More random thoughts

Monday Night Raw was probably the worst in recent memory. The gauntlet match made absolutely no sense, and neither did jobbing out Jericho the way they did. The past few months have been devoted to making Jericho a monster heel, so they throw him in a gauntlet, let him fight hard, job out, and have Batista win with astonishing ease. The rumor going around is that Vince has decided to take over the booking of Raw again. While I have no idea if this is true or not, it has the fingerprints of the person or people responsible for the glass ceiling and unwatchable quality of the last few years of Raw all over it.

Post-draft Raw has felt like it had a direction. This Raw felt empty and completely without direction.

Punk continues to flounder. Are we really back to Punk v Morrison? Great times indeed, but not the right time or circumstances for it.

Randy Orton was not seen. I admit being disappointed.

Okay, Stone Cold Steven Hasstin was great, but we all know this is eventually going to lead to a Hass flop anyway.

News on Lance Cade is that he had a seizure on a plane. That's the entire story so far. Jim Ross hinted on his blog that it might involve something that caused the seizure but no real details. Dirt sheets seem to be coming up empty as well, just speculation on drug abuse or WWE PR. Either way, I find it a truly odd situation.

Jeff Jarrett has said in an interview he isn't coming back to wrestle on a full time schedule. Either he's lying or he jobbed out Angle because he's a mark for himself. I find either scenario likely.

The sheets are reporting that TNA is about to add another belt, 'unsanctioned' from my understanding, ala The Million Dollar Belt through Booker T. The article I read dubbed it the "Legends Belt" and would be defended against young up and comers. Could be good in theory, but TNA will most certainly use it incorrectly. I'm also fully expecting it to resemble another world class belt...

TNA is going HD soon apparently. Good for them. I'm also hearing they're getting redesigned set; thank god, I always found their set atrocious. Too bad that terrible ring will still be there.

Oh, and one more thing: Raw fell below a 3.0 rating. I hope this is a message.

Seeya Lance Cade

Lance Cade has been released after just recently gaining a singles victory over HBK on the main event of RAW. True, creative was floundering a lot with him turning into a background piece for Jericho, but he seemed in line for a push, especially with the aforementioned victory. There was even a story on WWE.com recently about him being ripe for gold.

It's a curious piece of news and I'll be interested what the dirt sheets write about it in the next few weeks.

Source: WWE.com

Hi, I'm Dolph Ziggler!

And I've been suspending before officially debuting.

After spending a month walking around backstage, shaking hands and proclaiming his own name during random segments, Nick Nemeth aka Dolph Ziggler aka Nicky from the Spirit Squad has been suspended for violating the wellness policy.

I can't help but find this highly comical. None of the Spirit Squad can catch a break.

Bit of clarification.

I wanted to post this real quick as it's relevant to a short rant at the end of my last post. I just caught it while reading LordsofPain.net:

-- Coming off the heels of last night, Sting has won TNA's World Heavyweight Championship at Bound for Glory three years in a row. In 2006, he defeated Jeff Jarrett for the belt in a career vs. belt match. Last year, Sting overcame interference by both Karen Angle and Kevin Nash to pin Kurt Angle after a Scorpion Death Drop. And of course, last night he pinned Samoa Joe after Kevin Nash hit Joe with a baseball bat. It should be interesting to see if Sting loses the belt in a hurry for a third consecutive year. Last year, he lost the belt back to Angle within two weeks on an episode of Impact. In 2006, he lost the belt to Abyss at the following month's pay-per-view, Genesis. He was disqualified after clotheslining referee Rudy Charles. For his match with Abyss, the rules stated that the title could change hands on a disqualification.

So, yeah.

Shameless taken from LordsofPain.net.

A couple of thoughts

-Kozlov seems an odd choice for a push. He's OK in the ring, has a terrible accent, and, that I'm aware of, has not done anything of interest since showing up. I remember him doing his "Double Double E!" schtick for about a month, disappearing, then showing up on Smackdown! and doing basically what he's doing right now at random intervals.

