Canton’s Corner: The Wrestling Week in Review – October 29
By John Canton
Follow me on Twitter at @johnreport
Welcome to Canton’s Corner. After a few weeks of getting away from the traditional format of this column with the like/dislike feature that looks at Raw, Smackdown & TNA Impact Wrestling, we’re back at it this week. I’ve also got some thoughts on Maryse being released by WWE on Friday. Speaking of her, at the very end of this column I’ve posted my favorite pic of that fine looking woman. You’re welcome. As always we begin with the polls.
Last Week’s Poll Results
The poll question was: Does WWE Films help or hurt WWE’s image? The result: Hurt: 47.67%, Doesn’t matter either way 47.61% & Help 4.72%.
I put the percentages with two decimal points because after 1,500+ votes there was only a one vote difference between the top two. That tells me that people either think that WWE Films hurts the company (that’s what I voted for) or it makes no difference. Less than 5% of the voters felt like it helped. I’m sure WWE management would believe that it helps, but considering that most of the movies are money losers do they really affect the bottom line of the company? I don’t think so.
This Week’s Poll Question: Will you play the WWE ’12 video game?
I’m not much of a gamer anymore. I was. I think I’ve outgrown it although I do play Madden 12 occasionally and I will likely pick up NBA 2K12 soon. I know a lot of people reading this are video game players, so I want to see how many of you are interested in the WWE ’12 game that comes out in November.
Will you play the WWE ’12 video game?
I picked the second one. I don’t know if I’ll buy it because I rarely have time to play, but I’m buying it for my 12 year old nephew’s birthday in November and I’m sure I’ll give it a try. After all, Michael Cole is in the game. It could be fun beating him up. Right?
Maryse gets released
On Friday, WWE.com announced that they had released Maryse, or as she had been announced a few times: Maurice. The question is, did they choose to release her or did she ask for it? I’m not so sure, but I’m leaning towards it being her request or at least a mutual agreement to part ways. In the past year and a half they barely put her in matches. Then she got sidelined with an abdominal injury in August that required surgery. I think the fact that she was tweeting pics of her partying with a cake that congratulated her on her release means that she was okay with being let go. I think a lot of the time people get angry at WWE for releasing talent, but sometimes I think the talent wants out. It’s not an easy life. It’s not for everybody.
This brings me to another point that I make all the time. Maryse got hired through the diva search. So did Christy, she didn’t last too long in WWE. When she went to TNA, she wrestled for a bit, got hurt and now she’s a ring announcer. Ashley won the diva search and she didn’t last too long. She got hurt too. Maria didn’t quit WWE, but she hasn’t worked a match since her release. She was hired through diva search. Michelle was hired through it too, she wrestled about 5 years and retired. She also married rich. That helps. Wait a sec, I’m off topic! Stacy & Torrie didn’t last that long, or work a whole lot of matches. Torrie stopped because of a back injury while Stacy wanted to try acting, which has led to her now dating George Clooney, which is like a career I guess. Layla has stuck around and become pretty good. Eve has had longevity as a diva search winner too although she’s not that great to me. Not all stick around, though. It’s different than going through wrestling school like Mickie, Beth, Natalya, Katrina/Winter & others that worked the indies and that wanted to make the big time. That’s the negative of signing models and hoping they can be wrestlers. More often than not their heart isn’t in it. Not every fitness model turned wrestler can be Trish. The ones that last longer are usually the ones that went to school with dreams of wrestling, not just because Laurinaitis saw their pic on bikini.com when he was “scouting talent” one day. How do you solve all of this? Hire talent based on their in-ring abilities. Not just looks. The Kong/Kharma signing made me think that WWE would be hiring more women who are already trained and good in the ring. I’m not sure if that is the case. Time will tell.
Will I miss Maryse? Yes, in the sense that she’s one of the best looking women in the history of wrestling. I think she had a decent run as a heel divas champion, but once that ended it was difficult to find a role for her. I thought maybe she’d return as a face against the Sisters of Salvation. That didn’t happen. I doubt we see her in TNA anytime soon. I could be wrong there. I just think her future is in modeling, hosting and getting away from the wrestling business. She’s only 28 years old. She could be back. You never know.
I already wrote about Raw on Tuesday, so read that in case you haven’t done so already. I’ll only have one Like & Dislike about Raw this week.
