The Brand Extension one year on.

[Guest OnlyMe]

We’re now coming to the end of month 13 of the roster split. On the first Raw after Wrestlemania X8, Vince and Ric Flair (co-owners, at this point) “picked teams” to split the entire WWF roster in half. 10 picks each were made live on Raw, and another 10 were picked post show, but I forget whether in kayfabe terms it was random or not. Everyone else did pretty much what they wanted.

 

One: The Draft

 

The first problem with the roster split (I’m calling it that as opposed to Brand Extension, since Vince seems to have given up calling it that too) was the draft. It was, frankly, silly. Straight off there were problems – HHH couldn’t be drafted as he was then-champion. Jericho couldn’t, as he was in a title match later that night. Stone Cold was in the “off” part of his on-off relationship with the WWF at this point, so he wasn’t draftable. A silly, vague excuse about him having a clause in his contract was brought out, instead of just saying “he’s having contract problems”, or bringing in specifics; “He has a clause in his contract guaranteeing he will always appear on Raw and Smackdown.” Simple. That took me all of 5 seconds to come up with, and isn’t too much of a stretch of believability.

 

So, the draft. Simple concept – the heel (Vince) wins the coin toss for first pick, and the two owners alternate until all 10 picks are made. How difficult can it be?

But of course, there are rules. The nWo are one unit and are drafted as such. Ditto on the Tag Team Champions (at this point, Billy and Chuck). All other tag teams are fair game to split up.

 

The opening picks are reasonable enough; Rock, Undertaker, Angle, nWo, Benoit, Kane, Hogan – Hogan was also hot at this point, just accept it.

 

Billy and Chuck were drafted to Smackdown, to give Vince McMahon the tag titles. RVD was taken to Raw, along with the Intercontinental Title (remember that?)

 

Then things got a little… surreal.

 

Mark Henry was en route to another aborted push (good way to spend $10m, Vince) and so he was drafted to Smackdown. Now, if anyone watching Raw (or, indeed, reading this) were to make a list of the top 20 wrestlers in the WWF, I highly doubt that Mark Henry would appear ANYWHERE on it. Ditto for Lita, Maven, Rikishi or the Dudley Boyz (as singles wrestlers, no less.)

 

And this was where the draft failed. It was a series of 10 second segments throughout Raw (apart from the Rock’s 3 hour acceptance speech). There was no glitz or glamour, as we have come to expect with the WWF.

 

Remember when Mick Foley was fired in January 2000? The Rock brought out the whole roster to the ring. It was a fantastic visual effect, and far more impactful than him just saying “everyone supports me”. Have the entire draft in one segment, and have special Raw and Smackdown! areas that drafted wrestlers go to. Make it seem important, and make the picks mean something.

 

Grade: C-

 

Two: Keeping the shows apart

 

Because that’s the whole point of splitting the shows. So how well did the WWF do keeping the shows apart?

 

Early on, there were problems. Wrestler A and Wrestler B weren’t doing anything on Raw, so they were available to feud. Except they were both faces. In comes the Quick Heel Turn. Or even worse, the Unexplained Jump From SmackDown. In the early days of the split, there was the intention of creating genuine competition between the shows, (something that continued into October-ish, with Stephanie and Bisch) and so each of these jumps was meant to mean something. “Shit! Lance Storm is on Raw! He hasn’t been on Raw for like 4 weeks.” It just didn’t work.

 

As well as that, in the early days of one World Champion, the champion could float but the number one contender couldn’t. This posed a problem, since all the champion could do on the other show is talk about them. With no chance of a rebuttal, run-in or anything, it was rubbish. The short-term solution to this was “That’s the Undertaker – what the hell’s he doing here?” style run-ins. This was only a month or so after the split. It made the split look weak and undermined Flair and Vince as owners – and not as part of the storyline.

 

However, in all fairness, the jumps have all but stopped (I think Big Show and those that were traded for him were last, but I’m sure I’ll be corrected.) Having two world titles is a much better idea, although the lack of “respect” for the new (Raw) title can only harm the “real” (Smackdown) one.

 

However, I still think that all the wrestlers are still seen as WWF wrestlers, rather than Raw or SmackDown. This was shown by the RVD vs Chris Benoit InterPromotional(~!) match, which mattered exactly fuck all.