-Punk showing up in the main event on RAW tonight was really great. I hate that it finished the way it did though. I'm not saying it was a burial, it's just another example of misuse of Punk and another scary sign that he really might be resigned to the midcard. Really though, the former world champion needing help from the special referee? I'm also really not crazy about how heelish some faces get to be. I'm fine with some tweener roles, but Batista is usually portrayed as a pure face, so it's odd when the announcers gush over him for being heelish, then dumping on the heels when they do anything to get out of line. Another example would be Punk and Kofi letting MVP run in the ring by himself at the PPV... just odd.

-Jackass in WWE again? And is Khali or RAW or Smackdown?

-Voting is on for Cyber Sunday. I know WWE is better at not faking polls these days, but just a note of interest. People are having to text their votes this year and it cost money, meaning if they fake or tamper with the results it could actually be construed as fraud if I'm not mistaken. Although I do have to say, I'm genuinely unsure about who they wanted picked for a few polls. HBK seems the obvious choice for the WHC match, but then they threw in Stone Cold?

-Jeff Jarrett defeats Kurt Angle at Bound for Glory. Are you serious? They do a 'passing of the torch' match, only to have the torch guy keep his torch. Jarrett hasn't been active in what, 2 years? Kurt Angle is supposed to be their biggest star at the moment.

-They finally pulled the trigger on Nash turning on Joe. Of course it didn't make any sense. Maybe if we're lucky we'll get a long convoluted explanation about how it was Sting & Nash's plan all along. And seriously, is Sting going to win the TNA title every year at Bound for Glory? I would throw in a dirty finish tradition, but I don't remember how it ended last year and I don't feel like looking it up right now.

Oh, Punk.

I didn't want to admit it to myself, but CM Punk really is sliding into a boring mid-carder role. The whole Priceless angle is just feeling a little stale already- especially when Randy Orton isn't on the screen. The whole piece with MVP on the pay-per-view sounded a bit contrived and just made the faces in the situation look like jerks. I really hope the last great moment for Punk isn't slapping Orton- a hell of a memorable spot. I would hate for him to flounder in a bunch of random tag team matches with Kofi against Priceless...

Then again, maybe I'm just getting discouraged too easily. A few weeks in wrestling can seem like an eternity.

A random thought about RAW last night...

Last night on RAW, Beth Phoenix & Jillian Hall took on Candice Michelle and Kelly Kelly. This was a match designed to hype up and give momentum to the title bout between Phoenix and Candice at the No Mercy PPV on Sunday night. These two divas are supposed to be- at the moment- the centerpiece of the entire division, the biggest female stars on the show. Despite this the fan reaction during the match was pretty lukewarm, what one would generally expect from a women's segment.

Let's take a second and rewind to earlier in the night.

Jamie Noble, unable to find a partner for his match against Paul Burchill and Katie Lea, made his way to the ring to a fairly lukewarm response. I found this to be a bit of a surprise, especially considering one of the best heels in the company sitting on the stage, applauding for Noble's defeat. Then again, he was facing Burchill, one of the more poorly pushed mid-carders as of late. Just as the match is about to start, music plays, and the crowd suddenly becomes very excited. Who came out? Micke James.

Mickie James never, ever comes out to anything less than a wild crowd. She is consistently a good performer and excites the fans, no matter how boring or mundane the opponent. Yet Mickie is consistently overlooked in favor of 'the next big thing.' At first it was Ashley- someone who is boring and half-reckless in the ring, and only fairly interesting outside the ring. Since Ashley essentially departed it's been Candice Michelle- who despite the insistence of the announce team has never been interesting in the ring, is borderline reckless, and is about as interesting as watching grass grow outside the ring. Neither Ashley nor Candice have ever incited anything more than short-term excitement with fans and neither have really ever done anything of note.

