will respond to such fear-mongering or vote on the issues remains to be seen.

McMahon might be more resilient to criticism if she had run a medical assistant school rather than WWE; yet her company’s product has certainly kept her in touch with blue-collar voters.

TNA has introduced a faux reality show, Reaction, that will air behind Impact every Thursday to create a three-hour programming block on Spike TV. The new show offers supposed “behind the scenes” interviews with TNA talent where they seem to give real reactions to recent TNA Impact events; but the thing has the feel of a sloppy work.

It now appears that Reaction is the “big surprise” Dixie Carter mentioned on her Twitter account about a month ago; if so, Reaction is potentially interesting if they can incorporate the content into a compelling overall TNA product. Unfortunately, that’s been the ongoing problem with TNA; they have some interesting pieces, but too often fit them like cell phone batteries into a laptop computer.

Vinnie Mac was blaming retirements and injuries as the primary reason for lackluster second quarter results in WWE business. Among the talent lost to retirement or injury were such top-draw stars as Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Batista and Undertaker. While WWE has been quietly brewing new talent, few of them are ready to step up now that they’re needed, because WWE over-relied on the veterans for too long.

While the WWE are wholesale distributors of wrestling talent worldwide, they often have too few spots available to really nurture young performers into the business. While the Nexus angle has helped, for every Randy Orton that has worked out well for WWE, there are several Shelton Benjamins who fizzle.

It’s the nature of the biz, but to beat it, they need to develop more developmental promotions and widen the talent base.

Jim Ross today denied, via his blog, that he is the mystery GM on RAW. Which means… there’s still a chance he is, of course. But not likely.

One doesn’t need new vga cables to see that most WWE mysteries like this are usually resolved in a much more disappointing way than the speculation that surrounds them surmises; just like when “Who Is the Higher Power” mystery was revealed to be… Vinnie Mac himself, which everyone pretty much guessed would be the safe route to go.

Oh well… it’s probably Steph this time…