I hate to break it to The Miz and R-Truth, but they have a pretty recent example to prove that their latest bid for relevance may be more short-lived than they currently imagine. They may think “making a statement” by beating up other wrestlers will help their careers, but my next subject would probably beg to differ:
LV. The Nexus
Now, hopefully, I shouldn’t have to explain what exactly the Nexus was, but just in case, it was a direct product of the first season of WWE’s NXT program, which aims to short-cut introductions to developmental talent (sometimes the inclusion of someone like Daniel Bryan will leave fans scratching their heads).
Let me just make a digression about the NXT strategy. I think it’s a little bit of backwards thinking. NXT is basically exactly the opposite of what WWE typically does, and demands of its talent. It’s a program that provides potential new talent for the regular rosters of the Raw and Smackdown brands a chance to expose themselves to fans in a soft setting, not demanding too much of them except to simply showcase their current capabilities. In essence, it’s a professional version of Tough Enough (which only complicated things when Tough Enough itself returned). Maybe NXT was a result of WWE having a hard time introducing new stars the old way, but I’m not sure it’s been entirely successful, even with the Nexus angle that followed its inception (to its credit, WWE may have finally realized that).
Typically, you’ll see a new star in what’s supposed to be a finished or near-finished form, a wrestler who’s already supposed to know how to handle themselves on the grand stage, or will be able to quickly refine themselves (or gradually see their exposure and prospects diminished). What NXT did was expose wrestlers in their basic ingredients, in their developmental phases, whether they were really at that point or otherwise (Daniel Bryan). It is and was a curious experiment.
Anyway, from that first season of NXT came the angry band of the Nexus, which quickly focused on the central figure of Wade Barrett, winner of the first season and most capable of expressing himself in a WWE-caliber capacity. That was all well and good. The Nexus made a bold impact and spent months emphasizing their unique position as rookies who immediately wanted their piece of the pie, and chose John Cena as their biggest target. This was both a good and a bad thing, because they would either get what they wanted or be vanquished and consigned back to relative obscurity. Barrett had feuds with Cena and then-WWE champion Randy Orton, and it was interesting to watch because he came from a position of strength defined almost exclusively by the numbers game. On his own he might have excelled just as far, but he constantly had the Nexus around him to explain how and why he was in that spot. In fact, without the others, none of the Nexus really meant anything.
It was a unique way to introduce new stars, but it also stunted their growth considerably, and the longer it went on, the more it fed itself at the expense of itself. When Cena finally got the big win over Barrett, the question became, What comes next? Faced with failure, change was inevitable. Barrett departed with a small faction to Smackdown and transformed into the Corre. CM Punk laid claim to the remnants and basically repeated his strategy from the Straight Edge Society. As a movement in WWE, the Nexus came to a head at the 2011 Royal Rumble, in which both factions dominated for much of the 40-man elimination match. Once dispatched, however, that was the end of the group’s effectiveness, in any form.
Faced without individual identities, the members of the Nexus soon found that they were no longer stars, even Wade Barrett, who had been such a visible presence for months, challenging the top names on Raw and WWE in general. Now they would have to sink or swim on their own. Original members were released or forgotten, stuck in tag team wrestling, or asked to develop other potential stars. The Nexus, once it had been defeated, dissipated and lost all its power. Subsequent NXT graduates more often than not opted not to participate.
Barrett remains a viable presence, though he has to fight for himself much more often now, and finds it difficult to distinguish himself, now that he lacks a de facto position of influence. Maybe that’s exactly the way most stars end up once they join the WWE roster; they’re given a chance to shine, and either make it work in the first attempt, or are given others down the road, which they must fight all the harder to maintain.
The Nexus, then, would be an outsized version of the journey every superstar faces. Maybe that example is something other graduates of NXT are meant to exceed, to build on, to learn from. Maybe the best is yet to come.
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Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Jabroni Companion #26
I’m going to enjoy this next one, because he’s not a wrestler who’s gotten a ton of respect from the fans, not the ones who should have known better, not from fans in general, but he was definitely good at provoking a reaction. I’m talking about:
LIV. John Bradshaw Layfield
Colloquially (never thought you’d see that word in conjunction with professional wrestling, did you?) known as JBL, at least starting in 2004 (and better known previously simply as Bradshaw), the self-proclaimed “Wrestling God” first came to prominence (or tried to) as the psychotic cowboy Justin “Hawk” Bradshaw, transitioned into the New Blackjacks (rocking a mustache), and was absorbed into the Undertaker’s Ministry of Darkness with Ron Simmons as the Acolytes, which soon enough became known as the Acolytes Protection Agency (the APA), better known for holding down a poker table with cigars and beer than their ring work (though his “Clothesline from Hell” was quickly established as midcard legendary).
Anyway, John was a minor attraction (if that) for years, a WWE mainstay who started breaking out of the pack (tentatively) in 2003 as part of the Smackdown brand. When Brock Lesnar unexpectedly quit the company early in 2004, it opened up a crucial spot in the brand. Ron Simmons went quietly into retirement, Bradshaw started becoming a braggart, starting referring to himself as JBL, picked on champion Eddie Guerrero, and actually defeated him for the title two months later.
No one really took it seriously. Some people were amused by the fresh face in the main event, many were baffled, and it was assumed that the JBL experiment would end quickly. John himself would have been the first to admit that he wasn’t necessarily at the peak of his in-ring prowess, but as a talker, he was virtually untouchable (that’s no doubt what really won him the spot). I was in awe from the moment the transition was made. I was a big Guerrero fan (still am, obviously), would have loved to see him remain champion at least as long as the late Chris Benoit at the time, but JBL was gold.
It didn’t hurt that Eddie had a fallback feud with Kurt Angle that kept getting interwoven with the JBL era in its early months. Angle was resting up at the time, spending his on-air role as Smackdown’s general manager, and proudly supporting John as a “Great American.” John Cena was supposed to be the next big Smackdown star, and I was a big fan of his, too, but he seemed to do just fine with the United States championship, biding his time until the next WrestleMania (the first of the many times Cena left fans unimpressed, unjustifiably).
Anyway, JBL kept the title. Undertaker was returning to the “Deadman” gimmick, and was his next big opponent. Undertaker was no longer as comfortable, at least at that time, in that particular role, and so it was quite easy for me to continue to root for JBL. JBL kept winning, all throughout 2004. He kept winning in 2005, too, at least until the big WrestleMania match with John Cena. After one more match, he basically disappeared.
His in-ring career resurfaced in 2006 when he picked on Rey Mysterio. He served as a perfectly awesome color commentator (“when the lights are on bright”) for Smackdown. He spent some time away, resurfaced at the end of 2007, coinciding with the return of Chris Jericho, and began an improbable comeback. It didn’t last too long, really. But he was still a “Wrestling God.”
Honestly, the man who is also a financial analyst is probably the best thing to happen to wrestling in the past ten years, and hardly anyone will ever admit it. A lot of people dismissed the JBL character as a “Million Dollar Man” knockoff, but he was more politician (with many promos making that blatantly obvious, as well as the eventual addition of his Cabinet with “Chief of Staff” Orlando Jordan and “Co-Secretaries of Defense” the Basham Brothers), a prescient image in an era somewhat besotted with the image of the politician (admittedly somewhat dubious these days).
But really, his stick skills were beyond awesome. Lots of people can play cocky, but few can pull it off quite like John Bradshaw Layfield. He looks pretty much as clumsy as an ox in the ring (but can still pull off a mean power presence), but life without JBL is always a little more dull than it should be, especially when everyone knows JBL is still around, is still capable of being a blowhard. It’s a shame fans aren’t begging him to come back and be just that. He could teach plenty of students in that blessed art. Who wouldn’t want to see Layfield’s Disciples yapping away in the ring?
This message has been approved by JBL.
LIV. John Bradshaw Layfield
Colloquially (never thought you’d see that word in conjunction with professional wrestling, did you?) known as JBL, at least starting in 2004 (and better known previously simply as Bradshaw), the self-proclaimed “Wrestling God” first came to prominence (or tried to) as the psychotic cowboy Justin “Hawk” Bradshaw, transitioned into the New Blackjacks (rocking a mustache), and was absorbed into the Undertaker’s Ministry of Darkness with Ron Simmons as the Acolytes, which soon enough became known as the Acolytes Protection Agency (the APA), better known for holding down a poker table with cigars and beer than their ring work (though his “Clothesline from Hell” was quickly established as midcard legendary).
