The Problem With Hosses
Posted by TWV Guest Columnists
on 01/17/2007
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Guest Column By Jeremy Tomich
The year is 2007. The company is WWE. The brand? It doesn't matter although this writer, unlike many, actually had a fairly high opinion of the WWE product, across all brands, for much of 2006. The end result was disappointing at least as far as world champions were concerned. And not only from the aspect of personal preferences - it must be hard for the neutral to understand some of the decision-making of WWE as far as assigning world title reigns (and seemingly long term ones) are concerned.
RAW's champion is the charismatic, good-looking fan favorite John Cena. Arguably the biggest active draw in the business, he is a marquee champion, who legitimizes his title reign by his sheer polarization of the WWE fan base - his followers are some of the most vocal and passionate around and they number in the millions. Those on the other side of the coin throw their support behind his opponent - often a usually despised heel and some of the best around (Triple H, Kurt Angle, Edge, and Chris Jericho to name but a few) - to the point where the crowd atmosphere at his title defences is intensified to a level perhaps never before seen in the company. Even if the matches themselves aren't outstanding (even the RAW announcers allude to The Champ as having somewhat of a basic repertoire), the intensity alone makes them memorable. Although I am
fan from a fan of Cena, I have to admit he is the logical choice, at this point, as RAW's champion. He is as good as, if not better than, any of his contemporaries on the mike, has an extremely marketable look and a universal appeal, having diverged somewhat from his 'Vanilla Ice' gimmick, and has improved in the ring a great deal. Although his move set is rather limited, many of his moves are rather unique (the throwback, the spinout powerbomb, even the FU to a point), and he certainly has a very distinctive style and execution in the ring. He is easily the biggest star in WWE since the heyday of Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock.
SmackDown!'s champion, on the other hand, leaves a lot to be desired. As bad in the ring as he is on the mike, Batista is a hoss of the worst kind - uncharismatic, slow on his feet, and unable to sell most of his opponents' offence properly. A massive draw, of course, but you notice the crowd goes crazy for his entrance (probably due to the excessive pyro), and then gets a lot quieter during most of his matches (eg. his title match against King Booker at Survivor Series, which was hardly his worst one). On top of this, he is past 40, despite being an 'up-and-comer' in 2002-2003, and carries a big injury risk with his bad triceps (not helped by the fact that his offence is based almost entirely around lifting power moves). Granted, he is worth a medium-length title reign to make up for the one that was cut short by injury last January, but this one should
definitely be his last and it should not go further than the end of May.
Don't agree? Watch his tag team match at Armageddon with John Cena against King Booker and Finlay. For those of you who didn't watch, Armageddon was hands down the SmackDown! Pay-Per-View of the year - every match up until the last one was at least stellar and in the cases of the Tag Team title, Last Ride, and Cruiserweight title matches, terrific. And then there was the not-so-grand finale. Batista and Cena were that bad that they were getting booed by large sections of the crowd in what was far from hostile territory for them. Botched moves, left, right, and center - and basic ones at that. Batista delivers probably the worst-looking clotheslines I've ever seen, which is amazing for a guy of his size and power, but he actually managed to
botch one in this match. Not a good way to conduct the last Pay-Per-View match of the year - and most of the 2006 WWE PPV's have been very good. Some people I know turned their TV's off halfway through the match. Several others did not even bother watching it. You have to believe that if Brock Lesnar was still with WWE, then Batista would not be where he is today. No offence to Batista - he makes a solid mid card heel as he did with Evolution, particularly when he has a tag team partner to limit his time in the ring and de-emphasize his flaws. He could even make a decent mid card face. I just don't buy him as a world champion. He is no better in any department, except perhaps in marketability and looks-wise, than Snitsky or Test and far worse than Kane, who will probably be his next challenger and who is more overdue than anybody in WWE for a decent title reign. As for the rumours of Batista having a successful title defence against The Undertaker at WrestleMania, that would be a massive injustice to the Phenom, especially when you look at some of the big names who have failed to beat him on the biggest stage of all and doubly so if the Deadman gets there via the Royal Rumble, which might happen, as this is probably his last year. Why not go interpromotional, and give the honor to Edge, who already has a 5-0 streak at WrestleMania, or Umaga - that would be a huge match - or better yet have DX beat him and Kane, possibly even in a Hell In A Cell match, as all four superstars have a history with that match (although a match like would probably upstage the main event/s).
