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Posts Tagged ‘WWE’

Former WWE champion Brock Lesnar upset Randy Couture over the weekend to win his first UFC title and becoming the first person to ever win WWE and UFC titles. Although Lesnar currently wants nothing to do with his pro-wrestling background, his unique achievement is nevertheless one for the record books.

Lesnar has been a dominant monster ever since his NCAA wrestling days at the University of Minnesota, and although he tried and failed to make the Minnesota Vikings as a defensive lineman, the ultimate fighting path he’s on now puts him back in more familiar territory.

Never one who needed a diet pill, Lesnar’s hulking physique and aggressive attitude have finally won him the legitimacy he’s longed for.

The writing had been on the wall for a while.

First, he was separated from tag partner Trevor Murdoch, who was released by WWE. Then, after being reinvented as Chris Jericho’s protege, Lance Cade disappeared from WWE TV for a while. Last Tuesday, the hammer finally fell: WWE released Lance Cade.

While Cade never really got over with the audience, and thus this news is probably going to be about as interesting as the latest developments in acne treatments, the real item of interest here is a transparency question.

The WWE never really stated directly why Cade was released. However, Jim Ross, on his blog, dropped hints, detailing enough of the circumstances about events leading up to Cade’s release that suggest the real reason is a violation of the WWE’s Wellness Policy.

About a year ago, in the wake of the Benoit Family Tragedy, WWE made it very public that they would soon be much more transparent when employees are released for Wellness Policy violations. Now, a year later, it seems the company may be slipping back into its old method of covering over the actual circumstances.

That’s unfortunate, as it reduces public trust in WWE and allows performers to remain in denial about possible problems they may be facing in their lives.

Let’s hope that if Cade is facing certain behind-the-scenes problems, he will face them down directly and get his life back on a positive and healthy track.

Although Ric Flair was given one of the classiest send-offs in all of WWE history, the ring veteran isn’t taking retirement well. According to online reports, he’s even negotiating for a return to the wrestling ring.

If it happens, however, it won’t be in WWE, TNA or even in the US. Word is, Flair is negotiating with several promotions based out of Japan for some matches that would inflate his bank account impressively, which just goes to show how important budgeting and planning is, even in retirement.

Flair’s official line currently is that his retirement applies only to the US and European markets. Let’s hope the Living Legend doesn’t embarrass himself in his golden years, the way Muhammad Ali has, on occasion.

The UK Sun is reporting that once Mick Foley’s WWE contract expires at the end of this month, he will make the jump to NWA-TNA, WWE’s only potential competitor, and will become a part-time wrestler with a schedule similar to Sting’s. The article charges that Foley is not content being in an announcing or non-wrestling role at WWE.

But hold your horses! On his blog, good ol’ JR, Jim Ross, claims all of this speculation is a lot of hooey, and he plans to talk to Foley soon to “see how things are going.” That’s WWE-speak for trying to talk him into staying with WWE, of course.

Just like some Web sites that sell auto insurance compare rates from other companies before you buy, I’d hope Mick thinks long and hard about moving to TNA. At this stage in his career, it’s a move that cannot be undone in the eyes of the McMahon family, who would almost certainly lock him out of the WWE Hall of Fame or any potential return to WWE later on.

The UK Sun report claims Foley wants to help put TNA on the map; however, if WWE converts like Christian Cage, Jeff Hardy (before he came back) and Kurt Angle haven’t been able to pull that off, what could a broken-down Foley do for them?

Bad career move, Mick. Hope you don’t opt that direction.

I don’t think it’s hype when Ric Flair said that his parting of the ways with WWE was amicable, or that his goal was to stop relying on WWE to “prop him up,” but that he wanted to build his own name and reputation as a brand unto itself.

Flair is apparently not interested in a return to the wrestling ring upon his release, but is looking to explore other avenues of generating revenue and becoming a business man capable of “standing on his own” without the help of the McMahon family and WWE.