Anyway, John was a minor attraction (if that) for years, a WWE mainstay who started breaking out of the pack (tentatively) in 2003 as part of the Smackdown brand. When Brock Lesnar unexpectedly quit the company early in 2004, it opened up a crucial spot in the brand. Ron Simmons went quietly into retirement, Bradshaw started becoming a braggart, starting referring to himself as JBL, picked on champion Eddie Guerrero, and actually defeated him for the title two months later.
No one really took it seriously. Some people were amused by the fresh face in the main event, many were baffled, and it was assumed that the JBL experiment would end quickly. John himself would have been the first to admit that he wasn’t necessarily at the peak of his in-ring prowess, but as a talker, he was virtually untouchable (that’s no doubt what really won him the spot). I was in awe from the moment the transition was made. I was a big Guerrero fan (still am, obviously), would have loved to see him remain champion at least as long as the late Chris Benoit at the time, but JBL was gold.
It didn’t hurt that Eddie had a fallback feud with Kurt Angle that kept getting interwoven with the JBL era in its early months. Angle was resting up at the time, spending his on-air role as Smackdown’s general manager, and proudly supporting John as a “Great American.” John Cena was supposed to be the next big Smackdown star, and I was a big fan of his, too, but he seemed to do just fine with the United States championship, biding his time until the next WrestleMania (the first of the many times Cena left fans unimpressed, unjustifiably).
Anyway, JBL kept the title. Undertaker was returning to the “Deadman” gimmick, and was his next big opponent. Undertaker was no longer as comfortable, at least at that time, in that particular role, and so it was quite easy for me to continue to root for JBL. JBL kept winning, all throughout 2004. He kept winning in 2005, too, at least until the big WrestleMania match with John Cena. After one more match, he basically disappeared.
His in-ring career resurfaced in 2006 when he picked on Rey Mysterio. He served as a perfectly awesome color commentator (“when the lights are on bright”) for Smackdown. He spent some time away, resurfaced at the end of 2007, coinciding with the return of Chris Jericho, and began an improbable comeback. It didn’t last too long, really. But he was still a “Wrestling God.”
Honestly, the man who is also a financial analyst is probably the best thing to happen to wrestling in the past ten years, and hardly anyone will ever admit it. A lot of people dismissed the JBL character as a “Million Dollar Man” knockoff, but he was more politician (with many promos making that blatantly obvious, as well as the eventual addition of his Cabinet with “Chief of Staff” Orlando Jordan and “Co-Secretaries of Defense” the Basham Brothers), a prescient image in an era somewhat besotted with the image of the politician (admittedly somewhat dubious these days).
But really, his stick skills were beyond awesome. Lots of people can play cocky, but few can pull it off quite like John Bradshaw Layfield. He looks pretty much as clumsy as an ox in the ring (but can still pull off a mean power presence), but life without JBL is always a little more dull than it should be, especially when everyone knows JBL is still around, is still capable of being a blowhard. It’s a shame fans aren’t begging him to come back and be just that. He could teach plenty of students in that blessed art. Who wouldn’t want to see Layfield’s Disciples yapping away in the ring?
This message has been approved by JBL.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Jabroni Companion #25
Our trio of themed pieces concludes with:
LIII. Specialty Matches
Wrestling fans of the modern era might be scratching their heads, because “specialty matches” has almost been replaced by “specialty PPVs,” in that both TNA and WWE have taken to crafting entire PPV events around certain types of specialty matches.
But for the record, “specialty matches” refers to cage matches, ladder matches, Texas bullrope matches, Hell in the Cell, Elimination Chamber, elimination matches, no disqualification matches, time-limit matches, ambulance matches, on and on, otherwise known as gimmick matches, any time a match is conducted under anything but ordinary rules, where pinfalls and submissions are not the only things to keep in mind.
In previous eras, these matches would be the big blow off for a hot feud, the way to say, “This is the only way these two wrestlers are going to stop trying to beat each other up.” As with everything else, over time that just wasn’t good enough. To retain the attention of a wide audience these matches became more and more common. ECW built its reputation over allowing an overall hardcore style to become the norm, which in turn led to hardcore divisions in both WCW and WWE. It might even be argued that the cruiserweight division, by any other name, is basically a gimmick division, in that competitors routinely wrestle a unique, freewheeling style, not just because they’re smaller and more agile, but because they’re capable of sustaining that style over many minutes, matches, and entire careers. You’d never ask Abyss to permanently compete in TNA’s X division, but to make a point, you can feature him in a program against wrestlers who regularly do.
Anyway, gimmick matches also serve to prove how tough a wrestler is, not just in death matches, which are clearly insane, but in general. Triple H had proven himself many times over by the start of 2000, but he gained a new legitimacy by going toe-to-toe with Mick Foley in a street fight and epic Hell in a Cell encounter in the first few months of the year. Without them, it’s doubtful “The Game” would be recognizable today. Foley himself earned immortality by taking a legendary bump a few years earlier.
It doesn’t always have to be something that involves some kind of foreign object or environment, either. Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart brought the idea of an hour-long match into modern times at WrestleMania XII, when previously it had been something guys like Ric Flair did at house shows on a nightly basis, just flat-out exhibiting the best of their technical abilities for a special occasion. Long matches are one thing, but this is something else entirely, especially when you’re given an opportunity to record multiple pinfalls or submissions (something that particularly set Michaels-Hart apart, since neither recorded one until overtime). Wrestlers like Triple H, The Rock, Kurt Angle, and Brock Lesnar later demonstrated that fans liked this specialty plenty much.
WWE developed the idea of TLC (tables, ladders, and chairs) thanks to the emerging popularity of tables in the early months of the new millennium, courtesy of the Dudley Boys, whose feud with Edge & Christian and Matt & Jeff Hardy culminated, or so everyone thought, at WrestleMania 2000, which was technically a ladder match. The three teams had such great chemistry, that they reprised that match, added more elements (officially), and TLC came about, and eventually reprised at WrestleMania X-7 the next year. WWE would bring back the TLC concept several times, before making it a PPV, with various elements from that configuration either used separately or all together. Ladder matches, popularized by Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon (Scott Hall) at WrestleMania X, also gave birth to Money in the Bank and TNA’s King of the Mountain and Feast or Fired matches. Each threw several competitors into the mix for the chances of winning coveted contracts or even championships themselves. Money in the Bank, too, eventually became its own PPV.
Why bother with these matches at all? Cage matches in themselves became so routine in WWE that they rarely in themselves made it on to PPVs after a while, instead becoming almost a fixture on TV. Fans can become jaded of even the most extreme specialties (as the hardcore phenomenon proved), so it’s always a balance of providing the best and most interesting wrestling possible. A lot of fans can’t seem to be interested in even the most basic wrestling, it can sometimes seem, so there’s always some new specialty being hatched, some new gimmick, or even the tried-and-true being utilized in new and innovative ways, or used as they’ve always been. It’s part and parcel of the wrestling experience.
And here you thought wrestling was just about basic wrestling.
LIII. Specialty Matches
Wrestling fans of the modern era might be scratching their heads, because “specialty matches” has almost been replaced by “specialty PPVs,” in that both TNA and WWE have taken to crafting entire PPV events around certain types of specialty matches.
But for the record, “specialty matches” refers to cage matches, ladder matches, Texas bullrope matches, Hell in the Cell, Elimination Chamber, elimination matches, no disqualification matches, time-limit matches, ambulance matches, on and on, otherwise known as gimmick matches, any time a match is conducted under anything but ordinary rules, where pinfalls and submissions are not the only things to keep in mind.