LIKE – The Muppets on Raw on Monday
It’s weird. A few weeks ago when I first heard about The Muppets on Raw this Monday I thought it would be lame. For whatever reason, I’ve changed my tune. While I can honestly say I haven’t seen a Muppets movie in many years they can be very entertaining if used right. I’m hopefully that whoever writes their material is able to stick to what they usually do as characters instead of using the WWE style comedy that feels forced most of the time. For more on The Muppets, check out this column from TJR Assistant Editor Andrew Johnson, who is a huge Muppets fan and tells you how WWE can prevent the Muppets Raw from being a disaster.
DISLIKE – The Michael Cole Challenge
Enough already. Does anybody really think that whatever happens on Monday will be the end of the Cole/Ross feud that Vince McMahon loves so much? Of course not. Vince has loved teasing Jim Ross for the past fifteen years. Yes, they put him in the Hall of Fame and he’s considered the greatest announcer in company history, but the stupid angles continue. The doctored pics of JR that they made using Photoshop were ridiculously lame. What’s worse is that they showed them again on Smackdown. This would turn into a permanent like if it meant that Michael Cole left the Raw announce desk while JR was given his job back. I don’t know if that’s likely to happen except on a temporary basis. I guess it could happen if they move Cole into the Raw GM role since he can get more heat than Laurinaitis and is a better talker too. Perhaps Cole could become a manager too. I’m not sure where this is headed. I’m just tired of them doing this angle on a regular basis.
I loved Smackdown this week. It was a great show although it didn’t do that much in terms of building to Survivor Series. What it was instead was a high quality WRESTLING show with a number of great matches. I’d have given Smackdown an 8/10 if I reviewed it. As always, TJR Assistant Editor Christian Michael has got you covered in case you missed it.
LIKE – CM Punk & Christian on the microphone and in the ring
The top two guys in my WWE Roster Evaluation in late September were Punk & Christian. In terms of overall talent, they are the very top of the roster. They showed it at the beginning of the show with a very entertaining dueling promo, which led to Punk talking about how Christian does a lot of bitching and bitching and bitching and bitching. All of this gave us our main event match. The match was really strong and they were given a decent amount of time, going about 13 minutes. I’d rate it at *** and I hope there’s more to come with them. With that said, there was something about the match that I didn’t like.
DISLIKE – Playing entrance music during the main event match
The problem with the Christian/Punk match? They played the entrance music of Alberto Del Rio and Sheamus to distract the wrestlers during the match. WHAT DA HAYELL? I understand wanting to bring them out to further storylines (is Sheamus vs. Christian still going on when Sheamus beat him clean twice?), but to do so with full entrance music is silly. Christian was in control of his match, then Sheamus’ music hits, like a dumbass Christian turns to face him, all of a sudden Punk recovers, hits the GTS and the match ends like that. Weird finish. It gives Christian a right to complain, which is likely the idea, but I’m not a fan of entrance music playing during a match. That’s just silly.
LIKE – Randy Orton vs. Dolph Ziggler
This was the match of the night on Smackdown as these two awesome performers gave us a 14 minute match full of excitement that I would rate at ***1/2 on the five star scale. Orton’s a top guy obviously while Ziggler is hopefully on his way there in the very near future. The quality of this match makes me think that if they had a longer, drawn out feud they could have a number of spectacular matches that could be match of the year quality, just like the Orton/Christian feud. The other great thing that could come out of a feud with them is that if Ziggler went over (work with me here!) it would do a lot for his career. The fact that Orton’s a Smackdown guy would mean that they can’t feud while Ziggler is on Raw. However, if they can do it for Big Show vs. Mark Henry they can do it for these two. I hope they do.
DISLIKE – Having a Smackdown Supershow without advertising it
If you’re going to have a top Raw guy on Smackdown like CM Punk, why not advertise it on Raw? Obviously on Monday they had to have known that some Raw guys would be on Smackdown. Why keep it quiet? By saying “CM Punk will be on Smackdown this Friday” you may have been able to convince some fans that don’t watch Smackdown weekly to make it a point to check out the blue brand. Instead, those people missed the likes of Punk, Miz, R-Truth and Big Show (technically on the Raw roster, I think) on the show. It’s silly to not advertise this during Raw. Surprises aren’t a draw when nobody knows they are happening.
LIKE – Daniel Bryan vs. Tyson Kidd
In my Twenty Ideas for WWE to Consider column from September, one of my ideas was: “Put Daniel Bryan in a feud with Tyson Kidd while also utilizing Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart.” This week on Smackdown they played a clip of the Hart/Michaels DVD (go get it, people!) and had Bryan & Kidd argue over who was better since Bryan was trained by Michaels while Kidd was trained by Hart. Then they had a match. It only went about three minutes, which is way too short, but they put on a very good performance. I hope this is the start of something bigger although having the babyface win in three minutes probably means it was a one time thing. I hope I’m wrong on that.