Hopefully, Flair will follow through with his plan and start making announcements about his next achievements soon; after the send-off Flair received at WrestleMania last spring, it would be a shame to see Flair sign with TNA or some other promotion in a vain attempt to extend his in-ring career.

Flair’s not some acne-ridden kid anymore; at 59, it’s time he pursued something new, like he was talking about, and he certainly has the skills to do well in other fields.

A few years ago, Flair played around with the idea of running for public office in North Carolina as a Republican; that would seem to be a potential course of action for Flair and would re-define his post-wrestling career.

Vince McMahon and WWE are long-term experts at taking lemons and turning them into lemonade. The Rock was hated when he first began his WWE career, and not in a good, heel-ish way; he eventually became one of WWE’s most popular wrestlers and certainly, now, the most successful former wrestler ever to move to Hollywood and take on acting. And The Rock is only one such example.

Their latest project could be their biggest challenge, however; some folks will remember Mike Adamle from his days hosting the original incarnation of American Gladiators. After several years of relative obscurity following that show’s demise, Adamle emerged in WWE earlier this year as an interviewer, and eventually an ECW play-by-play announcer.

His stint as announcer was plagued by mistakes and gaffes that showcased his lack of a wrestling background, as well as his unfamiliarity with the WWE roster. His appeal was roughly that of an air conditioning compressor.

However, since being named the surprise new GM of Raw, Adamle seems to be getting a second chance, this time utilizing his weaknesses with the hope to turn them around to strengths. So Adamle doesn’t know the WWE roster that well? Put him in skits that have him directly interacting with members of that roster. Adamle is hated? Make him the heel GM of Raw so that fans booing him fits in with his role.

Smart booking could help Adamle succeed as a heel GM of Raw, and this past week’s Raw did that pretty well, hot-shotting three title defenses onto one night. And if Adamle screws up again and says that a 2-on-1 handicap match against a face champion with title match implications has “never been done before?” Well, all the more reason to boo him.

It’s risky, but it gives Adamle a new shot at finding a niche in the company. It’ll be interesting to watch. And just let me suggest a bit of booking myself: a lot of people wouldn’t mind seeing some WWE talent beat the crap of out Mike Adamle. Whether it’s Punk or someone else, I’m not saying, I’m just saying… what’s good enough for Vinnie Mac is good enough for Adamle, right?

While Batista winning the Fatal Four-Way main event on Raw to become the number one contender and set up a Punk vs. Batista main event at Great American Bash was a refreshing change of pace, the single weirdest booking moment came after the match, when Kane, among the losers of the Fatal Four-Way, put on a fairly good act of going apeshit, beating up ringside officials and the announce crew to express his disappointment.

I swear, he’d have hit Mae Young with a pella pan if he’d had the opportunity. It was an odd moment.

Odd because it seems to be the centerpiece toward setting Kane up to be a main eventer once again, which frankly doesn’t do a whole lot for me. Kane’s been main-event pushed for well over a decade now, and to be honest, he hasn’t had much mystique since he stopped wearing the mask. Although a faithful and yeomanlike worker, his star just hasn’t shone very brightly … not for quite a while.

Considering that most of Raw was a beginner’s primer, set up to welcome new viewers to the show, rolling out Kane as a monster main eventer in this way is out-of-place with the show’s new direction and certainly won’t help anyone who may have watched 10 years ago feel like much has changed in WWE since the last time they watched regularly.

It was like looking at the first version of WWE SmackDown on PS2 instead of PS3; it’s been that long since Triple H has been on the SmackDown roster and on Friday when he made his appearance on the show, it became obvious immediately why WWE chose to move Triple H over to the Friday show.

Simply put: it’s a move to save SmackDown as an entity, as it moves from CW to MyNetworkTV at the end of the summer. SmackDown has become a morose show over the past couple years, becoming a breeding ground for two potential breakout stars in MVP and Mr. Kennedy, but all too often filled with second- and third-tier talent.

