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CENATAR RETURNS

Much to the surprise of everyone, John Cena made his return on last night’s Rumble, drawing #30 and thusly winning the entire thing while pointing to his surgically repaired breast.

Many people have mixed feelings about Cena. Eh… I mean many people hate Cena’s face and want him to die a miserable death in front of the half of the crowd made up of kids and teenaged girls that actually like him.

I don’t mind Cena at all. He surely doesn’t invoke murderous urges from me. But lately, I’m like “meh”. It’s getting a bit old to me. I guess, being the 29 year old mark that I am, I have to admit that I’m finally getting tired of Cena.

My beef is this, Jeff hearty FINALLY made it to the top. Kennedy, fought his greenhornishness and a few road blocks and made it back to the top. MVP was moving quite nicely towards the top. Now that Cena is back this is what’s going to happen; all those guys like Jeff Hearty and Kennedy will be tossed in a flurry of never ending “triple threats” and “four way furies” chasing Cena for the belt once he wins it back in a week or two. After this, they will likely fade back into midcarder hell until a couple of other main eventers get injured.

You have to admit that it was pretty crafty on WWE’s part tossing Cena into the #30 spot and giving him the win. What that did was throw Cena face first back into the title run without suffering the same blowback that Chris Jerry Curl got.

Now, t-shirt with targets on them and army gear wearing teddy bears can fly off the WWE shelves again, what joy! I mean let’s face it, the reason WWE refuses to turn Cena heel must be because he’s selling merchandise and or tickets. You can’t run a TV show by forcing people to watch someone they despise. Whether Vince is a megalomaniac or not, he can’t control the networks canning his ass for putting crap on TV.

WARRIOR PUTS A RESTRAINING ORDER ON THE INTERNET!

I didn’t read the blog from our friendly neighborhood nut job, Warrior aka Jim Hellwig aka The Ultimate Warrior. I don’t even really want to read it; he just doesn’t interest me much anymore. But I DO find it funny that he actually has cops protecting him 24/7 from emails sent by angry readers of whatever the hell he said. I’m sure it was “shocking” and “controversial” and stupid enough to piss of the legions of Batman nerds flooding the net. I mean, honestly, I highly doubt the fans of ‘Brokeback Mountain’ want to kill a former wrestler.

MY OWN THOUGHTS ON HEATH

I don’t wish a premature death on anyone. It’s a shame what his loved ones are dealing with as I know what it is to lose someone young and close. Of course that doesn’t make me a Heath Ledger fan now that he’s gone. In fact, I still think he’s the worst possible choice for the role of “The Joker”. I can name 10 guys off the top of my head that would have made more sense.

Once those (possibly planted) scene stills leaked, we all agreed (some did at least) on my forums that Ledger was a TERRIBLE choice and he looked like a psychopathic cross dresser. Then the short trailer got released and OH DEAR LORD now Heath was BORN to play the role? I just ask a simple question: Why? What the hell makes him so good now that we’re heard his “Joker Cackle”? He still looks like he was a cast off from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.



My thing about his death and actor deaths in general is that they almost mirror the deaths of wrestlers. Name two other forms of entertainment that claim more casualties. So I have to say I have been right all along. Critics always want to scream “Steroids” but that’s just not the case. As Jake The Snake admitted, it’s the constant travel, the staying up all night and waking up early that makes it almost necessary to have some kind of drug aid. Drugs tend to begat more drugs and the pattern ends in death.

So rest in peace, Heath… but you still suck as The Joker.

BOBBY LASHLEY CALLS IT QUITS?

On his forums, Bobby said he won’t be returning to the WWE because of “Evil Prevailing” or some ridiculous shit. Basically, someone in the WWE got the best of him in some way to which I hope to hear the true story some day. They confirmed it on the website and not the forums which had previously caused some controversy on validity. Well, I guess there’s only one thing to say about all of this; “So?”. I’m not a Lashley fan, and I fully confess that it’s his silly Tysonesque voice. It’s very hard to take a 350 pound man of all muscle seriously when he sounds like my mother. Maybe he’ll go to TNA, which won’t help them much either.

SPEAKING OF TNA…

The news says “Record breaking TNA ratings” which were 1.22. Around one and a half million people watch TNA each week which isn’t bad for an Indy show. The good news is that TNA is growing and not losing viewers, but the bad news is- it’s just not by much.

TNA keeps a steady flow of around a 1 rating. With each “big name” they bring in, a few things happen. Like Sting coming in, he got a title run and they had to get rid of a few guys. Cage was the same story and even more guys had to go when Booker T was brought in. Booker claims (in story) that he doesn’t want to be thrown into the main event and wants to earn his take, but let’s be real. Booker will have the title before this year is up.

The bottom line is that none of these so called “big names” have boosted the ratings much. Sure, there’s a steady growth but I think that’s more attributed to disgruntled WWE fans turning in. TNA seems in almost every way to be following WCW. Hire a bunch of well known names. Make some story lines centering said names. Give huge pay outs to said performers and so on.

What TNA doesn’t seem to understand is that the formula for success is not big names. While it’s good business and good for the sport to hire known names, it’s not going to fix anything or really change anything. The proven history of wrestling success comes not from a well known name, but an engaging storyline. If TNA spent half the time focusing on a riveting story that they have trying to lasso every WWE cast-off in reach, I’d bet the ratings would be doubled.

You have wrestling “eras” as we, the humble internet community call them. Stone Cold had one, The Rock had one, Mick Foley had one and even Shawn Michaels had one. The biggest era by far was Hulk Hogan’s which spanned 20 something years and passed the test of time.

These eras usually begin with one defining moment that grabs the fans by the eyeballs and makes them fuck the screen. We all know Austin’s. The Rock’s was a little more drawn out but you have to factor in his whole story from back when he was “The Blue Chipper”. HBK’s was probably one of the least considered. Kicking his best friend through a window changed his life and made him almost an instant mega star.

Before these eras began, you have a long and well written history. Stone Cold struggled to beat Bret Hart until he finally gained the fans’ respect and so on. The MAIN point of all this is the fact that none of these guys were big names anywhere else.

Even looking at WCW’s quick rise. While Hogan and the NWO can take most of the credit for the success, look at why it happened. It wasn’t Big Daddy Cool, Razor Ramon and Hulk Hogan. It was Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and Hollywood Hogan developing what was probably the greatest faction in the business. I don’t think I have to remind you of Goldberg.

So my advice for TNA, if they care, is to stop trying to be the next “WCW” or you’ll end up like them. Start listening to your wrestlers. Many of these eras came from the star just being himself-- amped up. I can see potential eras coming from a number of TNA stars. To name a few, Bobby Roode, who I must add is VERY professional backstage. Eric Young who already has a huge nationwide following. Christian Cage… who you BLEW already by taking away AJ Styles. AJ Styles and Christian Cage teaming up was the best thing that could have happened to each other. AJ grew a personality and Cage became credible all in one swoop. Tako could have been your Batista but you blew that too. Hopefully you correct this huge mistake.

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