Quick thoughts:
– Interesting to see the promo from Sin Cara Negro without his mask on. Hopefully this doesn’t mean the Mexicools will be back on the riding lawnmowers. They need to give him his own name. Perhaps they will go with Hunico, which mentioned once although it was not accentuated at all.
– I enjoyed Cody Rhodes’ commentary. Rumor is that he might do a short feud with Booker T. after his issue with Orton is done. That could be fun to see Booker in the ring a little bit.
– The Henry/Show angle was decent although Henry backing down is not what I would have done. A face to face showdown that teased a fight would have been better. I’d assume the rematch comes at Survivor Series with Henry going over clean. I don’t see Big Show winning the World Title.
I wrote about TNA Bound For Glory two weeks ago. I had high hopes for the show. I don’t think it delivered the goods. Last week on Impact they took the title off Kurt Angle and put it onto the “Cowboy” James Storm instead of Robert Roode. On Wednesday they taped the next two weeks on Impact before they even aired this week’s show on Thursday. Confused? Yes, that’s TNA for you. While I know where the spoilers are taking things, here are some Likes & Dislikes from this week’s edition of Impact Wrestling.
LIKE – James Storm’s celebration promo
This was fun. He’s a very likable character because he’s got that everyman quality to him. It was nice to hear him talk about how he grew up watching wrestling with his dad, how his dad died when he was young and then he dedicated his World Title win to his late father. It was a touching moment. I really enjoyed it.
DISLIKE – Robert Roode vs. Samoa Joe didn’t feel special at all
This was the #1 contenders match for the TNA World Title. It’s supposed to be a big deal. Samoa Joe’s promo was great. Problem is he’s lost pretty much every match he’s had the last few months. Of course Roode went over clean. It wasn’t with the Crossface. He beat him with a Fisherman’s Suplex (PerfectPlex), which doesn’t really work as a believable finish to me in 2011. It’s not a high impact move. No wonder the crowd was dead for the finish.
LIKE – Jeff Hardy’s in-ring return
After not wrestling on TNA TV since March, Jeff Hardy made his return this week in a match against Bully Ray. He won clean with the Swanton Bomb. Unlike a lot of people in TNA, he has legitimate star power and can generate genuine pops from the crowd. I’ve always been a Jeff Hardy fan. I’m happy he’s got his priorities in check these days and seems to be on the right path again. To be able to come back from his legal issues as well as whatever drug issues he’s had is a great sign. I just hope he’s able to sustain it because he’s at his best in between those ropes. He’s a star. You can see it.
DISLIKE – Bischoff vs. Bischoff
Yawn. In case you missed it, at Bound For Glory two weeks ago we found out that referee Jackson James was in fact Eric Bischoff’s son Garrett. Most online fans knew, but on the show that was the first time they mentioned it. Instead of helping Hogan cheat to beat Sting, Garrett went against his father’s wishes. Two weeks later, on this week’s Impact, the main event of Impact was a showdown between Garrett and Bischoff, as well as Ric Flair. Bischoff’s promo earlier in the show when he was alone in the ring was such a boring segment. Then Flair berated Garrett backstage, which was actually pretty good. Then they went out to the ring for the main event with Eric asking Garrett to apologize. Yep, that’s your main event: A character we just met two weeks ago apologizing to his heel dad that has been doing the same shtick on television for 15 years. Get ready for Garrett to start winning matches over wrestlers soon. We’re going to get sick of the kid just because we know he’ll be shoved down our throats.
LIKE – Gail Kim’s return promo
Gail Kim returned to TNA last week. On this week’s show she cut a really good heel promo saying that she was working for Karen Jarrett and was going after the TNA Knockouts Champion, Velvet Sky. It was nice to hear her actually get to talk while also doing so as a heel, which is not something we’re used to seeing. I think she’ll be able to have a pretty good match with Velvet if they get a decent amount of time. Madison’s also great in her role sucking up to Karen Jarrett. It’s good to see Gail happy in the ring again.
DISLIKE – Inconsistency with Sting as the “man in charge”
Last week, Dixie told us (in one of her typically wooden promos) that Sting was in control of the happenings on Impact. That’s fine, but if that’s the case then why is Eric Bischoff presented as somebody that has some sort of power? Sting talked about how the last 18 months his life has been heel because of Hogan & Bischoff, yet Bischoff is on even more now than he was when he was actually “in charge” in the storyline. I realize that Bischoff is an Executive Producer as well as part of a creative team (if he denies it he’s lying), but they need a storyline reason to explain why he’s still on TV so much. Also, if Bischoff hired Karen to be “VP of the Knockouts Division” why is Sting okay with that? Again, all I want is some kind of storyline explanation as to why this is happening. If Sting only cares about the World Title picture then that makes him a crappy authority figure or whatever it is they are calling him.
