The Calamity Rating

Not two months ago TNA were putting out a fairly enjoyable product. It wasn’t enough for them to rival WWE’s dominance and it wasn’t going to encroach on ROH’s business but it was good wrestling television. That’s something TNA has not always been capable of putting together.

They had a plethora of hot acts at their disposal. Bully Ray had, against all the odds, made it to the top of the wrestling world as a featured singles babyface, supported by the ever popular Jeff Hardy. Beneath them were Christopher Daniels, having one of the most riotous runs of his career, Bobby Roode, and Austin Aries. Magnus seemed poised to crack the main event while Samoa Joe, AJ Styles and James Storm all seemed to be gearing up for comebacks of one form or another.

Somehow TNA have managed to destroy what they’d worked hard to cultivate in the space of about a month and a half. We now have a product that’s not really worth following. Again. You only need to glance at the ratings for the April 11^th Impact to see I’m not alone in thinking this: the show did a 0.93 rating, the lowest it’s done all year.

 

This feud? Not a draw

 

TNA had presented a stacked card. Taryn Terrell took on Gail Kim (which doesn’t sound especially interesting but it had been built up for a significant amount of time) and Aries and Roode defended their tag team titles against Chavo Guerrero and Hernandez in what was essentially billed as a feud-ending collision. There was to be further advancement in the story of AJ Styles’ allegiance. In the main event Bully Ray defended his TNA world championship against Jeff Hardy in a Full Metal Mayhem match (basically a TLC match, the name changed to appease the mighty WWE and its lawyers).

It was a big card (notably described on air as pay-per-view quality) that TNA had put a lot of work into preparing, that guaranteed big names in matches and developments worth paying attention to. That it did such a poor rating indicates that viewers simply don’t care about the direction TNA’s going in.

I think TNA’s main problem is that its roster feels stale. The company just doesn’t seem to know how to introduce new talent. Gut Check has not proven the answer to the problems. Neither has the signing of Chavo. The best thing the company could do right now is cut a large portion of the roster (at least a third of it) and introduce some fresh blood. No matter how popular and talented the likes of Hardy, Daniels, Aries and Roode are they’re going to continue to be wasted if they face the same guys all the time and waste their time stalling through uninteresting storylines.

Do something different with the talent. Bully Ray may be effective as a heel but he was more effective a couple of months ago as a good guy. Fans were enjoying rallying behind him. Turning him just to swerve the audience (and it wasn’t really a swerve, everyone saw it coming) is incredibly counterproductive. On a similar note AJ Styles is not going to be well served by playing Sting to the Aces and Eights’ nWo and TNA’s WCW.

While they’re at it the format could do with a change. Opening with a promo every week is such a dated approach to wrestling broadcasts. More than that it’s exactly what WWE does. If TNA wants to be an alternative to the sports entertainment brand they need to be genuinely different. Put the focus on wrestling.

Most importantly the entire Aces and Eights plot needs to be dropped. It’s not going to happen because TNA has recorded One Night Only pay-per-views until the end of the year and the gang is prominent in the majority of them. I don’t think TNA can begin presenting the product it should until it gets rid of this boring, 90s style stable.

I said all of this and more last month. But that was before TNA did a terrible rating presenting what was essentially a PPV Lite card. The promotion has all the tools it needs to construct a great wrestling product. It just doesn’t want to let itself.

Fandangoing

Sadly I won't be at WWE's RAW taping from the O2 on April 22^nd. I was at last year's tapings from the same venue and so was part of those epic "Yes!" chants that were present on the show from start to finish. They’d peaked a few weeks earlier at WrestleMania XXVIII and proven a hit at the following evening’s RAW, but people weren’t sure they’d stick around for the long run. I think part of the reason we (and Daniel Bryan) are still hearing them now is because of the London audience being so into them.

It's that experience at the O2 that makes me absolutely certain that the London crowd will do everything in their power to keep the Fandangoing phenomenon going.

And it is a phenomenon (or, perhaps, a phenomena). What started as an arena full of wrestling fans enjoying themselves by singing camp entrance music has led to Fandango’s entrance theme (titled ChaChaLaLa) becoming a sensation away from the wrestling business. It’s been played at Everton home games. The Houston Texans cheerleaders have been shown attempting to sing and dance to the music (they failed the former but nailed the latter). The music has appeared on various new broadcasts and you can even find videos of people attempting (mostly unsuccessfully) to nail the theme at home.