When Mickie does hold the belt, it's usually just to create some short-term excitement in the division, or just as a belt pillow. Why does she keep getting passed over? It's simple; the powers that be think Candice and Ashley are more attractive than Mickie. We've seen time and time again that WWE is more interested in style over substance in their Diva's division. The very fact that Kelly Kelly is wrestling proves it- the girl is a twig who can stand there and look cute smiling cluelessly. That's basically what she does- not that this is a bad thing, its worked for female valets for years. I'm just not sure why WWE thinks there can be no distinction between valets and wrestling anymore.

It's not that I think Mickie should dominate the division. I think RAW has some great female heels in Phoenix and Melina (when she returns) and having them dominate the division has generally worked better than any other strategy used to get people interested. It's the mentality that management seems to hold toward James- that the next Trish Stratus hasn't been found and thus they should continue to shove these mediocre female stars down our throats and hope they catch on. Lita and Trish became legends because they worked hard and put on great matches, and fans could get behind them and respect the work they were doing. Mickie has done just this, and I'm fairly sure most people actively realize that Trish passed the torch to her in their Wrestlemania match.

And that's my rant for today. Shame on you for WWE for taking Mickie James for granted.

So, TNA (Warning: Spoilers Abound).

The latest TNA Impact! spoilers are up.

I know I often don't talk about TNA in this blog. To be honest, I quit watching it after the Bound For Glory 2006. To be more precise, the Impact! directly after BFG06.

Leading up to this event, I, like many other's, felt like TNA was on the right track and we were on the verge of seeing a truly excellent product emerge, despite the underground reports that Vince Russo had been hired. I still remember forums and websites, abuzz with the 'shot heard 'round the world' when Kurt Angle showed up at No Surrender, earlier that year.

What happened you ask? Absolutely nothing about the booking post-BFG06 made any sense. It was extremely apparent that an entirely different person/people was booking afterwards.

I could write forever about the flaws I see in TNA and what all happened after BFG that made me completely lose interest. It's the flailing booking that didn't make sense. It was their determination to focus on WWE, WCW, and ECW rather their own product and homegrown stars. It was the dumbing down of the X-Division, giving all its stars 'mini-me' gimmicks. It was the increasing desire to add in 'swerves' rather than tell an interesting story with great matches and good finishes.

In short, it was a lot of things, and then some.

I try to keep a vague understand of what's happening in TNA. What brought me to write about this particular episode is the impressive use of faux-shoot in three different segments. Foley's very first segment and he spends it babbling about Vince McMahon- something that people joked he would do all along. You get a guy in who is supposed to be a huge legend and a big deal to your promotion, and you have him show and talk about... his former boss. It wasn't even the first time on the show Vince's name came up. From the sound of the spoilers I would love to see a count of how many times they said his name.

The faux-shoot used in this way is old and tired. It wasn't even that great when they started doing it in the middle of the Monday Night Wars, and it's definitely been done to death at this point. But it just goes to expose TNA's weakness- that it isn't interested in making the fundamentals of the product great, they're interested in tacking on gimmick after gimmick that's supposed to do... what exactly? Be the 'one thing' that brings them up to a true national level?

What really brought my attention to this episode was the line Kurt Angle used during this segment. He said something about how he had lost everything, and then, directed at Jeff Jarrett: "Jeff, it looks like I'm not the only one who's lost his wife."

For anyone who isn't aware, Jeff's wife passed away about a year ago from cancer.

This is supposed to be riveting TV? This is trash TV.

I'm aware that a few weeks ago Triple H made some faux-shoot comments toward Jeff Hardy about his drug problem. While this too was in bad taste, at least it didn't involve a dead body, and at least it was done with some subtly.

More on the Jake incident

It looks like the recent Jake The Snake incident wasn't a random happening. A week earlier he appeared at another indie event, and the promoter claims not only was he abusing alcohol, but was using cocaine.

How this man is still kicking, I'll never know. Click below for a link to an audio clip of an interview.

Taken from Lords of Pain dot net.

Scott Steiner, God bless your special logic

This might be the best wrestling video I've ever seen.

