Coming at you live from Richmond, it’s the final RAW of the year. The WWE is closing out the year with episode 1,075!
First and foremost, THANK YOU to everyone who has read and supported this blog. I appreciate everyone who’s taken the time to read the insanity that spews from my brain each week. Something that was just a goofy writing exercise turned into a fun, challenging and exciting way for me to reconnect with something that I’ve loved for over 25 years.
As with everyone and everything, time changes all…
We grow up. We get jobs. We quit jobs. We make money. We loose money. Kids are born. People die. Friends come and go. Relationships blossom and fade. But every Monday, there’s always Wrestling. Even in the world of wrestling there are good eras and bad. Mondays that you have to watch just to see what’s going to happen next and other Mondays that you’ll be lucky to still be awake by the main event.
Sometimes I’ll goof on the lengths that the WWE will go to in order to insure a “new” show every Monday but the truth is, the “streak” is the best attribute the WWE has. The WWE, come hell or high water, will give you a new show every Monday night. I’m sure they’ll admit, not every week is a grand slam home run. But there is never a question that from the guy sweeping up the floor to Vince McMahon himself they aren’t trying to entertain their audience.
What other entertainment is on 52 weeks a year? No sport, no movie, no television show can hold up to what the WWE provides. There’s no harder working athletes / performers than the wrestlers. The writers and crew that create, travel and put on the show have got to be the unsung heroes of the WWE Universe. It’s amazing that week after week the show goes on without complete disaster. The old saying of, “When you don’t notice them, they’re doing their jobs well,” is no better applied.
This is all just to say that I love wrestling. I wouldn’t bother nor would I be able to write 4,000 - 5,000+ words each Monday night / Tuesday morning if it wasn’t something that holds a deep place in my heart.
2013 was a great start for this blog and I hope everyone will join me in 2014. I’ll take a page from the WWE and always try new things and mix stuff up a little. I’d love nothing more than to hear feedback and responses from anyone who reads this. Tweet @wkbear or email me or leave comments. I know, you’re probably thinking that a big time A-list celebrity such as myself would never read or pay attention to anything you send and you’d just be wasting your time. I assure you, it’s not like that. I’ll always have the time for a fellow wrestling fan. The Pope, Lady Gaga, LeBron James or Barak Obama might not reply to your messages but I am far greater than all of those people combined. I care (maybe not “care” so much as I am willing to read) your thoughts and respond to them. I genuinely respect and appreciate anyone who puts the time into reading eight pages of where each greased up, nearly naked men (and a few women) who throw each other around a squared-circle rank on a scale from 1 - 20 each week.
Each week the audience grows and I can’t thank you enough. The fact that even one person reads this blog, thrills and amazes me. I’m truly grateful. Please help me spread the word and share this with anyone else who may enjoy it.
With that, I thank you all again. I’m looking forward to a great wrestling year of 2014. Let’s get into why we’re all here…
Once again, we’re all still pretty much on winter break. I’m going to put aside the normal Power Rankings until next week. Lest anyone think there won’t be rankings, oh…there will be rankings! I actually did some thinking while pretending to enjoy the holidays with my friends and family. I took some notes down to create a Top 5 Things I’d Change in Wrestling for 2014.
- Cut back the PPVs by at least THREE. I know I’m not the first person to bring this up but it’s no doubt the easiest solution to fixing WWE storytelling. At the same time, this is probably the hardest thing to do. Why is it hard, simple my dear boy… MONEY! While it’s easy for me to sit here and write, “There are too many PPVs,” let’s not forget why there are so many. Money! As we all know, the money decision will reign king above all else. Even a lack luster PPV makes the WWE more money than the average Sunday “house” show they would be performing anyway. The biggest gorilla in the room are the Cable and Satellite provider, who take home approximately 50% of the PPV. That’s 50%, off the top. This is a cash cow for the Providers. I won’t belabor the in’s and out’s of business here but I’m sure all sides decided to go for this PPV schedule. It wasn’t until later when the WWE production staff started to be handcuffed by writing towards a “major” show every three weeks, that the WWE is probably wishing they could cut back. Again, it’s not like the WWE doesn’t want to make PPV money but it’s hard to establish characters and build up story lines when you only have three week cycles to tell your story and build said characters. The short money maker is to put on more PPVs. The long term money maker is to have characters and story lines that more of your audience will want to pay for, and at possibly a higher price. Forget all the creative / story stuff for a second. Each PPV is now $40-50 and is too expensive for the average fan to order one every three weeks. Especially when the WM’s or Summer Slam’s are $60-70. I’d be much more inclined to order every PPV at $50 or more if I knew I was getting a great PPV that’s been hyped properly and was every 5 to 6 weeks. All this could be mute because of the potential WWE channel or Netflix-like distribution. If the WWE could cut out (or down) the Provider costs and deals in exchange for a $10 - 20 per month subscription service where you get all the past, present and future shows on demand with behind the scenes, DVD’s, special features and throw in a half dozen of the smaller PPVs, then it wouldn’t be crazy to spend an additional $50 on WM, Survivor Series, Royal Rumble and Summer Slam (the big 4) on the standard Provider PPV. 2014 might be big for the WWE on and off camera if this is the year they actually move forward with their long purposed “WWE Channel.” I’m sure we’ll be talking more about this as the year goes on.
