PWI UPDATE ARCHIVES
THE TURN: Skewering The Week Of January 20-26, 2012
THE TURN: Skewering The Week Of January 13-19, 2012
THE TURN: Skewering The Week Of January 6-12, 2012
THE TURN: Skewering The Week Of January 1-5, 2012
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THE TURN: Skewering The Week Of January 20-26, 2012
Special Commentary
Fried ravioli. World championship baseball. A giant arch that lets you know there are better things ahead. Ahh, the wonders that are St. Louis, Missouri. This weekend the “Gateway To The West” gets even more interesting when The Royal Rumble comes into town and crowns Randy Orton its winner. Oh, but you say, “Great and wonderful Turn, Randy Orton isn’t around … how on earth could he possibly come back at an event in his home town and win, thus earning a trip to the main event of WrestleMania?” To that we say, “Silly reader. It’s wrestling.”
Honestly, The Royal Rumble is easily our second favorite WWE pay-per-view event of the year, after ’Mania. It’s just a wonderful, silly premise that has kept us riveted ever since its inception. The mass of humanity in the ring beating the bejezus out of each other for the chance to be elevated to a stature of potential greatness. Friends turn against friends; enemies pair up to serve their own needs. It’s human emotion at its best. Plus, it gives us an awesome reason to pound adult soda pops and ingest copious amounts of chicken wings in the week before the big NFL game. Life, in the interim, is quite good.
So, looking at the card from top to bottom, we’re actually pretty psyched for this weekend’s installment into Rumble lore. We’ve gone on record—for weeks now—with our pick of Orton to win the big match of the show, but let’s break down the rest of the card with our picks and predictions:
WWE Championship: The deck is stacked against CM Punk in his title match with Dolph Ziggler. Yes, Vickie Guerrero and Jack Swagger are banned from ringside, but with a streaking Ziggler in the other corner and John Laurinitis “calling it down the middle,” the time is ripe for Punk to get hosed out of the gold. Still, we’ve got to go with the battle-tested champ. He’s just too damn good. Winner: CM PUNK
Grudge Match: Kane is attempting to lure John Cena to the dark side and, if anyone can, it’s the guy with the creepy skin-looking mask and anger issues. Plus, with Ron Paul tanking in the polls (there’s always Florida) Kane is going to be extra peeved. Cena always seems to excel in these situations, and we don’t think there’s any reason to bet against the guy, now. Still, it feels like it would be a terrible waste of an angle to allow this “embrace the hate” thing go by the wayside. We’ll give the win to Cena, but Kane will steal the show. Winner: JOHN CENA
World Championship: Hey, wasn’t that Daniel Bryan championship run nice? Is there any way he actually makes it out of the steel cage with the title with The Big Show and Mark Henry in there as well? Can’t imagine that he does, although the dude has surprised us time and again. We’d like to be contrarian and say that he’s going to keep the title, but we just don’t see it. Let’s call it for the “World’s Strongest Man.” Winner: MARK HENRY
The Week In Televised (and Onlline)Wrestling
Friday, January 20
Smackdown
Don’t care that he’s raising good points about being slapped into two very daunting matches in the two weeks prior to The Royal Rumble, but punking out of a fight hardly seems worthy of a World champion. Yet, by evading the mashed-up battle at the end of Smackdown last week, Daniel Bryan did just that. He’s got a good argument, but didn’t help his position by running. Here’s hoping he has an elderly relative or young child to throw in front of a charging opponent this weekend. He’s going to need it.
Saturday, January 21
ROH
Tag team wrestling fans, look no further than ROH. Although, if you actually are a fan of quality tag team wrestling, there’s a good chance you were already doing just that. How could you not dig the Briscoes-vs.-WGTT feud? Ignore the fact that all four guys can wrestle their respective asses off—because they can—but they play off each other perfectly. The structurally sound and fundamentally superior WGTT playing the unpopular villains to the brash and wild Briscoes is precisely what you’d hope to see in a battle. Very enjoyable scenario on ROH.
