Post by DM on Dec 25, 2010 4:41:58 GMT
Hello everyone DM here presenting you with Wrestling in 2010 and boy what a year it has been. I will do my best to focus on the main companies being TNA and WWE though again key word is try.
First off lets start with WWE, the year opened up with Taker and Shawn continuing their rivalry that would later filter into Elimination Chamber and later Wrestlemania 26 where he was retired. NXT was put upon the map as a 'reality based' show which again turned out more so to be FCW 2.0, again I wouldn't have minded the concept though I prefer they just put on, FCW. This is what they replaced ECW with mind you, a show that not many people watched. A man by the name of Bryan Danielson whom was the internet sensation due to ROH and general knowledge made a huge impression, got fired and came back at Summer Slam and continues to be a pain in Cole's ass while taking the U.S. Title. The I.C. Title has, essentially been placed on either Ziggler or Rey Mysterio. Punk opened up a Straight Edge Society which later ended up getting him shaved bald and having a announcers position. Swagger stared early as the World Champion with Mysterio taking it via Fatal Four Way, Kane taking it from him via Money in the Bank, having epic promos, defeating the Undertaker Three times to having Edge ruin the entire push (actually WWE not Edge) and becoming a Ten Time World Champion. The WWE Title nearly became as worthless as it's toy counterpart with Batista first holding it at the start of the year, Cena taking it back only to lose it at Fatal Four Way due to Nexus, Shaemus takes it back, granting the belt to Orton whom had a lackluster title reign (again) in where Miz whom won Raw's Money in the Bank cashed in and took it from him. At least title changes were minimal this year around but no real big names holding it. Triple H was taken out due to Shaemus whom became King of the Ring, Raw went Old School, had guest stars, Smackdown moved to Sci Fi, no one cared about NXT, Bret Hart made ammends with everyone, HBK retired and Michael Cole became a bigger heel than The Miz and Kane combined (something is wrong with that.) Legacy was broken up due to the fans wanting a push from Orton (yet cared nothing for his reign as champion) and now Rhodes is off being 'Dashing' while DiBiase is jobbing out. Tag team wrestling in WWE is a joke with the copper titles and the 'women's title' is forever destroyed by the word Diva. On the bright side, and there's very little, amiss the Pay Per Views being Hit, Miss, Miss, Near Miss, Hit, at least the lower/mid card has kept our attention while the Main Events make sure we get a good nights rest.
TNA started off the year with Hogan taking over TNA and having 'plans' making Abyss one of his disciples, Jarrett being a heel/face and Sting being a 'heel', Nash retires, god knows whatever happened to Scott Hall and Waltman, ECW was revived for the last time and had an alright PPV, dispite the fact it was suposed to be 'one night only' and had TNA all over it (Watch One Night Stand from WWE, that's MORE ECW than ECW/TNA), an ROH faithful by the name of Nigel McGuinness was barely used, talents were let go while James, Lea, RVD, Hardy, Moore, Half of ECW, Kennedy all got huge pushes leaving the TNA Faithful (like we all predicted) were tossed aside. Fortune was later considered a joke with AJ Styles defending a title that was never defended, Hardy becoming a poster child for TNA only to be considered and Anti Christ, Joe as a competitor is now a joke to MMA Specialist Jeff Jarrett, The knockouts were cut in half, the X Division Title wasn't given a big enough of a push and placed on a guy whom only wrestled for a month with the company and now is no longer a 'flavour of the month' and surprise surprise, Hogan turns heel with Hardy, Bischoff, Abyss and Jarrett while the rest of TNA 'bow down' to them with Morgan leading the charge. With ECW getting involved it screwed up the Dudley's storyline, which again, went no where just to be picked up, Pay Per Views consisted of Old Men in shirts battling either more old men in shirts or squashing younger talent. AJ Styles started the year as World Champion, only to drop it to, of all people. RVD whom dropped the title after being 'taken out' by Abyss, only to have it be placed up Hardy, and lets not forget, Angle is 'retired' now. TNA also opted for a Top Ten Tier which was fan voted (not by credentials or win/losses) which saw Kurt Angle fight up to about Tier 3 and give up the whole idea, having rematches that he already had for the last two years, nothing epic there. The ONLY thing bringing us back to TNA has been the Tag Team Titles which FINALLY Motor City was able to achieve, however sadly after 7 matches week after week spilling into Pay Per View, now they have no where to go. Also they created a 'shoot show' called Reaction that now has the Main Event spilling into it....everyweek. Gimmicks work great the first two times, after that, it's old, another reason why TNA, this year, went no where and if anything, went backwards.