In previous eras, these matches would be the big blow off for a hot feud, the way to say, “This is the only way these two wrestlers are going to stop trying to beat each other up.” As with everything else, over time that just wasn’t good enough. To retain the attention of a wide audience these matches became more and more common. ECW built its reputation over allowing an overall hardcore style to become the norm, which in turn led to hardcore divisions in both WCW and WWE. It might even be argued that the cruiserweight division, by any other name, is basically a gimmick division, in that competitors routinely wrestle a unique, freewheeling style, not just because they’re smaller and more agile, but because they’re capable of sustaining that style over many minutes, matches, and entire careers. You’d never ask Abyss to permanently compete in TNA’s X division, but to make a point, you can feature him in a program against wrestlers who regularly do.
Anyway, gimmick matches also serve to prove how tough a wrestler is, not just in death matches, which are clearly insane, but in general. Triple H had proven himself many times over by the start of 2000, but he gained a new legitimacy by going toe-to-toe with Mick Foley in a street fight and epic Hell in a Cell encounter in the first few months of the year. Without them, it’s doubtful “The Game” would be recognizable today. Foley himself earned immortality by taking a legendary bump a few years earlier.
It doesn’t always have to be something that involves some kind of foreign object or environment, either. Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart brought the idea of an hour-long match into modern times at WrestleMania XII, when previously it had been something guys like Ric Flair did at house shows on a nightly basis, just flat-out exhibiting the best of their technical abilities for a special occasion. Long matches are one thing, but this is something else entirely, especially when you’re given an opportunity to record multiple pinfalls or submissions (something that particularly set Michaels-Hart apart, since neither recorded one until overtime). Wrestlers like Triple H, The Rock, Kurt Angle, and Brock Lesnar later demonstrated that fans liked this specialty plenty much.
WWE developed the idea of TLC (tables, ladders, and chairs) thanks to the emerging popularity of tables in the early months of the new millennium, courtesy of the Dudley Boys, whose feud with Edge & Christian and Matt & Jeff Hardy culminated, or so everyone thought, at WrestleMania 2000, which was technically a ladder match. The three teams had such great chemistry, that they reprised that match, added more elements (officially), and TLC came about, and eventually reprised at WrestleMania X-7 the next year. WWE would bring back the TLC concept several times, before making it a PPV, with various elements from that configuration either used separately or all together. Ladder matches, popularized by Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon (Scott Hall) at WrestleMania X, also gave birth to Money in the Bank and TNA’s King of the Mountain and Feast or Fired matches. Each threw several competitors into the mix for the chances of winning coveted contracts or even championships themselves. Money in the Bank, too, eventually became its own PPV.
Why bother with these matches at all? Cage matches in themselves became so routine in WWE that they rarely in themselves made it on to PPVs after a while, instead becoming almost a fixture on TV. Fans can become jaded of even the most extreme specialties (as the hardcore phenomenon proved), so it’s always a balance of providing the best and most interesting wrestling possible. A lot of fans can’t seem to be interested in even the most basic wrestling, it can sometimes seem, so there’s always some new specialty being hatched, some new gimmick, or even the tried-and-true being utilized in new and innovative ways, or used as they’ve always been. It’s part and parcel of the wrestling experience.
And here you thought wrestling was just about basic wrestling.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Jabroni Companion #24
Continuing our series of targeted topics, we now reach one every wrestler dreams of, and every fan secretly frets about:
LII. Championships
In sports entertainment, the concept of a champion is an incredibly tricky affair. Once everyone figured out that wrestling was scripted, the idea of a champion became pretty complicated. The NWA seemed incredibly eager to announce that its champions were chosen by a committee representing each of its major territories. Vince McMahon seems perfectly happy for everyone to believe his are champions of convenience, either designed to showcase the top stars, or calculated to move along a given storyline.
World champions, which can sometimes be considered heavyweight champions (but perhaps less so in the modern era) have been a staple of wrestling for more than a century, from George Hackenschmidt in 1904 to John Bradshaw Layfield in 2004. Owing to the fact that it’s very hard to appease everyone all the time, it’s always been a little difficult to determine a single, undisputed champion, not just on the world championship level, but from across the thousands of competitors at any given time, divided as they are in style, gender, weight and height, countries and languages, even permutations (it’s not all the time a tag team champion is also world champion).
Not every company competes on a global scale, naturally, so not every company can even rightly declare a world champion. So many championships have developed over the years, it’s sometimes hard to keep track of just how and why one of them should really carry any significance. The rule of thumb, as Vince McMahon will tell you, is that a championship should be given to someone who will be able to do something with it. Sometimes that means that the championship will forge a champion, and then sometimes that the champion will help define that championship. At no time is it guaranteed that either one is actually the best in that particular field, only that at that particular moment, it makes sense for the two to come together.
One of the things that really makes championships special is that they will make the wrestlers who hold them immediately involved in important matches, provided that the title is indeed on the line (this is not always the case), though any win against a champion, or a good match against them, is seen as a positive indicator. Sometimes fans will cheerfully ignore this distinction, but that’s just what fans like to do.
How many championships are too many for one company to promote? It’s too many when there’s a champion who doesn’t somehow feel special for being a champion, even in the slightest of ways. It’s too many when one of them feels redundant, when there truly seems nothing to prove or gain from its existence. No matter what that championship’s actually called (because world champions in wrestling compete just as internationally as world champions in baseball), if the idea behind it can’t properly be represented, it’s either time for reinvention, or recycling. Sometimes a good championship comes back, but it has to lay dormant for a while.
Good championships mean almost as much to a company as the wrestlers who capture them. They come to symbolize those wrestlers, the enduring legacy feeding itself, as long as that legacy is maintained, nurtured, and remembered. A championship title alone will not make or break a company’s fortunes, but if used properly it will help legitimize that company.
Fans will agonize over championships, over who has them, who’s had them many times, who may have had them too many times, those who never had them, and those who didn’t have enough time with them. Fans care more about them than they realize, and for that reason, championships are an integral part of wrestling. For all the talk that some championships have been spoiled by misuse over the years, that’s just another way of saying, the fans are obsessed with this stuff.
LII. Championships
In sports entertainment, the concept of a champion is an incredibly tricky affair. Once everyone figured out that wrestling was scripted, the idea of a champion became pretty complicated. The NWA seemed incredibly eager to announce that its champions were chosen by a committee representing each of its major territories. Vince McMahon seems perfectly happy for everyone to believe his are champions of convenience, either designed to showcase the top stars, or calculated to move along a given storyline.
World champions, which can sometimes be considered heavyweight champions (but perhaps less so in the modern era) have been a staple of wrestling for more than a century, from George Hackenschmidt in 1904 to John Bradshaw Layfield in 2004. Owing to the fact that it’s very hard to appease everyone all the time, it’s always been a little difficult to determine a single, undisputed champion, not just on the world championship level, but from across the thousands of competitors at any given time, divided as they are in style, gender, weight and height, countries and languages, even permutations (it’s not all the time a tag team champion is also world champion).
Not every company competes on a global scale, naturally, so not every company can even rightly declare a world champion. So many championships have developed over the years, it’s sometimes hard to keep track of just how and why one of them should really carry any significance. The rule of thumb, as Vince McMahon will tell you, is that a championship should be given to someone who will be able to do something with it. Sometimes that means that the championship will forge a champion, and then sometimes that the champion will help define that championship. At no time is it guaranteed that either one is actually the best in that particular field, only that at that particular moment, it makes sense for the two to come together.
One of the things that really makes championships special is that they will make the wrestlers who hold them immediately involved in important matches, provided that the title is indeed on the line (this is not always the case), though any win against a champion, or a good match against them, is seen as a positive indicator. Sometimes fans will cheerfully ignore this distinction, but that’s just what fans like to do.
How many championships are too many for one company to promote? It’s too many when there’s a champion who doesn’t somehow feel special for being a champion, even in the slightest of ways. It’s too many when one of them feels redundant, when there truly seems nothing to prove or gain from its existence. No matter what that championship’s actually called (because world champions in wrestling compete just as internationally as world champions in baseball), if the idea behind it can’t properly be represented, it’s either time for reinvention, or recycling. Sometimes a good championship comes back, but it has to lay dormant for a while.
Good championships mean almost as much to a company as the wrestlers who capture them. They come to symbolize those wrestlers, the enduring legacy feeding itself, as long as that legacy is maintained, nurtured, and remembered. A championship title alone will not make or break a company’s fortunes, but if used properly it will help legitimize that company.
