Wrestling Rumblings #118


Wrestling Rumblings #118
June 2, 2011
By: Jose Marrero of Wrestleview.com

Wow, look at that; 2 columns back to back. Before you know it I will make this column thing a regular habit again. Seriously though after 2 months off I did tend to miss a lot and for those who have followed me for the past few years I don’t tend to just let things pass by without giving something of an opinion on things. So without further ado I am going to go 5th grade on this one and call this “the who, what, when, where, why and how” edition of “Wrestling Rumblings.”

WHO would have ever thought that Ric Flair would outlast Edge in terms of career?
I was live at Wrestlemania and while I didn’t think much of the event and truth of the matter thought it was the worst Wrestlemania I have seen in quite some time and definitely the worst I have seen live. I think it may have had a different feeling for me though if I knew I was seeing the next to last match for Edge. I am not going to sit here and say that I thought Edge was one of the best workers I have ever seen or anything like that because the truth of the matter there are very few matches that I thought were awesome that he had without the help of gimmicks. That being said I did enjoy his entire body of work from when he first debuted as the silent loner to what he would eventually metamorphose into over his time in WWE. I remember the first time I ever heard about Edge was in an edition of I believe “Inside Wrestling” that magazine had a feature where they would showcase young independent stars and there was an issue where they were showcasing a tag team called “Sex and Violence” with Joe E. Legend (Just Joe in WWE and Legend in TNA) and Sexton Hardcastle (Edge). At the time Edge was tearing it up on the indy tag team winning many tag titles and seemed like a sure thing to get called up to WWE as part of this tag team. Of course history would show that he did make WWE but wound up making it big with another tag team partner his best friend Christian and the rest is history. I have to say it took me for a loop to hear the news that he was retiring and I think this retirement is going to stick. It just saddens me to think that I have lost Shawn Michaels, Batista (who despite his limited ring skills was a favorite of mine), and Chris Jericho for the time being and now Edge. Before I know it HHH and Undertaker will be totally gone from wrestling as well. I do hope this next generation will step up because while the previously mentioned Ric Flair is still around and is still my all time favorite wrestler Space Mountain needs to close down for business so that a new ride can open up and take “riders” to the next level.

WHAT ever happened to coming up with something fresh?
I can’t say exactly when but it may have been 6 months ago when someone first came and told me about the idea that some of you may know as the Urban Wrestling Federation. The offices for the group are actually right in my backyard of NYC and there were some people close to it who gauged my interest in certain things that could have put me close to the promotion. Let me just say that while I graciously turned those connections down and was appreciative for people who were willing to vouch for me I did so because I just don’t believe an ECW type promotion can succeed in 2011. One thing I have come to realize about the wrestling business is that the envelope was pushed so hard in the late 90’s that in order to get things back on track fans are going to have to be sort of reconditioned to do more with less and an ECW type group isn’t going to accomplish that. Instead you are just going to get people who instantly jump to ridicule this sort of thing by calling it a bootleg ECW. I think fans want something different which is why other ECW type groups like CZW and even the now defunct XPW just couldn’t last. We already saw ECW we need the next exciting concept in pro wrestling. Granted it’s easy for me to say that from the outside when I don’t know what that concept is myself but I just have this distinct feeling that this just isn’t it. I hope I am wrong as it’s really cool to see a promotion that wants to go national start up in my backyard and it would be great to be on the ground floor of that as their first shows are this coming Friday. However due to other commitments I have to take a pass on the UWF but I hope the first show turns out great as maybe, just maybe it could be a shot in the arm at least on the indy level but for now…I’m very skeptical.

WHERE does Sinclair Broadcasting planning to take ROH?
I hope to the next level. Many of you know I have been actively covering ROH events for Wrestleview for the better part of 2 years now and have been a fan of Ring of Honor from day one. I have heard the rumors from many people in ROH for years about money problems and well now that Sinclair is running the show those money problems should be nonexistent but there are pros and cons to everything and I think that will be the same thing with Sinclair. With more money invested in something I think you would want a greater return and I just don’t see how ROH is in a position to deliver that right now. Networks aren’t quick to syndicate shows like they were 20 years ago. Especially a pro wrestling show which doesn’t generate the same advertising money that other shows do and without TV in certain markets it is going to be extremely hard to spread product awareness to really get house show attendance going the way I am sure Sinclair would like to. Let us also not forget that the last time a TV company owned a wrestling company was WCW and no one had more money than Ted Turner and well all it showed is that you need more than money to run a successful company. You need smart, intelligent wrestling people. Sinclair looks like they are on track to doing that with their recent hires for ROH but how long are they willing to be patient to see this product grow? Rest assured I like many of you am going to be keeping track of this development.