That’s where this Triple H move comes in; he immediately adds watchable talent to the SmackDown broadcast and helps lead the rebalancing of the brands. Seeing Triple H opposite MVP, even if it was just for an in-ring interview, was something no one’s seen yet; certainly that has to appeal to Triple H, now the mentor of the entire SmackDown roster, far more than staying on Raw another year and reworking the same old feuds again and again and again.

You don’t need an HDMI cable to see clearly that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has left the pro wrestling stage of his career in the past. With “The Rock” nickname now dropped completely from his on-screen billing, Johnson seems set on making a clean break from McMahon and company.

To his credit, Johnson is the best actor the WWE has ever produced. Terry “Hulk Hogan” Bollea was only passable at best, and never knew how to disappear into a role; he was always “The Hulkster.” Steve “Stone Cold Steve Austin” Williams had an easier time fitting into roles, but his in-ring injuries interrupted his momentum at launching a post-wrestling acting career. And current WWE superstar John Cena is promising, but untested in a total of one film to date.

By comparison, Dwayne Johnson fits into this summer’s Get Smart movie starring Steve Carrel like a glove; he’s no longer a wrestler showing he can do a little acting. He’s now an actor who at one time did a little wrestling.

R.I.P., The Rock. Long live Dwayne Johnson.

The ever-declining ratings of Raw, ECW and Smackdown may, in fact, be part of an overall audience erosion due to the writers strike, but those excuses are wearing thin. The bottom line is that WWE hasn’t really changed or revolutionized its television product in the past decade, and the audience is getting bored with it. It’s time to stop looking like a bunch of used Harleys, and put some fresh product out there.

I don’t mean replacing the Top 4 dawgs in each promotion with a new Top 4 dawgs, either. I mean completely remaking the way pro wrestling storytelling takes place in each weekly broadcast. I think the latest ratings decline for the current format was sparked when Raw GM William Regal literally pulled the plug on a Raw main event, a few weeks back. That wasn’t compelling television; it was a cheat to loyal viewers, and became a “Jump the Shark” moment. Now, the trick will be to radically undo the damage.

Here are some tips and strategies for the WWE’s perusal. Hopefully someone’s actually listening.

1) Once the WWE Draft is over, seal up the brands tightly this time; the idea of Raw, ECW and Smackdown as separate brands only works if the talent stays on the shows they’re supposed to be on.

2) Go back to single-brand PPVs. By having stars from all three brands appear in every PPV, what you lose is the ability to build up your mid-card guys with meaningful resolutions to fueds. PPVs need to stop being the domain of just the top four guys in each brand; only SummerSlam, Survivor Series, Royal Rumble and WrestleMania should be multi-brand PPVs, so that it’s meaningful when it happens. The rest of the time, the smaller-scale PPVs should be opportunities to build up the profiles of each brand – including and especially the midcard guys.

3) Make title pursuits central again. Your midcarders should all be pursuing (depending on brand) the US or Intercontinental title, with the title holder using their reign as a launching pad to reach the next level; or they should be involved in a reinvigorated tag team division. Your headliners should all be pursuing that brand’s respective world title, with a lot more guys than just the top four dawgs involved in that pursuit.

4) Give the midcarders meaningful storylines and motivations that help each TV match mean something. Develop storylines that take a long time to develop, and start planning longer story arcs. While injuries and suspensions may make revisions necessary, each broadcast should leave the viewer feeling confident that ever match advanced both wrestlers involved in a specific, planned direction.

5) Cut down the overlong in-ring chatter and backstage skits; re-embrace the importance of sharp interviews and in-ring storytelling over juvenile humor and stupid skits. The Mick Foley-Rock stuff was golden, but it was also about eight years ago. Time to move on.

6) Reduce the on-screen roles of the GM and the McMahon Family. Use this as a symbol that the way WWE broadcasts tell a story has actually changed.

