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WWE Screw-ups: An A-Z

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MikeOFreak says...

 

I'm willing to bet HHH will still be around in 5 years. H is only 30 now, and his friends (Nash, HBK ect) are in there late 30's or early 40's.

 

I'm willing to bet that HHH probably WILL be around in 5 years, so long as his relationship with Stephanie lasts. That'll be the deciding factor - he's got a job for life as long as he is with her. The other thing that will affect his status as an active wrestler is whether or not his quad holds out.

 

The caption competition had some of the best entries yet, but this was my favourite:

 

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Column

 

I was asked this week to write a positive column. I tried, really I tried, to come up with something. But I couldn’t. So here, for your viewing pleasure is an A-Z of things that WWE have managed to fuck up over the last couple of years. It’s not complete – there are many, MANY more things I just couldn’t fit in, but I tried to get as much variety as possible. So in advance, I offer my apologies for not including Chris Benoit, Rob Van Dam or Nathan Jones.

 

Many thanks to Doctor G for his help, especially on the awkward letters. :)

 

A – Angle, Kurt. He’s never been treated seriously, and his comedy character seriously undermines the times he is portrayed as a badass. Sure, he’s had some good runs as WWE champion, and put on some excellent matches, but he’s always been treated as below HHH, who beat him multiple times through 2001 / 2002.

 

B – Big Show. By never deciding whether he is a serious top tier guy, or midcard joke, the WWE have thrown away the Big Show. But then whenever they want a guy to be moved to the top of the card, they look to Show. He’s been treated as a joke too much to be a serious main eventer, but McMahon has too much invested in him to give up. The losers: The fans that are forced to sit through his annual push.

 

C – Chris Kanyon. The guy comes back from a career threatening injury, and they have him dress as Boy George, sing to the Undertaker, and then have the shit kicked out of him to further a feud between Taker and Show? Then he’s never seen again (apart from probably on the rubbish shows like Velocity.)

 

D – Dreamer, Tommy. He gave everything to get over in ECW, then became a joke in WWE. Remember his “Jackass” era, where he drank Taker’s spit? Way to get the guy over. Now, he’s stuck as a Hardcore wrestler, along with shit wrestlers that use chairs instead of suplexes. He can do so much better.

 

E – ECW. From Raw, June 9th 2001. ECW reformed, in one of the biggest mark-out moments of my life. Later that night though, ECW joined WCW. ECW lasted for less than 2 hours on that Monday night, in an angle that could have lasted for months. And to cap it all off, they did nothing remotely hardcore, other than beating up Bob Holly.

 

F – WWF. God dammit, It’s like WWF sucked when it became WWE. Vince fucked this up by not reading and remembering the contract he had with the other WWF, costing himself millions of dollars and a portion of his own video library. Well done there.

 

G – Goldberg. Okay, he’s not been around for long, but he’s already totally different from the guy that WAS WCW for a long period of time. They changed his music, attitude, made him do comedy segments (Goldust, anyone?) Also, they exposed him in his first match, by making him wrestle for 20 minutes, with a moveset of 4 moves. To be fair though, it looks like he is going back to squashing more talented wrestlers in 1:08 now.

 

H – Hell in a Cell. HBK made it famous, and Foley made it legendary. Now, with one horribly overbooked brawl, HHH and Kevin Nash will do a fantastic job of destroying the legacy of the match. Hell in a Cell comes with certain expectations, which neither man can live up to.

 

I – InVasion. WCW and ECW simultaneously buried on Vince’s own show. Surely a wet dream for McMahon, but a shitty set of matches and horrible feuds arose from it. Everyone and their wife has covered everything that was wrong with it, so I’ll leave it at that.

 

J - Chris Jericho. To sum up Jericho’s career in WWE – he was hugely over, but “couldn’t work WWE style.” Then he was pushed to main event, but never for a substantial amount of time. HHH made him his bitch, and he was booked very weakly in WrestleMania X8. His heat seems to be untouchable though, and he remains over, but not viewed as a serious main event threat.

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K – Kane. From the silent but deadly killer, to corpse fucker. Kane’s entire gimmick was built around his mysteriousness – he never spoke, you never saw his face, or most of his body. Now though, he’s talking all the time and did a spina-fucking-roonie. Silly, silly stuff.

 

L - Brock Lesnar. This’ll be a controversial one, but by pushing Lesnar so hard in his first year, (King of the Ring, Royal Rumble, WWE Champion, Wrestlemania main eventer) the creative team will soon run out of things for him to do. They shouldn’t have had him do so much in his first 12 months, because a lot of what makes a feud work is anticipation – what is there left for him to do? I guess there’s a handful of guys he hasn’t beaten, but they can’t use the same “You can’t beat me.” “Yes I can.” feud exclusively for the next 10 years.