WHEN are we going to get World of Hurt a U.S T.V deal?
One of the bright spots of my week is getting a chance to watch Lance Storms World of Hurt reality show. It’s a different look from WWE’s Tough Enough which I also enjoy and I just know that it would get over with an American audience. I can’t believe a channel like Versus that at times looks starved for just this kind of programming wouldn’t go out of their way to try to pick up this show or even VH 1 who are to the best of my knowledge already filming a show called “Wrestler Wives” why wouldn’t you want a show like this? For those of you that are in Canada and have The Cave you should really be watching this show and for those of you that are like me and not in Canada try to find this show wherever you can. I’ve already seen 3 episodes and it’s just awesome.

WHY is Kharma now a babyface?
I’m not going to commit career suicide and give my opinion on what I think of Kharma getting pregnant in the middle of the biggest push of her career but I have to admit the whole way to book her off T.V left me a bit befuddled the past 2 weeks. First off because she is pregnant she makes her usual run in and just sits in the ring and cries? I didn’t get the point of that segment at all, just like I didn’t get why wouldn’t the WWE Divas who she was beating the snot out of the past 2 months just beat the crap out of her anyway. Think about it, someone bullies you just because they can and then they have a moment of weakness wouldn’t you just kick the tar out of them? I know I would, but then comes this promo that she cuts where after 2 months of just being a bully so to speak you are supposed to feel sorry for her and cheer her. I really didn’t get it and it just went flat for me. On a more personal note I have always heard nothing but good things about Kharma the person and hope that her pregnancy goes well and when she comes back to WWE she can pick up right where she left off.

HOW does Mick Foley go from being a shareholder in TNA to being the Network Executive?
I really don’t get it at all. I understand how Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff may have swindled Dixie Carter out of her TNA stock and I get that they have Jeff Jarrett on their side but whatever happened to the portion of the company that Mick Foley originally owned in storyline? This was just totally dropped and it irritates me. It really annoys me further when I see him playing the part of the Network Executive; think about it if you were a network guy why would you have Mick Foley on your payroll? The guy is so stupid in storyline that he basically got swindled out of ownership of a company but yet you are going to give him a job? Maybe I am nitipicking and wrestling fans attention span is so short that no one remembers Mick Foley as a shareholder in TNA but I do and I wish TNA wouldn’t have been so lazy and just explained how he got robbed of his shares of the company instead of just ignoring it and giving him another commissioner character which we have seen him do way too many times by now. It’s lazy, insulting and I don’t think it inspires viewers to stay loyal to the product.

OK that does it for this week but before I go I do want to address something and that’s my semi retirement from writing. I realize that not everyone listened to FYB Radio Wrestlemania weekend (Shame on you since it was free and I believe it still is up for free) so I guess I got to do the explanation in print as well. For the past several months I have found myself swamped with many things. I just got a promotion in my regular job and am actually about to get promoted again to a higher position, I also have other projects outside of Wrestleview some involving wrestling and some not that I want to explore and give time to and well I just felt I wasn’t giving everything I had to this column. I always said I wanted to be the best I can be at whatever I went into and this column is no different. I try not to half ass anything and for a few months I was doing that with this column. You the readers deserve better and it was at that time that I made the decision that after Wrestlemania I would scale back a bit until I could give you the type of column you deserve. The kind of column I could be proud of. Every week I just don’t have that effort in me because of time constraints or lack of energy and sometimes even lack of enthusiasm. I’ve given a big chunk of my adult life to trying to do things in wrestling and that will never change but I also want to explore other things. I am a very imaginative person and well my imagination is chock full of other ideas that don’t involve wrestling. Ideas that I definitely plan on exploring in the months ahead as I try my best to be the biggest success I could be. I also like many of you have a family that deserves some of my time and focus and I don’t want to neglect them either. So the semi retirement is something that is very serious for me. Initially I was going to just give everything up but I figured at some point I am going to want to start writing columns and I enjoy doing so and didn’t want to deprive myself of that, nor did I want to deprive any of you. However I just don’t have it in me these days to be every week banging it out so don’t be surprised if I take lots of breaks between columns. Just know that when you get a column. It’s going to be 100% or nothing at all. I still plan to attend shows when I get a chance starting later on this month with ROH and possibly even WSU but I don’t know how committed I am to that either. I would like to have another Wrestlemania weekend where I do FYB Radio with David Miranda in Miami but because of other commitments I don’t even know if that is going to be possible next year. What I do know is that like Ric Flair I will never retire but I am definitely a part timer from here on out.

So let’s give the readers something to do. I guess you can check out the Urban Wrestling Federation which will be taping for TV (on what channel I don’t know) this Friday at the Hammerstein Ballroom and of course you guys can always send me your feedback at wrestlingrumblings@hotmail.com and well that’s it for this week, next time I will try to do better and until then, I am out.

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