Monday, January 23
Raw
Did Chris Jericho just prophesize the end of the world on Sunday? How is it possible that we missed out on this? Is it some Mayan thing? And, why was this glossed over in favor of John Laurinitis apparently being in job trouble? We should absolutely start getting our affairs in order. Starting right now, we’re giving away all of our worldly possessions and divorcing our spouses in order to follow “Y2J” into the abyss on Sunday evening. Somehow, we always knew the end of the world would come with a man in a glowing, lighted jacket.
Wednesday, January 25
NXT
Why isn’t Health Slater getting the love he deserves? A nice win over Trent Berretta on Wednesday night really should allow the two-time NXT-er to get more virtual ink moving forward. We’re still not sure he’s worthy of a main roster spot, but he’s perfectly suited for NXT status. Actually—and we acknowledge this will read weird—but if WWE still had a light heavyweight division, we could see Slater being a top contender. Instead, he’ll have to settle for Internet greatness. Or, you know, Internet very-goodness.
Thursday, January 26
Impact Wrestling
We all knew it was coming eventually, but how psyched were you to see the AJ Styles-Frankie Kazarian match finally put in place for Against All Odds last night? We’re calling it the match of the night already, well before the event takes place. Both are similarly constituted in the ring and bring many of the same attributes, but we’re going to give the early nod to Styles. He’s too damn experienced and has done it more than Kaz and in bigger situations. This should be a match—barring any sort of TNA “creative” screw-up in between—that makes the event worth the price of purchase.
THE TURN: Skewering The Week Of January 13-19, 2012
The Week In Televised Wrestling
Friday, January 13
Smackdown
Either Daniel Bryan is a genius, or we reached an all-time low in the reign of the World champion last week. Whether it was dumb, unfortunate luck or purely by accident (as he’d have you believe), Bryan retained the gold when his girlfriend AJ was run over by The Big Show when utilized as the prettiest human shield we’ve ever seen. Regardless of his tactics, the unlikely champ is still with the gold, Show openly wept and is now psychologically defeated, and A.J. is no doubt still feeling the effects of being run over by 400 pounds of man. Still unsure whether we admire Bryan or feel a sense of lingering pity for what Show does to him when he discovers the ruse.
Saturday, January 14
ROH
Hey, TNA, if you're wondering how to pull off an excellent multi-man tag team match, we recommend you check out last week’s episode of ROH. Edited for television, the 80-minute, eight-man tag team bout was a thing of beauty. The flow of the fight kept the viewer’s attention throughout, the pace of the wrestling was superb, which has become very much what we expect from ROH. For the record, Team Red—consisting of Wrestling’s Greatest Tag Team, El Generico, and Eddie Edwards—won the match and the $10,000 check that came with it. But, of course, the real winners were the fans … no, screw that, the real winner was the group with the big, fat check. We just lucked out by being able to watch.
Monday, January 16
Raw
If they ever decide to write and stage a musical based in the life of Suge Knight, we believe there would be no greater star than the smooth and jiggly Brodus Clay. Perhaps the greatest entrance that so very few people in the arena care about, in our humble opinion. Although, in the interest of full disclosure, we have personally seen PWI Publisher—the very real and not at all make believe—Stu Saks enter the office in the exact same manner, complete with dancing girls. We need Clay to be in every match, every broadcast, because it's awesome. Speaking of awesome: Mick Foley. Good night of wrasslin’.
Wednesday, January 18
NXT
There's some buzz on the Internet about the fact that it appears—finally—that some of the primary storylines will be coming to a head next week. And this may seem true with Darren Young finally stepping up and looking more like what was expected of him and Derrick Bateman getting whatever the hell type of resolution he’s looking for (dude … let her go). What really intrigues us is waiting to see what NXT does the week after next. There’s plenty of build-up to closing some of the loops that have existed seemingly forever … but what nxt, NXT? That, our friends, will be the most interesting development this side of The Royal Rumble (Randy Orton wins, FYI).
