The Rant Of The Week: Smackdown's Getting Good Again
Posted by Phantom Lord
on 04/13/2008
Greetings conversationalists across the fruited plain it is I your personal Harvester of Sorrow
Phantom Lord and this is the all mighty and important
Rant of the Week. According to the file info this is the 50th Rant since it went into syndication on a fine wrestling news site just like the one you are reading right now. It’s taken me over two and a half years to get to this point so I figure I’ll hit the magical 100 mark sometime in 2012 (it would be funny if it went up right around the time the Mayan calendar ends).
Seriously though it’s been an interesting two and a half years and let’s hope the future is the same.
Originally I was going to post this column on Wrestlemania weekend but then I realized everyone and their mother would be posting Wrestlemania predictions columns so there was no point for me to add my two cents. The show was pretty cookie cutter as it goes with who won and who lost. We all knew Ric Flair would be losing. It was a given The Undertaker was going to win. The only real shock was CM Punk winning the MITB and Randy Orton retaining the WWE Title. There wasn’t anything to surprising or shocking other then that. The only thing a lot of us on the net were disappointed in was the lameness of the Finlay/JBL brawl. You have two of the best brawlers ever and there was no blood at all. It was just another run of the mill WWE softcore match. I don’t think any “hardcore” match will ever top Edge vs. Mick Foley, but JBL and Finlay could have come close if they were allowed to really beat the piss out of each other. But hey we did at least get to see JBL launch a trash can at Hornswoggle like it was a missile so there was that.
It’s a shame this angle didn’t pick up because you would think someone pulling a fast one on Vince would warrant something interesting and this one was just kinda meh. See that’s the biggest gripe I have with the WWE. When it comes to an angle they either commit to late or don’t commit at all to it.
The most recent example of this is the “incest” angle with Paul Burchill and Katie Lea. Both are with out a doubt probably the best wrestlers to come out of England in a long time. But as we know skill and skill alone isn’t what the WWE is looking for. The creative team likes to come up with weird shit from time to time and the basis for this gimmick was the movie Cruel Intentions. Now I sat through that pile of crap one night. Matter of fact the only redeeming thing about it was Selma Blair’s acting in it. Now if the WWE made Burchill and Lea exactly like the characters played by Ryan Philippe and Sarah Michelle Gellar it would have been interesting. At least then there would have been them playing this game over who could bag the first diva (you know Maria would be playing the Selma Blair role for that one).
But it’s not to be as the WWE really never gave it a shot to work to begin with and now it’s apparently being dropped because the WWE now wants to target the six to ten year old demo
With WWE putting more effort into targeting kids between the ages of 6 and 10 years old, there is talk that WWE already has or is planning to drop the incest angle with Paul Burchill and his "sister" Katie Lea. WWE officials still want to keep Burchill and Lea around on the main roster.
Credit to PW Headlines who I assume got it from The Wrestling Observer or Insider
By “keep around on the main roster” they really mean “we’ll keep you on Heat for the next six months before we ship you back down to Florida”. I wonder what movie gimmick they’ll have Burchill rip off next. I still get a good laugh at the notion that Vince never heard of Pirates of The Caribbean. For fun they could always have Burchill and Katie do a Sweeney Todd gimmick. I mean that could really be fun plus Burchill was wrestling as “The Ripper” in OVW so it all could balance out.
Well if you haven’t noticed by now, there’s about a week’s difference between the stuff I wrote above and what I’m writing right now. In that time frame I managed to have some writer’s block where I drew a total blank on a topic for this column. I also managed to get trolled by some annoying little girl from Australia who seemed to take it personally that I thought the MITB match wasn’t anything special. If you’re bored that whole little troll fest is on my live journal in my Wrestlemania thoughts post. But to top it all off I had to go get an endoscopy done but at least now I know why I get so much heartburn if I’m feeling agitated.
The good news is the writers block is gone so we can move forward with this column.
Last week I saw something that got me actually interested in an upcoming Smackdown for once. It was “The Undertaker to take on Festus on Smackdown”. Now I like Festus. I love the gimmick which is basically supposed to be a take on “Of Mice and Men”. Before the bell he’s semi comatose but once it rings he’s an unstoppable monster. It’s been so long since a good big man has come on the scene in the WWE that you can actually root for. Usually it’s just some roid monkey who can do a big boot. Festus brings back the good old days of scuffling and its fun to watch.