Fans will agonize over championships, over who has them, who’s had them many times, who may have had them too many times, those who never had them, and those who didn’t have enough time with them. Fans care more about them than they realize, and for that reason, championships are an integral part of wrestling. For all the talk that some championships have been spoiled by misuse over the years, that’s just another way of saying, the fans are obsessed with this stuff.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Jabroni Companion #23
The first of three straight weeks of specialty topics! There are so many topics to cover in professional wrestling, and I’ve only just now hit the midpoint of the Companion…So once again, less chit-chat, more discussing!
LI. Tag Teams
This is a pertinent topic these days in the sense that the particular art of tag team wrestling is probably at its lowest in decades. At the start of the millennium, there were three major promotions, and each of them had active tag team divisions, building off the momentum that still existed from the innovations of the last several decades. Eventually, thanks to the consolidation of both WCW and ECW into what became known as WWE, the wrestling scene shrank, by necessity, and the resulting landscape had less room for tag teams.
Basically, once WWE became the sole source of popular wrestling entertainment, the independent scene had to concentrate more than ever on its individual stars. Guys like Christopher Daniels and AJ Styles, who actually competed in a tag team for a brief moment in WCW, were more valuable for what they could do on their own than what they might represent in some combination. This wasn’t always the case. Families like the Briscoes (I’m talking Gerald and Jack, mind you) and the Funks, among many others, often found great success both as individuals and in combinations. Many stars even today have been known as tag team wrestlers first (and not, in typical WWE fashion these days, because they were eventually placed in that situation after having failed to capture interest on their own) and then as individual stars.
TNA’s emergence, as well as the rise of ROH, helped make it possible to broaden that landscape a little again, but aside from a few core teams putting on their own spectacles, it can’t exactly be said that there were actual tag team divisions being reborn. WWE maintained separate tag team titles for both the Raw and Smackdown brands throughout the early brand era, before realizing that it’d be easier to merge them, and as a result have even fewer active tag teams on either roster.
Like I said, it wasn’t always this way. I’m not a complete wrestling historian (though that would certainly be a fun occupation!), so my knowledge only goes so far. Aside from the outright family units I already mentioned, there were teams like the Blackjacks and the Wild Samoans. The 1980s were a particular boom period, especially as NWA/WCW was concerned. The Midnight Rockers and the Midnight Express were tag teams in the purest sense, consisting of wrestlers who were fully committed to that particular division. There were the Andersons, who became co-opted by Ric Flair’s Four Horsemen. AWA featured the Fabulous Freebirds. And then there were the Road Warriors, basically the tag team equivalent of Hulk Hogan and the Bigger! Better! mentality of Vince McMahon’s WWF. WWF, as it was then known, favored a combination of what everyone else was doing, which meant, if it couldn’t have the Road Warriors, developed Demolition instead. If it couldn’t have the Andersons, it’d have the Hart Foundation instead. If it couldn’t have the Midnight Rockers, it’d have, well, the Rockers instead. There were also the British Bulldogs, the eventual acquisition of the Road Warriors as the Legion of Doom, and any number of other combinations of wrestlers who didn’t have anything else to do at the time (I would start a list of these, but it would be too depressing).
WCW continued developing its tag team division during the 1990s, with Harlem Heat perhaps the most successful alumni of that effort, as business began to change. In ECW, there were the Eliminators (Perry Saturn’s alma mater), Public Enemy, and the whole clan of Dudleys, from whence Bubba Ray and Devon graduated. WWF had teams like the Headshrinkers (a new pair of Wild Samoans that eventually gave us Rikishi), Men on a Mission (which eventually gave us Big Daddy V, or whatever you want to call him these days), the Quebecers, the Smokin’ Gunns (which eventually gave us Billy Gunn), and more, until the Attitude Era really exploded the scene. (Gosh, have I really not mentioned the Bushwhackers yet?) Billy Gunn formed the New Age Outlaws with Jesse James. Bradshaw and Faarooq (I think I finally got his name right!) became the Acolytes for Undertaker’s Ministry of Darkness, which later became the APA (short for Acolyte Protection Agency). Edge and Christian went from potential rivals to tag team partners in a heartbeat. Matt and Jeff Hardy emerged, went through growing pains, became Team Extreme with Lita. Remember the Headbangers? There was a time when WWF was swamped with gangs (I don’t really want to get into that, but it’d be fun!!!), and WCW kind of joined in, not even to speak of the Nation of Domination, D-Generation X, the New World Order, those guys, even the new Hart Foundation.
Part of how you could tell that the wrestling boom was coming to an end with the turn of the millennium was that it became harder and harder to find new tag teams. The division began to solidify around certain teams, especially in WWF. It became difficult to care about what WCW and ECW were doing. The more the system fed directly into any of the three organizations dominating the scene, the harder it was to find teams who had already formed not only strong alliances, but presence in the ring together.
So the WWE brand era produced pretty much M-N-M (Joey Mercury, Johnny Nitro, and Melina), and then it all went downhill from there. Paul London and Brian Kendrick were probably the last time anyone seriously tried to have a dynamic, thrilling tag team in WWE, and the fans crapped all over them. Lance Cade and Trevor Murdock were probably the last time WWE tried to be traditional. Once the brand titles were merged, WWE tended more toward super groups rather than true tag teams. And then you end up with random people thrown together just to have tag teams and tag team champions.
This is not to say that I believe the state of tag team wrestling is really all that different than it ever was. You still have, basically, two teams of two wrestlers competing against each other, sometimes with a title at stake. Some people have opinions about the quality of those teams, and the matches that result, but at the end of the day, how different are these matches likely to be? There is a pattern to most tag team matches, in which the team that’s supposed to win has one member that suffers throughout the match, and the other member who helps win that match. The team that’s supposed to lose basically gets to dominate however they like, whether by just tagging in and out at their convenience, or with moves that require both partners to pull off. Even with given tag teams, most wrestling promotions will have the main events of their TV programs, on a regular basis, feature tag team contests with combinations of whatever hot programs they have going on. Sometimes this will even be the main event of a PPV.
There’s a certain nostalgia for the times when wrestlers dedicated to tag teams can sell that tag team, and the whole division, as its own attraction, but no company in wrestling history has ever attempted to build itself around the tag team scene as a whole. That to me is certainly telling. It would certainly be interesting if someone tried (Mexican wrestling actually tends to do this sort of thing, but Mexican wrestling has very poor publicity as a whole), and I would be among the first to take an active interest in that company, but the fact as it remains to be revealed to most people who complain about the state of tag team wrestling is, most people don’t really care enough about, understand, appreciate, pay attention to the art of tag team wrestling, no matter what they tell you. I would even argue that wrestlers themselves these days don’t seem overly concerned about this apparent trend. Wrestling is mostly about individual spotlights.
But darned if I wouldn’t like a greater spotlight on tag teams, no matter how, or where, it’s accomplished.
LI. Tag Teams
This is a pertinent topic these days in the sense that the particular art of tag team wrestling is probably at its lowest in decades. At the start of the millennium, there were three major promotions, and each of them had active tag team divisions, building off the momentum that still existed from the innovations of the last several decades. Eventually, thanks to the consolidation of both WCW and ECW into what became known as WWE, the wrestling scene shrank, by necessity, and the resulting landscape had less room for tag teams.
Basically, once WWE became the sole source of popular wrestling entertainment, the independent scene had to concentrate more than ever on its individual stars. Guys like Christopher Daniels and AJ Styles, who actually competed in a tag team for a brief moment in WCW, were more valuable for what they could do on their own than what they might represent in some combination. This wasn’t always the case. Families like the Briscoes (I’m talking Gerald and Jack, mind you) and the Funks, among many others, often found great success both as individuals and in combinations. Many stars even today have been known as tag team wrestlers first (and not, in typical WWE fashion these days, because they were eventually placed in that situation after having failed to capture interest on their own) and then as individual stars.