- Bring back a King of the Ring / Tournament to decide something big or to be the catalyst for a wrestler’s push. One of my all-time favorite, and all-time worst, PPV memory was when Chris Jericho beat The Rock AND Stone Cold to become the first unified world champion. I’m a Jericho fan but there’s no way, on God’s green earth, does Chris fucking Jericho beat The Rock and Stone Cold at their peaks. No way! If you can step back from the outcome, a case can be made that that was the best ending BECAUSE it got people so infuriated or solidified Jericho’s ability and whichever end of the spectrum you cheered for it’s a job well done by the writers to get you to the either end. That being said, I’m still pissed. But what’s done is done. My point is, a one night / multiple match tournament can be awesome. The matches leading up to the semi-final and final rounds can involve current story lines and more often give birth to new story lines. These earlier rounds can even be played out weeks prior and set up other matches on the same PPV as the final round(s). Even better, have the winner of the tournament go on to fight the current champion. This is getting me pumped up right now! Secondly, here’s the list of names who have been “King of the Ring”; Don Muraco, Harley Race, Randy Savage, Ted DiBiase, Tito Santana, Bret Hart (twice), Owen Hart, Mabel, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Triple H, Ken Shamrock, Billy Gunn, Kurt Angle, Edge, Brock Lesnar, Booker T, William Regal, Sheamus. Not a bad list to be on. I’m not going to say the current writing feels stale because there’s good stuff happening but we don’t have a major event that can take over the WWE like King of the Ring or a championship tournament. It’s always nice to mix it up once a year, which is probably why the Royal Rumble has lasted so long and is so beloved no matter what state the WWE is in. Every event feels set in stone and the writing needs to dance around it. For instance, everything needs to build to WM. Then it’s a little dead but we have Money in the Bank and eventually things build to Summer Slam. It’s a mad dash for Survivor Series and Royal Rumble and then back to the Road to WM. King of the Ring or a tournament could fall anywhere on the calendar. You could even incorporate the finals into a PPV theme. For instance, the finals this year could have easily culminated at Hell in a Cell or TLC match. Boom! I just made two boring PPVs into something you’d have to watch.
- Bring back the #1 contender. I went on a huge diatribe recently on how much I’ve hated matches that end with a champion cleanly being defeated by a challenger YET the championship doesn’t change hands. The simplest reason is that there is no Number 1 contender. The main culprit was because you had two “championship” belts (the WWE and the World) but in fact, the WWE was the top tier champ while the World acted as the second tier champ. You had to win the World before you could go on to fight for the WWE (generally). This has been unconsciously been fixed by the recent unification. I got into an argument regarding these clean wins with “The Oracle” Freddie D., who didn’t mind the clean wins and saw that as the right of passage to declare the person fit for an actual championship match. I chalk it up to the lack of depth of the WWE roster and with two championships there’s not a lot of space for #1 contender matches. “Back in my day…” you had to earn your championship match by beating all the other contenders. Then you could make a case to fight the champion. It involved multi-level story telling. The champ could be in one feud while the challenger was rising the ranks against other wrestlers. When the champs current feud was over, it would transition easily into the #1 contender matchup. If the writers wanted that feud it was ready or the #1 contender could hang around and always be in play at a moment’s notice. We’ll have to see how this new Unified Championship that RKO is walking around with plays out through WM.