Truth be told ever since JBL left Smackdown the quality of the shows has just gone down. I don’t know why that is since it’s pretty much the same show with or with out him, but he at least to me and a lot of other fans had something special that made even a bad match seem interesting. But with JBL gone we have to contend with The Coach and Michael Cole and thank God for MVP pointing out that Smackdown went from having the 6th best announce team ever to the worst.
So tonight on Smackdown I was at least interested from the start because there was a match I wanted to see. The Undertaker is pretty much back into his American Badass role except that he doesn’t cut promo’s anymore. He has a new finisher called the gogoplata (triangle choke). At first I wasn’t too fond of it, but it’s really starting to grow on me and it’s actually becoming a great finisher for him. I mean The Undertaker is 43 right now and as much as we all love the Tombstone, its murder on the knees. So anything that can extend his career a few more years is probably a welcome treat.
I honestly thought that The Undertaker vs. Edge was easily the best match of the night at Wrestlemania. I was holding out hope that maybe Edge would cheat to win to break the streak, but we knew that wouldn’t be happening. So now we have this pretty good feud going with The Undertaker and Edge. Say what you want about Vickie Guerrero, but she’s really coming into her own as the evil boss. Her having Festus face The Undertaker was a great move because no one knows what to expect from him and as we saw during the match, the “Corn Fed Monster” took The Undertaker to the limit.
As I said it’s been so long since there has been a really good big man who you can get into in the WWE. Festus reminds me a lot of Mike Awesome with some of the moves he can hit. What sold me during the match with The Undertaker were the wild punches he was throwing. If Festus wasn’t being booked to be a silent giant if you announced him as hailing from Texas you could easily claim he was on of Stan Hansen’s kids. Hell, Jesse is Terry Gordy’s son so billing Festus as a Hansen would actually work if they ever added more of a background to them.
What I liked the most about this match was how Festus did not tap out to the gogoplata. The referee got knocked down and old’ Festus hung on as The Undertaker choked the life out of him. It was great when another ref came in and rang the bell and Jesse got in and broke the hold and begged The Undertaker not to do any more to his friend. There was actually a bit of concern on The Undertaker’s face. I don’t know if it was intentional to build on the end of the match, but I could see him cutting a promo against Vickie and Edge about how they are playing with fire and an innocent almost paid the ultimate price because of their game. On the same token next week Vickie could come out and say because the move is so dangerous she’s banning it for life and if The Undertaker ever uses it again he will be stripped of the title.
Smart booking like that could lead to a no holds barred match where The Undertaker busts it out against Edge to be beat him once and for all.
Sorry I was fantasy booking there, but like I said this is the first time in a while that Smackdown has me interested. Michael Hayes is doing an outstanding job running the ship and all this is proof of that.
Of course I did get a good laugh this week when the news bit about him wanting Triple H on Smackdown came out.
With the 2008 WWE Draft Lottery approaching, head SmackDown! writer Michael Hayes is looking to move Triple H over to the SmackDown! brand. Hayes wants Triple H to work as a heel in a main event program against The Undertaker.
There are not many within WWE that expect Triple H to make the jump. There is still a stigma that SmackDown! is the "B" brand and Triple H has been against moving to Smackdown! in the past.
Triple H does want to turn heel, but he's looking for a WWE title run on RAW.
Credit to The Wrestling Observer
See now we all know Triple H isn’t going to leave RAW. In the immortal words of Paul Heyman at the first One Night Stand, JBL was only champion because Triple H doesn’t work on Tuesday’s. But honestly if it were up to me I would move Triple H to Smackdown. He’s becoming very stale on RAW and you can only do so much with him as evident on RAW this past week. The chance to move him over to Smackdown to feud with the likes of The Undertaker, Edge, Rey Mysterio, and others is just too good to pass up. Of course odds are Smackdown will get raped and pillaged in the draft like last year so odds are more then a few of those guys will end up on RAW anyway.
But the way I see it, Triple H is such a huge mark for Ric Flair and he so wants to beat Flair’s official record of 16 World titles, moving to Smackdown to go for The Big Gold belt is a lot better then going for the Spinner title. Then again when Triple H does eventually win the WWE Title he could very easily take a sledge hammer to that damn belt in which case I will take back every bad thing I have ever said about him.
You have to admire Michael Hayes though. He’s shooting for the impossible in wanting Triple H, but it would be something that would work wonders for Smackdown. Yes there is that small issue about Triple H and his politics and that would upset the balance in the Smackdown locker room, but you know what sometimes the good outweighs the bad. If the WWE really wants to surprise us and keep us guessing then Triple H should go to Smackdown. Second choice would be Shawn Michaels, but as we know he likes watching Dora The Explorer and Diego on his Friday Nights.
