Thursday, March 28, 2024
EditorialThe Secret Diary Of Wrestling: Edition #10

The Secret Diary Of Wrestling: Edition #10

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The #10 edition already. This one is going to be special, because I won’t just be recapping what I loved and hated about last weeks Impact and this Monday’s Raw, but I will also be commenting on an article written by Vince Russo.

Can you hear the chants?

“FIRE RUSSO! FIRE RUSSO! FIRE RUSSO! FIRE RUSSO!”


I was meant to do this article earlier in the week, but I didn’t get around to it, and I know Impact is showing tonight, however, I still want to do a short recap of what happened on last weeks show.

Impact Wrestling .. well, what can I say? It was MVP/Lashley/King heavy. Extremely heavy. You might as well had sent everyone home except those three because they hijacked the show from the beginning.

I understand it, they want to garner heat on MVP. The only problem is, how many times have we seen this storyline? How many times can we see a guy with power form a faction and run wild over the roster? As a fan of Impact for many years, the way they overexposed this new stable didn’t do much to help. I will touch on the subject why TNA decided to turn MVP heel in the first place, but until then, let me say that last weeks Impact was missable. You didn’t miss a whole lot, if you have seen this kind of storyline, you can imagine what happened without seeing it. 

Kenny King was the star of the show in my opinion. He played his role, and I enjoyed his arrogance, he was passionate about portraying this persona. MVP’s best moment was laughing at Bully Ray for sympathizing with EY and reminding Bully Ray that he never cared about anyone before, aside from that he didn’t do a whole lot to impress. Lashley looked awkward as a heel, he didn’t look or sound like one, it’s hard to hate on a guy who has no character whatsoever.

The Beautiful People played their part once again. We got no X-Division, and we saw developments between Bram/Magnus and Gunner/Shaw hopefully leading somewhere in the future. Sadly, it was a very forgettable episode of Impact. Hopefully tonight’s episode has something going for it.


Monday Night Raw, I was late, so I totally missed the Brad Maddox firing. It was the right thing to do, why have a GM who never turns up and makes matches? Wasn’t Maddox put in place to be the Authority’s bitch and make matches on their behalf? I guess they felt he wasn’t ready, stopped using him, and now he’s gone, likely returning as a wrestler on NXT or something. Oh well, no harm done. Begin the show with a Big Red Machine destroying someone no one cares about.

Cesaro continued his winning ways against RVD, something which I highly praise. RVD returning to make the newer stars look good is best for the future.

Summer Rae is awesome. I have to say that. So you can imagine my dismay when the most terrible female wrestler since Lacey Von Erich attempted to roll her up for the win during a Fandango/Layla distraction. Eva Marie does not deserve to be in a wrestling ring, seriously. How did she end up in any top # list of hottest females? Striip away all the makeup and the red hair and see if she makes it then, she is fake hot, and has yet to prove herself in my eyes. Terrible result.

Ok, so we get another El Torito vs 3MB match. This is a comedy match for the kids, and it was placed pretty badly, something I will touch on later. As an adult fan, I don’t really care if a man in a bull costume gets his fake tail ripped off, but I suppose, if some little kid somewhere found it amusing, then why not?

I feel bad for the Los Matadores, they could be having real tag team matches with 3MB but the El Torito vs Hornswoggle feud continues on. and I can’t see it coming to an end anytime soon.

So we jump from a comedy match, straight into a situation where Bray Wyatt takes Jerry Lawler hostage. Cena comes out and saves the day and calls Wyatt a bitch. Going to touch on that soon when I talk about Russo.

Rusev destroys .. a white guy? This time it was Zack Ryder. I love this, just because of Lana, I could look at, and listen to Lana every single week with pleasure. It’s so old school, whenever Rusev comes out I almost feel like I time warped back to a time before I was born. Oh! Big E! Someone able to go head-to-head with the super athlete. I like where this is going.

Evolution continued to gain heat by beating up the team of the Rhodes Brothers. They have been really smart with the booking of the Shield and Evolution as of late. This is how you book a rivalry between two factions, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Batista and Orton are putting in some of their best work. Their work as a team is more exciting than what they bring individually, and it makes The Shield look more impressive as well.

Do you BOlieve? I do! You see, I liked Bo Dallas in his first (brief) run when he didn’t have this character. I have to admit, I don’t get the time to see much NXT, but from what I have read and heard, Bo Dallas was the most hated guy by a long way. Now he is on the main roster, the promos like the ones above, they give me inspiration, they make me want to bo-lieve. 

I feel like the crowd don’t know what to do when Bo Dallas talks. They feel like, although he is preaching and appears to have a huge ego, he is sending out a message of inspiration. That makes some fans boo him, and others cheer him, and it’s a really interesting dynamic. He is young, he has a long time to develop this character into something memorable, and dare I say .. legendary? You just have to bo-lieve, and I definitely will be.