Tag Teams & WWE

On wrestling forums across the internet I see one common complaint about WWE: the underemphasis of the tag division over the last few years. Indeed, during the 2000 era, tag teams were a feature matched by no one- The Hardyz, Edge & Christian, The Dudleys, among others, battled it out constantly in high stakes matches for the gold.

After the brand split, many of these teams were split up, some of them started singles careers in WWE, while others left the company entirely. The tag division in general has taken a definite backseat since, with few pay-per-views in the last year featuring any tag action at all. When the titles have been featured prominently- ala Cena/HBK and Cena/Batista- it's just as a gimmick piece for a feud.

Let's look at the current breakdown:

2 official teams on RAW:
Priceless (current champions)
Cryme Tyme

3 on Smackdown!
The Colon brothers (current champions, as of last night)
Ryder & Hawkins
Jesse & Festus (I guess this counts)

1 on ECW
Morrison & The Miz

The best tag team in the entire company is on a show by itself, although in fairness ECW guys appear on every show regularly, and they held the SD! titles for quite a while.

Right now there is clearly a numbers game. Princess just defeated Cryme Tyme in a PPV match. So where do they go now? Mostly thrown together tag teams and jobbers. The Colons just won the titles from Ryder & Hawkins, so we can expect a return match there, and maybe one or possibly even two more afterwards, but where do you go from there? Jesse & Festus are a gimmick tag and I don't see them getting the belts, so you end up with the same scenario...

Can WWE not create new tag teams? They most certainly can. They've created SEVERAL popular teams. In fact, I would go so far as to say they're better at creating new tag teams than they are singles guys. London & Kendrick were incredibly over, so were Deuce & Domino, The Highlanders, and many others. The Highlanders never did anything after an initial strong showing. L&K held the titles for a long time, lost them, were shipped to RAW to be jobbers and then were split up. Same for Deuce & Domino.

Many people feel like the best solution would be a reunification of the tag team belts. While this would certainly enlarge the pool of talent vying for the top spot, I see a couple of problems with it. First, it seems really strange, of all the belts in the company, to have the tag belts unified and no others. With only one set of belts, and, if, as people hope, a new golden age of tag teams suddenly arrive in WWE, the tag belts would suddenly end up looking more prestigious than the world belts, which are deluded by the fact that there are 3 different world champions. WWE likes to pride itself on 'thinking outside of the box' these days so maybe this wouldn't be a fact, but I see it as a major problem.

Second problem: the idea of the brand split is basically that you can watch your chosen show and not worry about everything that happens on every other show that week. There are crossovers, but these mostly only require that you be somewhat familiar with the other talent. The question arises: what show are the tag belts defended on? Do they go back and forth? If so, the casual viewer loses a lot of the narrative and history.

The third major problem is that it simply fails to address the root problem: failure of the people in charge to book a tag division. That's all it really comes down to. Creative either doesn't care about tags, or they are too stupid to book the easiest division in the company. A tag team shows up, wins the belts, defends them, flounders for a bit, loses belts to newcomers, splits up. The end.

The problem is HARDLY that there are way too few teams. History has shown that you only really need three decent teams to build a strong tag division; add one team on each show and suddenly you have a ready made division.

But it won't happen, because they don't care about tag teams. Both teams currently holding the titles are pairs of singles stars. WWE's future plans for both of them are bigger than tag teams, and instead of using them to have a great teams division, they're using the teams division to have great singles stars. The stupid thing is, they could have both! Look at the Hardyz, look at Edge & Christian; both incredible, competitive tag teams that each spit out two amazing singles stars- in fact, ALL of them have held world titles at one time or another.

In summary: WWE tag team division sucks because WWE doesn't care about tag teams.

FSM v. WWE?

Apparently, UK based Fighting Spirit Magazine has infuriated officials at WWE by publishing a memo sent out in regards to coverage of the upcoming Smackdown! Vs Raw 2009.