 

With the introduction of split PPVs in a couple of months, we’ll see whether either roster is strong enough to carry itself. I think that Smackdown will have more problems, since nearly all the established Main Event wrestlers (except Undertaker, and whatever happens with Austin) are on Raw. However, it is unfair to pass judgment on something that hasn’t happened, so we shall see.

 

Grade: B+

 

Three: New faces will be pushed

 

Say that the WWF has 6 people who could, at any time, main event. With the roster split, you are in effect doubling that number – since you need 6 people to main event Raw shows, and another 6 to main event on SmackDown.

 

In theory.

 

With the exception of Brock Lesnar, nobody who was in a title match (either World title) at a PPV in March 2002-2003 was doing so for the first time. That’s hardly a good sign. They’ve had a year to bring people up to the next level, and it just isn’t happening. Lesnar is only where he is because the Rock sold like a baby for him, Hogan put him over clean in his retirement match (one of them), and Taker finally put him over.

 

Raw is getting more main eventers – Nash. Goldberg. HBK. Exactly what the roster split was intended to prevent.

 

It is impossible to say who would have gotten TV time without the split, but it seems that the only people who are really benefiting (i.e. got over more than before, in a significant way) are Matt Hardy and Rey Mysterio. But then, it could be argued that they would have gotten over anyway, and the roster split didn’t help them.

 

Rey Mysterio’s PPV history is terrible – he’s yet to win. He’s also a cruiserweight fighting heavyweight opponents; Angle; Show etc. Matt Hardy is not a cruiserweight, but is the cruiserweight champion.

 

But both of them are more over, possibly because of the extra TV time they have been given.

 

But. If there’s a 5 minute gap on Raw that needs filling, then there’s no chance that Rey will be sent out to pop the crowds, because he is on SmackDown. This has never really been a problem, however. There’s always been a reasonable mix of “star power” and lower card workers on both shows, although the White Boy Challenge and featuring jobbers on SmackDown this week seems to show a change of pace in that respect.

 

Overall, there are still the same faces in the main events, and the same people getting pushed and pushed, with little regard to what the fans want, such as the Big Show’s continual push, compared with RVD’s continual demotion.

 

Grade: C-

 

Four: Continuing with the split, improving where needed

 

Straight away, the split was deemed a failure. A combination of the pointless jumps, lack of singles titles on Smackdown and no tag titles on Raw (something I will discuss in detail soon) caused a general online feeling of “kill it now”.

 

The WWF were in a Catch 22 situation – carry on and look like they hadn’t fully prepared for the split, or stop it dead like every other bad idea (like they had already done with the InVasion, and would go on to do with the nWo)

 

To their credit, they stuck with the split and attempted to improve on the problems that had not been originally thought of.

 

The result was all the “jumping” of wrestlers, to create more balanced rosters.

 

A problem that Vince had not foreseen was Stone Cold Steve Austin. Just a short while after the initial draft (where he was having another “contract dispute,”) Stone Cold took his ball and went home. Actually, that’s a silly analogy, because taking his ball means that nobody else can carry one. All he did was go home.

 

This threw all of the plans for Raw out of the window (they’d just started a “Ric Flair is Austin’s personal assistant” angle.) As a result, they had to hotshot the end of the Flair / McMahon rivalry. Vince beat Flair, and took control of both shows. He decided that he would continue with the split and appoint General Managers (GMs) to run each show. Eric Bischoff and Stephanie McMahon (coming just months after she would “never be on TV again”, and less than a year after she tried to kill the WWF with WCW)

 

Were they an improvement over Flair and McMahon?

 

Bischoff vs Flair

 

Eric Bischoff is a BRILLIANT heel. He is worryingly convincing with his creepyness, and he acts the asshole perfectly. Having him on Raw has been a joy to watch, and he has managed to avoid being the #1 heel by putting himself over others – in fact, he has been booked to look a little bit useless, while still being able to be a heel owner that hates everyone, and can do something about it. The only downside is the irritating “Chief of Staff” Morley, who is unconvincing in his role.

 

Ric Flair was fairly generic as an authority figure. To be totally honest, I don’t remember a lot that he did other than drafting the Undertaker to piss him off. Flair is an excellent promo guy, one of the best that I’ve ever seen, BUT I believe that he is much superior at putting over his feelings than having to act out a scene.