- Make the Slammy Awards its own special show. I talked about this on the 12/09/2013 RAW Power Rankings. The WWE is always looking for the next best way to promote itself and The Slammys are just as self promoting as the MTV Music / Movie awards or how the Oscars are a four hour commercial for seeing movies. NBC just had one of their special WWE shows, A Tribute to the Troops. WWE and NBC have a few shows per year and I don’t see why the Slammys could be treated like a real awards show and show extend clip packages of the best of the year instead of putting on new matches. NBC will take the audience and get to re-air known top quality wrestling programming (just highlights from the “match of the year” nominees could fill an hour) and the WWE gets a piece of major network time. Neither one having to put in a lot of money or risk. Seems like a win-win to me.
- Tweak Total Divas. That’s right, I’m coming out in favor of Total Divas. Just not the way it’s presented now. Seeing the moderate success of Total Divas and having watched every episode myself, I can tell you right now how to fix Total Divas (or even add to it) which will satisfy the non wrestling audience the WWE is looking to capture on E! and include the current weekly wrestling audience it gets on Monday night. The best part of Total Divas is the few honest moments we get to see with the male wrestlers. It’s because the “Divas” portions are the standard produced reality TV, while the interactions with the Superstars are genuine moments, for the most part. The Daniel Bryan proposal was a little produced but I’ll let that slide because of the fact it’s a wedding proposal and if Bryan wants to use the production available to him to do something big, who am I to say no to love? Whether it’s the small moments between Bryan and his Bella or the time one of the Funkadactyls needed to get real life advice from Brodus Clay or even the few times we see of Fandango, those are the moments I’ll put up with 55 minutes of crap to get the 5 minutes of actual reality. Even seeing Cena kinda being a douche but really just being a guy who has been totally screwed over by women, is a great insight and the behind the scenes that true wrestling fans want to see. I understand the basis of the show is to push the Divas. If that part is truly necessary, keep the show as is but add 15 to 30 minutes of the Divas interacting with the male superstars. You don’t even need the cutaway scenes when you get the persons re-telling or commenting on whatever event just happened because that’s the fake / over produced stuff. Just include more dinners, car rides and at home alone moments where the wrestlers are loose and are talking about matches or their day or their lives. The person that comes off best on Total Divas is the Uso brother (I think it’s Jay?). He seems like a cool, fun loving guy who’s a little over protective of his fiancé but who wouldn’t be when you know the history of relationships in the WWE. That’s the most speaking time any Uso has received in their tenure at the WWE. Along with incredible in-ring work, Jay’s personality on Total Divas that has propelled the Usos on regular WWE programming. While it would be great to have real commentary from the Superstars, that’s too much “pulling back the curtain” and they’ll more likely to bundle that onto a DVD which they’ll sell rather than give it away on E!.
Back on RAW for 12/30/2013, we actually had some stuff go down. A lot of good wrestling and only a bit of story telling. It’s interesting that the story that’s been dragged along these past few shows is the Daniel Bryan / Wyatt Family feud. I guess I was wrong last week, when I thought that Bryan was going into another direction. Just as I was wrong when I got an emergency text to watch Smackdown for the Sheild’s individual matches against Big E, Mark Henry and John Cena. I thought that this was a sign that The Shield was going to stick together a bit longer because they’ve been pushing this “Year of the Shield,” but on RAW we got more cracks in The Shield stuff.
If I was doing the traditional power rankings this week, I’d have the hardest time figuring out what to do with The Shield. Together they’re awesome. Between last week’s Smackdown and tonight’s RAW, they’ve been equally awesome in singles action. Major props to the WWE for showcasing Seth Rollins as a singles wrestler. His talent is undeniable but he had the biggest question mark to whether he’d make it on his own. He answered that bell twice with a FANTASTIC match against Cena on Smackdown and a solid match with Punk on RAW. Over the next few months, while the WWE walks the tightrope with breaking up The Shield, it’s going to be hard to go back and forth in ranking The Shield as a unit or individually. Depending on how they succeed over time as individuals, and reunite from time to time, The Shield may go down as the best tag teams ever. It’s way to early to make such proclamations but they’ve proven they had go against anyone in the ring and they’re proving their mic skills (especially Ambrose) and soon as individuals.
Back to Bryan and The Wyatt Family. The WWE are no fools and they wouldn’t submarine a crowd exploding favorite like Bryan just to be a role player as part of the Wyatts. My guess is that this will play on and eventually Bryan will exact his revenge on Bray Wyatt. It’s not rocket science. With the revelation that we’ll see Cena vs RKO once again at Royal Rumble, Bryan wasn’t getting included into that mix so the WWE will have him toil in this odd feud with The Wyatts until, I’m guessing, Cena walks away with the Unified belt. Then it will be time to get Bryan back into the mix. This is another time when I’m best to consult The Oracle because I’m horrible at predicting the future of such things.