Perhaps most impressively the track romped its way up the UK charts. You may have missed this last one as the BBC decided they didn’t want to play it as that would have forced them to acknowledge the existence of WWE. That’s what your tax money’s funding: a corporation that refuses to admit that professional wrestling exists.

 

I will go on the record and say that I'm a big fan of Fandango's hair

 

The Friday 12^th edition of SmackDown saw the Boston crowd try to continue the trend within WWE. They did a pretty good job but they just didn’t have the same kind of fans present. WrestleMania, being WWE’s biggest event of the year, attracts the most hardcore wrestling fans from around the world. SmackDown was basically business as usual.

The same will not be the case when RAW rolls into London next week. Fans travel from all over the country, and Europe, when WWE records their television product in Britain. It’s not a WrestleMania level crowd, but it’s close enough: a group of very passionate fans who only get the chance to attend a handful of TV shows a year in the home country. It’s a loud, raucous environment, people happy to be a part of the show.

Basically the New Jersey RAW benefited from a lively, passionate and inventive crowd that helped launch the craze. The humming sensation will continue throughout this week’s WWE TV output but I think it will be London’s crowd that decides its fate. Expect the crowd to get the chant over. London wrestling fans have a job to do, and take it seriously.

As great as the chants (or hums, whatever you prefer) are I don’t think this is going to catch on in the way the “Yes!” chants have. Getting a yes or no chant going is far easier to orchestrate, and it’s something that can be applied to a wider variety of situations at a wrestling show. I’d love the Fandango hum to catch on but I can’t see it being a huge craze long term.

Beating Briscoe

For me to say I didn’t expect Jay Briscoe to beat Kevin Steen for the ROH championship would be an understatement. I was absolutely convinced ‘Mr Wrestling’ was going to keep hold of the belt at Supercard of Honor VII. I viewed Jay as a reliable turn that was being used to have a good match on iPPV. He didn’t strike me as a realistic future world champion.

This sort of thing has happened to me before. I was convinced Steen was going to lose his first challenge to Davey Richards’ championship at Border Wars last year, my feeling being that he’d go over in a rematch. Before that I had felt that Richards would be unsuccessful in what turned out to be his title-winning challenge against Eddie Edwards.

 

I didn't see this coming

 

Part of the problem I have is that I’m keen on the lengthy title reigns Ring of Honor traditionally presents. I continually expect each new champion to have a run at the top that lasts in excess of a year and it never quite happens. Not since Nigel McGuinness (whose 545 day reign ended on April 3^rd 2009) has anyone held the ROH world championship for more than a year.

Perhaps I just need to accept that I’m not terribly good at predicting ROH title changes. Which isn’t a bad thing as it means I’m surprised more often. Regardless of all of this I thought I’d post some thoughts together on who could dethrone Jay Briscoe for the ROH title, as I’ve done with previous champions (see here for who I thought would defeat Eddie Edwards, here for who I thought would beat Davey Richards and here for who I thought stood a chance against Kevin Steen). 

The first two confirmed challengers are Adam Cole and BJ Whitmer. They, like Briscoe at Supercard of Honor, don’t strike me as men likely to become ROH champion. In the case of Whitmer I cannot imagine him ever being the top guy. He’s had a couple of tag team title reigns and that seems about his limit. Nothing about him makes me think he can break from his current niche of multi-man matches and brawls in which he defends ROH’s honour.

Adam Cole is a different story. He’s the sort of guy I can imagine rising to the top for a long reign as the ROH champion. Border Wars seems a little early though, mainly because it will be Briscoe’s first defence. I can see it being in Cole’s future if he sticks around long enough though.

A second reign for Kevin Steen looks pretty unlikely while Briscoe’s the champion. Why would the belt be taken off of him and put onto a relatively obscure guy like Jay just to have him take it back again in a rematch? That’s not how ROH traditionally works, and I hope it’s not how they start working now.

Steen’s former stablemate Matt Hardy seems like a better option. At the latest round of TV tapings ‘Mr Wrestling’ was kicked out of the group and Hardy was chosen as the new centrepiece. Furthermore a stipulation match will take place at Border Wars between two members of SCUM and ROH reps Jay Lethal and Michael Elgin. That will see ‘The Self-Proclaimed Icon’ granted a title shot if his pals are victorious.