In the memo, WWE states that wrestlers must be referred to as "superstars." Any screenshots of the game published cannot contain any blood, weapons, or any gratuitous violence. The most peculiar request of all involves an order that no depiction of Triple H can show him in a negative, weak, or vulnerable position. Apparently FSM directly defied this order, posting a shot of Kane standing over a beaten Triple H.

I'm eager for the magazine shots to hit the internet so I can see for myself. It really is scary sometimes how fanatical WWE is about controlling the perception of their product- going so far as to completely censor out words like "wrestling" "wrestler" and these days, even "fan." In a way I understand the idea of giving WWE an atmosphere all it's own, but at the same time, as Jim Cornet said a few years back (in so many words): Vince McMahon made wrestling a dirty word.

And Triple H in no position of weakness? In a video game? Really? I'm personally a little bummed they didn't decide to use Colin Delany; or better yet, someone from TNA with the create-a-character. I don't really hate HHH, but I think he goes through periods of being painfully mediocre. I'm one of the people who enjoyed his Evolution run despite burying everyone... I just don't think he's done anything particularly interesting since. And honestly, if people in Memphis still think Jerry Lawler is the badness man on the planet, I don't think a few pictures of a digital version of a man who has dominated the WWE title scene for a decade is going to amount to much.

Shameless taken from Lords of Pain.net.

And now, Smackdown!

Post-draft Smackdown! hasn't been all that exciting, in my opinion. Maybe I'm just an Edge mark, but as his role diminished some and now that he's out for a while I just don't find myself as compelled to watch (although I must admit, I don't watch it nearly as much as I do RAW).

The Brian Kendrick- amazing. I never thought Kendrick or London would do anything in WWE. I hope they keep this up and go further with it.

Triple H's reign was a snoozer on RAW, and has continued to be such on Smackdown! The Great Khali? Seriously? The SD! scramble match was also such a joke. Instead of the current champion breaking up pins he would focus on pinning more people. Jeff Hardy, the current champion, was busy pinning someone while Triple H picked up the last minute win. Absolutely no logic.

Hardy/Triple H looks like it might be interesting though, if last week was any indication. It's not the first time Hardy has been in a main event push, and I hope the current stories about him having problems are just misunderstandings or false reports. As little as I care for Hardy, I think him as champion would be a lot more interesting than Triple H. Plus, I hate to see a guy like that fall off the horse. We've already got enough wrestlers doing this.

I would also really, really love to see MVP move into the title scene, and I don't think that will happen while Triple H holds the belt.

The new SD! Divas' belt is a joke. It looks like it should be packaged with Bratz dolls. And of course, Victoria, arguably the best female wrestler on the roster, isn't touching the thing.

Some thoughts on RAW

Post-draft RAW has been terribly entertaining.

Not perfect by any means, but it's a step up from having the same three or four people trade off the RAW Championship again and again. CM Punk, one of my personal favorites, winning the World Heavyweight Championship and bringing a world title back to RAW, has to be one of my most giddy, excited, completely stunned moments in a long time. I knew he would do well in WWE given time- but by my figuring WWE brass wouldn't see him as ready for another two or three years.

A lot of Punk fans might be a little bummed after last Monday. In one respect I am among them. It seems like he's finally getting in tune with the WWE style and learning to work an exciting match (see: vs JBL on RAW blowoff match, vs JBL vs Jericho, etc) and building himself as someone who can stand on his own. It felt like there was to be a bigger purpose for his reign- to slowly build him and legitimize him until he's running through the likes of Batista.

Hearing Michael Cole babble on one would assume Punk was always one step away from losing the belt. I found this particularly irritating because he always failed to put Punk over even a tiny bit. During Punk's matches with Batista, he constantly dominated, usually only having the tides turned just before a dirty finish ended the match. Despite this Cole typically put Punk over as getting the absolute crap kicked out of him- then again, Cole seems to have an unnatural love of Batista.

But I'm not too worried. WWE seems to have a thing for giving proto-reigns to their future stars these days (see: Randy Orton). Punk performed very well, and is probably about to enter what will be his highest profile, non-title feud since entering WWE. I have no doubt that if Orton/Punk goes as well as it should, we'll see them adding the title in the mix a few months down the line.