Thursday, January 19
Impact Wrestling
The proverbial cold shower for any fan would be when you’re treated to a beautiful main event that is spoiled by some overly thought storyline angle that mucks it all up. James Storm and Jeff Hardy and went to a no-contest after TNA World champ Bobby Roode came down and interfered. It was a very unsatisfying finish to a very interesting and intense match-up. We have come to the long overdue realization that TNA does not tell a logical story with twists, turns, and such, but rather prolongs angles by simply buying time through garbage finishes like last night’s. Yep, we get it, Bobby Roode is a bad guy. Established.
Weekly Top 10
For all you social media nerds like us out there, the announcement that Sting not only started a YouTube page but also a Twitter account probably geeked you up just a little bit. Understanding the limitations of a Twitter account, it still feels pretty cool to be one degree of separation away from some of the biggest folks in industry. Names like “Stone-Cold” Steve Austin, The Rock or, even bigger, the entire writing staff of “The Turn” (@PWI_Turn). Here is our top-10 wrestling-related folks you may want to follow on Twitter in 2012:
10. @funtimeshelly (Shelly Martinez)
9. @steveaustinBSR (Steve Austin)
8. @TheeBlueMeanie (The Blue Meanie)
7. @BobbyHeenanSaid (Classic Bobby Heenan announce table quotes)
6. @realMickFoley (Mick Foley)
5. @TheRock (Dwayne “The Rock Only For Three Hours In April” Johnson)
4. @JCLayfield (JBL)
3. @CMPunk (CM Punk)
2. @IAmJericho (Chris Jericho)
1. @theChrisHero (Chris Hero)
Trending: Buy Low, Sell Low Edition
Buy: John Laurinaitis as the high-powered WWE executive
Hold: The sweet, sweet memories of the mulletted Johnny Ace
Sell: Road Warrior Animal's brother. Dude has become much, much more than the family afterthought.
Angle Of The Week
Although the angle of this week is something that occurred off-screen (usually verboten for our purposes), it stands to have a substantial impact on what you will end up seeing on television. With the 60-day suspension of Evan Bourne for a second violation of the WWE Wellness Policy, you have to imagine that the Air Boom era will be disbanded, and Kofi Kingston will be left to fend for himself yet again. While we won't speculate on what to led to Bourne’s suspension, we have to admit that we are quite disappointed. Tons of talent, huge charisma, but unless he can keep his head on straight and focus on what really matters, it could end up being a short WWE career for the guy.
What You Should Be Doing … But Probably Aren’t
What you should be doing right now is checking out the press releases and the stories surrounding TNA's production of Ra Ka King. The show, which is going to feature primarily Indian performers and as well as TNA wrestlers, and will be hard as hell to find in the States. We mentioned King in this column in a few weeks back, but with the January 28 debut on the horizon, TNA is now ramping up its promotion. This venture should be very intriguing to fans of the business side of the industry and we’re pulling for it to succeed.
Owen Hart Memorial Nugget of Information
On this date 10 years ago, Triple-H—who, coincidentally, dubbed Owen “That Nugget,” eliminated Kurt Angle to win the 15th annual Royal Rumble match and secure a, then-WWF, World title match in the main event title match at WrestleMania X8. Back then, youngsters, there was only one major world title in WWF with the advent of the Undisputed championship. Hunter would go on to defeat champion Chris Jericho in front of 68,000-plus in the SkyDome at Toronto, Ontario, to win the gold.
THE TURN: Skewering The Week Of January 6-12, 2012
The Week In Televised Wrestling
Friday, January 6
Smackdown
Can you really blame Daniel Bryan for taking the easy way to victory in his defense last Friday night against The Big Show? His is a great story. We're very happy to see him get the level of recognition we’ve always believed he deserves, but we don't see this going much longer. Show has now been hosed in his pursuit of the gold multiple times and it is just a matter of time before the goodness in the man gets overtaken by that which drives him to succeed at any cost. Forget Mark Henry for the time being. The Big Show is easily the most dangerous man to Daniel Bryan's championship reign.
