The Rant of the Week: Desperation sets in...
Posted by Phantom Lord
on 08/03/2007
Greetings conversationalists all across the fruited plain as once again it’s time for the only column that tells it like it is. I am Phantom Lord and this is my Rant of the Week. As always I am coming to you from my bunker in the urban hell hole that is New York City. It’s been a couple weeks since my last column and I think unlike the other times I was well within reason to take my time. This whole Benoit thing just had me burned out and really not wanting to write about wrestling. I still love professional wrestling, but my faith in it has really been strained. It’s been just a month since the murder/suicide and it honestly seems like a lot longer then that.
Honestly wrestling for me just hasn’t been fun to watch since the whole Benoit thing happened. Oh sure there has been the awesomeness of Randy Orton tolling out kicks to the head and putting people in the hospital. There was also the fun of Hornswoggle becoming the Cruiserweight champion. On the one hand it was great because anyone associated with Finlay is awesome. But on the other it was the death nail for cruiserweight wrestling in the WWE because it showed exactly what Vince and company thought about all those small guys when they put the belt on a midget.
Right now the WWE is at a heightened state of alert because the ratings are tanking. RAW’s ratings are about as equal as those of Smackdown and for the WWE it might as well be the end of the world because RAW is superior to Smackdown in their eyes. The President of USA Networks Bonnie Hammer has been on Vince’s case to get the ratings up. There was a report that she made the suggestion that Vince should try and bring back as many people from the Attitude era as possible. Resign Chyna and Sable, bring back Jericho and Austin. Hell they should bring back the McMahon’s on tv. Vince to his credit isn’t too thrilled with those suggestions so he’s doing the whole it’s under advisement thing. If anything it just shows how stupid Bonnie Hammer is if she thinks Attitude 2.0 will bring the ratings up.
I mean first off this woman is lucky that USA does so well. If it weren’t for the Law & Order re-runs and Monk and that new show Burn Notice…USA would have NOTHING. RAW as bad it might be is still the top rated show on the network or at least near the top so even with the 3.4 ratings it’s been drawing it’s doing pretty well for the network as a whole.
But you see I am 26 years old. I am the typical WWE viewer (as much as it pains them). I don’t want to relive ten years ago and Attitude all over again. I don’t need to see a bunch of 40 year old men act like its 1998-2000 again. I sure as hell don’t want to see many of the staples of attitude era return. You want to know why the ratings are down? It’s because its all to predictable.
If we can figure out what’s going to happen ahead of time what’s the point of watching it.
Want to boost the ratings? Come up with something original. As much as I hated Vince go BOOM, it was at least original.
I had gotten up to that part when the news broke that RAW this week (July 30th, 2007) did an impressive 2.5 in the ratings. For those you not keeping score at home, that means it fell almost a full point. Right now that means we are at threat level red.
See there are stages of panic in the WWE and right now Vince must be wired like a mother f***er because no one is sleeping till those ratings come back up. Now to be fair, apparently the fine folks at Nielsen say they had a glitch on their end and RAW was on of the shows affected so a revised rating is probably going to come out. But compound this along with the pressure from USA to get the ratings up to Attitude levels, let’s just say Vince is probably pretty irritable to be around right now. But when one is irritable they start thinking outside the box to fix a problem.
The Wrestling Observe backs up my point with this news bit.
There are meetings set for today and tomorrow within WWE to determine what to do about the RAW rating on Monday.
Vince McMahon is encouraging ideas that are out of the box, in an attempt to turn things around. The WWE creative team is said to be under major stress.
As previously posted, Vince McMahon will make his TV return at the beginning of RAW on Monday, hoping to boost RAW's ratings.
Now if you want outside the box, my friend
Sarah came up with this one of the top of her head. I figured that the ratings drop will mean something insane to boost ratings (as noted by the threat level graphic above). So for the hell of it I said I bet they bring back HLA. I mean who doesn’t love some good old American HLA…right?
She countered with this thing of beauty.
Jillian Hall & Beth. Not only would be HLA, Vince McMahon could finally get his incest angle if he pushed for it hard enough. "Sisters? Sisters who kiss and touch in the ring?!?!"
Yeah I don’t think I could top that even if I tried.
So in the end we know what the WWE is going to do. They will panic, do something stupid, and in the end Vince will be even more pissed off because we the viewer will just be sitting back and laughing as the circle of stupidity goes round and round.
But as bad as the WWE might be in desperate times, its nothing compared to TNA in normal times. TNA has your classic Napoleon inferiority complex. That’s why they keep signing all the WWE cast a ways in the hopes that they’ll be able to get an extra tenth of a point in the ratings because as Mike Tenay would say “WE KNOW WHO THAT IS”. But as bad as Jeff Jarrett and Dutch Mantel’s booking is in TNA, nothing compares to when Jarrett decides it’s time for a ratings stunt. Usually it involved them bringing in some baseball guy as an excuse to let Dale Torberg wrestle. Occasionally they get some football dude like Frank Wycheck and they do an angle with no purpose as an excuse to get on the news in Nashville.