A scenario in which Hardy defeats Jay Briscoe forcing ROH to turn to Steen to get their belt back is easy to envisage and makes Hardy a pretty credible contender to knock off Jay. Should things play out this way I could see Hardy winning the gold at Best in the World. I don’t see Briscoe being a long term champion and BITW is going to be a pretty big show, so it’s the earliest logical time to relieve him of the belt.

Michael Elgin and Jay Lethal are possibilities too. Elgin earned himself a title shot when he beat Lethal at Supercard of Honor. That match will probably come against Briscoe. If it does there’s a chance he’ll get the win. It would be surprising, considering how distanced ‘Unbreakable’ has been from the title picture, but it’s not impossible. I think he’d make a good champion, as I’ve written before.

Lethal seems more unlikely still. His loss to Elgin will probably mean that it’s a while before he gets another title match but if he ends up challenging his fellow Jay then there’s a chance he’ll win. Ultimately I think he’s the most unlikely guy I’m listing here.

With Steen no longer the champion both members of the American Wolves can challenge for the belt again. Could they win it? Sure. But as with Elgin and Lethal it would be random for either Richards or Edwards to become the champ. Perhaps more random when you consider that they’re being used as a regular combo again and are currently chasing reDRagon (see what I did there?) for the tag titles.

Tommaso Ciampa could make an interesting challenger to Jay Briscoe. He’s been out of action for a while now and could be brought back in to challenge for the top belt. A return feud with RD Evans and QT Marshall seems inevitable but those plans could be put on hold, or scrapped completely, in favour of ‘The Sicilian Psychopath’ aiming for the top. Ciampa could even come back, squash Marshall in a brief match, and then announce his intention to earn a world title match.

The final name that occurs to me as anything approaching likely is Mike Bennett. There’s no reason for that beyond him being a solid character, a decent wrestler and a heel. I think he’d make a good champion but I don’t think he’s the likeliest guy to beat Briscoe.

The man I do think is most likely to beat him is, sadly, Matt Hardy. It’s not something I want to see but there’s a clear storyline reason for the title change which can’t be said for anyone else that I’ve mentioned. While I think it would be great to see Ciampa or Elgin knock off Papa Briscoe’s boy I think the (ahem) honour is going to go to Matt Hardy.

A Trio of Triples

On Monday’s RAW Dolph Ziggler was given a highlight moment for his career by the WWE writing team, finally cashing in his Money in the Bank contract on Alberto Del Rio and becoming the World Heavyweight champion. It’s not his first time holding the belt: he was previously awarded it by then on-screen confidante Vickie Guerrero at the start of the February 18^th SmackDown. He lost the strap back to Edge before the show ended, resulting in one of the least memorable (and most harmful to a star’s development) world title runs ever.

What made Ziggler’s win even more special and memorable was the reaction of the crowd. They had chanted for Ziggler throughout the Del Rio versus Jack Swagger and Zeb Colter handicap match and gave ‘The Show Off’ a thunderous reaction when he made his way out to cash-in. Their ovation after he’d won made the moment: Ziggler came over as a headline star.

 

Ziggler doing a Gillberg impression there

 

Hopefully Ziggler will be permitted to rack up a few months as the WHC this time around. He’s earned it and the fans want to see it (as the RAW crowd proved). If he’s going to become the main event act WWE need then he needs to have a lengthy run with the strap. Picking up some clean victories over main eventers wouldn’t hurt either.

As the former champion Alberto Del Rio is going to be a part of Ziggler’s first feud. With ‘The Essence of Excellence’ having beaten Jack Swagger two nights in a row (WrestleMania XXIX and RAW the following night) it’s possible ‘The Real American’ is going to be moving on to pastures new. There’s still mileage in the racism angle but after two clean wins it’s difficult to see the point of continuing. Swagger being written out is not guaranteed though, and it’s possible Ziggler will simply be inserted into the Del Rio v Swagger feud.

Elsewhere on Monday’s RAW the continued implosion of Team Super Babyface continued as Randy Orton and Sheamus had a tiff over who was going to have the honour of wrestling Big Show. The ‘Apex Predator’ v Shaymo bout ended when Show came out and KO punched both men. With none of the three coming into contact with The Shield (the group that had united them in the first place) during RAW it’s safe to say that the makeshift trio’s issue with them is over and they are instead going to start tangling with each other.

In addition to that John Cena got flattened by both Mark Henry and Ryback during the show too. Perhaps Henry’s antics throughout the show were a swerve designed to make us think ‘The World’s Strongest Man’, not The Ryabck, was going to be Cena’s next challenger. We’re not going to be able to tell what the direction is until RAW on Monday. Either Cena will defend against Ryback alone or he’ll be going up against both men. What a high quality match that would be.