 

Stephanie McMahon vs Vince McMahon

 

Stephanie is a wishy-washy character. By this I mean that she’s not a strong figurehead, which is what authority figures really need to be. To be a good boss in the real world, people have to respect you or fear you, something that needs to be carried over into the wrestling world. Austin vs McMahon threw this totally out of the window, which was one of the reasons that it worked so well.

 

Stephanie cannot carry this off. She’s just… there. She’s a convenient way of making matches; she’s a lazy booking dream.

 

Instead of the triple threat tag team match (Team Angle / Los Guerreros / Benoit and Rhyno) at Wrestlemania coming about naturally, and having one team challenge the others, Stephanie conveniently bumped into Team Angle backstage and made the match.

 

Other than the occasional match-making, she does very little, and comes off weak because of this.

 

Vince is a much stronger person, and despite the awful facial expressions, is a much better actor. He can carry a storyline well, and the fans hold him in higher regard. This makes for much better segments.

 

Overall, they made a good decision in replacing Flair, but the contrived storyline gaps involved with bringing Stephanie back are ridiculous. Still – nobody remembers the past, except when it is convenient, so it’s not like it matters.

 

Grade: B-

 

Five: The title belt situation

 

At the time of the draft, there were the following belts / champions in the WWF:

 

WWF Title held by HHH (not drafted)

Intercontinental title held by Rob Van Dam (Raw)

European title held by William Regal (Raw)

Hardcore title held by Maven (Smackdown)

Women’s title held by Jazz (Raw)

Cruiserweight title held by… who knows (Smackdown, I presume)

Tag team titles held by Chuck and Billy (Smackdown)

 

The WWF Title, and champion were able to “float” between the two shows, appearing when they wanted. The WWF Title could be competed for by anyone on either brand.

 

Rob Van Dam was drafted to Raw, and on the draft show, Angle challenged him to a match for the title to bring it to SmackDown. Angle lost, so the IC title went to Raw.

 

Maven lost his hardcore title to Raw wrestler Raven on the SmackDown after the draft (while the draft had taken place, the roster split would not start “officially” until the following Monday.) This meant another singles title went over to Raw.

 

William Regal was drafted to Raw, putting a third singles title there.

 

Jazz also went to Raw, in the off-screen picks that occurred after Raw.

 

This left the tag team and Cruiserweight titles as the only ones that could be fought for exclusively on SmackDown, leading to a huge inequality. While the WWF title could be competed for, this left a lot of wrestlers with nothing to do – i.e. pretty much everyone who isn’t Kurt Angle, the Rock, or less than 225 pounds.

 

This inequality was never mentioned again, and there were no attempts to move the singles belts from show to show. Eventually, the then-tag champions, the “Un-Americans” jumped from Smackdown to Raw taking the tag titles across. This left SmackDown with only the restricted entry Cruiserweight title.

 

Summerslam came, and Brock Lesnar (a Raw talent) won the WWF World Title from the Rock. The next night on Raw, it was announced that he’d signed an exclusive contract with SmackDown and would no longer be appearing on Raw.

 

On the same show, Tommy Dreamer (hardcore champion) fought Rob Van Dam in a hardcore match to unify the Intercontinental and Hardcore titles. Prior to this, the Intercontinental title had been merged with the European one via a Rob Van Dam vs Jeff Hardy ladder match, leaving the IC title as the only singles belt on Raw.

 

A couple of weeks later, Bischoff resurrected the old WCW World Title, and renamed it to The World Title, before awarding it to HHH. This was a very controversial decision, and there has been much debate about the legitimacy of the belt.

 

Most of the negativity towards the title is because it has no lineage; no history. It was just arbitrarily awarded to HHH – he didn’t earn it, so why should it be respected?

 

It could, on the other hand, be argued that it is important for both brands to have a World Champion – someone who is the top of their respective brand. Raw and SmackDown are two separate wrestling federations, which was one of the main reasons for the roster split, and indeed is where the name “brand extension” comes from (Raw was once just a TV show; now it is a full wrestling federation.)

 

The World Title (dubbed the “Fake World Title” by some) was never going to have the same legitimacy as the Real (SmackDown!) world title. It needed a strong champion to make it seem legitimate, and leaving all “HHHating” at the door, Triple H has not been able to do that.

