You left out Seattle, which definitely has it, because I watch it here.
A full listing of stations and timeslots that show ROH can be found on their website, here.
And as has been noted above, every week ROH posts the previous week’s show on their website, so if you don’t live in an area where it’s televised, you can still catch it there.
Budget cuts, I assume. They’re having to trim a lot of fat this summer due to the shareholder concerns over the Network (which will eventually blow over, but nobody ever accused the stock-buying public of being rational actors).
The network is about the only thing the WWE is holding its hat on to get them OUT of this funk they’re in, they can’t start cutting shows on it (not to mention a staple show) this early in the ballgame
ETA: Flagship. The word I meant was flagship, not staple
And if you turn Cena heel, then all the teen/adult males who currently hate him because he’s stale/SuperCena/etc then will start cheering him again, resulting in a still-divided audience except that the demographics probably aren’t as good for merchandise sales.
Not necessarily. If they make the turned Cena a self-righteous jerk who “deserves” to be liked but is not, then he might just pull heat from both factions. Molded like the heel Bret Hart, Cena could draw massive boos.
They don’t even have to do it all at once. Cena already gives promos about people booing him, about how he’s given his life to the company. Just amp that up a bit, add some subtle, growing anger. Talk about how he’s been the #1 guy for 10 years, he’s earned his spot and he’s earned people’s respect. Lose to Lesnar. Get pushed down the card. Get disrespected. Get quietly angrier. After two months, get put in a match with Zach Ryder. No post or pre-match beatdown, no actual cheating, nothing traditional… Just slowly beats the ever living fuck out of Ryder while deliberately prolonging the match. 15-20 minute match later, Ryder is a puddle of goo and the announcers are stunned by what they’ve seen, not entirely sure what to make of it. Renee interviews Cena backstage later in the show. He calmly talks about how he’s been the #1 guy for 10 years and deserves everything he’s ever gotten or wanted. But tonight they gave him Zach Ryder, and he showed them what he thought of that idea.
From there, he just savagely beats down every opponent he thinks is beneath where he deserves to be. Kofi Kingston, Adam Rose, other mid-card faces not currently in hot angles.
Eh. There’s at least a few of us smark types who have trouble w/ Brie because, to be kind, her acting leaves something to be desired. There’s also a case to be made that she’s not exactly been a saint in this feud, but mostly she’s just got anti-charisma. It’s a shame Steph (and HHH) don’t have a dance partner worthy of their skills.
No kidding. They’ve booked him for crap ever since Mania–he came out of it ready to be a red-hot face, then they paired him with Paul and whipped him around heel again and (per the rumors) tried to astroturf a D-Bry style story for him, but just wound up taking all that heat away. To see him jobbing out like that… just… ouch. He’s good enough to bounce back, I hope.
You’ve usually got half the house chanting (or singing) “Cena sucks!” with more in your smarky cities like Chicago and New York; folks that don’t like Cena are anything but rare. That said, I agree that we’re not likely to rush out and buy merch in anything like the way Cena moves it to the kids (mostly).
SummerSlam does look good so far; fingers crossed that they don’t drop the ball again like they did w/ Battleground, which looked good on paper, but fell down in the execution.
Oh, and if anyone’s a fan of the Rhodes Brothers, Jericho had them both on his podcast this week. Good stuff, though I wish they’d gotten a bit further into the thinking on Stardust–I guess he’s a bit too fresh still.
I still think it will be a few years until Cena turns heel. While us smarks can’t stand him, he’s still a big draw to the kids and their merchandise-buying parents. I did think he was going to turn heel against Daniel Bryan, since at one point in his promos he talked about how he earned his big houses and cars because he had the ambition to do so. Bryan just likes to wrestle. He doesn’t aspire to be a big name. He said he took a test which revealed he scored in the lowest percentile for ambition. That’s been a behind-the-scenes criticism of Bryan, since he doesn’t do any political jockeying. The fans like him so much, he doesn’t have to.
I’ve been fast-forwarding through the Stephanie/Brie drama. Their showdown just does not interest me, mainly because I see it as some prima donna from the office who wants air time. The most egregious example I remember of that was when fat blobby Ed Ferrara booked himself over Vampiro in WCW. I guess there has to be at least one match on the card that allows the audience time to get beer refills.