Moving on, I am somewhat confused with the current title situation. I love Daniel Bryan, but if what he said was true, about his neck getting worse, he should have surrendered it. I understand in a storyline perspective why the character of Daniel Bryan wouldn’t want to hand it over, but Bryan Danielson himself? He has to know that they need the title. There has to be a plan to take the title from him, hopefully one that does not endanger his health any further. I felt it was too much already that he showed up on Raw, he should be resting.

What happened to the Divas Division? It’s like … AJ lee disappears, Paige takes over as the new champion, and it suddenly brings names like Summer Rae, Layla, Emma and especially Alicia Fox into the fray. I believe it was Trish Stratus who said the divas of today don’t get enough time to develop their characters, and over the last few weeks, that’s exactly what’s happened. WWE has given them time to develop their characters, and it’s great to see.

As for Sandow vs Rose. I don’t know. I mean .. sorry. I just don’t know. Sandow is being used for comedy, despite being a valid contender for a World Championship a year ago, and Adam Rose comes in and embarrasses him. It makes me feel sad for Sandow more than anything. Adam Rose needs to get on the microphone and talk more, not about lemon’s and rosebuds, but something else, anything else. Character development for Rose please. I don’t know what they are doing with Sandow, I guess he is the new Santino.

Jesus Christ! How many goddamn times do we need to see Sheamus vs Del Rio?? Am I allowed to rage here? Can I throw a world class hissy fit over this match? I am sick of it, absolutely sick and tired of being sick and tired over this stupid match that we have seen millions of times before. Just stop it, give Sheamus someone fresh, give Del Rio someone fresh, and never have these two square off again for at least another five years.

Luckily, they saved the best for the last, the “contract signing” between The Shield vs Evolution. The crowd loved it, I loved it, and it’s exactly what we need more of. Such an intense rivalry, given enough time to blossom into something we could be talking about for years. “Hey! Remember when The Shield vs Evolution? That was sick man, I might have to go rewatch it”. This feud could end up being nominated for awards at the end of the year, let’s hope it keeps up the momentum.


Swerve! I read Vince Russo’s latest article, and I couldn’t agree more with him. Have you not read it yet? Click on the link to read >>> http://www.pyroandballyhoo.com/stop-bull-real-reason-behind-raw-ratings/

If you didn’t read it, I will be commenting on certain things that he pointed out anyway. Let’s begin with the whole MVP heel turn.

The thing with MVP, he was a heel for most of his memorable moments in the WWE. He came back to TNA after spending years in Japan, and he really has improved his ring work since that time. His character, upon his return, promised change, a real change in how wrestling operations would be handled. He formed a team for Lockdown to take Team Dixie down, and it so happened that Bully Ray didn’t want Roode to become another Dixie Carter, a power crazy individual with power, so he interfered and helped MVP’s team to win.

During this time, MVP approached Aries to be on his side, but Aries turned him down and joined Roode instead. The seeds had been planted, if MVP was such a nice guy who could be trusted, why would Aries decide to go with someone like Bobby Roode? Because Aries could see something in MVP, and he didn’t want him to win, as (his character) Aries knew that MVP was up to no good.

MVP brought Kenny King back (although I don’t remember him ever being fired) and he turns up with this new “King of the Night” gimmick. Begging MVP to put him on the card, MVP eventually ended up having a match with King instead. This was to throw away any suspicions of an eventual heel turn, and the formation of the new faction. King was meant to fight in the X-Division, possibly feuding with Sanada for a short time before this was to occur.

It didn’t happen that way, and Russo tells us why. Kurt Angle was scheduled to return and begin a program with Eric Young over the World Championship. However, Kurt Angle got injured, and once again we didn’t get the Angle vs EC3 match which they sufficiently built towards. I feel like the cage match was to be the end of the feud, and Angle would move on to Eric Young. Whether Angle would have turned heel or not, we don’t know, but Russo confirmed from his sources (that are more reliable than any news site you would ever visit) that Angle was meant to be the one to fight Eric Young.

Sometimes things happen, and you have to reshuffle plans. I always felt like MVP was meant to eventually turn heel and have King at his side. Lashley was also brought in by MVP in the storyline, so once again, the seeds had been planted months in advance. The thing is, Lashley didn’t do much of anything prior to the heel turn, they were probably going to have in a program with someone while Angle vs Young was going on, to reintroduce him to the TNA audience, but as I stated above, things happen and they had to change it up.

The angle was rushed, and the angle was shoved down our throats last week in an attempt to make this new stable credible in a short amount of time. They really wanted a heel who could draw a ton of heat so everyone cheers for Eric Young even more. Do you see why it happened now?

We can’t always jump to conclusions, because we don’t work behind the scenes, we don’t have all the facts. We are allowed to have an opinion and state how we feel about an angle or whatever, but we can’t make an educated opinion unless we know the facts, so those opinions can often be shot down by revealing the facts.

Moving on from the MVP heel turn, Russo also talked about the WWE. He gave his own opinion on why Monday Night Raw receives much lower ratings than it used to, and it has nothing to do with technology.

