Scott’s Blog of Doom

Ah, quite the hot button topic this week, I see. 

Food for thought.  Obviously Cena vs HHH is a huge money match that WWE SHOULD do at Mania.  Now my question is, does it really HAVE to be for the title.  I mean they haven’t really elevated anyone in forever, and what I want to know is would it really be so awful if Cena lost to Orton (maybe HHH can interfere & it backfires on Cena or something like that) & Hardy won the Chamber, setting up an Orton vs Hardy championship match (I mean the feud has already been established and all), and a huge Cena vs HHH grudge match (again the feud is LONG established going back to WM 22, and this really doesn’t need the title attached to it for the crowd to care).  I mean that way you still get a huge Cena/HHH match, & Orton & Hardy look like main eventers (I mean really what’s gonna be done w/ them otherwise? Throw them in Money In the Bank? What a waste of 2 over guys).  Your thoughts?

 

I’ve been thinking about this today, and I think you’re correct:  Cena v. HHH would be heated enough that they wouldn’t necessarily need the title.  However, it actually does a disservice to Randy Orton to keep the belt on him, because it’s just the same shit as in 2004 with That Other Guy, when he was clearly #3 on the totem pole but somehow expected to carry the main title in the company.  It’s not fair to bury someone, even indirectly like that, by having two bigger stars above him in the pecking order.  So yeah, love him or hate him, Cena is The Guy and needs the title.  I’ve never argued anything against that notion, aside from taking it off him for a bit once in a while to reignite the chase.  Other than that, ride that horse until it dies, WWE.

That being said, if you can’t turn Cena heel (hint:  You can’t.  The fanbase is largely composed of 12 year olds at this point who are keeping the company afloat in North America with merch sales of, you guessed it, John Cena crap), then you might as well turn HHH heel again because he knows how to make that character work.  And the one feud that hasn’t been done or even hinted at yet is Superman Cena v. The Legion of DX.  I think if you bring in the walking trainwreck that is the X-Pac & Chyna Show for car crash value and then add in new blood with CM Punk and, I dunno, John Morrisson, you can have them turn on Shawn Michaels (who doesn’t want to be a heel) and then milk Cena & Shawn v. D-X for like a year and a half.  I know that no one wants to see Sean Waltman employed again, but that’s the brilliant part.  NO ONE will cheer this version of D-X.  They’ll be so insanely over as heels that Cena can’t help but look like the better choice to cheer. 

Anyway, back to the original question, I think Hardy is done and should move to Smackdown and fight Edge for that title instead, because he’s the #3 babyface in a two-man race and can’t play a heel.  Unless he can miraculously learn to be a heel and join D-X for a WICKED tag team with CM Punk, but I’ve never seen that side of him to be able to judge. 

Hey Scott,
I was thinking about this yesterday and I wanted to see if you’d be interested in throwing it on your blog for some interesting discussion…
Cena-HHH is seemingly like the Hogan-Warrior equivalent of 2008.  That’s what the WWE is trying to pass it off as anyway.  Now, I know the majority of the internet shits on that, and maybe rightfully so, but I have a theory…
When we were young and marks - and don’t pretend we ever weren’t; we ALL were - we didn’t have the internet to give us the “smark” insight.  The fans of 1990, the ones who bought the merch, the ones who begged their parents for a Hulk Hogan shirt, or WWE Wrestlemania Challenge for NES, those were the 10 year olds equivalent to the 10 year olds of today who love Cena, who love HHH, who beg their parents for Jakks wrestling figures or replicas of the WWE spinner belt. Yet, weren’t most of us those same 10 year olds back then?  The difference is that there was no internet to ruin it for us.  I’m SURE there were workrate freaks who hated Hogan and Warrior in 1990, but I’ll be damned if they weren’t in the minority and didn’t have the internet to create such a sphere of influence like there is now. Hogan-Warrior drew so much money, not because they were great workers, but because they were characters that the WWF’s target audience cared about and wanted to see.  And guess what?  So are Cena and HHH.  Face it, the IWC is not and never will be the WWE’s target audience.  We’re not the ones marking out for this stuff. But the WWE hardly cares.  We can play armchair quarterbacks all we want.  It doesn’t matter.  I know we know this.  But it’s just funny that we shit all over the product sometimes when really I believe it’s just the fact that we’re the ones who are just too damn ’smart’ for our own good.  And hey there’s nothing wrong with that.  But we’re hardly ever going to be satisfied anyway.  If this was 1990, and we’re all the same age as we are now, but the internet had the influence it does now, we’d be saying things like “they really should have elevated Mr. Perfect and had him win the Royal Rumble”, and “who the hell wants to see Warrior win the world title? He’s horrible in the ring!”, but you know what?  Regardless of our opinions, there is always that target group people us who will buy what the WWE is selling.  Back then, I’m SURE the WWF knew that Hogan and Warrior were bad workers?  Did they give a damn? I highly doubt it.  They were raking in cash.  I’m sure they know NOW that many people don’t think highly of HHH or Cena; again, the people who “matter” do the WWE are the ones buying the tickets, buying the shirts, pestering their moms for merch.  Not us.  I’m 22.  I haven’t bought merch in FOREVER.  In ten years, these same pre-teens will have our attitude, if not worse.  BUt then there’ll be a whole new generation of marks who the WWE will cater to.  It’s just a cycle.  I’m sure in 1990, the 20-something fans of Bruno Sammartino and Bob Backlund were all up in arms about the then-current product.  Only they didn’t have the web to spread all their opinions.
I know, as usual with anything I say, I don’t come to any resolution.  And believe me, I don’t think I’ve made amazing points, I’m really just throwing out some food for thought.  So if you want to argue against me, hey you may be right.  I’m just opening the gates for discussion.

