Badseed’s Bottomline “Special”
Questions Answered
April 23, 2011
By: Jon Minners of Wrestleview.com
Hey yo! Welcome to a special edition of Badseed’s Bottomline. It’s been awhile and since the last time I wrote, a lot of stuff has happened. Edge has retired. He will be missed. I hope he comes back in some capacity. But his retirement, strangely, is the only thing that is making sense in wrestling. I have so many questions and I will attempt to answer them all. Sit back and enjoy
Questions:
Who is going where during the draft?
I expect about 10 changes on the actual draft and here are some of my thoughts on who should be drafted:
Raw to Smackdown
1. John Cena: Everyone would probably laugh at this idea, but it actually makes sense. John Cena is not over with adult men. Move him to Friday during an 8 to 10 p.m. time slot that could take advantage of his target audience – children who shouldn’t be out late on a Friday night. You need to build ratings up for Smackdown and who said Friday has to be a dead night, especially with DVR. Monday is no prize anymore for wrestling with so many shows for the WWE to compete with. So, this is a great experiment. Try it out for six months and see where it takes you. You always have HHH and Randy Orton to carry the load on Raw.
2. Sheamus: This makes the most sense to me, as Sheamus has been lost in the mix on Raw because he has done too much too soon there. A move to Smackdown brings the U.S. title with him and a whole new slate of contenders that can gun for the belt. It would also allow Sheamus to remain a heel for just a bit longer or they can pull the switch on a face turn that would help create a new star for the company.
3. Daniel Bryan: He can wrestle. Smackdown is more of a wrestling show. He also needs a change of scenery.
4. Ted Dibiase: He needs a change more than anyone else. I say move him to Smackdown and bring back the “Everybody’s got a price for the Million Dollar Man” tag-line. He has the money and never uses it. Have him pay off jobbers to lose their match. Turn Ezekiel Jackson face when he tries to buy him as a bodyguard. Ezekiel is huge and fans want to cheer a big guy who can do amazing things. Dibiase can be a catalyst for the change. Eventually have it lead to him trying to buy the world title. Us old fans remember that storyline well, but new fans don’t.
5. Dolph Ziggler: He doesn’t fit on Raw. A move to Smackdown could be fun, because he would return against Teddy Long’s wishes and make the GM’s life a living hell. It could be a great storyline and it could elevate his career.
Smackdown to Raw
1. Alberto Del Rio: Here is my thought. You make him lose to Christian. Fans want a happy ending after losing Edge, so you at least give Christian the ball and let him fail if he fails. Turn Christian heel eventually on Smackdown after he loses the belt and doesn’t get a rematch. But have Antonio Del Rio go to Raw and continue his quest for a championship by feuding with The Miz. Yes. It’s time to make Miz your big face. Miz fits Raw. Keep him there. Alberto Del Rio is the perfect choice to help aid in the face turn.
2. Wade Barrett: It’s time for them to bring back the heat to Nexus and have an interesting feud between Barrett and CM Punk over both the IC title and control over Nexus. They never really did settle things there.
3. Drew McIntyre: He needs a new start and if you bring Sheamus to Smackdown, it might make sense to bring McIntyre over to Raw for the same reasons. I can see him having some fun matches with John Morrison again and some of the other talent.
4. Big Show and Kane: They can defend the titles on both shows, but let them come to Raw and come in as monster heels. Who can beat this tandem? And what happens when Randy Orton and the Miz have to team up to stop them. Could be interesting.
Supplemental Draft
The following will switch brands: Evan Bourne, Mark Henry, Tyson Kidd, David Hart Smith, Yoshi Tatsu, Tyler Rekks, Chris Masters, Jack Swagger, Zack Ryder, Kelly Kelly, Melina, Eve, Brodus Clay, Trent Baretta, JTG.
When did Wrestlemania become the setup for Extreme Rules?
Wrestlemania is supposed to be the big one, but who cares if you lose at Wrestlemania when you can just wait one month for a rematch and win there. Why pay the extra money for Wrestlemania, when I can save money and watch the rematches the next month. How about having Miz win at Wrestlemania and tell Cena he has to work his way back up for the title and make Cena’s next storyline, a slow rise back up to the top and a rematch at Summerslam? Adding John Morrison to their match doesn’t make it any different. It’s really just a Miz vs. Cena rematch. It’s time for creative to find unique ways to delay these immediate PPV rematches. I could see the Cena vignettes as he trains harder to get his rematch (a la Rick Rude when he cut the hair and focused on a title match with The Ultimate Warrior).
When the WWE watches stars like Primo Colon, Tyson Kidd, JTG, and David hart Smith go nowhere after splitting up from their teams, do they realize that splitting up teams too early is a dumb idea?