Cena is kind of a victim of circumstance to some degree. I saw Kane interviewed before WM30 in which he said one reason he’s had so much success in his career is that he’s never had a really serious injury. If you think about it, it’s true. Kane has been consistently involved in main event storylines, even at times when it doesn’t necessarily make sense. But when you recognize the huge injury rate WWE has, and how they don’t have guys “work through injuries” like they used to, it makes sense why a guy like Kane has basically never left the main event tier.
Cena is basically the same way, he’s the Hulk Hogan of his era and he’s never been injured. Now, Hulk was disliked by a lot of Internet fans, but he was not openly booed by the fans until the early 90s. I remember at one point he had a feud with Sid Justice/Vicious/Eudy who was technically the heel, but the fans were actually cheering Sid. This wasn’t long before he left WWE. When Hogan first arrived on the scene at WCW he was even more stale and uninspiring, but then he went heel and had a pretty decent career throughout the 1990s.
Now, unfortunately that didn’t translate to him working great matches or anything, but just in terms of merchandise/fan interest/fan reaction, Hollywood Hogan was a winning character.
I’d say Cena hit this point probably 4 years ago, maybe 5. But WWE has absolutely no roster of main event caliber faces with which to replace Cena. Even early WWE had guys like Ultimate Warrior and later Bret Hart they could put the crown on. WCW had Sting, and a few other guys. If WWE flipped Cena heel, they have no one that can be that Ultimate Warrior / Sting / Bret Hart type guy.
Cena has also been simply overused, because of the fact he’s the only top tier heel who can wrestle for a year without ending up in the hospital. Sting was basically always a face in the NWA/WCW (to my knowledge), but he wasn’t over exposed to the degree Cena has been. Sting was used more judiciously, he’d have big runs, then he’d be a little more in the background. Cena is on almost every Raw and Smackdown, and certainly in every PPV. I don’t have a lot against John, at the very least he can at least work a match which guys like Hogan never could in their big run. But he’s a victim of circumstance, way too little development of new main event caliber characters in WWE, and the guys they have gotten to that point fizzle out, often due to being sidelined for months and months due to injury right in the middle of what would have been their time to shine.
A couple of sources say the reason it was pulled was, the network was debuting its “Video Vault” series and decided to give it maximum exposure by airing it at the time it probably has the largest number of viewers - right after RAW, when people are tuning in expecting to see Backstage Pass.
Honestly, I think he could turn some of us smarks with a few tweaks to his character. I’m not asking for anything radical, like learning how to really sell; the man’s been in the ring for ten years, after all. If he’s not got that yet, he’s not going to (and arguably, it would be out of character). But, for example–the man can cut a promo when he wants to. I mean, look at his promo last week(?), with Heyman. Look at the video package this week (so I’m told; I was eating and kinda tuned it out other than BLOOD, URINE & VOMIT). Look at his promo back after MITB w/ Steph and H (ok, Steph and H stole the show, but they’d steal it from anyone other than Heyman, Ambrose or Wyatt at this point). Heck, even look at some of his promos from the Wyatt feud–basically every other week he’d cut a promo that put Wyatt over. That’s the Cena we want–Serious Cena, w/ fire and a love for the business (and the company, let’s be honest) and yes, even some Hustle, Loyalty & Respect. Jokin’ Jern, who likes crappy photoshops and sings about Bray Wyatt having no testicles… not so much. Humor is not your strong point, John; leave it for the professionals. You can get a bit one-note on the serious thing as well, but you’ve got a better shot at keeping that relatively fresh and likeable than you do poopy jokes.
So, start with that. Maybe some new theme music (though I have to admit I’d miss being able to sing “John Cena sucks!” along with the melody and make fun of BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR APPLEDOUGH!). Just a few little things. It’d never win over all of the smarky crowd, but it’d at least make him less irritating.
Soooooo… who’s the “prima donna from the office” here? Not Steph? I mean, she’s the best heel in the company right now (or she would be if she weren’t feuding with the Bellas, anyway). Not only that, she demonstrated that she is capable of delivering a Pedigree just as well as her husband. That doesn’t mean she can work a decent match–I’m expecting a complete train wreck at SummerSlam–but she’s obviously putting a little bit of work into this.
So, the big news today is that Alberto Del Rio has been fired, apparently for slapping a reporter during a press event. I haven’t heard of any bad behavior like this out him before, so it sounds like he just snapped for some reason.