Saturday, January 7
ROH
As much as it pains us to say, there's a better than good chance that at some point the career of Jay Lethal he's going to end up in WWE. Of course, he'll likely be wasted in his role in WWE, but that doesn't mean he won’t be there at some point. He's just too good, too talented, and too marketable to not take that next step up at some point. His ROH Television championship match against T.J. Perkins on ROH last week is a perfect example of but a fraction of the seemingly limitless potential Lethal possesses. We hope he resists temptation just a little while longer, but we couldn't blame the guy for chasing a steady check.
Monday, January 9
Raw
Nice night of Raw this past Monday. Easily the biggest news Monday night was the announcement of Edge and The Four Horsemen as inductees into the WWE Hall of Fame. Honestly we have no problem with Edge getting in this early. We’ve been fans of the guy forever, and he deserves it, given that his retirement seems legit. The Horsemen, however, make little to no sense whatsoever and we’re talking about a hall that counts Pete Rose amongst its inductees. We're Horsemen people, but we're calling bovine excrement on this one!
Wednesday, January 11
NXT
It is probably about time that The Usos get a fair shot on one of the two bigger brands. You know, that would be assuming that the company still recognizes tag team wrestling as a craft. We're not going to take any more time griping about the forced demise of tag team wrestling that WWE has fostered over the years. Still, The Usos go out there every week and put forth the best effort of arguably anybody on that roster, and it's time that they get the some actual airtime. Just a side-note, NXT may be the most beautifully shot WWE program. Visually, it's damn impressive. That is all.
Thursday, January 12
Impact Wrestling
TNA would be wise to handle the James Storm and Jeff Hardy situation carefully. Both are viable candidates for number-one contendership. However, if one is made to look much stronger than the other or, subsequently, the other is made to look far too weak, TNA could severely diminish the potential drawing power that both have. However, we’re going to put our money on James Storm coming out looking better in this mini-feud. The reason being that Jeff Hardy has a built-in audience that isn’t going anywhere, especially having stuck through all they have thus far. Storm is still gaining traction and needs to come out on top, so says us.
Weekly Top 10
For everyone keeping an eye on the NFL playoffs this past week, you probably recognized that there may have been, perhaps, excessive coverage of Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow in the news. To some extent, it’s well deserved. After all, the guy had succeeded beyond all expectations and took his team into the second round of the playoffs. Sure, the Broncos got the ever-loving snot beat out of them by the New England Patriots over this past weekend, but that doesn’t diminish Tebow’s contributions this season. He played fine football, but of course, his greatest claim to fame is introducing the world to what is very affectionately now known as "Tebowing." Or, more specifically, kneeling down in silent prayer on the sideline following a touchdown. No judging here. In fact, here are the Top 10 Tebow-inspired wrestling celebrations we would like to see in 2012:
10. “Pope-ing”: How D’Angelo Dinero hasn’t capitalized on Tim Tebow’s fame is beyond us
9. “Miz-terpice”: With Chris Masters in India, why not take some artistic license, eh?
8. “Zack-tastic Voyage”: This is the one where after a victory (or a valiant loss) Zack Ryder gets back in his spaceship and settles down back on the Web, where his angle works best.
7. “American Draggin’”: Daniel Bryan pulls his broken body back to the lockerroom area after being crushed by Big Show and/or Mark Henry.
6. “Storm Chasing”: This is where James Storm gets so blotto he spins in the ring both before, and after, matches as if he’s a tornado. The marketing writes itself.
5. “Cody-fiying”: Dashing celebration that involves overly grandiose coverage of a tremendously bland accomplishment.