Let them wrestle as teams. I was watching some of the old 80’s shows and there were so many great tag-teams and they had great matches. WWE had PPVs with several tag-team matches. You could look at The Hart Foundation and see that Bret Hart would be great one day, but they gave him a small singles run against Bad News Brown just to see how he would do before they put him back in the tag-team and then pulled the trigger on his next singles run. With Shawn Michaels, he had great singles matches with Ric Flair and possibly Mr. Perfect, before he proved he can do the singles thing and they pulled the switch on that split. Other teams, like The Killer Bees couldn’t be split. Neither of them would ever have entertaining singles runs, so why bother. But as tag-teams, they were entertaining…very entertaining.
What tag-teams should the WWE have?
The Usos and Justin Gabriel and Heath Slater are great teams. Bring back the Hart Dynasty. Put David Otunga with Alex Riley as The A-List. Put Evan Bourne and Daniel Bryan together for some time instead of letting both get lost in the shuffle. Put Husky Harris and Michael McGuillicutty together with Ted Dibiase (if you don’t draft him) as part of a new heel stable Fortunate Sons. Isn’t there another Colon in the developmental system? Put him with Primo. Bring Zack Ryder back with Curt Hawkins and call them the Long Island Express. resign Shad and bring back Cryme Time. Let them run as teams for a little while until a spot opens up. If you have faith in someone as a singles wrestler, see how fans react at house shows. Stop creating teams and then splitting them up right away only to have them languish on Superstars. Having tag-teams gives fans a break from the same stuff they keep seeing every week. And if you need help learning how to properly break a team up, look at how TNA has handled Bully Ray. If you hate TNA, you have to give it to them, because they handled that breakup better than the WWE first did. Testify.
Why does WWE push stars too fast?
Bring back jobbers, because the WWE helps fans lose interest in stars right away when they don’t build stars. Sin Cara is already teaming with John Cena? Why? He shouldn’t even be in John Cena’s world yet. Alberto Del Rio has had three feuds and is already world championship material? The only time rushing a push made sense was The Nexus, because the angle made sense, but look at Sheamus – he’s a two-time world champion and has gotten lost a bit in the shuffle as a result. What else can you do with him, but turn him face, only a couple of years since debuting. Look at Jack Swagger. He’s a former world champion already. So is Dolph Ziggler. Stop it. Wrestlers used to stay in the IC and US title division for years before they made the leap to the next level. Even when they bring in Awesome Kong, as limited as the Women’s Division is, she needs to have several feuds before winning the title and in her case, she needs to hold on to the title for awhile before she feuds with Beth Phoenix, as that’s a Wrestlemania match. Have her crush the Bella without the title and have her sister immediately find ways to delay their match while Kong runs through other wrestlers. A Kong vs. Gail Kim feud, done right, as in done the TNA way, will get fans back into the women’s division and almost have them cheering her on to win the belt.
Why did the WWE get rid of wrestling?
Who cares. Will Vince McMahon start suing publications if they still call them World Wrestling Entertainment? Will HHH attack me in the street suddenly if I talk about the WWE wrestlers with my friends? The WWE will always be wrestling to its fans. these are just tactical business moves aimed at attracting better media attention.
Will vignettes really help get WWE wrestlers over?
NO!!! Why do people keep acting like this is a new practice? It’s not. They had vignettes for Alberto Del Rio just recently, so I’m confused how this is a new practice. Yes, the WWE would have benefited from doing vignettes back when they were debuting stars left and right during the Nexus era, but the WWE had vignettes for Kizarmy and he got fired right away. It’s been done. Wrestlers either have it or they don’t. I love vignettes, but stop heralding them as a new practice that will make for better wrestling in the long run. It won’t.
Can TNA be fixed?
I think they are actually not as bad as people think. The WWE follows them. They created their Beautiful People look-a-likes. They even have Cody Rhodes putting bags on people’s heads now. Apparently, TNA is a trendsetter. LOL. But seriously, the Bully Ray run is interesting. The Immortal vs. Fortune feud has been fun. Watching Ken Anderson in his tweener role is amazing, as it’s the first time I have seen one wrestler hated by everyone. Steve Austin teamed with Ken Shamrock, Goldust and LOD against the Hart Family. He was never this hated. I love what they are doing here. I love Matt Hardy’s new focus. Their tag-team division is amazing. Their women’s angles are fun, even more so for the angles not involving the title. Yes, Zombie Angelina is kind of dumb, but it is fun, too, because it reminds me of a simpler version of the old Kevin Sullivan angles. Winter is great. I like how they are trying to build a new star in Crimson and doing it slowly. I like the new feud between Matt Morgan and Scott Steiner that was created because two people wanted the title. That’s a nice concept. I like that they dropped Jay Lethal. Yes, I said it. He’s an amazing talent, but just like in the old territorial days, wrestlers overstay their welcome and Jay Lethal is young and needs to try new things and come back better than ever. Will the WWE sign him? Maybe, but they will misuse him worse than TNA did. Rather than letting him get too lost in the shuffle, they dropped him. He’ll come back. On that note, it’s time to bring back Petey Williams and Senshi into the X Division fold.
And that’s the gospel according to Badseed. Just sayin’