 

Possibly Vince sensed this, or perhaps it was a panic measure, but the Intercontinental Title was merged with the World Title, in another move that many criticised. Their reasoning was that the IC title had a huge lineage, dating back to Pat Patterson in 1979.

 

The Intercontinental Title, however, had been cheapened greatly over the years. In its last two years of existence, it was held by such wrestling legends as William Regal, Test, Albert and Jeff Hardy. Sure, it was also held by Benoit, Jericho and RVD, but the reigns by, well, shit wrestlers like Albert served to hold the title back. I think that killing the title was a mercy killing – a way of allowing them to “start over” with a new title; one without a rubbish history. Of course, they managed to screw it up by having the new title’s history tainted by HHH’s extended, and largely horrible reign, but what can you do?

 

SmackDown gained its own set of tag titles, which were fought for in a tag tournament, the final of which (Edge / Rey Mysterio vs Angle / Benoit) was arguably the match of the year. A series of strong tag team matches have resulted in this division since the creation, which shows the difference between the two new titles – fans aren’t opposed to new titles, just that it takes time to get used to them.

 

Grade: C+

 

Six – Splitting Pay Per Views

 

On a personal note here, one of the things that Smarks tend to do is to judge things that haven’t happened yet. For example, “Then [HHH will] drop the title to his OTHER best buddy (nash)”

 

It’s silly, so I’m trying to avoid it here. But the “current plan” for the WWF is to split the PPVs between Raw and SmackDown, starting with the former King of the Ring, now to be renamed “Badd Blood”. This will be a PPV exclusively featuring Raw wrestlers, and from then on the PPVs will alternate between brands.

 

Assuming that all PPVs are 8 matches long, this means that each show will have to build up 8 feuds per PPVs, rather than 4. In theory, this is fine; they have two months to build for each PPV, rather than just one. However, there is a problem – the “Big 4” PPVs (Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, SummerSlam and Survivor Series) will be dual brand.

 

To illustrate:

 

JANUARY - Royal Rumble – Dual Brand

FEBRUARY - No Way Out - SmackDown

MARCH – Wrestlemania – Dual Brand

APRIL – Backlash - Raw

MAY - Judgement Day - SmackDown

JUNE - Bad Blood - Raw

JULY – Vengeance - SmackDown

AUGUST – Summerslam – Dual Brand

SEPTEMBER – Unforgiven - Raw

OCTOBER – No Mercy - SmackDown

NOVEMBER – Survivor Series – Dual Brand

DECEMBER – Armageddon – Raw

 

Based on this, there is the following amount of build up per show:

 

Royal Rumble – Raw, one month – SmackDown, two months

No Way Out – SmackDown, one month

Wrestlemania – Raw, two months – SmackDown, one month

Backlash – Raw, one month

Judgment Day – SmackDown, two months

Bad Blood – Raw, two months

Vengeance – SmackDown, two months

Summerslam – Raw, two months – SmackDown, one month

Unforgiven – Raw, one month

No Mercy – SmackDown, two months

Survivor Series – Raw, two months – SmackDown, one month

Armageddon – Raw, one month

 

Statistics:

 

Raw:

4 single brand PPVs, three with one month build up, one with two months.

4 dual brand PPVs, one with one month build up, three with two months.

 

SmackDown:

4 single brand PPVs, one with one month build up, three with two months.

4 dual brand PPVs, three with one month build up, one with two months.

 

This shows the inequalities between the two brands. Raw is expected to produce a full PPV in a month, when currently it is struggling to come up with good matches for HALF a PPV.

 

From January through to March, SmackDown is on PPV EVERY month. Isn’t this exactly what the PPV Split is intended to avoid? The major problem is that Vince still wants the huge buyrates on the “big” PPVs (although Survivor Series, and to a lesser extent SummerSlam are becoming nothing special.)

 

With the rosters split as they are, there’s going to be more repetition of PPV matches. With SmackDown having to put on three PPVs in a row, it’s very likely that we’ll see something like the same match, or variations thereof three times in a row.

 

Grade: not graded - giving it a chance first

 

Overall report card:

 

The Draft – C-

Keeping the shows apart – B+

New faces will be pushed – C-

Continuing with the split, improving where needed – B-

The title belt situation – C+

[Guest Memphis]

You wrote ALL of that?