Jericho/HBK: Wow. Two of my all time favorites feuding. I have to say I have been enthralled with this from the get-go. Jericho's character has really evolved a long way at just the right pace. The new look completely sells it as well. While I miss the joking, goofy Y2J, he's such a well spoken individual it's great to get to see him use that side. I would go so far as to say he's right up there with Edge as best heel in the business. It's always amazing to see a heel who can work a crowd into a frenzy by standing and delivering a cool, calm promo, never once acknowledging the boos and rarely engaging in classical heel tactics (insulting local favorites, etc).

Seeing the Jericho/HBK feud gain world title status is the only way I wouldn't have been completely bummed about Punk losing the title. It's a perfect transition, and it didn't make CM look particularly bad.

Another area of surprise was seeing Kofi win the IC belt. It really pushed home that WWE was ready to shake things up a bit. I have no problem with him dropping the belt to Santino, who is consistently the most entertaining guy on the show.

Priceless/Afa Jr. definitely intrigues me. I hope they don't drop the belts anytime soon, but I'm not entirely sure what they have planned for them. The rumor mills have been reporting for a while that a 2nd generation stable is in the works involving Orton, who has had some weird interaction with the group since his return. Leads to interesting ideas in the Orton/Punk feud...

The women's division is frustrating as usual. Why keep trying to make Candance out to be the next Trish Stratus? Why not focus on the fact that Mickie James gets pops rivaling main event level male stars? I also really do not understand the obsession of putting women in the ring who have not been properly trained and/or have absolutely no background...

Adamle was a pretty fun swerve for GM. I'm still not real sure where this is going in the long run and I wish they would do more with it now. Still, WWE has built him into an interesting character, considering the majority of us were scratching our heads when news came out that he had been hired and was getting a ridiculous salary.

I really hope they keep the fresh coming and stay away from 'safe' options like Batista, who bores me to tears with or without a championship.

Jake "The Snake" Roberts falls off the horse again...

If you haven't heard, Jake "The Snake" Roberts had yet another meltdown, in front of a live audience, in the presence of cameras. If you have not seen the video yet, you can view it here.

An event like this in the wrestling world always elicits a bit of a mixed response. I usually can't help but laugh, but this time I felt more horrified than anything. It brings up a lot of the same old questions about the quality of life for wrestlers, during and after their careers. What is it about this lifestyle that fosters these types of behaviors and downfalls?

I will say before going any further that The Snake's circumstances are probably a lot worse than most aging wrestlers out there. Anyone who has seen Beyond The Mat knows about his torrid family experience and his problems with addiction. There have been claims made that the film went a long ways toward showing him a negative light. However, in the same year, at an independent show "Heroes of Wrestling" Jake had a complete meltdown. Several attempts were made to salvage the main event to no avail. He appeared slurring his speech and cursing (as in the newest video), leaving several times and coming back in various states of undress, and before it was over he took out his snake, put it between his legs, and swung it around like a gargantuan penis. Apparently the cameras cut off before he could actually remove his pants.

Jake spent the next few years having similar problems at live shows, and at point was the subject of allegations of animal abuse against his prized gimmick snakes. Another of his meltdowns occurred during his short TNA run, fortunately for him this particular incident did not make it to air.

If you will remember, last year, WWE instituted a program of paying for rehab for all it's former employees, and Roberts took up the offer. By all accounts he seemed to be clean, even receiving a mark of encouragement from Jim Ross.

And then, the most recent event.

His assistant claims he was drugged. People at the show claim he actually showed up with alcohol, and that fans were buying him alcohol all night. The truth? Who knows. It sounds like he simply fell off the horse. Hard.

It still begs the question: Why does this happen to so many performers? Why do so many leave the business and wither away, and why do so many end up dead in the prime?