Speaking of Shawn Michaels, oh my gawd who ever is booking the feud with him and BATISTAMA please for the love of God stop with all the emo bullshit. It was bad enough that Shawn and Flair looked like they were going to make out at times but now this stuff with him and Batista is just too much. Yes it’s a good feud to do so don’t get me wrong there. Dave being all bitter that Shawn retired Flair is an excellent angle to run. But it needs Batista being the old Batista and it needs him beating the shit out of Shawn Michaels and power bombing him a few times. What we don’t need is Shawn Michaels moping around like some pussy because he beat Ric Flair.
See Michaels should have turned full fledged heel before his match with Flair. It would have balanced things out so much. Yes the “I’m sorry, I love you” spot was amazing but I’m honestly sick of all this emo stuff. What they need to do is have Batista go out and say since he put Flair down, he’s gonna put Shawn down. Their match at Backlash needs to last longer then these couple of weeks. Having Batista “cripple” Shawn at Backlash and going full fledged heel as the man who retired HBK would work wonders for DAVE who has been floundering for quite a while on Smackdown. Perhaps ship him off to RAW because he would be a much better fit on RAW then he is on Smackdown right now. Shawn comes back after a month or so at say The Great American Bash and they have a good fight and settle things up at Summerslam.
Ok I’m being a tad bit unrealistic there. We all know the WWE wouldn’t stretch out the feud that long, but the point is all this emo stuff is just so damn annoying. Like I said I miss the old Batista who would just pummel people. Ever since he became Big Pimpin’ Dave he lost that special spark he had when he was destroying people for Triple H and Flair in Evolution.
One other feud on Smackdown I’m glad is finally going again is the feud between Matt Hardy and MVP. Matt is back and looking for revenge and MVP is going to do everything he can to avoid him. A lot of us on the internet have been waiting for this feud for months and I’m glad it’s finally going to start again. MVP can so be the new Tully Blanchard (he just needs a Baby Doll) as he does all that he can to avoid what’s coming to him. Now this doesn’t mean Matt Hardy is Dusty Rhodes or Magnum TA, but he sure can play the role of the common man who’s trying to get his revenge against the rich guy. They’ll probably end this feud in a ladder match down the road but for me personally there is no other way to do it but with a nice violent and blood cage match.
Matt Hardy is just on the brink of superstardom like his brother Jeff. Having a huge win in an epic blood bath to start his US Title run would be the perfect way to do it. My only complaint with MVP as champion is he hasn’t defended the title in so long. What ever happened to the days of the mandatory 30 day title defense clause? I can’t remember the last time he actually defended the US Championship. Yes I know titles are just a prop in the WWE, but some of us like seeing good old fashion championship matches.
Well I think that’s it for this week. It took me a while but I found a topic and ran with it and in the end that’s all that really matters. I have some hope for Smackdown so let’s see if they can keep things moving.
Before I go, I want to say it was great to see Mickie James back on tv on RAW this week. But Mickie is not filler material. She should be feuding with Beth Phoenix right now but for what ever reason the WWE has her back up for Ashley or Maria. Well WWE I’m starting a campaign called “NO MICKIE, NO PEACE”.
If you’re going to a WWE event please bring a sign saying “NO MICKIE, NO PEACE”. I want her back on top with the Women’s title again. I know I’m not the only one so if you love Mickie bring the sign. If you know someone going to a show tell them to bring a sign. Mickie stole the show at Wrestlemania 22 and if given the chance we know she can do that again.
But umm the signs don’t need to look like a potential serial killer is holding them. The one in my graphic just happens to look that way because of the font I stumbled on.
A special thanks goes out to MGFanJay on the Death Valley Driver Message Board for his screen cap used in the graphic. MG does screen caps of damn near every show and PPV and they are a constant source of entertainment (especially his TNA caps with Mike Tenay and Don West). So as a thanks, check out his article in on Fire Pro Returns in
Issue 31 of Hardcore Gamer Magazine. This issue can be downloaded on their site or you can find it on newsstands.
On that note I am done for this week. I’ll be back hopefully next week with maybe some thoughts on post Lockdown TNA. Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle for TNA World Title in what might be a “Strong Style” match is being rumored so I’m very tempted to order the PPV to see that. If Joe loses he has to leave wrestling so we all better hope Joe wins because knowing Russo and company if he did lose they’d bring him back as Samango The Samoa Savage.
So until next time take care and remember someone has to give you this information and it DAMN well has got to be me.
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