 

Here's a hundred, go buy yourself a good time.

 

The incomparable and unanimously loved M

[Guest Austin3164life]

God damn, that's a hell of an analysis. Perhaps you should consider a career in Titan Towers......or not.

[Guest Goodear]

Good stuff

[Guest Coffey]

TL, DR.

[LooseCannon25 0]

Damn, perhaps you should have a career in writing or something. That's a hell of a lot!!!!

 

Good stuff, and I like the analysis. You're on point

[Guest Plushy Al Logan]

::Claps for OnlyMe::

 

Great Analysis.

[Guest OnlyMe]

TL, DR.

 

Too long, didn't read?

 

Thanks to everyone for their comments.

[Guest AndrewTS]

Great post. It also shows you've got a hell of a better memory than I have. I disagree about Morely being rather "weak" in his role, and I PREFER Stephanie not having much airtime. However, Bisch is no longer fun to watch since he is forced to play the evil, corrupt heel rather than the evil but funny and charismatic sleazeball.

 

A couple things WWE did that pissed me off:

 

Brock Lesnar signs an exclusive contract, so when he loses the title, the NEW champ should be able to go to both shows--that champ was Big Show.

 

Never mentioned, ever. Why should Brock's contract status have that effect on ANYONE TO HOLD THE TITLE AFTER THAT?!

 

Another thing: both the men's and women's champions should be able to float. At that time, Molly stopped appearing on SD, then all their matches for the title occured only on PPV or on Raw. This was NEVER EXPLAINED at all. What pisses me off even more is that after Bischoff said no one cares about women's wrestling, and made Trish and Stacy wrestle in a mud match, it would have made perfect sense for him to trade all the women wrestlers to SD for TnA girls and sign a mutual agreement with Stephanie that all the women's wrestlers would appear just on SD. Nope...didn't happen. So after Bisch shits all over women's wrestling the women's division appears exclusively on Raw while the fluffers appear on SD.

 

DOES THIS MAKE AN IOTA OF SENSE?!

 

Sadly the women's matches on Raw are usually the best on the show, even with TRISH in them. Ugh.

[Guest TheGame2705]

Sure, it was also held by Benoit, Jericho and RVD, but the reigns by, well, shit wrestlers like Albert served to hold the title back.

 

Bringing in bias is what killed this report for me. Why single out Albert? I fullheartedly agree he shouldn't have been given the title but he's not a shit wrestler and not the only person who shouldn't have held the title when they did.

 

Shane Douglas in 1995 who held the belt for about 5 minutes

 

The Road Dogg in 99

Heatless Goldust by this point in 99 from Dogg

The Godfather from Goldust in 99

 

Edge who had little to no heat in 99 and beat Jarrett on a house show only to job it at the PPV

 

Co-Champions Jericho and Chyna, that angle was money ESPECIALLY when you throw in Hardcore Holly

 

Chyna again who only won it in a tag match by not even pinning the champ

 

Triple H who won it only to job it to Jeff Hardy for a few days only to win it back

 

Albert who had no heat

 

Test who also had no heat and was fighting in the hardcore division before

 

Chris Jericho's last run before the end of the title as well as Kane's

 

So I just saw that as a flaw in an analysis because of the obvious personal bias.

[Guest Smell the ratings!!!]

A lot of shit wrestlers held the title, but Albert was arguably the shittiest of the shit wrestlers, which I assume is why he was singled out.

 

plus he sucks.

[Guest OnlyMe]

Because I only went back about three years. I figured that if I started quoting names from 1999, then it'd be like... "whatever, that was ages ago".

 

http://www.411mania.com/wrestling/titles/t...php?titlecode=2 has a history of the belt, and apart from the four names I mentioned (so I didn't "single out" Albert) there's nobody since 2000 - possibly other than Christian - that wasn't at the belt's "level".

[Guest TheGame2705]

Because I only went back about three years. I figured that if I started quoting names from 1999, then it'd be like... "whatever, that was ages ago".

 

http://www.411mania.com/wrestling/titles/t...php?titlecode=2 has a history of the belt, and apart from the four names I mentioned (so I didn't "single out" Albert) there's nobody since 2000 - possibly other than Christian - that wasn't at the belt's "level".