The very fact is that to make it in wrestling, you have to live wrestling. Most of the guys who have lived up even to jobber status have done so because they have literally hallowed out their lives in favor of wrestling. Some of them grew up in wrestling families, and have never worked a job that was not directly involved in the business. And while things might not be so bad in WWE, actually getting there involves subjecting your bodies to hard bumps day in and day out. When you look at the average career of any athlete, you will probably see that for most it's significally shorter than a wrestler's. Batista, a man in his late 40s, has only been a star for a few years, when most athletes his age are getting ready to retire if they aren't already.

Do they not retire because they can't? For some, maybe, for others, definitely not. Some people who can and are smart enough- like The Rock, or Hulk Hogan, go on to live decent lives because of other avenues available, and probably because there just isn't much for them to do anymore. Other's like Stone Cold are forced out due to injuries, but maintain a good working life in the company that help build them. These days, in general, the idea of wrestlers going into more of a backstage capacity is growing and probably a good thing, as it keeps them in the business without having them kill themselves in front of crowds.

But there are others like Jake, who do not have the mind for backstage, the star power to headline, or the health to even work. What happens to these men? They go home, realize they have nothing there, and they turn to many of the same recreations they indulged in on the road- drugs, alcohol, and sex. Many of them, as I pointed out earlier, have never learned to do anything else; they couldn't even work a retail job if they had to. Most of them never went to college, few of them graduated high school, and some of the older guys never got that far.

Wrestling is almost a world unto itself. It's why a man with so many concussions he's delusional can walk around with no one noticing. It's why no one can walk away and no one can afford to stay and keep their health. It's also part of why none of us can stop watching or being enthrawled by this magical other word that's so great and terrible.

At the very least things do seem to be looking up for younger guys. Many of them seem to have better attitudes toward life and generally be less self destructive (Randy Orton excluded). They have more to look forward to as they can start building themselves up for backstage jobs after they're done in the ring. It's also easier for them to go into business for themselves and open their own promotions, since there are no mob-esque territories in place. There's also opportunites in things like WWE Legends, DVDs, merchandising deals, etc. Many wrestlers have learned from the past and started investing years before it becomes a problem. Booker T for instance has always invested his money, operating several businesses and his own promotion.

In the end, as an occpation, wrestling simply demands too much. There's always the push to be the biggest, the best, the top of the card. Combine this with the fact that wrestling IS the lives of many of these men and you end up with a culture that promotes a wreckless lifestyle that at times can make rockstars look like Ghandi. As happy as I get everytime Shawn Michaels shows back up on RAW a small part of me cringes because I know the sort of things he's done to himself (and to other people) in the past, and his struggle to find a good medium between what he considers his more important personal life and wrestling.

I think I could write 10 blogs worth of material on this subject but suffice to say the Jake situation is really sad. I hope he cleans up before he becomes just another dead wrestler.

Thoughts on possible Mr. Kennedy release

-- There are some rumors going around that WWE could release Mr. Kennedy once his current contract expires. A source close to Kennedy believes there is something to the speculation, reports ProWrestling.NET. Kennedy is said to have lost his confidence as he is constantly being pulled in different directions by various officials. This has caused him to second guess himself. Kennedy will be out four to six months following shoulder surgery.

Mr. Kennedy's WWE run has been brilliant in the respect that he has consistently been over and even at his worst has been an average worker, but for the most part I would say the most appropriate word would be "floundering."

Before moving to RAW, I thought Kennedy was an absolutely amazing mid-card heel on Smackdown!, consistently giving us great heel promos and entertaining matches. In 2007 he utterly stole the show in his World Heavyweight Championship match with Batista, whose performance greatly paled in comparison. A few months later at Wrestlemania he would become Mr. Money in the Bank, cementing his status as one of the hottest acts in the business at the time.

A few weeks later, due to injury, the powers that be at WWE decided to have him drop the MiTB title shot to Edge. The match itself led most of us to believe that Kennedy was in for an Austin-esque push, where he made a face-turn in the match, going down fighting like a champion.