TNA’s emergence, as well as the rise of ROH, helped make it possible to broaden that landscape a little again, but aside from a few core teams putting on their own spectacles, it can’t exactly be said that there were actual tag team divisions being reborn. WWE maintained separate tag team titles for both the Raw and Smackdown brands throughout the early brand era, before realizing that it’d be easier to merge them, and as a result have even fewer active tag teams on either roster.
Like I said, it wasn’t always this way. I’m not a complete wrestling historian (though that would certainly be a fun occupation!), so my knowledge only goes so far. Aside from the outright family units I already mentioned, there were teams like the Blackjacks and the Wild Samoans. The 1980s were a particular boom period, especially as NWA/WCW was concerned. The Midnight Rockers and the Midnight Express were tag teams in the purest sense, consisting of wrestlers who were fully committed to that particular division. There were the Andersons, who became co-opted by Ric Flair’s Four Horsemen. AWA featured the Fabulous Freebirds. And then there were the Road Warriors, basically the tag team equivalent of Hulk Hogan and the Bigger! Better! mentality of Vince McMahon’s WWF. WWF, as it was then known, favored a combination of what everyone else was doing, which meant, if it couldn’t have the Road Warriors, developed Demolition instead. If it couldn’t have the Andersons, it’d have the Hart Foundation instead. If it couldn’t have the Midnight Rockers, it’d have, well, the Rockers instead. There were also the British Bulldogs, the eventual acquisition of the Road Warriors as the Legion of Doom, and any number of other combinations of wrestlers who didn’t have anything else to do at the time (I would start a list of these, but it would be too depressing).
WCW continued developing its tag team division during the 1990s, with Harlem Heat perhaps the most successful alumni of that effort, as business began to change. In ECW, there were the Eliminators (Perry Saturn’s alma mater), Public Enemy, and the whole clan of Dudleys, from whence Bubba Ray and Devon graduated. WWF had teams like the Headshrinkers (a new pair of Wild Samoans that eventually gave us Rikishi), Men on a Mission (which eventually gave us Big Daddy V, or whatever you want to call him these days), the Quebecers, the Smokin’ Gunns (which eventually gave us Billy Gunn), and more, until the Attitude Era really exploded the scene. (Gosh, have I really not mentioned the Bushwhackers yet?) Billy Gunn formed the New Age Outlaws with Jesse James. Bradshaw and Faarooq (I think I finally got his name right!) became the Acolytes for Undertaker’s Ministry of Darkness, which later became the APA (short for Acolyte Protection Agency). Edge and Christian went from potential rivals to tag team partners in a heartbeat. Matt and Jeff Hardy emerged, went through growing pains, became Team Extreme with Lita. Remember the Headbangers? There was a time when WWF was swamped with gangs (I don’t really want to get into that, but it’d be fun!!!), and WCW kind of joined in, not even to speak of the Nation of Domination, D-Generation X, the New World Order, those guys, even the new Hart Foundation.
Part of how you could tell that the wrestling boom was coming to an end with the turn of the millennium was that it became harder and harder to find new tag teams. The division began to solidify around certain teams, especially in WWF. It became difficult to care about what WCW and ECW were doing. The more the system fed directly into any of the three organizations dominating the scene, the harder it was to find teams who had already formed not only strong alliances, but presence in the ring together.
So the WWE brand era produced pretty much M-N-M (Joey Mercury, Johnny Nitro, and Melina), and then it all went downhill from there. Paul London and Brian Kendrick were probably the last time anyone seriously tried to have a dynamic, thrilling tag team in WWE, and the fans crapped all over them. Lance Cade and Trevor Murdock were probably the last time WWE tried to be traditional. Once the brand titles were merged, WWE tended more toward super groups rather than true tag teams. And then you end up with random people thrown together just to have tag teams and tag team champions.
This is not to say that I believe the state of tag team wrestling is really all that different than it ever was. You still have, basically, two teams of two wrestlers competing against each other, sometimes with a title at stake. Some people have opinions about the quality of those teams, and the matches that result, but at the end of the day, how different are these matches likely to be? There is a pattern to most tag team matches, in which the team that’s supposed to win has one member that suffers throughout the match, and the other member who helps win that match. The team that’s supposed to lose basically gets to dominate however they like, whether by just tagging in and out at their convenience, or with moves that require both partners to pull off. Even with given tag teams, most wrestling promotions will have the main events of their TV programs, on a regular basis, feature tag team contests with combinations of whatever hot programs they have going on. Sometimes this will even be the main event of a PPV.
There’s a certain nostalgia for the times when wrestlers dedicated to tag teams can sell that tag team, and the whole division, as its own attraction, but no company in wrestling history has ever attempted to build itself around the tag team scene as a whole. That to me is certainly telling. It would certainly be interesting if someone tried (Mexican wrestling actually tends to do this sort of thing, but Mexican wrestling has very poor publicity as a whole), and I would be among the first to take an active interest in that company, but the fact as it remains to be revealed to most people who complain about the state of tag team wrestling is, most people don’t really care enough about, understand, appreciate, pay attention to the art of tag team wrestling, no matter what they tell you. I would even argue that wrestlers themselves these days don’t seem overly concerned about this apparent trend. Wrestling is mostly about individual spotlights.
But darned if I wouldn’t like a greater spotlight on tag teams, no matter how, or where, it’s accomplished.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Jabroni Companion #22
This one will be a peculiar mix of talent, I’m sure, so let’s just dig right in:
XLV. AJ Styles
This guy should be a living legend. Everyone from Michelle McCool to John Morrison has been accused of ripping him off; to have established a style and move-set that is that recognizable would be remarkable in any era, but certainly the modern one. Styles is at the very least the heir of Shawn Michaels, a superstar who has completely obliterated the line between light and heavyweight competitor. He just happens to be the most consistent and recognizable and acceptable face of TNA.
“Consistent” may not be a word you hear associated with Styles too often. He’s one of those wrestlers Pro Wrestling Illustrated constantly complains about, even after putting him atop the 2010 PWI 500, the first TNA star to accomplish that honor. But the truth is, AJ Styles has been consistent since at least 2002, when he first came to national prominence as one of the first pillars of TNA, having established undeniable indy credentials the likes of which friend and rival Christopher Daniels can still only dream about. Styles has had multiple runs as TNA champion, including an epic reign that spanned half a year between 2009 and 2010 that saw him perform just about every conceivable role for a company standard-bearer, which was all the more remarkable in that halfway through, he was expected to continue that reign during the dawn of the Hogan/Bischoff era. He’s the only wrestler on any talent roster who can be instantly plugged into any program and being taken seriously (except by stingy critics).
He’s everything Shawn Michaels was never able to become, actually. HBK achieved his dream, and then descended into a nightmare that eventually robbed years off his career, only to make a comeback that basically placed him in the “purgatory” Styles has enjoyed, while still amassing championships, no less. When all is said and done, AJ Styles will be known as one of the most significant superstars in the history of professional wrestling. He’s done more than Ric Flair and Sting, even, despite the lack of similar recognition and sustained acclaim. If TNA fans treat him like this, it’s no wonder no one expects he’d get any respect from WWE, because it’s everything he can do to defy his hometown critics! And to think he was going to retire in 2009. His best years are still ahead.
XLVI. Scott Steiner
No superstar ever suffered more from success than Scott Steiner. He finally reached the pinnacle of singles success in WCW, only for the company to implode around him. Probably the best-developed heel of that time, he was to become one of WWE’s prized acquisitions in the fall of 2002, but showed up on Raw in 2003 and suffered the backlash of the Triple H backlash (a true wrestling paradox!) instead. He spent the rest of that year in a program with Andrew “Test” Martin, another wrestler whose unfortunate brushings with fate forever mired his career, and then showed up again in TNA in a successful supporting role no one respected…
Yeah, so the one-time tag team partner of Rick Steiner (his actual brother!) was always known as a muscle-based wrestler, but used to be more fluid and agile before seriously pumping up (not to be morbid, but he’s also still alive!) and losing the respect of the fans. But this dude seriously had game! (No pun intended!)
All of which is to say that like AJ Styles, Scott Steiner’s legacy should hopefully age more gracefully than his career.