7) Treat traditions, like King of the Ring, with a whole lot more respect than the most recent edition did. Book these things right, or don’t book ‘em at all.

Cut back on the theatrics and instead of modern “heels” and “faces,” all of whom are on incredible ego trips anyway, try letting the crowd decide who to cheer and who to boo based on who wrestles clean and who breaks the rules. Sounds like a return to a simpler era? It doesn’t have to be in execution, but it’s clear the “male soap opera” thing has run its course.

9) Try something fresh and unexpected, like posting a wrestler’s won-loss record for the month, the year, and career. Yes, we know results are booked and scripted, but something like this would appeal to sports stats geeks, and would reinject a sense that wins and losses mean something.

10) End the “pass the main title between a handful of guys” tradition and open the gates wider to all the established guys. Having Triple H and Randy Orton and John Cena at the top of the card all the time wears out the welcome of those fueds. If you book Jeff Hardy to be on a hot winning streak, it should earn him a title shot at the next PPV.

11) Stop giving away so many PPV-level matches on broadcast TV. The Monday Night Wars are over, and you can save matching up your top contenders for PPVs. Make people want to see Triple H vs. Jeff Hardy because it’s something they won’t see, in any variation, until the next Raw PPV.

12) Building on point 9, establish gimmicks like a Sizzling 7 list for which superstars are winning and closing in on title shots, for the main titles, the second-tier titles, the tag titles and so on. Having people move up and down that list could be made into a regular segment each week, giving the Raw, ECW and Smackdown broadcasts more of an ESPN SportsZone type feel.

These are just some basic ideas, but I feel more than a few of them would be fresh, new ideas that could reinvigorate WWE broadcasts, given a decent chance. The branding catchphrase could be along the lines of, “WWE. Putting the sports back in sports entertainment.”

What does WWE have to lose?

After working out and hitting the ellipticals, RVD… Rob Van Dam… is finally headed back to the pro wrestling ring, though not for WWE and, surprisingly, not for TNA, either.

Instead, RVD will be appearing in a taping for Nu-Wrestling Evolution. The show will be taped in the Canary Islands. NWE is a minor pro circuit that mostly works Spanish-language territories. Other one-time WWE talent currently featured on NWE cards include Rikiski (wrestling now as Kishi), Jackie Gayda, and Juvi Guerrerra. Ultimate Warrior will also soon be added to their roster.

It’s certainly not the big-time, but only time will tell if RVD can build on the appearance and work his way back to either WWE or TNA.

In the wake of Monday’s Raw, the WWE has announced that William Regal, who plays the role of Raw general manager and who won the King of the Ring tournament about a month ago, has been suspended for 60 days by WWE for violating the Fed’s Wellness Policy.

The WWE must have known the decision it was about to make when Raw went on the air Monday, because they booked Regal to lose a “loser leaves Raw” match against Mr. Kennedy. The match provides a storyline reason for Regal’s absence.

Exact details of Regal’s violation are not known.

In the past, Regal did battle substance abuse problems and had apparently cleaned his act up for the past several years. Whether this suspension is a result of a relapse or an unrelated violation is not known at this time.

Meanwhile, on Raw, McMahon teased the return of “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase to WWE, as possibly the next GM of Raw. Of course, a few years ago, after “firing” Eric Bischoff, McMahon teased Dusty Rhodes as a possible next Raw GM, but that tease never paid off, so it’s entirely possible the DiBiase cameo is a head-fake by McMahon to buy time while he ponders his options for replacing Regal as GM, either in the short or long term.

A short run by DiBiase as Raw GM would be quite a bit of run, though perhaps not quite as much fun as shower chairs. However, I expect that the ultimate choice will either be an uninspiring temporary measure, like Coach or Shane McMahon, or perhaps a test-run for a long-term replacement by, perhaps, Ric Flair in a pure GM role.

It should be noted that DiBiase does have a son learning the trade in one of WWE’s developmental territories.