Then, the draft occurred and Kennedy was moved to RAW. They brought him out and IMMEDIATELY reestablished him as a heel. After a few appearances however it seemed as if the situation could be salvaged.

That was of course, until Kennedy found himself suspended because of wellness policy violations, with the kayfabe reason being that he was 'impersonating a McMahon.' Anyone who was watching at the time was horribly disappointed, because the recent news suggested that he would be involved in a long story arc involving the McMahons that would push him as a top act. To be honest, almost everything after this point I had to Wikipedia to remember because it was so utterly and completely forgettable, save his feud with Shawn Michaels (who we all know I feel about).

In theory his feud with HBK could have been another potential jumping point, but instead they opted to randomly turn him face once more to feud with General Manager of RAW William Regal. Where they were going with this I'm not sure, but Regal was guilty of a wellness violation and Kennedy was thrown into a retirement match with him to get him off TV. Soon after Kennedy was moved back to Smackdown, where he has again floundered and now suffers injuries.

It always seems such a shame to see guys like Kennedy who have everything, but because of a combination of things never quite 'make it.' I've been frustrated heavily with his situation in particular simply because I've always been such a huge fan, and while he has suffered many injuries and misfortunes which interfered with his pushes, there are many points in which WWE creative has just completely dropped the ball entirely and not used any sense for long-term storylines to build him as a legitimate star.

When you really sit down and look at his entire WWE tenure it's not hard to see why he seems to have given up as of late, but it's always sad to see a wrestler who just doesn't care anymore and is content to flounder. And he's not the only of WWE's young guys to do so. Carlito is another grand example. A decent worker, pushed into a premature face run turned flop that turned into a heel turn flop that ended with him being the same character he started out as, without any of the color or passion that made it special the first time around.

My only hope is that one day creative itself will stop floundering on these less established stars and start devoting themselves to more long term investments. It feels like this is probably the biggest flaw in the current WWE product, that one thing that many fans can't seem to put their finger on. There are no long story arcs, planned ahead of time, with a great payoff at the end. The closest we get is a surprise comeback- ala John Cena at the 2008 Royal Rumble (which, in retrospect, felt like creative just blowing it's load without thought). Most of the time what we get with long story arcs are on-the-fly-booking- which leads to things like Hornswaggle McMahon, an angle which lasted months and months and never netted a single thing, not even a rub for Finlay beyond what he currently had.

I don't think WWE releasing Kennedy would be a bad thing. I don't wish this upon him because of some personal ire; as I said, I've been a fan of his for a while. He seems to have got boring and stale and it doesn't feel like he cares anymore. A few months for him to regain some of himself and for WWE to possibly realize what a great asset he is could be a good thing. I somehow doubt that yet another 6 months off will help anything.

Then again, he will probably just end up returning after x amount of time and floundering in the mid-card.

Introducing Steven

I've been watching pro wrestling as long as I can remember. This seems to be a common sentiment amongst many wrestling fans, and maybe it's why we keep coming back over and over despite frustrations or hang-ups over the business. Regardless, it's not an empty sentiment. Most people remember, as a child, getting up early and scrambling to the television to catch the Saturday morning lineups. While I too was guilty of this, my primary concern was not cartoons; it was the weekly edition of USWA. To this day I feel a tingle of excitement when Jerry Lawler runs into the ring, usually to put someone else over, on Monday Night Raw.

As I aged I grew out of wrestling. USWA floundered and died a slow agonizing death as did many small territories and the national scene bored me. It was not until I turned on WWF and saw Shawn Michaels, in the middle of his Boyhood Dream push, that I began to get addicted once more. And before you read any further, I will admit I have a terrible habit of gushing over HBK at every turn. Since then, I have been completely and totally addicted- an addiction fostered through both my late brother and these days, my mother.

These days I enjoy browsing forums, reading news and opinions on the current state of the business. I rarely post however as I'm not crazy about interacting on forums and I know few intelligent, informed wrestling fans to converse with about my views and rants. I thought it might be an interesting experiment to create a blog and convey my ideas.

Without further adieu...