Hello all! This is my first blog and I'd like to start by telling you a little about myself and why I'm writing this blog. I'm 25 and have been watching wrestling my whole life as long as I can remember. I grew up on Hulkamania and was ushered into my preteen and teen years with the Attitude Era. I took a break from wrestling for a while (2005-2008ish) and am now back to watching thanks in part to actually having a DVR now. I would consider the WWE to be my favorite company but I do enjoy TNA but as usual have criticisms for both companies. With this blog I merely look to get my views and insights out there to form intelligent discussions and get feedback from you guys out there in the IWC. Well enough about me as I have many topics I'd like to discuss. Sorry if this reads like someone with ADD wrote this but I am not a writer at heart.

Topic 1: The Referee Situation

I haven't seen this discussed anywhere before although I could be wrong, but while watching Raw this past Monday I realized something about why I wasn't as "into" the matches as I have been in the past. The Referees don't seem to be as good at their jobs as they used to be. Am I the only one that feels this way? For example: back in the attitude era I remember refs seemed to count with vigor. They would raise their arms all the way and come crashing down and would barely make the stop before the 3 count when the kickout occurred. Watching Raw noticed multiple refs that doing the counts as if they were scared to hurt their hands and one in particular who would slow down way to obviously on the 3 count before the kickout even happened. I'm not saying they were perfect back then either or that this is even a huge deal, but it does take away from a match when someone hits a finisher and you see the ref slow down anticipating the kickout. This is just a personal pet peeve of mine but let me know what you think.

Topic 2: Alberto Del Rio

Yes another blog talking about Alberto Del Rio. Unlike what seems to be most though, I love the guy and here's why. I hear a lot of the IWC talking about how they don't like his promos or that they seemed forced and so on, but I don't see it that way. I myself am Hispanic (Puerto Rican) and to me Alberto's promos come off exactly as I would expect from someone who speaks English as a different language. His character is a rich, cocky, affluent Mexican and that is exactly what he gives off with his personality and demeanor. Sure some of his lines get old, but honestly, what wrestler doesn't have a line or two that they pull out all the time? I think Del Rio makes a great heel and I personally love to hate the guy. I enjoy watching his matches and I think he has a bright future as he can only get better with time (unless WWE really drops the ball which I can say wouldn't surprise me).

Topic 3: WWE Tag Team division and Cruiserweights

Here's my opinion on how to revive the tag team division in the WWE: Put the belts on The Miz and R-Truth. Watching the promo these guys put on last Monday and the heat they got off the crowd made me think that these guys could save the division. These two guys have been really stepping up on the mic lately and I personally love watching them. If it were up to me I'd put the belts on them and keep it that way for a while with some long feuds involving 2 or 3 other teams just like the days of TLC with The Hardy's, Dudleys, and Edge and Christian. I'm not sure who to put them up against as I honestly can't think of any other team right now that interests me. Some of you might say Kofi and Bourne but that leads me to the Cruiserweights part of this topic. As reported here, WWE seems interested in signing more cruiserweights and developing the division for guys like Bourne and Sin Cara. I think this is a great idea as I have always loved the cruiserweight division such as in WCW (or X-Division in TNA). If they're really serious about making this work though they need to give it the attention it deserves and not just leave it for Superstars matches. Give these guys promo time and let them "main event" the first hour of Raw and Smackdown and even main event the whole damn show every once in a while. Have the Cruiserweight title matches be the second to last match on PPV's. The WWE has never been about cruiserweights save for Rey and it's because they never had the roster to back it up. If they just make a few signings I think the action will more than speak for itself. The best matches of WCW in my opinion were the cruiserweight matches and are still looked at as classics today and look at the roster they had. I hope the WWE really gets behind this as I would love to see it!

Final Topic: What makes a match good?

My final topic is one I'm sure will garner a varied response: What makes a match good in wrestling today? I bring this up because a while back I had commented on a blog that said Undertaker vs Triple H at this years Wrestlemania was match of the year (this was before Punk/Cena). In my comment I said I didn't understand why people thought this match was so great and said that I thought any match on TNA was better and I got some quite angry responses asking how high I was, etc. To me the match itself was not very good compared to the build up. I've seen these two guys put on some amazing matches over the years and this one to me was a predictable boring match. It was a match that looked like it could of been on Raw. There was nothing "special" to it. Just because there's a great storyline involved in "The Streak" does not mean it's automatically a great match. I remember watching the first Undertaker vs Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania 25 and completely marking out over it. So what's my problem? Well they've taken the ending of that match and recycled it over and over. The whole kick out of a million finishers and then win thing is being overused by WWE in my opinion. Now I'm not saying it's not exciting but since then they've been doing it all the time for the "big matches". Undertaker vs Triple H was pretty much a regular bland match with a bunch of finisher kickouts tacked on to the end. That's my problem with it. After all the talk about how brutal and career ending the match was gonna be all we got was that. Waaay to predictable for what should have been a jaw dropping match. I'm sure many of you will disagree and I'm interested to know if any agree so please feel free to let me know!

That about does it for my first blog. If you've made it this far thanks for reading! All comments are welcome, I'd love some feedback. I will try to post again with some more topics maybe next week as I'd like to cover my thoughts on TNA more. Thanks again guys!