Mentioning Lesnar, I immediately think of my next point of discussion, ECW's World Champion, Bobby Lashley - or, as I like to call him, 'Black Lesnar.' Interesting how this guy debuted on SmackDown! just after the negotiations to bring Lesnar back to WWE fell through. From the look, to the in-ring style, to the entrance, to the lack of mike skills, he is Lesnar reincarnate to a tee, although not nearly as convincing. Now I'm pretty neutral on this guy - he's not the most exciting in the ring, but I have a strong hunch he's a lot better than he's letting on, especially in light of his legitimate amateur credentials, which obviously indicate greater mat wrestling skill than he has demonstrated thus far. I have a feeling WWE is restricting him to power moves, and of course he has some very good ones which he does very well. He can leap clean over most of his opponents and he has the best physique in the business. I'm also willing to bet he's the strongest guy in the locker room, outside of Mark Henry and The Great Khali who started off as powerlifters anyways. Like Lesnar, he also does not have the voice or the mike skills to match the physique, as demonstrated in the
awful promo he cut on the 12/19/2006 edition of ECW - even worse than Batista's on SmackDown! later that week. He's a man of actions, not words, and they'd do best to keep it that way. He has been rushed into the title picture, but could easily make a very convincing world champion, even if he'd be better doing it on SmackDown!.
What it adds up to is this - three face hosses as the champions of the three WWE brands. Despite each brand claiming to offer something different from the others, their champions are very similar. Now, you might say that Cena isn't big enough to be a hoss, but he has the moves of a hoss - all clotheslines, shoulderblocks, power moves and rest holds, the attitude of a (face) hoss, and the aggression of one. But what he does have is mike skills and charisma. Lashley has neither of those, but he does have the moves and probably a lot more of them than he has shown yet. And Batista, well, he has a lot of muscles, a lot of pyro, and not a whole lot else. Either way, not a lot of variety, and not the most interesting title picture come WrestleMania time - even if one or more of these guys drops the title, chances are they'll be challenging at that point to regain. And having a heel chasing a face champion almost always makes for a less interesting title picture at WrestleMania with the exception of Hulk Hogan.
Logically, their title defences would be the last three matches on the card, save for maybe a Taker match, if he is not already a title challenger. And if the Deadman's wrestling in a separate upper-card match, then that's perhaps four consecutive big man matches. Add in the likely Hogan versus Big Show match and that's five in a row. Hosses, especially face hosses, often take the wind out of a title match, both in the physical sense (they usually have less stamina) and in terms of crowd reaction as their moves are usually predictable and have been seen a million times before, from them or from a similar predecessor. These moves are also usually less exciting than those of their smaller counterparts. Batista versus Triple H at WrestleMania 21 is a prime example.
I must sound like a hoss-hater, but I'm not. I just don't think it makes sense to have three of them, let alone all faces, as the champions of all three WWE brands - and in the case of ECW especially, which is (or should I say, was) more about technical and aerial styles, and of course, straight-up hardcore. And now, with Chris Masters and Snitsky apparently heading to over ECW to join Lashley, Test, Mike Knox, Sylvester Terkay, The Great Khali (who apparently is also in line for a major push) and Kevin Thorn (who is actually pretty solid, and is probably the most skilled big man in WWE outside of Taker and Kane, though he needs to work on his timing), you can forget about that. And they'll need to push Snitsky and Masters a lot initially, as they were losing a lot more than they were winning on RAW, so I foresee very little variety in the 2007 version of ECW, with it only being a one-hour show - and that's with ads.
And then with guys like Daniel Rodimer, Vladimir Kozlov, and I'm sure several others of a similar size coming through, it's beginning to look like 2003/2004 all over again and we all know they were hardly the best years in the business. The only difference between the current slew of big men and the 'Vanilla hosses' of those years are that the current ones have actual characters, and (in most cases) superior in-ring skills.
Somehow I see a lot of talented, medium-sized wrestlers being underutilized and/or doing a lot of jobbing this year. Perhaps the solution would be to team some of these
big men up, so they can hopefully maintain a higher pace and standard of match and chew up less space on the rosters and on the shows themselves. SmackDown! needs more tag teams, as does ECW though they don't have tag team titles or the airtime for it to be a glaring discrepancy. Pitting London & Kendrick against a couple of big young guys would either make them giant killers, and further solidify a terrific reign, or make for a realistic title loss due to the size difference. I mean face it, who is left for them to defeat, short of the possible returns of the Gymini or even the Basham Brothers, both of which are amongst the most boring tag teams in wrestling history, and neither of which should be holding titles. A La Resistance reunion, with Sylvan and Rob Conway, is rumoured and would make a lot of sense and could even work in ECW with Conway and Rene Dupree. But that is another topic for another time.
My point is, it's not the 80s or even the early 90s anymore and any more than a couple of hoss matches a night, except perhaps on a huge 8 to 10 match card like WM, will take the steam out of the whole show, unless they are mostly squashes, which will either result in a lot of victories over jobbers that everybody knows the results of before the match has even started or the gross misuse of smaller talent.
TNA is a viable alternative, from what I hear, but most countries don't have it. I'm living in Australia, hardly a third world country, and all we get is a Pay-Per-View at least a fortnight after it airs in the U.S., by which time I already know the results. I would watch IMPACT! if we got it, despite being a diehard WWE fan, as I want to see what all the fuss is about. I hope TNA does well, although perhaps not better than WWE, as competition makes for a better product across all companies and brands.
Thanks very much for reading the very first of what will hopefully be many columns on thewrestlingvoice.com. Until next time, this is where my catchphrase would go.
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