Russo quoted Vince McMahon, who once told him that you can’t be “half-pregnant”. What does that mean?

What he meant was, once you go in a certain direction, you have to see it through to the end, you have to stay true to the direction, you can’t back out of it, you have to stay on that path and deliver. That was Vince McMahon’s philosophy in the Attitude Era, and we all know how successful it was. People still cry for the Attitude Era to return, although it never will. They want edgy storylines, they want brutal matches, they want chair shots, they want swearing, blood, great characters etc.

We don’t get that anymore, and that’s because the WWE is half-pregnant. The WWE of today tries to cater to all fans of all ages, and in doing so, alienates half of their fans. You have the young kids who love Cena, hate the Wyatts, love segments like El Torito getting his tail yanked off, then you get the adult fans (who make up the vast majority of the fans) who hate Cena, love the Wyatts, and don’t care for the little bull because he’s just a man in a costume.

Do you see what Russo is getting at? No television show in the history of television would go from a guy in a bull costume getting his tail pulled off, to a hijacking by the Wyatts resulting in Cena blatantly calling him a bitch in the space of ten minutes. What kind of message does that send out? Should we stop our children from watching because Cena made a nasty comment? Should we stop watching ourselves because we are sick of Cena in general and segments involving a bull getting his backside iced while he writhes in agony? It’s not consistent in the slightest, and it can be rather insulting to the fans intelligence.

Why do we need these kinds of segments with the bull? I mean, yeah, it would be funny to some, but the Attitude Era was a program for adults, which pulled in a lot more child viewers then they do now. Wrestling shouldn’t be a cartoon show one minute, then a brutal violent mess with explicit language the next minute. How does that make sense? Why do they do this?

They do it because it’s typical Vince McMahon philosophy. In his older years, with no competition around to stop him, he can afford to cater to a full audience, making it so they get higher revenue from many different sources. In doing so, they alienate viewers, who see things they don’t like, and decide they won’t tune in to Raw next week because they feel it’s too childish/adult for their liking, so they miss that Raw, and then the next Raw, and before you know it, they have lost a fan.

WWE is like a drug, it will always have that core fanbase, but it was the casual fans that made the Attitude era a success, and it’s the casual fans who tuned out over the last decade because of the changes. It’s those fans who might tune into a Wrestlemania or a Royal Rumble every now and then, but they won’t watch the show every week. They have better things to do, better things to watch.

Proof that technology, you know .. I-pads, computers, downloading, all of that is a contributing factor to why ratings could be lower than they should be, but just look at the NFL. They continue to draw millions and millions of viewers on television, so it can’t be all down to technology as to why WWE ratings are nowhere near the level it used to be.

Russo believes that the WWE needs to go one way or the other. You either become a show directed towards the younger audience, or you become a show directed towards adults. He believes that if the WWE wants success like they used to, they have to pick a path and stick to it, because you can’t be half-pregnant, it doesn’t work.

The same could be said about TNA. I don’t know whether they are trying to be more like the WWE, or trying to be more like TNA. It’s somewhere in the middle, you see glimpses of both in the product, and you don’t know whether to care, because they repeat storylines we have seen before. It was the golden age of TNA that made the company popular, and they had one clear defined road … “Total Nonstop Action”. That’s exactly what it was, you either had a wrestling match, a fight, or a short promo, nothing else. The show didn’t drag, you didn’t get the same guys appear every two seconds, you got a crash course of what TNA could offer, and it was always so unpredictable, to the point it was exciting.

WWE and TNA have evolved to a point of mediocrity. They are fine with the path they are on, but the path they are on doesn’t make a lot of sense most of the time. In my eyes, wrestling should be brutal, because it is. Wrestling hurts, and when you smash someone in the face, they should bleed. When you see a cage match, you should expect blood. We don’t need authority figures to tell us the matches, just give us the matches anyway. At least then we don’t have time to formulate an opinion on how the upcoming match will go down, we will just sit there and see how it unfolds. General Managers and authority figures, it’s been done to death in both companies for many years, give us something else for a change.

More characters, less talk, more action. That’s all we need. Whether it’s a PG rating or not, it will be better television. Make wrestling “cool” again, and while you’re doing that, give us some memorable matches for the wrestling purists. I understand that you can’t have a five star match every single show, but at least try to have one, just one great match a night is enough for the purists, otherwise what’s the point in watching a wrestling show?

I want to thank Vince Russo for giving an insight into the world of creative writing from a wrestling point of view. It is hard to write every single week. They are not machines, they will make mistakes, they will lose motivation, and they will sometimes give up completely, so maybe we should give them the benefit of the doubt?

The next time you see a horrible angle played out, just think, why did it happen? Are they just bad writers? Or did too many backstage guys and talent dip their own ideas into the mix and spoiled the vision? This is something we should think about before we take a huge steaming dump on their work. You wouldn’t like it if it was the other way around.

So until next time, I have been a British wrestling fan, not a mark, not a member of the IWC, just a good old fashioned wrestling fan. Bo-lieve that!

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