Meanwhile Ziggler might have finally been freed from his year long punishment because he finally got a well deserved win, albeit against the walking corpse of Curtis Axel but hey, i’m sure he’s take the win. I’ll predict 2014 is a much better year for Ziggler. Especially if he gets into a feud with his former protege, Big E Langston. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, that would be an incredible feud.
Evil Gerald Butler AKA #BadNewsBarrett AKA Wade Barrett was slightly more entertaining this week by popping up and putting the kibosh on the New Year’s spinnaroonie (sp?). Yet another wrestler on my top 5 that need a push in 2014 but that’s only going to happen if he gets his ass in the ring and wrestles.
Brock Lesnar is back. More intriguingly, Heyman is back. So that’s a thing…I guess? Lesnar is a spectacle and does put on solid matches but he’s no Undertaker or even The Rock were time stops just because he’s back for 3 months of paychecks. I’d be interested in seeing Lesnar vs Henry but I have a feeling that what we saw on RAW was just to prove how strong Lesnar is instead of setting up a feud between the two.
Who’d have thought that Fandango would prove to be a force to reckon with in-ring. Stupid gimmick aside, Fandango brings in. He’s a character to watch in 2014 because he’s going to be standout in-ring but god knows what they’re going to do with his character. Shitty gimmicks only have so high a ceiling no matter how good a wrestler someone is.
Speaking of breaking free from shit gimmicks, Brodus Clay is going into full monster form. By the end, when Xavier Wood / R-Truth / The Funkadactyls were all dancing in the ring, all I wanted was to see Clay go back and wreck shop on each and everyone in that ring. Add Sweet-Tensai to the mix too. I don’t care. Let the beast loose!
Well while we’re at it, let’s do another list…
Wrestlers that should have a great / transformative 2014:
- The Shield members – I know 2013 was the Year of The Shield but 2014 should see how they’ll each do individually. With Rollins’ recent showcase, there’s nothing holding each member back from doing great things in 2014. Don’t forget, they’ll still be fighting together as The Shield for in the beginning of the year too. There’s nothing wrong with that.
- Dolph Ziggler – He’s been buried and humiliated all year. From Champ to chump. He’s jobbed to everyone the WWE has put in front of him and he’s done it like a pro. Even in his worst defeats, he’s gone out and put on a great show and put each wrestler he jobs to over splendidly. If he’s out of the dog house, he should be someone to watch.
- Big E Langston – Big E has already gotten a huge push but he’s got the size and skill that the WWE likes to have in their main events. I don’t know if the audience is quite ready for him to become a main event-er but by teaming him up with Cena and tagging him up with Mark Henry, it looks like they’re trying to continue a massive push.
- Brodus Clay – Finally becoming a heavyweight beast. Is there anyone, over the age of 9 - 12, that doesn’t want to see Clay become a heel? He should be a destructive force in the WWE this year.
- Cody Rhodes – If we are to have a brother vs brother match between Cody and Goldust, I’ll put my money on Cody winning. He’s the better long-term investment for the WWE (even though you won’t find a bigger mark for Goldust than me). They’ve been great as tag champs but eventually they’ll break up. It’s uncertain how long Goldust will keep going but Cody is in his prime. Once he enters the singles game, assuming he comes off a great feud with his brother, it will be interesting what direction he goes in.
- The Usos – This is my bonus pick. The Usos have been great but as I keep mentioning, they haven’t been given too much to do as far as character development. To last in wrestling, you not only have be outstanding in-ring but the crowd has to want to see you each week. The Real Americans might not be the best tag team but with Zeb doing the talking, they can be put into various feuds because they can always be a villain. It’ll be hard for the Usos to stay as faces if they never talk.
Alright y’all. That should do it for me this year. I’m so excited for 2014. I think we’re on the presuppose of the next great era for wrestling. It has been a while since the WWE has been really great. Things were looking bleak but CM Punk’s “pipe bomb shoot” light the fuse for a new direction. While nothing exploded onto the scene like Punk did in throughout 2012, 2013 saw the rise of some really solid characters and wrestlers. Wrestling’s pot has been sitting on the stove and all the ingredients have been added and we’re just about to start boiling.
What better way to start 2014 than with an “Old School RAW” which we’ve been teased to have Ric Flair make an appearance, WHOOOOOOOOO! Don’t forget we’re just weeks away from the Royal Rumble, which is always fun.
Until next time…
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