Actually, the internet WAS around in 1990 and they were saying most of that stuff you mentioned, in fact. 

However, it’s kind of apples and oranges, as Cena inspires a totally different type of reaction than Warrior ever did.  Warrior had a very dedicated mark fanbase, but there was never that backlash to him in his prime like there is with Cena.  Cena not only inspires crazy dedicated followers, but equally passionate hatred, among people who have never read a wrestling website in their life. 

That being said, I already said in the Rumble rant that Cena v. HHH is the right decision for business, so I’m not entirely sure where you’re going with this, but here it is for discussion.

Tuesday Night ECW

From Reading, Pa. (which is pronounced RED-DING for those of you wondering)

Hosted by Joey Styles & Tazzzzzzzzzzzz

It’s been quite a few months since I’ve got an ECW rant and they’ve had time to retool the roster a bit and develop a few guys that I’m interested in watching.

ECW 1-29

The SmarK DVD Rant for the Best of RAW 15^th Anniversary - Disc Three

- Onto the modern era, starting in 2003 now.

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The SmarK Rant for WWE Royal Rumble 2008

- Live, in HD, from Madison Square Garden. This rant will also be presented in widescreen, so adjust your margins to 100 columns to match.

(more…)

The SmarK DVD Rant for The Best of RAW 15^th Anniversary (Disc Two)

- Welcome to the Russo Era, and not surprisingly the 1998-2002 era is rather lighter on matches than the first disc was.

(more…)

The SmarK DVD Rant for The Best of RAW 15^th Anniversary (Disc One)

- Although there already has been a “Best of RAW” 2-disc set released a few years back, it mainly covered the glory years of 1997-2000, and is this is the first try at a comprehensive anthology. I still think they should just bite the damn bullet and do season sets (I mean, hell, 52 40-minute episodes wouldn’t take up THAT much disc space) but this will do for now. I’m a bastard, so we’ll do this one disc at a time.

- Hosted by Todd Grisham. That’s a pretty bad start.

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Man, The Dark Knight is gonna be a whole different movie-going experience now.  It’s a shame because people were already talking about Heath as an Oscar shoo-in for 2009, but just like wrestling, drugs destroy another promising career.  It’s just too bad it had to be someone talented that paid the price for that lifestyle instead of one of the bimbos who drive drunk and exist solely on their own fame. 

The SmarK 24/7 Rant for Prime Time Wrestling - August 24 1987

- Hosted by Gorilla & the Brain.

The Rougeaus v. The Shadows

Hey, the Shadows are fighting someone other than Roma & Powers this week! Good lord, it’s the dream commentary team of Don Muraco and Lanny Poffo again. Ray fights for a wristlock with Skinny Shadow and then double-teams both Shadows, but Fat Shadow hits him with a powerslam. The Rougeaus bring Fat into their corner and work the leg, however, and Jacques holds an anklelock until he gets shoved into the heel corner and beat up. Skinny slams him for two. Fat comes in with a clothesline and stomps away, into a neckbreaker for two. Lanny Poffo reminds me of a commentator from the 50s or something with his overblown delivery and archaic move names. If he could have found a good color commentator, he might have had potential. Jacques skins the cat and fights off the Shadows, and it’s hot tag Raymond. Nice spot sees him backdrop one Shadow into the other one, and La Bombe De Les Rougeaus finishes at 5:42. Pretty standard tag stuff here. *1/2

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The SmarK 24/7 Rant for Monday Night RAW - January 11 1993

- Well, you knew I had to get around to this one sooner or later. At the point when this show debuted, WWF Superstars was still the primary outlet for the angles and major happenings, whereas this crazy “RAW” show was just an experiment to replace Prime Time Wrestling, kind of like Shotgun Saturday Night was intended to be later on. But then syndication died and cable became the future, and here we are.

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