Quick thoughts:
– Eric Young is a fun TV character. Can’t say I care too much about some Jersey Shore guy teaming with him next week, though. I don’t watch that show. Not for me. The TV Title is a joke, which is a shame. They don’t know how to book titles properly in TNA anymore. For shame.
– It looks like RVD mails it in on a weekly basis now. Or he’s just high. Take your pick. A feud with Daniels could be fun although seeing Daniels try to use a screwdriver as a weapon is silly and unrealistic.
Random Clip of the Week
WrestleMania 21. Remember the movie parody commercials they did for it? That’s some of the best work WWE has ever done. I thought the Pulp Fiction, When Harry Met Sally and Taxi Driver ones were the best. All of them were pretty good, though. For the sake of this column, I’ll share just the “Are you talking to me?” Taxi Driver one because it features a bunch of different people.
I thought Big Show stole the show there. Candice too. Damn I miss that woman.
Melo Out with Steve Melo
Greetings wrestling dudes and dudettes. Been a weird week in wrestling. Not the weirdest we have ever had but weird none the less. First off, would somebody please for the love of God explain to me what the hell is Hulk Hogan still doing on Twitter? I mean honestly. There should be some type of law banning old people from social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. And driving, but that is a whole other can of worms in itself. He actually said (and I quote) “Should Hulk Hogan or should Hollywood Hulk Hogan come back and save the wrestling world. HH or HollywoodHH?” I’m gonna steal Andrew Johnson’s inhaler for this one even though I don’t have asthma…ARE YOU FREAKIN’ KIDDING ME??! SAVE THE WRESTING WORLD? Hogan, you couldn’t save your way out of a soiled Cody Rhodes style paper bag! Look BROTHER…I respect what you did for the business back when you were in your prime. Really I do, but seriously, enough is enough. I’m gonna tell you something that you probably already know but can’t accept. That time when you were in your prime is long gone brother. It was fading when you saved WCW (for a few years before the company had to fold, partly thanks to the booking power you had) and if you opened those old man eyes of yours, you would clearly see that history is sadly repeating itself because you are not TNA or wrestling for that matter. You are driving long time viewers away and burying young and talented guys who have earned their spots through years of company loyalty and dedication, guys who the fans actually want to see. Get it? Got it? No? Good.
How good was Smackdown this week? We had Punk versus Christian, and Ziggler versus Orton and Tyson Kidd versus Daniel Bryan. Those six are arguably the best workers WWE has right now. Who booked this show? Wow. It is very rare that we get matches made in heaven like this on TV. If you missed Smackdown this week, you owe it to yourself to watch it right now fella. Sure you could read Christian Michael’s review, but I would still watch it. It will get that raw taste of Monday night RAW out of your mouth. I really wish though that they would have built up that Tyson Kidd and Daniel Bryan match up better. It was so rushed for the purpose of one match where they could have instead had so much potential in a long term feud. The promo itself even started off great, but then it turned PG very fast with 2 grown men saying “Shawn” and “Bret” back and forth. I would have loved a longer match as well. Oh well. As Homer Simpson would say… “can’t win them all.”
Lastly, Maryse has been released. Did WWE release her or did she ask for it? Regardless, we are all the losers here. The hottest diva has left the building. Now I’ll never get my motorcycle back.
Until next week, sit back, relax and Melo Out…because that’s what wrestling is all about.
Steve “The Melo Man” Melo
Twitter: @MeloOutTJR
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That’s all for this week.
I’ll be back on Tuesday with the Raw Deal, on Wednesday we’ve got live TJR Radio from 10pmET to 12amET and then next Saturday I’ll do my best to deliver another edition of Canton’s Corner. It’s my birthday on Friday November 4th, though, so I’ll try to write the contents of this column before I head out that night. In case you’re wondering I’ll be 31. Since I’ve been asked by a few people, I don’t have any kind of Amazon Wishlist, but there’s a Paypal button on TJR or you can send any “gift” to my paypal addy: [email protected] if you want. I’m not asking for anything. I’m just putting it out there because I’ve had people ask me about it. Gifts aren’t necessary. Words are more important. That’s what my broke ass tells people when it’s their birthday. Haha.
It’s Halloween on Monday. Always a good time. Here’s my favorite Maryse pic in honor of her release, as well as Halloween.
OH MY GOODNESS! Have a great weekend.
John Canton – [email protected]
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