Well we thought TNA hit rock bottom, but this week TNA set a new standard for desperation. This is WCW partnering with Master P “Put mah name on da Supa Dome and ya’ll will sell it out” levels of insanity.
TNA is going to bring in the Pacman. No not the former Slam & Jam CAW star, but Pacman Jones. Disgraced Tennessee Titan and all around thug.
Adam "Pacman" Jones has either signed or is expected to sign a short-term deal with TNA according to Hope Hines of the WTVF, Ch. 5, news in Nashville.
Hines said the signing was supposed to be kept secret until Jeff Jarrett returned on Tuesday from an international trip.
We have independently confirmed that this story is correct.
Jones was suspended by the NFL for his link to a Las Vegas shooting at a strip club over the NBA All-Star weekend that left former 1980s AWA pro wrestler Tom Urbanski, who was managing the club, paralyzed from the waist down.
The negotiations with Jones are obviously an attempt for TNA to get mainstream publicity, even if the publicity won't be good, for the company. The timing of it, with pro wrestling's public image at an all-time low, will only reinforce the current reputation.
See at the very least you would figure he would be a heel right. Well if you guessed no then you don’t know Jeff Jarrett and his booking style by now.
Jarrett wants to bring him as a face. See now that might work if they were in a small tv studio in Nashville like the old days, but they are a national promotion and Pacman Jones is universally hated. Then again I would imagine by being a face he would be aligned with The Old Age Outlaws…err VKM.
Of course anyone hoping to see Pacman get in the ring will have their hopes dashed because apparently his contract forbids that sort of thing. As we all know professional football players in the NFL are a bunch of pussies. Their team owners are usually bigger pussy’s then the pampered thugs that run around the league these days. But hey if I had a guaranteed contract for $60 Million I probably would be taking off every other day for a hang nail to.
Seriously I see no good coming of this. I mean first off it’s TNA so they are doomed to f*** it up anyway. Secondly if I were TNA I would donate all of Pacman’s earnings to Tommy Urbanski just so it didn’t seem I was profiting off this scumbag. Tom Urbanski is going to be in a wheel chair for the rest of his life because of Pacman and his boys. The right thing to do would be to give him money for his needs. But then again this is the same company that LOANED money to Konan for a hip replacement, LOANED money to Ron Killings for knee surgery, and just recently told Sonjay Dutt to go pay for his own MRI on his bum shoulder.
I’m convinced TNA is not a real wrestling company but a parody of one. TNA’s stupidity never ceases to amaze me.
As a matter of fact, someone shares that opinion with me Courtesy of East Coast J on The Death Valley Driver Message board see the video taking the Interweb by storm it’s TNA Impact vs. Perfect Strangers.
Click here to view this thing of beauty
I’ll tell you this much. After last night with Kurt Angle the psychological abusive husband the only thing missing from that show was a laugh track. But then again it’s pretty clear TNA has women issues so if they can’t beat them up anymore do the next best thing…say they have a fat ass.
It’s a real knee slapper I tell you. Why I can remember a time when TNA was something special with a new breed of guys who had been busting their asses on the Indies and were finally getting a chance to shine. But now it’s just a place for every WWE reject to come in and get a main event push.
If think the WWE is bad with guys obviously on roids and others enhancers, look at TNA’s newest “enforcer” The Punisher Andrew Martin. I know he was sick and he lost like 45 pounds a couple months ago, but hot damn did he ever put it back on in a hurry.
Ah well for those of you ordering Hard Justice, I’ll save you the $30 dollars right now. Test will turn on Sting and Abyss and cost them the match. Because if we know anything about TNA it’s that the new guy always comes in and ends up turning on the top faces.
Samoa Joe also probably won’t win because apparently his contract is up and he hasn’t resigned. Can you blame him if that’s true? I would be pissed these people kept dicking me around and took away my rightful run on top. Joe is someone they need to push as an unbeatable monster. Not this guy who’s playing tricks on a drugged out Kurt Angle.
See I should have taken the summer off like my friend Boss Foxx at LOP did. Right now he’s somewhere in the Nova Scotia wilderness enjoying a break from this stuff. But who can relax with all this shit going on in da business.
It should be interesting to see what the real RAW rating was this week and if Vince coming back will get them back over the 3.0 marker. If it doesn’t heads will probably roll and that should be fun to watch from a distance.
Well on that note I am done for this week. I swear that I will be back sooner next time with my next column. It’s just the whole Benoit thing sapped my will to write. But let us just hope that is the last time anything like that happens.
On the same token let’s hope the Pacman Jones thing blows up in TNA’s face because it will suit them for even thinking about Jarrett vs. Angle at the main event at Bound for Glory.
So until next time, remember someone has to give you this information and it DAMN well has to be me.
You can click here to send me any and all feedback at phantomlordnyc@yahoo.com or leave me some feedback in my
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