Oh, and I guess I’ll bring it up just because no one else has: the whole TNA situation sucks. I haven’t watched TNA myself; at this point, RAW and NXT are my weekly must watches, w/ SmackDown and Ring of Honor as nice to see if I can find the time. There’s just no room in my wrasslin’ watchin’ week for another promotion, unless that promotion is flat-out awesome. TNA, from what I understand, is in no danger of being that, though their NY shows were apparently pretty darn good.
But, to paraphrase Eric Bischoff, competition creates cash. To borrow a line from HHH, competition is what’s best for business. Not to mention that there’s going to be a lot of guys scrambling for work; WWE isn’t going to be buying talent wholesale in their current financial state. They might pick up Angle and the Dudleys, if they can pass a physical, but I don’t see them raiding much else.
Although with TNA dying, that opens the door for televised Ring of Honor.
Now I have no ideas about Ring of Honor, and I’ve never seen a promotion and don’t know much from it other than “It’s where (wrestler x) came from and it’s really good!”, but I think if any promotion is going to have a chance to be televised its them. I’ve also heard their quality of wrestling is good which TNA just didn’t have.
I also hope they do get on TV, it’d be fun to see a new show and to give WWE some REAL competition like WCW did back in the day
TNA has always had talented wrestlers. They just had no real direction. They had their own identity until they brought WCW failures like Bischoff, Hogan and Russo in to ru(i)n it, and thought they could be as cutting edge as WWE. They tried turning Abyss into another Hulk Hogan. They tried making Bully Ray into another Steve Austin. They copy ideas that worked for other promotions in the past, but times have changed.
Daniel Bryan becomes WWE champ, so they get their own lookalike Eric Young to become their champ. ECW was a hot thing, so they bring in ECW alumni to heat things up again. Problem is, those guys are now 20 years older, and their act just looks quaint. WWE’s Authority turns heel, so Dixie Carter turns heel, and can somehow throw a 300 lb man through a table.
RoH at least doesn’t pollute their shows with management drama. They’re pretty open-door, and will bring in talent from overseas and put on amazing matches. They remind me of the old ECW shows that took place in small venues but had more intense interaction with the audience. My main criticism is that they perhaps rely too much on the death-defying stunts, and that can wear out the novelty. But at least they don’t wannabe WWE.
That actually sounds like the recipe WCW used before they were booked into oblivion.
Bringing in different talent, showcasing different styles of wrestling (WCW had the cruiserweight title and latino title) and had “death defying stunts” (luchadores and their high-flyingness) and did stuff that made them different than the WWE.
I’d just like to see several different styles of wrestling again. That’s what I liked about ECW in the 90’s. I could see fast paced things between Super Crazy and Tajiri, high risk matches between RVD and Jerry Lynn, and brutal matches between Mike Awesome and Masato Tanaka, all in one card. WWF started copying that to a degree and their wrestling eventually got a lot better.
Ring of Honor has a one-hour weekly show that’s available in some, but not all of the country. I DVR it (seeing as it’s not on until 1 AM Friday night here), and I don’t always watch it, but it’s pretty decent - much like NXT, it’s a very wrestling-centric program. It apparently airs on a tape delay of several weeks and is out of sync with their PPVs (which I haven’t really looked at yet) which can make it difficult to follow the world title scene, but the Television Championship is usually pretty prominent. (I think Jay Lethal, formerly of TNA, is the TV champ right now.)
They apparently did a crossover PPV with New Japan awhile back, which they showed a couple matches from on their weekly show, and it looks good.
While I’d love to see RoH get a national TV deal, I don’t really think Sinclair is interested in going that route. If they did, they’d have to start out by improving their production to a level that at least approaches “professional”–right now, it’s more “high school football game on local access TV”. Obviously there’s no need to bring it up to WWE level, but I don’t see why NXT level shouldn’t be doable.
I did go to one of their live shows here a few weeks back. Heck of a good show–it was pretty much total nonstop action. In fact, by the time we got to the main event, my friend and I were kinda worn out. I guess pops are kind of like bumps–you’ve only got so many of them in you. Luckily, the pop counter resets on a regular basis.
ETA: Oh, forgot to mention–RoH put their weekly TV show up free on their website, so if you want to watch it but aren’t in a market with it, there’s nothing stopping you.
Well, that show was a hot mess. It started w/ giving the Network’s excellent price heel heat that, as the show went on, drifted for those of us back at home, at least, into X-Pac heat, and just kept the hits comin’ from there. It had its highlights: Dean worked an awesome match w/ ADR, then did the best ringside distraction routine ever, and did I mention that HEATH SLATER MAIN EVENTED RAW AND PINNED SETH ROLLINS!!! Oh, and THE DEMON (gentleman) KANE handed in his mask, perhaps recognizing that he hasn’t won a match since putting it on.
But Cesaro jobbed out in like two minutes, because we needed the time to give him a good match (which he totally could have had with Zigs) to play the (very good) hype video we played up near the top of the show for a second time in the third hour. And they missed the opportunity to have Leo Kruger looking back at Adam Rose from the Oculus mirror. Brie and Nikki continued to be lady John Cenas (Johns Cena?), getting heel heat from at least some of us when they’re supposed to be faces. (It’s not quite as bad as it is with Cena, but then, we’ve not had to listen to Brie try to act and make prison bitch jokes for 10+ years, either.) I think everyone agrees Steph was pretty great, though.