Chyna? Billy Gunn? Jeff Hardy's very short title reign? Triple H? Test? Heatless Lance Storm? Kane and Jericho before Triple H unified the titles?

 

Methinks you singled out pretty big there.

[Guest TheGame2705]

A lot of shit wrestlers held the title, but Albert was arguably the shittiest of the shit wrestlers, which I assume is why he was singled out.

 

plus he sucks.

OMG HE SUXX0RS. You're so right. I'm astounded at how much you said to back up that claim. Wow dude.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

I consider Albert to be the best of the shit. Funky Movelist, Crappy Matches. His work with Benoit was good, but that's due to Benoit being God and not caring for life or death... only wrestling.

[Guest OnlyMe]

Chyna? Billy Gunn? Jeff Hardy's very short title reign? Triple H? Test? Heatless Lance Storm? Kane and Jericho before Triple H unified the titles?

 

I didn't single out anyone - I named 4. FOUR. FOUR. People that had held the belt and didn't deserve it. Of those that you mentioned, only Jeff Hardy and Lance Storm, IMO, deserve to be on there.

 

And guess what - Jeff was on there. As for Lance, yeah, he could have been on there, but I didn't want to list every shit champion ever.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

There wasn't a *good* IC Champion since they brought in the Euro Championship. They WWE didn't know how to handle that many belts and everything got mixed up. And then they changed the look of the title... and then they gave it to chyna... that was pretty much well the death of the IC title.

[LooseCannon25 0]

I think i European title introduction spelled the end of the IC title. They couldnt decide if one was higher then the other or they were equal. Hardcore Holly, Road Dogg, Billy Gunn, chyna, Test, had no right feuding for the IC title.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

What the fuck am I doing?

 

The pinnacle of the WWE's incompetence regarding Titles was with Jeff Hardy in 2001. You can't get better (or worse) than holding the Tag, IC, Lthvy, and Hardcore title in a few months.

 

WWF Tag Team Championship

03/05/2001, WWF Raw

(Lost 03/19/2001 to E&C - 14 days later)

 

(3 weeks later)

 

WWF Intercontinental Championship

04/10/2001, WWF SmackDown

(Lost 04/16/01 to HHH - 6 days later)

 

(A month later)

 

WWF Light Heavyweight Championship

06/05/2001, Smackdown

(Lost 06/25/01 to Xpac - 20 days later)

 

(2 weeks later)

 

WWF Hardcore Championship

07/10/2001, WWF SmackDown

(Lost 07/22/2001 to Mike Awesome - 12 days later)

Edited May 8, 2003 by RavishingRickRudo

[Guest OnlyMe]

The pinnacle of the WWE's incompetence regarding Titles was with Jeff Hardy in 2001. You can't get better (or worse) than holding the Tag, IC, Lthvy, and Hardcore title in a few months.

 

Wow... you are correct. There were too many titles through most of the summer of 2001, with the introduction of the WCW belts. Terrible days...

[Guest Smell the ratings!!!]

but that's due to Benoit not caring for life or death... only wrestling.

 

Look thegame, if you've ever EVER seen Albert, you know that "Albert sucks" is not a claim, it is scientific fact. This is like asking me to prove that people die without oxygen.

 

Simply put, any title ever held by Albert is a title that is, at least for the next few months, a tainted title.

[Guest TheGame2705]

I'm not gonna even argue with you as you say he sucks but haven't said anything past "OMG HE SUXXORS LOL"

[Guest Smell the ratings!!!]

Hopefully this isn't as long as the original post.

 

REASONS ALBERT SUCKS

 

- he is very slow

 

- he is very fat

 

- he is hideously ugly, which may not be directly related to his wrestling skill, but seriously, come on.

 

- he is a bad wrestler, his moves are poorly executed.

 

- he sells like a brick wall

 

- his idea of in-ring charisma is "AUUURRRGHH!!!"

 

- partly because of this, the only reaction he's ever gotten from a crowd is repulsion to his hideously repulsive body.

 

- sometimes he does a pump "kick" which so rarely connects it may be one of the top 5 moves currently used in WWF.

 

- despite all this shittiness, he is continusly pushed and repackaged

 

- beats Rey Mysterio clean for absolutly no reason

 

- has regular main event slots on a show that features Mysterio, Angle, Eddy, plus approximatly 30 wrestlers who aren't as good as those 3 but are still better than fucking A-Train.