4. “R-KO’d”: Win a big match, suffer a devastating injury, grow a weird-ass beard.
3. “Aries 3:16”: Celebrate by telling everyone how great you are and watching them not care.
2. “Punk-ing”: This is where you screw with the fans just enough to have them love you. No genuflecting is required.
1. “Rock-ing”: Following a victory, the athlete gets as far away from the sport as possible, appearing only to make largely forgetful appearances in schlocky movies.
Trending: Booker T Edition
Buy: The dude is in superior condition and is willing to make Cody Rhodes look good. We’re digging grandfatherly, put-you-over Booker T.
Hold: But, never forget, under all the goodwill is a badass … in flame-emblazoned spandex. Keep close to your heart Harlem Heat Booker T.
Sell: We loved it, but this officially is us putting King Book-ah to bed.
Angle Of The Week
Since we didn't acknowledge the actual angle portion of it last week, we're going to have to give the angle of this week to the weepy, confusing eyes of one Chris Jericho. We still really don't know what to make of the whole issue, but we also still can’t help feeling like we're being played. If you listen to our peers in the wrestling writer universe, Jericho is eyeing the championship match with whoever is holding the gold heading into WrestleMania 29. Call us crazy—and we’ve never gotten into the ring—but we’re not sure that the best way to go about that is by coming on stage, rallying the fans, crying, and then leaving. If that were the case, we would’ve been World champion of something on prom night 1997.
What You Should Be Doing … But Probably Aren’t
What you should be doing right now is following the discussions online about whether or not WrestleMania 29 will be held in Canada, as initially expected, or now possibly in the latest rumored front-running state: New Jersey. That's right, we said New Jersey. While we have to put the smart money for WrestleMania 30 being in the Mecca of entertainment, New York City, it would then lead us to believe that WWE wouldn’t hold the event in the tri-state area in back-to-back years, hurting Jersey’s chances. But, stranger things have happened. Plus, if it’s in Jersey, we have to imagine that would then bring Snooki out of whatever tree stump or clinic she resides in and back into the picture.
Owen Hart Memorial Nugget of Information
Yep, that was John Cena you saw on the box of Fruity Pebbles at your local grocery store. The very same cereal by which The Rock implied that Cena was, perhaps, slightly not as tough as one would imagine or that he was hiding behind his flamboyantly colorful wardrobe. Cena and Post Cereal reached an agreement where the former champ will appear on boxes of the addictive Flintstones-inspired cereal for the next three months as part of a contest where children can win an opportunity to meet him. Dude turned this around as quickly as possible and made an angle on TV into the crossover promotion of the early year. Well played, Cena.
THE TURN: Skewering The Week Of January 1-5, 2012
Special Commentary
Y2J’s Return—Awesome Ploy or Awesomest Ploy?
Did we just experience one of the hardest slaps in our collective faces or is a man losing the desire to do what he does best right before our eyes? Really, we can’t imagine that anything other than either of those two scenarios were running through Chris Jericho’s head on Monday night as the obscure vignettes teasing a “return” ended by revealing “Y2J” as the one in the prophecy.
In an unusual and unbelievably clever twist, Jericho fawned over the fans, riled their senses and delivered a big, heaping pile of … nothing. Absolutely nothing … and it was freakin’ brilliant!
Seriously, sometimes we’re actually allowed to press a glass up against the fourth wall that separates “Turn” folk from the industry and listen to the insider buzz. Hardly makes us part of the establishment or, frankly, purveyors of even decent rumors. But, allow us to assure you, that we don’t have the foggiest idea of why this angle started as such and where it’s going. The easy pickings are what we, and our peers in the industry, have guessed. We—as a fan base—either just got played by Jericho or the man simply couldn’t fake enthusiasm anymore and we watched the fire that drives him to compete slowly be extinguished.
