Everyone has their own likes and dislikes, preferences and stuff they hate. In writing of my articles, I generally attempt objectivity, but even if subconsciously, my personal preferences come through, so rather than attempt to hide or deceive you, dear reader, here’s a list of what I think of many prominent subjects and topics in professional wrestling. Let’s do this by workers and promotions. While I’m happy with them, we’ll start with WWE Raw.
I don’t have much time for the argument that modern wrestling is terrible. It’s not true. There’s some bad stuff and some great stuff. As for which there are more of, it waxes and wanes almost on a week to week basis. Also, there is absolutely no difference between wrestling and sports entertainment. I’ll have a full column on that one day, but there isn’t, so get over it. Hornswaggle isn’t an example of sports entertainment, he’s an example of Vince McMahon’s infantile sense of humor. Santino was a funny heel, but really needs to go away now. There’s no topping the honk-a-meter.
I don’t usually enjoy Raw because I don’t watch wrestling for comedy and the mid-card rarely gets any angles.
Triple H is an incredible wrestler who is far too concerned with protecting his spot. You’re married into the family Hunter, relax a little.
Shawn Michaels is.
People really need to get past the John Cena can’t wrestle argument. He’s a very good worker and he’s shown it time and again. Moveset doesn’t make a wrestler, psychology does. And Cena has that in spades- don’t blame him for creative direction.
Randy Orton has some of the best psychology in the business, but zero idea of pacing. His angle with Ted Dibiase is gold, and all those that claim that Dibiase hasn’t been a good heel, realize this is why- the WWE didn’t need him over as heel so they had him work on his face schtick as a heel. Cody Rhodes is a natural heel and should go far.
MVP isn’t a very good wrestler and isn’t improving. He’s fine where he is as a pretty over guy for heels to beat on their way up the card.
Young wrestlers need to work with older, more experienced guys to improve. The best of the last generation got to work with the very best around early on- that’s how they improved. This bodes poorly for Jack Swagger and Kofi Kingston becoming main event guys, but well for Legacy look like future stars. The jury is still out on what they want to do with The Miz.
Speaking of future stars, Evan Bourne should be the new Tito Santana. He just needs a bit of a push to get established as the perfect mid-card filler for good matches to shut up smart fans. Unfortunately, though he isn’t bad, the WWE seems to like Kofi Kingston for that role.
For the life of me, I can’t bring myself to care about any Divas.
Mark Henry did the best work of his career as a deadly, Vader-lite on ECW, so they turned him into the Kool Aid man. His in-ring improvement was real, but he’s still far less compelling of a character this way.
Jerry Lawler gets a bad rap, but has been pretty good since he got over puppies. Michael Cole, however, is still vintage suck.
Breaking up The Colons was a waste of time since they’re both useless in singles, but make a decent enough tag team. I’ll never like them because I’ve heard nothing good about Carlos Sr.
Raw has the best Road Agents in the business, but they and Vince’s constant oversight have an overbearing effect on the roster and make a lot feel stifled, though the inexperience of the undercard has a lot to do with that.
Comments
Just a clarification on the Carlito and Primo statement- Carlos apparently was a party to threats of murder and possibly even murder itself. Carlito and Primo aren't especially better than numerous other hispanic workers- they got their job in large part through nepotism. Instead of working extra hard to show they earned their spot, Carlito is lazy and Primo is sloppy. Given that they got their job due to relationship with a scary, dangerous man, that severely colors my ability to like them.
I generally agree with everything here, especially the Cena and Orton statements, although I differ with you on two subjects:
1) Michael Cole is better than you give him credit for, although I don't understand why they continue to allow/push him to use the "vintage" lines. They obviously get the joke (the Smackdown Anniversary show makes that obvious), but he still uses that term frequently. Other than that, I think he's actually a pretty decent play-by-play man.
2) Carlito is lazy, true, but I don't find Primo as sloppy as you do. I've never seen him look like he was dangerous to his co-worker or blowing spots left and right. Remember when RVD was making guys bleed every match he was in? There haven't been any incidents with Primo as far as I'm aware.
I agree with you on just about everything, but a few points and agreements/disagreements:
1. Amen to that Cena comment. I haven't watched that many PPVs this year, but his matches with Jericho and Swagger earlier this year were great.
2. I agree that Randy's pacing is bad. In fact, I think it's terrible.
3. I'm not sure if you ever thought highly of MVP, but I did. Just last year on Smackdown, I was digging his stuff. He's been terribly boring on RAW though. Where's his attention to detail that I used to like so much?
4. A LOT of people love to hate on Henry, but I agree with you. I really liked him on ECW, but his RAW stuff, not so much.
5. This one's for Ivan: I think Aaron was just talking about his non-crispness. He's not the kind of sloppy that gets people hurt, but his performance is sloppy. Cartwheels, dropkicks and all.
Hornswoggle is off awful all around. I can stomach him as Finlay's gimmick, but other than that he's awful. Santino owned us all as a heel; now he's heinous as a babyface.
When HHH steps away and becomes lead booker, things will get great again...He's too much of a history nerd.
I firmly believe Cena CAN wrestle; he just doesn't NEED to in his current role.
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