 

more later, i have to piss

[Guest AndrewTS]

Simply put, any title ever held by Albert is a title that is, at least for the next few months, a tainted title.

I hate Albert, but once in a while he does a cool spot. That doesn't warrant a push to me.

 

And when Lance Storm beat Albert for the Intercontinental Title, despite being a heel, he was CHEERED for getting the title off him. I think this was even in the States.

[Guest TheGame2705]

Hopefully this isn't as long as the original post.

 

REASONS ALBERT SUCKS

 

- he is very slow

 

- he is very fat

 

- he is hideously ugly, which may not be directly related to his wrestling skill, but seriously, come on.

 

- he is a bad wrestler, his moves are poorly executed.

 

- he sells like a brick wall

 

- his idea of in-ring charisma is "AUUURRRGHH!!!"

 

- partly because of this, the only reaction he's ever gotten from a crowd is repulsion to his hideously repulsive body.

 

- sometimes he does a pump "kick" which so rarely connects it may be one of the top 5 moves currently used in WWF.

 

- despite all this shittiness, he is continusly pushed and repackaged

 

- beats Rey Mysterio clean for absolutly no reason

 

- has regular main event slots on a show that features Mysterio, Angle, Eddy, plus approximatly 30 wrestlers who aren't as good as those 3 but are still better than fucking A-Train.

 

more later, i have to piss

-He may not be lighting quick but he can run. He has a running scissors kick

 

-What a good reason for saying someone sucks.

 

-Train's look has zero to do with his skill. If ugliness=no skill then I guess Benoit is below average due to his gapped/missing teeth

 

-His moves are poorly done? When was the last time he botched a spot and it ruined the match? He's always hit the Derailer and Train Wreck correctly.

 

-It makes sense to sell like a brick wall when you're built like one. I will admit he does need to work on his selling but if he's built like a tank he shouldn't need to flop around like The Rock

 

- Angle's idea of in-ring charisma is "whoo!" and Benoit's is "....."

 

- I find this ironic because if you look at the crowd you usually see fat hillbillies or girls who look like they were rejected from GGW

 

- Everyone has botched their signature move. Jericho made a legacy of botching his moonsault. Eddie popped his elbow out doing his. Kurt Angle broke someone's arm doing his moonsault. Owen Hart limited Austin's career even more. Only difference is, I've yet to hear that the pump kick has hurt someone.

 

-He debuted with the same name as a dick piercing with Droz. Then he got put in a team with Big Bossman against Tazz. He then got taken out of that spot and stuck in another tag team with Trish who no one even knew. After the team broke up, he became the enforcer of X-Pac and Justin Credible. No one cared about Credible and everyone hated X-Pac severly. He was given the IC title with no buildup at all. That'd be like giving it to Funaki right now if they still had it. Everyone knows him and he has a role but that doesn't mean he's ready for anything. He then lost it and was relegated to the lower shows until he came back as an accessory to The UT/Big Show feud. He got his ass beat by UT multiple times. He then "injured" Rey Jr. and got beat up by Edge. Right now, he's an accessory to Big Show/Brock.

I don't see where he was given major credible pushes and failed and they keep re-trying. They've also repackaged him a total of TWICE and the second time it was only a slight mod.

 

-Yeah because it'd be great to see a guy who was just injured and is still recooperating in a main event match so he can either do nothing or get hurt more or a 5' masked man who's only purpose is to do spots and bump. Would you mind listing these approximate 30?

[Guest OnlyMe]

Remember that ***** match that Albert had with...

 

Actually...

 

remember that **** match that Albert had with...

 

Hang on, that didn't happen either...

 

Remember that *** match that Albert had with...

 

Benoit

 

You can try and justify Albert all you like, and if you like him then that's cool. But I, like many others, find him shitty.

[Guest TheGame2705]

Remember how star ratings are subjective so that doesn't really mean crap? I actually brought some points to back up my claims. All you guys have said is "OMG Albert is so shitty!"

[Guest OnlyMe]

I have never liked an Albert match. I don't see how to justify it any more.

[Guest TheGame2705]

Alright then. If you don't like him that's fine. That's the point I've been trying to make this whole time that you have an obvious bias against him.

[Guest tank_abbott]

The defending of Albert on a Smark board seems too surreal....