Two sides to every coin...

As I watched the two "weiners" Carlito & Santino last night, I couldn't help but think about my blog entry from last week. Not because they exemplify the things that I pointed out, but because they seem to be different. Carlito and Santino together remind me of what WWE used to be. Now this could be because the people backstage are giving them better stuff to work with. To me, though, this shows the other side of the coin in the creative equation in professional wrestling: what the wrestlers themselves do.
Several months ago, WWE finally dropped OVW from their developmental status and "let go" of Al Snow. This has been something rumored about for what seems like ages, and it finally happened. What amazed me, though, was some of the things supposedly said about OVW in the dirtsheets. There were talents complaining about the treatment, saying that morale was always down because they were constantly being yelled at. What does this have to do with Carlito & Santino? Well, it's pretty simple: There are those that take what they're given and run with it, and those that take what they're given and cry about it.
Carlito & Santino, in ring talent aside, have taken what could have been crappy gimmicks (and have been at times) and made them comedic gold. Santino has not only become a good heel by his asinine actions in the ring, but his butchering of the English language gives you a chance to feel as though you are better than him and thus justifies your booing him. You don't just feel like he's and idiot, you know it. That's not just the creative team at work there, that's Santino. Had he not run with this ball and worked very hard to make Santino come across as idiotic as he does, we would have seen the "We wish him well in his future endeavors" comment a long time ago. Not only has he done himself good, but he's done Carlito good too, almost completely revitalizing the Caribbean character just by giving him someone to play off of. For a brief moment Monday night, I believed that these two could Main Event someday.
Creative gives you something to work off of backstage. Once you're on the floor, though, it's fairly up to you. This is why I don't completely blame creative for Kane's Championship Speech a few weeks ago. Yes, it's their fault for giving him a speech that sounds as bland as anything else they write, but it's also up to him to make that speech fit his character. Creative is never going to give you the perfect promo or vignette for your character, that's why you have to be able to work your character into it. It's a two way door that too many people just don't walk through.
Back to the OVW deal. Why did I include it? To me, it seems that a lot of the people going through OVW were complaining about morale because they weren't getting what they thought was proper treatment. Al Snow being one of the trainers who was credited with this the most. I've seen Al's "Secrets of the Ring" video from ROH. He's not nice about some things, but he's not nice because people are making basic mistakes that they shouldn't be. They complained about his yelling when they should have opened their ears and listened.
I've begun to see that creative isn't always to blame. Sometimes it's the wrestlers themselves who are too timid to suggest something, or maybe they expect everything to come to them perfect and shiny. This is a creative business, built on performers and sometimes their mistakes are the ones we should be criticizing, not just the writers.

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(Pictures courtesy of www.onlineworldofwrestling.com)

Too much of a Soap Opera..

Last night as I was watching RAW, I realized just how much change has occurred in WWE since the late 90's and early in this decade. Not just in the presentation of the product, but in the product itself. Long gone are the days when watching WWE felt like watching a bunch of characters enjoying making a name for themselves. There's no unscripted humor, no unscripted interviews, and no unscripted anything, really.

Take the Cryme Tyme vignette last night. JTG and Shad are backstage showing us what they stole from people at Wrestlemania, in a mock shopping channel set up. They've got some soul in a shaker courtesy of "Soul Man" Rocky Johnson, an autographed Playboy from Maria, and panties that belonged to Mae Young. Funny stuff, but it's in no way shape or form connected to ANYTHING else in the show, as it would have been several years ago. Someone would have figured that if they bought that shaker full of Rocky Johnson soul, the might be able to "shake" (pun intended) off a losing streak or somehow improve their game. Maybe Al Snow would have coughed up some cash in order to improve Steve Blackman's hard headed personality. You could have even had someone incredibly gullible pay for it, only to find out later that the shaker had nothing but pepper in it, giving them sneezing fits and costing them a match which would lead to a feud with Cryme Tyme for selling fake products.

Later on in the show, someone like Funaki would have approached Cryme Tyme for the Playboy to see Maria, and then snuck away with Mae Young's panties. If not that, then Maybe someone like Val Venis would have picked up the Playboy, and he and Santino would start a feud as Santino would chastise Venis for looking at Maria naked (great idea for a feud, as Santino and Maria are no longer together, so it makes him even more of a jerk. Venis, being a former porn star, has seen many women naked and probably doesn't think that much of looking in Playboy. The misunderstanding is more than enough to start a decent mid-card feud).

Another thing that really made me consider that WWE has changed was Kane's obviously scripted promo on ECW following Wrestlemania. The man beats 23 other men to earn a title shot, and then beats Chavo in 8 seconds for the ECW title, and comes out cutting a promo that not only sounds like something Randy Orton might say, but is delivered in the way Randy Orton would say it. This is Kane we're talking about. The same Kane who was once a monster that believed he was hideously scarred by a fire that killed his parents. The same Kane that once he started speaking, did so with the sound of violence deep in his heart. The same Kane who now sounds nearly identical to a snotty twenty something who goes around beating up old men and calling himself a "Legend Killer."

What's wrong with this picture?

Now, I realize I may just be looking for things to complain about, but these things may just explain why WWE is getting lower ratings than they were eight to ten years ago. It may explain why there are a lot of guys like me getting their wrestling fix from independent companies like ROH, FIP, Chikara, and NWA's Showcase show on Colours (Which SamoaRowe LOVES to review, by the way). It's not like these things are hard to fix, but they might be a little too hard for some people in high places to admit.

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End of an Era

You know, I've never known a time in my life during which I could say "I won't see another Ric Flair match." This past week, that changed. I've known Flair was going to retire after WrestleMania for months. The dirt sheets leaked it a long time ago. For some reason, though, I thought to myself that it would be a Terry Funk retirement. In other words, it would be the first of many. In the past few weeks, though, I started to question it. It truly seemed as if Flair was saying goodbye in his actions and attitudes during his moments on camera with WWE.
Then came Monday night. First, the announcement of his farewell address. Then, the montages of some of his "biggest" title wins. Finally, during the main event, Space Mountain himself walks down the aisle and thanks the fans. It was a truly heartwarming event.
I got a sense of dread when Triple H's music hit. I'll admit it. Many of us internet wrestling geeks spend our days typing away at our keyboards (apparently in our mother's basements) spewing vitriol over "The Game." When his music hits, I'm conditioned to be annoyed and prepare myself for long speeches about his greatness. But Monday night, he stepped in and did just the opposite. He reminded us of just how great Flair is. The "wheelin', dealin', jet flyin, limousine ridin' son of a gun" who won 16 world titles and wore the crimson mask countless times just to entertain us. To prove it, he brought out some of the greatest wrestlers in history who sought to tribute Flair.
Much can be said about the order in which these guys came out, but I think it's disrespectful to the man they came out for. Almost everyone on the list is or will be a "Hall of Famer": Blanchard, Dillon, Anderson, Windham, Batista, Steamboat, Race, Valentine, Malenko, Jericho, Cena, Michaels. Not to mention Flair's family and the entire WWE locker room. For the first time I can remember, I finally feel as if WWE has done someone right as they leave the business.
The past few years have thrown me curveballs. I've learned to live in a world without guys like Rick Rude, Owen Hart, Brian Pillman, and Curt Hennig because they were taken before their time. I've had to come to grips with the fact that Bret Hart retired before he was ready to, and that Chris Benoit became a monster before he ended his life. It's great to know that one of the all time greats, if not the greatest, left on his own terms.
Thank you, Mr. Flair. Thank you for everything .
{photos in the post are courtesy of www.obsessedwithwrestling.com)

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