XLVII. Too Cool
“Grandmaster Sexay,” Brian Christopher Lawler! “Scotty 2 Hotty,” Scott Taylor! Together, they were among the most unlikely and unintended superstars in the history of the WWE! Granted, adding the still more unlikely dance sensation Rikishi to the mix probably helped a great deal, but Too Cool was itself one of the great tag teams of the last great tag team era.
Lawler probably ruined his career in the aftermath of the Benoit murder-suicide, becoming one of the worst emissaries of professional wrestling, but the Hip Hop Drop will still be legendary decades from now, surpassed in brilliance only by The Worm, a move that made Scotty 2 Hotty an icon well beyond the point where WWE seriously expected to see him on the payroll (scored him two WrestleMania appearances!). That’s all I’ve really got to say about Too Cool, that they’re infinitely worth remembering, even if in the grand scheme they didn’t pass the test of time as regular members of the wrestling community quite like the Hardys, Edge, and Christian (let alone JBL!). But who would deny them, if the circumstances presented themselves, a reunion tour?
XLVIII. Lex Luger
The juggernaut with the worst timing in wrestling, Lex Luger was supposed to be the Next Big Thing a couple of times, both in WCW and WWE, and maybe even in TNA, if things had turned out differently several times.
In WCW, he had to contend with Ric Flair and his own buddy, Sting, who probably replaced him as the new franchise player. In WWE, so the story goes, he leaked the results of WrestleMania 10, and lost his shot at the WWE title. Back in WCW, Sting once again overshadowed him as the New World Order’s greatest threat. And in the early days of TNA, he became embroiled in controversy with the death of Miss Elizabeth. The dude just could not catch a legitimate break.
So I’ll always cherish things like Summer Slam and Survivor Series 1993, when he really did seem like he was going to go all the way, or the fact that he was Nitro’s first big splash, or that he was the “Total Package” long before people refused to accept Chris Masters in a similar capacity. Maybe if WWE ended up putting together a DVD set of Luger’s greatest moments, history might better remember that he really did make an indelible contribution to professional wrestling.
XLIX. Brock Lesnar
Even before he jumped the WWE ship in 2004, the buzz had worn off of Brock Lesnar. He possessed all the talent to be a bigger star than anyone else in the history of wrestling, but you’d hardly know it. Within a few months of his departure, people were already quick to call his old stomping grounds, Smackdown, the unacknowledged red-headed stepdaughter of the WWE. If the company’s biggest star had just been competing exclusively for that brand, what was that supposed to mean, then?
Lesnar made the leap in 2002, and worked his way up the roster in rapid succession, winning the King of the Ring, and then stealing Summer Slam from Shawn Michaels’ comeback. Lesnar himself found the pattern that then emerged a little uncomfortable: repeated matches with the Big Show and Undertaker, plus the much-heralded contests with Kurt Angle, including the infamous WrestleMania XIX encounter with the botched shooting star press. Suffice to say, Brock Lesnar is the star who lost the most from the brand split. Matches against opponents like John Cena and Paul London (it really happened!) were extremely atypical. Brock himself could sometimes be difficult on that front. But the fact remains, there was never and has been since anyone quite like Brock Lesnar.
After quitting the ring for the gridiron (a bid that nearly succeeded), he took a few more matches, by necessity in Japan, at least one a return engagement with Angle, and then…MMA. I’d say that a masterpiece film like WARRIOR would never have been possible without Brock Lesnar, surely the most charismatic MMA fighter to emerge from UFC and its rivals. Should Brock ever compete in the squared circle, rather than the octagon, again, it’d be in an instant the biggest wrestling news in years. He’s still got time to make that kind of decision, too! Do his few years in WWE already constitute a lasting legacy? You bet.
L. Booker T
Almost the reverse Scott Steiner, Booker T is the tag team star who emerged as a frontliner in WCW’s final days, and just about managed to continue his momentum into WWE. With his brother Stevie Ray (who was actually the first of them to tease a ringside career) in Harlem Heat, Booker was a standout in WCW long before he worked his way through the singles ranks. As he himself reminded the fans, he started amassing a considerable amount of world championships, and headlined the Alliance once the Invasion took place in WWE. He sat on the backburner for years, and then gracefully seized the first available opportunity to reclaim his thrown (I mean, as a world champion).
Then he made the switch to TNA, and had some success there, and then came back to WWE, where he has since the start of 2011 been sitting ringside for Smackdown. Not too bad for someone who used to be accused (rightly) and using thinly-veiled versions of The Rock’s patented moves. But only Booker can pull off the Spinaroonie! He’s another star who would absolutely benefit from a DVD package, and he’s as likely as anyone to eventually get that honor from WWE. And then, Booker T would be on his way to immortality!
XLV. AJ Styles
This guy should be a living legend. Everyone from Michelle McCool to John Morrison has been accused of ripping him off; to have established a style and move-set that is that recognizable would be remarkable in any era, but certainly the modern one. Styles is at the very least the heir of Shawn Michaels, a superstar who has completely obliterated the line between light and heavyweight competitor. He just happens to be the most consistent and recognizable and acceptable face of TNA.
“Consistent” may not be a word you hear associated with Styles too often. He’s one of those wrestlers Pro Wrestling Illustrated constantly complains about, even after putting him atop the 2010 PWI 500, the first TNA star to accomplish that honor. But the truth is, AJ Styles has been consistent since at least 2002, when he first came to national prominence as one of the first pillars of TNA, having established undeniable indy credentials the likes of which friend and rival Christopher Daniels can still only dream about. Styles has had multiple runs as TNA champion, including an epic reign that spanned half a year between 2009 and 2010 that saw him perform just about every conceivable role for a company standard-bearer, which was all the more remarkable in that halfway through, he was expected to continue that reign during the dawn of the Hogan/Bischoff era. He’s the only wrestler on any talent roster who can be instantly plugged into any program and being taken seriously (except by stingy critics).
He’s everything Shawn Michaels was never able to become, actually. HBK achieved his dream, and then descended into a nightmare that eventually robbed years off his career, only to make a comeback that basically placed him in the “purgatory” Styles has enjoyed, while still amassing championships, no less. When all is said and done, AJ Styles will be known as one of the most significant superstars in the history of professional wrestling. He’s done more than Ric Flair and Sting, even, despite the lack of similar recognition and sustained acclaim. If TNA fans treat him like this, it’s no wonder no one expects he’d get any respect from WWE, because it’s everything he can do to defy his hometown critics! And to think he was going to retire in 2009. His best years are still ahead.
XLVI. Scott Steiner
No superstar ever suffered more from success than Scott Steiner. He finally reached the pinnacle of singles success in WCW, only for the company to implode around him. Probably the best-developed heel of that time, he was to become one of WWE’s prized acquisitions in the fall of 2002, but showed up on Raw in 2003 and suffered the backlash of the Triple H backlash (a true wrestling paradox!) instead. He spent the rest of that year in a program with Andrew “Test” Martin, another wrestler whose unfortunate brushings with fate forever mired his career, and then showed up again in TNA in a successful supporting role no one respected…
Yeah, so the one-time tag team partner of Rick Steiner (his actual brother!) was always known as a muscle-based wrestler, but used to be more fluid and agile before seriously pumping up (not to be morbid, but he’s also still alive!) and losing the respect of the fans. But this dude seriously had game! (No pun intended!)
All of which is to say that like AJ Styles, Scott Steiner’s legacy should hopefully age more gracefully than his career.
XLVII. Too Cool
“Grandmaster Sexay,” Brian Christopher Lawler! “Scotty 2 Hotty,” Scott Taylor! Together, they were among the most unlikely and unintended superstars in the history of the WWE! Granted, adding the still more unlikely dance sensation Rikishi to the mix probably helped a great deal, but Too Cool was itself one of the great tag teams of the last great tag team era.
Lawler probably ruined his career in the aftermath of the Benoit murder-suicide, becoming one of the worst emissaries of professional wrestling, but the Hip Hop Drop will still be legendary decades from now, surpassed in brilliance only by The Worm, a move that made Scotty 2 Hotty an icon well beyond the point where WWE seriously expected to see him on the payroll (scored him two WrestleMania appearances!). That’s all I’ve really got to say about Too Cool, that they’re infinitely worth remembering, even if in the grand scheme they didn’t pass the test of time as regular members of the wrestling community quite like the Hardys, Edge, and Christian (let alone JBL!). But who would deny them, if the circumstances presented themselves, a reunion tour?