Quality issues aside a triple threat for the WWE championship wouldn’t be a bad thing. It would allow Cena to retain the gold without pinning ‘Big Hungry’, stretching out what should be a meaningful, star-making programme for another month. Ryback could argue that he wasn’t pinned and get a one-on-one shot. That could come at Payback and Ryback could win. Cena could then lose pay-per-view match number three, the singles rematch, at Money in the Bank in July.

Three triple threat matches at Extreme Rules? It looks possible at the moment. Sheamus, Big Show and Orton are probably the likeliest, because there’s no obvious man to drop from the feud. It is entirely based on the three former teammates falling out with one another.

 

I think we all wanted a lot more from this team (sarcasm)

 

Both Mark Henry and Jack Swagger could be dropped from their respective feuds. I wouldn’t particularly miss ‘The All American American’s’ involvement because I think Swagger’s gotten over enough to make it work and Ziggler would be better served with a singles programme as the new champ.

As mentioned above, I don’t think cutting Henry would necessarily be the best direction. To be honest both he and Swagger will probably be omitted because I can’t see WWE promoting three triple threat matches on one pay-per-view. Maybe Swagger’s racism could become more overt and Henry could go face to tangle with him at Extreme Rules. Actually, maybe not.

While it’s not likely we’ll see the three three-ways at ER but I do find it strange that WWE’s scripting makes it seem like we could.

Thank You, Steen

Supercard of Honor VII saw the longest ROH title reign in four years come to end. A lot of the focus of the title change has been on Jay Briscoe being the man to hand Kevin Steen his first ROH loss in over two years. Which is understandable: very few people expected Jay to ever get a reign as the champion and the WrestleMania weekend show seemed like it would be a guaranteed retention for 'Mr Wrestling'.

What not many people (or at least not enough people) are focusing on is Steen's hard work. Even before he won the title he had been the focal point of Ring of Honor. Minus a six month break due to contract disputes and-or creative disagreements with Jim Cornette, Steen has been one of the most heavily featured and enjoyable singles acts since early 2010. He was there playing a supporting role during Davey Richards' damp squib of a title run and had the feud of the year against former teammate El Generico in 2010.

Since Steen won the belt last spring he's been a rallying point for fans of the promotion, a beacon of positivity in a company that had sadly lost its way. He never entered anything less than a great performance when defending the belt (or wrestling in a non-title match come to that) and survived poor iPPV streams, slapdash booking and dwindling interest in the product he represented. His involvement in the promotion proved a saving grace. Without him there’s a very real chance 2012 could have seen Ring of Honor go under.

I was originally sceptical 'Wrestling's Worst Nightmare' could have a meaningful run as champion. His two matches against Davey Richards proved enjoyable but 'The Lone Wolf's' second loss meant that he could no longer challenge for the gold. That denied Steen a talented and popular opponent.

Further limiting the possibility of a great reign was the shallow ROH roster. During his first few months as champion he was subjected to defences against the likes of Mike Mondo, Eddie Kingston and Homicide, none of whom meant a great deal to fans and none of whom are known as the greatest wrestlers available for hire. His defences against Eddie Edwards and Roderick Strong were very good, but they were isolated affairs with no long term plan attached to them. In a sense they were teases of how good the Steen reign could be.

Shed a tear: this is a sight we may never see again

It wasn't until Jay Lethal challenged him in October that Steen had another title match that could be described as a classic. From there he entered spirited defences against Michael Elgin (at Glory by Honor XI) and El Generico (at Final Battle), had a great rematch with ‘Black Machismo’ (at the 11^th Anniversary Show), and a surprisingly satisfying non-title four-way outing against Edwards, Strong and Elgin (at Defy or Deny II).

 

From the moment Delirious took over as booker in October Steen was given the chance to cement himself as one of the greatest ROH champions. He seized upon the opportunity and proved he belonged in the same league as the likes of Samoa Joe, Nigel McGuinness and Bryan Danielson. He did a far better job of overcoming the obstacles of his reign than Davey Richards did the year before.

Steen’s loss of the championship came as a surprise. There's every chance he'll get the belt back at some point but ultimately that's neither here nor there. Steen deserves appreciation for carrying the company for a year and making sure the belt retained its prestige while in his possession. For now I want to thank Kevin Steen for having the first reign we all needed him to have.