 

M – Mr. America. Yeah, it’s Hulk Hogan. I know Mr. America is Hulk Hogan, you know Mr. America is Hulk Hogan, everyone in the crowd knows Mr. America is Hulk Hogan and Vince knows that Mr. America is Hulk Hogan. Yet we are given this RETARDED storyline between the two of them, that makes no sense. Steph signed someone she hadn’t seen wrestle to a contract he couldn’t be fired from? Hogan cheated and lied on a lie detector test? Bullshit.

 

n – nWo. A huge stable, featuring huge names on huge contracts. Brought in to kill the WWF, the nWo go about that by costing Austin a match at No Way Out and then jobbing to him and Rock at Wrestlemania. Members joined, and members left, and nothing memorable happened at all. The writers totally ignored what it was that made the nWo cool, and had them ignore all but top-tier wrestlers.

 

O – Overkill. Table matches, Ladder matches, Cage matches, heel turns, returns from injury, debuts. All of them meant a LOT at one point, but they’ve been done to death now, so it’s just a case of “Ric Flair turned heel? Oh.” Whereas 10 years ago, having someone turn would be a huge deal. It was 50/50 whether the Big Show would be a face or a heel every time he came out in 2001, as the writers didn’t really give a shit and got lazy.

 

P – Paul Heyman. He’s probably the greatest commentator of recent times – only surpassed by the legendary Ventura / Monsoon and Heenan / Monsoon teams. So Vince has him manage several wrestlers at once, admittedly giving them some heat, and puts Jerry FUCKING Lawler back on commentary.

 

Q -

 

R – Ric Flair. One of the greatest wrestlers and promo men of all time. Past his best as a wrestler, but still has the ability to give you goosebumps with his words. So what do they do? Have him SILENTLY manage HHH, and interfere in his matches in the most generic way possible. Play to his fucking strengths, seriously.

 

S – Survivor Series. Originally a unique PPV, comparable to the Royal Rumble or King of the Ring. Now, it has been reduced to a nothing PPV, without any of the cool 4 vs. 4 elimination matches that made it great. Occasionally, they will try to fit a 6 man elimination match in, but they never theme the PPV around it any more. Bland, generic PPVs are never going to pull in curious buyers like a gimmicked PPV will.

 

T – Test. A simple message to WWE: Pushing someone repeatedly, when they aren’t getting over won’t get them over. It will make the fans resent them. Test is only starting to get over because of his alliance with Stacy (so the writers cleverly broke them up)

 

U – Undisputed title. The one belt to rule them all. The end of wrestling federation except the WWF. This historic moment was brought together in a tournament to crown one Undisputed Champion. One wrestler that is the best in the world. So less than a year later, the title is re-disputed (if that’s a real word)

 

V – Viscera. Back as Mabel, he won King of the Ring. Actually, for the rest of this letter, just go back and read what I wrote for Test, but Viscera wasn’t pushed as hard.

 

W – Women’s wrestling. Click here for the full explanation as to why women’s wrestling has been killed to bits. In short though: Are they there for T&A or serious wrestlers? And where’s the distinction drawn? Of course... it isn’t.

 

X – X-Pac. “X-Pac heat” is the term given to wrestlers who are booed – not because they are a heel – but because they fucking suck. X-Pac has always sucked. Everyone knows that, apart from whoever kept him as a face – and fairly high up on the card. He clearly wasn’t ready to be in that position, but he was sucking the right dicks and was kept there. He was also given the God-awful X-Factor stable, including Shitty Albert, and Justin Credible, who was never taken seriously. Thankfully, he was fired in the end.

 

Y - Yoshihiro Tajiri. An excellent wrestler, who managed to get over incredibly quickly with his unique offence and stiff kicks. The result of his surprisingly good feud with Regal was a way too short 3 minute match, and he was never seriously pushed. He has a lot of potential, but was never allowed near the ball – let alone being able to run with it.

 

Z – Zach Gowan. Okay, it’s early on in his WWE career, but already he is Hogan’s bitch. The first thing that he did on TV was have his false leg pulled off. (Tasteful) He is an excellent wrestler in his own right, but by having him billed as a wrestler with one leg – instead of a wrestler who happens to have one leg, he automatically makes anyone he beats look like shit.

 

Wow, going through that list was easier than I thought, but if anyone can come up with something for Q, I’d be glad to hear it.

 

There are two themes coming up a lot, actually:

1) Wrestlers who are pushed and pushed and fucking pushed, but never get over.

2) Wrestlers who get over and over and fucking over, but never get pushed.

 

I could have included so many wrestlers in those two lists, it is a shame about the space constraints – although I did do a lot of moving people around to get as much shit in as possible.

 

Outro

 

All this leads to one final question though: Can any of you name ANYTHING that WWE have done right from start to finish? E-mail me and let me know.

 

Next week's caption competition is this:

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And next time, I will have the column about the death of King of the Ring. Promise. If you have any thoughts you'd like included, drop me a line.

 

Nik

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