XLVIII. Lex Luger
The juggernaut with the worst timing in wrestling, Lex Luger was supposed to be the Next Big Thing a couple of times, both in WCW and WWE, and maybe even in TNA, if things had turned out differently several times.
In WCW, he had to contend with Ric Flair and his own buddy, Sting, who probably replaced him as the new franchise player. In WWE, so the story goes, he leaked the results of WrestleMania 10, and lost his shot at the WWE title. Back in WCW, Sting once again overshadowed him as the New World Order’s greatest threat. And in the early days of TNA, he became embroiled in controversy with the death of Miss Elizabeth. The dude just could not catch a legitimate break.
So I’ll always cherish things like Summer Slam and Survivor Series 1993, when he really did seem like he was going to go all the way, or the fact that he was Nitro’s first big splash, or that he was the “Total Package” long before people refused to accept Chris Masters in a similar capacity. Maybe if WWE ended up putting together a DVD set of Luger’s greatest moments, history might better remember that he really did make an indelible contribution to professional wrestling.
XLIX. Brock Lesnar
Even before he jumped the WWE ship in 2004, the buzz had worn off of Brock Lesnar. He possessed all the talent to be a bigger star than anyone else in the history of wrestling, but you’d hardly know it. Within a few months of his departure, people were already quick to call his old stomping grounds, Smackdown, the unacknowledged red-headed stepdaughter of the WWE. If the company’s biggest star had just been competing exclusively for that brand, what was that supposed to mean, then?
Lesnar made the leap in 2002, and worked his way up the roster in rapid succession, winning the King of the Ring, and then stealing Summer Slam from Shawn Michaels’ comeback. Lesnar himself found the pattern that then emerged a little uncomfortable: repeated matches with the Big Show and Undertaker, plus the much-heralded contests with Kurt Angle, including the infamous WrestleMania XIX encounter with the botched shooting star press. Suffice to say, Brock Lesnar is the star who lost the most from the brand split. Matches against opponents like John Cena and Paul London (it really happened!) were extremely atypical. Brock himself could sometimes be difficult on that front. But the fact remains, there was never and has been since anyone quite like Brock Lesnar.
After quitting the ring for the gridiron (a bid that nearly succeeded), he took a few more matches, by necessity in Japan, at least one a return engagement with Angle, and then…MMA. I’d say that a masterpiece film like WARRIOR would never have been possible without Brock Lesnar, surely the most charismatic MMA fighter to emerge from UFC and its rivals. Should Brock ever compete in the squared circle, rather than the octagon, again, it’d be in an instant the biggest wrestling news in years. He’s still got time to make that kind of decision, too! Do his few years in WWE already constitute a lasting legacy? You bet.
L. Booker T
Almost the reverse Scott Steiner, Booker T is the tag team star who emerged as a frontliner in WCW’s final days, and just about managed to continue his momentum into WWE. With his brother Stevie Ray (who was actually the first of them to tease a ringside career) in Harlem Heat, Booker was a standout in WCW long before he worked his way through the singles ranks. As he himself reminded the fans, he started amassing a considerable amount of world championships, and headlined the Alliance once the Invasion took place in WWE. He sat on the backburner for years, and then gracefully seized the first available opportunity to reclaim his thrown (I mean, as a world champion).
Then he made the switch to TNA, and had some success there, and then came back to WWE, where he has since the start of 2011 been sitting ringside for Smackdown. Not too bad for someone who used to be accused (rightly) and using thinly-veiled versions of The Rock’s patented moves. But only Booker can pull off the Spinaroonie! He’s another star who would absolutely benefit from a DVD package, and he’s as likely as anyone to eventually get that honor from WWE. And then, Booker T would be on his way to immortality!
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Jabroni Companion #21
I’ve talked about WWE, WCW, TNA, even ROH, but I haven’t yet talked about…
XLIV. ECW
ECW, like WCW and TNA, began as an offshoot of the National Wrestling Alliance, and originally stood for Eastern Championship Wrestling. Some of its original stars were castoff superstars like Jimmy Snuka, Don Muraco, and Tito Santana, each of whom had at least one reign as heavyweight championship between 1992 and 1993, notably well beyond the primes of their careers. The Sandman straddled this period, too, but perhaps more notable was Shane Douglas capturing the title for the first time, which led to Sabu, which led to Terry Funk, which led back to Douglas, which led, officially, to Extreme Championship Wrestling in 1994.
ECW was the baby of Paul Heyman, who crafted his dream out of a bingo hall in Philadelphia, with a bunch of spare-parts wrestlers he managed to acquire over the years. To hear him explain it, he attained success the Moneyball way, by finding a way to utilizing wrestlers other organizations were underappreciating, mostly by carefully crafting matches to their strengths. Eventually, ECW became known, point-of-fact, as a hardcore haven a style that had developed organically, but was so unique, that alone helped capture the national spotlight.
Still, while all that hardcore mayhem was going on, Heyman really was sticking to his dream, and along the way helped pave the way for a more international style of wrestling to emerge, directly inspiring WCW’s cruiserweight division by bringing in stars like Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, and Chris Jericho. He salvaged the careers of Steve Austin and Mick Foley and helped transition them to WWE immortality. Hell, he even gave us the Dudley Boys (originally a whole Dudley dynasty!).
Still, for some reason, ECW became known for the chants of, well, “ECW! ECW!,” and stars like Sandman, Sabu, and Tommy Dreamer, so-called innovators of violence who bucked the standards of the mainstream, regularly giving Joey Styles the license to craft the catchphrase “Oh my god!” while performing the most insane moves imaginable, all the while shedding buckets of blood. This is what the legacy of the company became.
Early on, though, Heyman realized he needed help to keep his flimsy business model afloat, and turned to an unlikely partnership with WWE for a little added exposure. The original ECW invasion was last millennium, folks. The company did eventually get a national cable TV deal, but it was well beyond ECW’s peak. Eventually, Heyman realized you need real money in order to pay the talent, and by some coincidence, folded his little enterprise at around the same time WWE bought WCW in 2001. Then, of course, the Invasion happened, and not only did WCW wrestlers participate, but ECW competitors as well. It might be argued that Rob Van Dam’s popular career began that year (it perhaps cannot be stressed enough that in the original ECW, he was never a heavyweight champion).
In 2005, Vince McMahon held the ECW One Night Stand PPV, reuniting many of the company’s top stars, in what most people expected to be a one-off event. Little did most people realize that TNA had actually attempted much the same thing, not so long after the Invasion of WWE officially concluded, led by the indomitable and enigmatic Raven, who went on to become, as he had been in ECW, one of its early stars. In 2006, WWE tried it again, but this time had something a little bit more radical in mind. Just as WWE itself was now two brands, Raw and Smackdown, ECW was about to be resurrected as an additional internal promotion, led by RVD, other familiar stars, and a smattering of new faces meant to represent the next generation. The only one of those who stuck it out with WWE was CM Punk, an electric competitor who originally made a name for himself in ROH, where he had a hard time sharing the spotlight with Samoa Joe (hell, even Bryan Danielson couldn’t really do that).
From the beginning, this new ECW was derided as McMahon’s last chance to completely bury Heyman’s dream by subverting the “original hardcore intentions” and watering it down to a third-tier spotlight for aging veterans and newcomers no one cared about. It probably didn’t help that RVD quickly lost both the ECW and WWE heavyweight titles thanks to an incident with the law, and was replaced as the figurehead of the new ECW by WWE stalwart the Big Show. Kurt Angle had been intended to be a star of the brand, but had opted for retirement from the rigors of WWE travel for the light schedule of TNA, which his battered body could better handle. Chris Benoit, a year later, continued that unfortunate trend of truly respected wrestlers being unable to fulfill the ECW commitment a bit more spectacularly, and by that, I mean that he made news in all the wrong ways, nearly sinking the entire sport in the process. Of course, he was dead; what did he care?