Also, it’s fun watching the 'E react to its financial woes by trying to get more edgy while staying within the technical bounds of PG… sort of. It started, IIRC, with Brie calling Steph a bitch… then Roman got cleared to say ass… then Brie and Steph each had to say “bitch” at least five times a show… then Ron Simmons came and gave Roman “damn”… and now Brock has added bodily fluids to the party and Brie is making prison bitch jokes. I was going to say we’d have everything but fuck and cunt by Night of Champions at the latest, but we don’t even have that far to go!
I don’t know where you think the Bellas are getting Cena-heat, but they are both being huge faces right now. It’s probably because Steph is AMAZING at what she does, so the fans are loving the rivalry right now.
Cesaro losing is kinda weird to me because I think “creative” doesn’t know what to do with him. They don’t want to give him the IC belt since its on a newly minted Miz (and possibly Zigs which would be…pardon the term…awesome), and they know he isn’t big enough to fight for the bit title(s), so he’s kind of in no-man’s land, especially after the Paul Heyman failure.
IIRC correctly this is two wins in a row for Heath Slater after the 3mbreakup, I don’t know if WWE is pushing him, or banking on the fact that he’s a nobody, but if his wins keep coming I’m not gonna complain.
This should be an awesome Summerslam, I’m looking forward to pretty much every match!
Gotta give the Bellas something to do after Summerfest. Sibling warfare is a wrestling tradition. And I still maintain, sooner than later, Cena has got to turn. Many fans will be cheering Brock over Cena. Reigns, Ambrose and a returning Bryan will be top faces. At some point, Cena will need to turn and the seeds are planted for several good reasons for that turn.
Why? He sells more merchandise than anyone else by a huge margin, he’s far more popular with the kids (which is the most important demographic for a number of reasons) than Reigns or Ambrose or Bryan are, and Cena personally loves being able to work with Make-a-Wish and do meet-and-greets with the troops. (Side note: In another online community, I know an active-duty Marine who met Cena in Iraq several years ago and absolutely loves the guy because of how cool he is in real life and how much he loves the troops.) The people who dislike Cena are a relatively small part of WWE’s audience and are less likely to pay to go to live shows or to buy PPVs or merch, and they probably still wouldn’t buy Cena merch if he turned heel anyway. It makes no sense from a business standpoint for WWE or a personal standpoint for Cena.
As for Lesnar, I honestly don’t see the man who conquered the Streak ever getting face heat no matter who he’s up against. Reigns and Ambrose both have potential to be top faces, but they’ll never be Cena-level top faces, and it’s not a sure thing whether Bryan will actually be able to return since he’s having to undergo another surgery.
(Note: I realize this depends upon Bryan being able to return. But I’m hoping he will.)
Cena sells merchandise now, but how about tomorrow? It is hard to deny that face Cena peaked a while ago. What the WWE needs is a big story to sell the new Network, and a heel turn by Cena would be that story. Seriously, after he loses to Brock, what is left for Cena? How do you keep selling his merchandise and winning over the kids when the “Champ” will be out of the title picture?
Sure it would be a big gamble, but not so much as it would have been a few years ago. Here is the guy that put the Rock out of wrestling. He is booed by a significant number of fans already. The fans “voted” Cena to face all the Wyatts. He has done everything right and still gets booed. Now is the time for the turn while the character is still near the top. He will be booed by more than some at Summerslam. Survivior Series screwjob anyone?
Hogan turned heel successfully. Austin turned heel (less successfully). Punk turned heel while still champion. Down the road a few years Cena can become a face again like they all do. But now is the time to shock the Wrestling World and get those Network numbers up.
The big difference is that Hulk Hogan really had stopped being a draw by the time they turned him heel - it’s been written that WCW had to give out free Hulk merch to audience members, and confiscate signs making fun of him around '95-'96. Cena is still six years younger than Hogan was when he turned, and has only been wrestling for half as long as Hogan had at that point. True, Cena gets booed often (and in some cities more than others), but it’s hard to tell how much of that is genuine fan dislike and how much of it is just the live audience having fun. Hell, I like Cena, and at the live shows I’ve been to I chant along with the “CENA SUCKS!” crowd just because it’s fun to do so.
As far as selling the Network, I think having Brock as champion, and his wrestling exclusively on PPV, will be a big shot in the arm there without taking such a big gambit on Cena, and the fact that the worldwide launch of the Network is coming up in just a few weeks is going to be a big boost as well. Maybe Cena will turn heel in the future, but I don’t think now is the time.
ROH is syndicated, and only available on Sinclair-owned stations. Only these cities have it:
Asheville, NC
Baltimore
Birmingham
Buffalo
Cape Girardeau, MO
Cedar Rapids
Charleston, SC
Charleston, WV
Cincinnati
Columbus
Dayton
Des Moines
Flint
Greensboro
Greenville, SC
Las Vegas
Lexington
Madison, WI
Milwaukee
Minneapolis
Mobile
Nashville
Norfolk
Oklahoma City
Paducah, KY
Pensacola
Peoria
Pittsburgh
Portland, ME
Raleigh
Richmond
Rochester, NY
San Antonio
Springfield, IL
St Louis
Syracuse
Tallahassee
Tampa
Back to WWE: anybody know why WWE Network didn’t have a post-RAW show this week? This is the third time this has happened.
Cena won’t turn heel while he’s still #1 merch seller.
He’ll be #1 until someone else unseats him.
They won’t build anyone else up enough to unseat him while he’s still #1.
So we can count on another 5-7 years of LOLCENAWINS until they’re utterly FORCED to build a new top star. Meanwhile a good half-dozen people who had the potential to unseat him will come and go, or simply be buried too far to be rebuilt to those levels.