Whatever it ends up being, we’re pretty psyched to see it play out. The only hook that we would find genuinely disappointing would be if Jericho simply slipped back into the, “See … I told you that you’re all lemmings and look how I prove it” mode of his prior run. The “better-than-you” approach is fine for villains, but gets stale after a while. To resurrect it now would seem to cut short what should be a pretty cool angle.
Allow us to part with one last scenario: What if Jericho wasn’t the person alluded to in the vignettes, but simply is part of a bigger ruse? What if the one who is to arrive is only being preceded by others? Who the hell was “she” throughout? That’s really going to bug us until we get some sort of explanation. Meh, let’s just enjoy the ride.
The Week In Televised Wrestling
Friday, December 30
Smackdown
Alright, so everyone sees Cody and Dustin Rhodes teaming up to beat the stuffing out of Booker T, right? C’mon, folks, no one is buying the brother-versus-brother angle as being legit, right? Sure, Cody took it to his older brother last week in the final Smackdown of 2011, but this really has all the makings of a turn. Booker has effectively let his guard down and is now psychologically back in a place where he and the former Goldust are unlikely allies. What the Rhodes family gains from destroying Booker T … in 2012 … is anybody’s guess. This can’t end well, for any of them.
Saturday, December 31
Ring Of Honor
Oh, yeah, they’ve arrived. To be fair, ROH has been around and viable for years. But, in our humble opinion, elevation to “Turn” weekly review status truly makes a program legendary. Right, Wrestling Society X? Ugh. Anywho, as we alluded a few weeks back, ROH will now be covered in our weekly review and we couldn’t be happier. Excellent match to kick off last week’s broadcast, with ROH heavyweight champ, and 2006 ECWA Super 8 winner, “American Wolf” Davey Richards retaining the title over Roderick Strong. That’s what you get from ROH, for the uninitiated: a hell of a match to open the show. We’re hoping for a big year from these guys. Buy back some of the cred we may have lost supporting Santino Marella’s continued employment.
Monday, January 2
Raw
“Embrace the hate” may end up being wrestling’s phrase of the year for 2012. Or, it may just be another in a long line of forgettable catch phrases from scrapped angles that never really materialized. But, c’mon … they shot fire from the damn ring Monday night. That has to be good for something, eh? Whether the newly frightful Kane is successful in instilling the seeds of evil in perennial goodie John Cena is not yet clear. We’d like to believe that this will end with Cena overcoming the temptations of evil and rising in some Batman-y success. Wait … Kane … Bane. Oh, bloody hell. Hopefully they’ll end the suspense prior to Chris Nolan’s version this summer.
Wednesday, January 4
NXT
Uncomfortable tongue kissing, a marriage announcement, and a guy willingly going by the name “Sweet Meat”? NXT has got to be the number-one watched Internet wrestling program worldwide … in prisons. Overall, a very strange week of NXT, with Maxine confirming that she and Curtis would be getting hitched in two weeks, despite her torrid love affair with Bateman still, you know, being torrid. Bateman is clearly being affected by the love of his life (at least for the past few months) running off with the competition … unless, of course, this was all a plan between Maxine and Bateman to get Curtis out of the competition, assuming there is still a competition.
Thursday, January 5
Impact Wrestling
Heading into Genesis, we expected the typical, run-of-the-mill go-home show with little substance and plenty of buildup. But … wait … what was that? Was that a Frankie Kazarian turn against A.J. Styles during their tag match? Sure, the ol’ walk-out-on-your-partner act is dated and, in some cases, can be overcome if the team really wants to succeed but, actually, does that ever happen? Like, ever? Once you’re angry enough to leave your partner to the mercy of opponents—Samoa Joe and Magnus, no less—it’s curtains for the team. Now, whether it’s Styles—who would be justified—or Kazarian—who set the foundation—that beats the hell out of the other, it will be a fun game of cat-and-mouse to follow. We’re betting that Styles will take the high road and try to get to the bottom of things, while Kazarian will cry “overshadowed” and punk out. Either way—how geeked are you for this feud?