LawMonkey: Actually, I like Cena (ducks). I could tell he was going to be the next Steve Austin. He’s “establishment” now, but before his apex, he was the rebel. I read where he made his mark when he rapped about a can of tuna for Stephanie. He knows the business, he puts over nobodies like Zack Ryder, and he expertly reconciles the jeers he gets from the smarks. He knows how to get heat. Remember how he used to wear the jersey for the host city’s sports team for cheap heat? Nobody else on the roster is as committed to the company as he is, except for maybe Kane. Sure, there’s better wrestlers, but Cena’s got the look, connects to the audience, fronts all the charity efforts, and doesn’t let ego get in the way.
And yes, I mean Stephanie as “prima donna from the office.” I realize she’s 100% committed to the business, just as HHH and Vince are, but I can’t let go of my prejudices. Let the wrestlers who have trained and done all the hard work be the stars, and just limit the bookers’ involvement to getting knocked off the ring apron.
Smapti: I’m glad Del Rio got the axe. He stopped being interesting when they took away Ricardo Rodriguez.
Well, I’m never happy when someone loses their job, but he’s definitely been rudderless since they split him from Ricardo (who was also released recently, because he wants to go back to actually wrestling instead of being on commentary). I liked Del Rio when he was doing the “made in America” babyface gimmick last year, and the beginning of his heel turn was great, but he’s just been stuck in midcard limbo ever since. Chances are he’ll go to Mexico after his 90 days are up and go back to being Dos Caras Jr. since he never actually “unmasked” per se, and he’ll probably do well there.
You know, I’ve always hated Cena (mostly because of the way he was pushed without earning his stripes, a la early Rock), but I’ll say this for him: the man has a tremendous workrate for a headliner. It’s easy to forget now that Vince is over his “push according to height order” theory of the early 90s, but WWE has typically put the belt on the worst wrestlers in the world. Seriously, who enjoyed Hogan’s matches even in hs prime? Yokozuna? [del]Diesel[/del] Kevin Nash?
Cena isn’t amazing in the ring, but that is a point I make. He’s a decent worker, he works tough, physical matches. He takes big bumps, he wrestles guys who work stiff (which not many really do anymore.) Basically the opposite of Hogan, who wouldn’t wrestle with anyone who was stiff at all, barely took bumps. Cena can’t sell very well but he works in the ring–and most importantly he genuinely does about 300 events a year.
Guys like Hogan in his prime might be on regular TV once a month, and would headline PPVs (of which they had four a year for most of Hogan’s big run.) In WCW Hogan was the same, it was basically every 2-3 Nitro he would deign to make an appearance, and actually wrestling on TV even rarer (it was way out of the norm when he actually wrestled a championship match against Goldberg as the Nitro main event.)
I do think after Diesel dropped the belt to Bret Hart Vince has done a decent job of mostly keeping guys that can work a match with the strap–Bret, Shawn, Austin, Undertaker, HHH, Rock, Foley, Kane, Edge, Jericho, Cena, RKO etc.
Sigh. Hogan’s talking about having one last match after his back heals, with Cena. The Big Boot and Leg Drop of Doom looked puny when he was in his 30s. They’ll look even more sick in his 60s. Just go back to figurehead status, Hogan. Your glory days are far behind you.
The only come back I’d probably like to see is Austin vs Cena or something. Austin was always underrated as a worker, before he neck injury (Stunning Steve Austin / The Ringmaster / Steve Austin pre-SCSA) he was actually a gifted technical wrestler and had some legitimately great matches (you can see these on the WWE Network in fact, not sure on the pricing, though.) But even after his multiple knee injuries and neck injury turned him into a brawler, he was a hell of a worker brawler. His matches were electric and extremely high paced, his moveset was limited to Thesz Pressing, knee drops, punches and kicks (with a few things thrown in) but he worked the crowd, told the story in the ring, and had a tremendous pace. You really felt like you were watching a legitimate, knock down, drag out, ass kicking when Austin was on his game in the SCSA era.
He’s actually kept in very good shape in retirement, and he actually said in an interview recently that both his knees and neck are actually in far better shape than they were at any point during his championship runs in WWE, due to rehabbing, rest, and his aggressive training. I think Austin could do one more big WM style match with a current generation star.
Let the wrestlers who have trained and done all the hard work be the stars, and just limit the bookers’ involvement to getting knocked off the ring apron.