Punk graduated to the front of the class, now that all the distractions were gone, but ended up sharing it with the emerging John Morrison, who had at that time been establishing his singles credentials with Jeff Hardy on Raw (it still boggles me that fans were so lukewarm about the Punk-Morrison feud, and that all three had a quasi-reunion on Smackdown a few years later, and still no one cared). The ECW detractors soon enough got what they thought they wanted, when Chavo Guerrero became champion, then Kane, then Matt Hardy, then Mark Henry, each symbols of WWE futility in their own way…Bobby Lashley had been champion in 2007, the “Real Deal” who was supposed to be WWE’s next big thing (if you’ll pardon the expression). People hated him as ECW champion, saw him as a distraction. The next emerging star to hold the intended honor was Jack Swagger in 2009. This was about the time when WWE really started to use ECW as a platform for new stars, including Kofi Kingston. Swagger had been something of an indy sensation, and his elevation into a champion was completely unexpected, but he soon earned the respect of those still paying attention.
When his term ended, ECW gave the wrestling world its final gift. Christian had been a mainstay within WWE until his defection to TNA in TNA, where he believed, rightly so as it turned out, that his talents would find greater respect. Before Kurt Angle went there, he was the first star to truly steal the spotlight from company founder Jeff Jarrett. Yet the siren call of WWE reached Christian’s ears again, and he found himself the newest member of the ECW roster, and soon enough its champion. In fact, aside from Tommy Dreamer having his last moment of ECW glory and Ezekiel Jackson, Christian might go down as this version of ECW’s last and greatest champion.
Anyway, the brand folded in early 2010, replaced by NXT and the returning Tough Enough reality competition, thanks to persistent fan apathy. TNA held another ECW invasion later that fall, which gave birth to EV2.0…by which point even ECW’s biggest fans decided enough was enough. A bald Sabu just isn’t the same Sabu.
ECW’s ultimate legacy? Controversy, innovative wrestling, some of the sport’s biggest stars…All in all, a pretty consistent message, from 1992 to 2010. Not too bad…
XLIV. ECW
ECW, like WCW and TNA, began as an offshoot of the National Wrestling Alliance, and originally stood for Eastern Championship Wrestling. Some of its original stars were castoff superstars like Jimmy Snuka, Don Muraco, and Tito Santana, each of whom had at least one reign as heavyweight championship between 1992 and 1993, notably well beyond the primes of their careers. The Sandman straddled this period, too, but perhaps more notable was Shane Douglas capturing the title for the first time, which led to Sabu, which led to Terry Funk, which led back to Douglas, which led, officially, to Extreme Championship Wrestling in 1994.
ECW was the baby of Paul Heyman, who crafted his dream out of a bingo hall in Philadelphia, with a bunch of spare-parts wrestlers he managed to acquire over the years. To hear him explain it, he attained success the Moneyball way, by finding a way to utilizing wrestlers other organizations were underappreciating, mostly by carefully crafting matches to their strengths. Eventually, ECW became known, point-of-fact, as a hardcore haven a style that had developed organically, but was so unique, that alone helped capture the national spotlight.
Still, while all that hardcore mayhem was going on, Heyman really was sticking to his dream, and along the way helped pave the way for a more international style of wrestling to emerge, directly inspiring WCW’s cruiserweight division by bringing in stars like Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, and Chris Jericho. He salvaged the careers of Steve Austin and Mick Foley and helped transition them to WWE immortality. Hell, he even gave us the Dudley Boys (originally a whole Dudley dynasty!).
Still, for some reason, ECW became known for the chants of, well, “ECW! ECW!,” and stars like Sandman, Sabu, and Tommy Dreamer, so-called innovators of violence who bucked the standards of the mainstream, regularly giving Joey Styles the license to craft the catchphrase “Oh my god!” while performing the most insane moves imaginable, all the while shedding buckets of blood. This is what the legacy of the company became.
Early on, though, Heyman realized he needed help to keep his flimsy business model afloat, and turned to an unlikely partnership with WWE for a little added exposure. The original ECW invasion was last millennium, folks. The company did eventually get a national cable TV deal, but it was well beyond ECW’s peak. Eventually, Heyman realized you need real money in order to pay the talent, and by some coincidence, folded his little enterprise at around the same time WWE bought WCW in 2001. Then, of course, the Invasion happened, and not only did WCW wrestlers participate, but ECW competitors as well. It might be argued that Rob Van Dam’s popular career began that year (it perhaps cannot be stressed enough that in the original ECW, he was never a heavyweight champion).
In 2005, Vince McMahon held the ECW One Night Stand PPV, reuniting many of the company’s top stars, in what most people expected to be a one-off event. Little did most people realize that TNA had actually attempted much the same thing, not so long after the Invasion of WWE officially concluded, led by the indomitable and enigmatic Raven, who went on to become, as he had been in ECW, one of its early stars. In 2006, WWE tried it again, but this time had something a little bit more radical in mind. Just as WWE itself was now two brands, Raw and Smackdown, ECW was about to be resurrected as an additional internal promotion, led by RVD, other familiar stars, and a smattering of new faces meant to represent the next generation. The only one of those who stuck it out with WWE was CM Punk, an electric competitor who originally made a name for himself in ROH, where he had a hard time sharing the spotlight with Samoa Joe (hell, even Bryan Danielson couldn’t really do that).
From the beginning, this new ECW was derided as McMahon’s last chance to completely bury Heyman’s dream by subverting the “original hardcore intentions” and watering it down to a third-tier spotlight for aging veterans and newcomers no one cared about. It probably didn’t help that RVD quickly lost both the ECW and WWE heavyweight titles thanks to an incident with the law, and was replaced as the figurehead of the new ECW by WWE stalwart the Big Show. Kurt Angle had been intended to be a star of the brand, but had opted for retirement from the rigors of WWE travel for the light schedule of TNA, which his battered body could better handle. Chris Benoit, a year later, continued that unfortunate trend of truly respected wrestlers being unable to fulfill the ECW commitment a bit more spectacularly, and by that, I mean that he made news in all the wrong ways, nearly sinking the entire sport in the process. Of course, he was dead; what did he care?
Punk graduated to the front of the class, now that all the distractions were gone, but ended up sharing it with the emerging John Morrison, who had at that time been establishing his singles credentials with Jeff Hardy on Raw (it still boggles me that fans were so lukewarm about the Punk-Morrison feud, and that all three had a quasi-reunion on Smackdown a few years later, and still no one cared). The ECW detractors soon enough got what they thought they wanted, when Chavo Guerrero became champion, then Kane, then Matt Hardy, then Mark Henry, each symbols of WWE futility in their own way…Bobby Lashley had been champion in 2007, the “Real Deal” who was supposed to be WWE’s next big thing (if you’ll pardon the expression). People hated him as ECW champion, saw him as a distraction. The next emerging star to hold the intended honor was Jack Swagger in 2009. This was about the time when WWE really started to use ECW as a platform for new stars, including Kofi Kingston. Swagger had been something of an indy sensation, and his elevation into a champion was completely unexpected, but he soon earned the respect of those still paying attention.
When his term ended, ECW gave the wrestling world its final gift. Christian had been a mainstay within WWE until his defection to TNA in TNA, where he believed, rightly so as it turned out, that his talents would find greater respect. Before Kurt Angle went there, he was the first star to truly steal the spotlight from company founder Jeff Jarrett. Yet the siren call of WWE reached Christian’s ears again, and he found himself the newest member of the ECW roster, and soon enough its champion. In fact, aside from Tommy Dreamer having his last moment of ECW glory and Ezekiel Jackson, Christian might go down as this version of ECW’s last and greatest champion.
Anyway, the brand folded in early 2010, replaced by NXT and the returning Tough Enough reality competition, thanks to persistent fan apathy. TNA held another ECW invasion later that fall, which gave birth to EV2.0…by which point even ECW’s biggest fans decided enough was enough. A bald Sabu just isn’t the same Sabu.
ECW’s ultimate legacy? Controversy, innovative wrestling, some of the sport’s biggest stars…All in all, a pretty consistent message, from 1992 to 2010. Not too bad…
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