In short, Wrestling for both companies has done very little to the avid fan. For the casual ones it was probably a trip with headlines of Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan, Jeff Hardy and Brian Danielson along with Nexus and EC (EV2.0). Anything else that can be considered credible either has HBK retiring or Ric Flair coming OUT of retirement--anything and everything else isn't note worthy compared to an avid fan whom has watched the product slowly diminish. The real scary thing is that 2000 opened up with a BANG, an explosion of Mid Carders, the Women's Division, Cruiserweights, Brand Splitting, Main Event Blow Outs, the Death of WcW and ECW, Shock Television, and sadly, several wrestling deaths including Guerrero and Benoit being the most controversial, it seems that once 2005-06 struck, nothing has gone right, not just for WWE but also for TNA as well. Fans are getting smarter or change their flavour from show to show, titles mean less and less as the year passes on and sadly, the ones whom used to give credit and worth to the gold and shows, are either retiring or need to be retiring. TNA has become a playground of writers with bad ideas and WWE has become a corporate playground of writers with no ideas. A sad truth is that nothing inspiring came from Wrestling towards the end years of this decade, it could be due to the fact things again are getting stale, hense the New Generation then Attitude Era, it seems the 2000's started off strong and got stale towards the end, will there be another promotion to kick competition gears? Probably not. Some say it'll be TNA, problem is, they're taking concept from WcW 99-2000 which didn't work then nor now and ROH, sadly, unless you have internet or HD (which people won't pay for in THIS day in age due to the economy) can't get off the ground. Hell NWA is still going strong but with no TV syndication, there's nothing to float on, and with nothing competiting, why should WWE try?
Good Concepts that ended bad :
1. Jack Swagger - They made him win money in the bank and made him World Champion -- pushing young talent is always a plus. How they ruined it, having Swagger lose on Smackdown and Raw concecutively and only win to my knowledge two Pay Per View matches just to drop it to Mysterio to drop it to Kane a month later.
2. Edge - Edge was rumored to be out for months due to the injury -- very few actually thought he'd return -- he returns and gets a massive pop at the expense of Shawn not winning the rumble. Edge goes to Mania, however, fans collectively over the age of 12 didn't really care for the match due to turning Edge cartoony with 'spear, spear, spear' Jericho was the only interesting factor in the match and Edge not winning, a shock, but later, killed the return as he was later shuffled to RAW back to Smackdown!
3. NXT - This was a brilliant idea at the expense of ECW however by the third week it was easy to see the strings from the puppet master, it became a 'build up Danielson/Cole' show rather the actual focus being on the rookies. They corrected that by getting rid of him, but also ruined it by having Good Talent vs. Horrible Talent in the finals -- it became obvious NXT was a trial run for Tough Enough and did 3 more seasons which sadly, season 3 went via internet and no one is watching season 4.
4. Straight Edge -- Punk was over as one of the biggest heels in WWE, surpassing Shaemus and Batista collectively. They gave him a stable that eventually broke down and they got rid of, making it be an afterthought as Mysterio and Show were the demise of Straight Edge. Was it over? Yes. Did he win matches? No. Why? Cause that would make sense.
5. Randy Orton/Legacy - Making them run Raw would have made sense, never happened, having them own all the gold would have made them over, they didn't, having these men break up and fued would have been great, one match is all you get, end result, World Over Randy Orton, nothing for Legacy except for Rhodes whom still isn't title worthy. Orton was the fan favorite over Cena, booked him as the next Stone Cold when, lets face it, he's no Stone Cold. Orton became God and defeated everyone, hot shotted to the title and the fans fizzled after three minutes. Making Orton the face after Legacy, the group the fans cheered for, was a horrible idea in concept and it only got worse as the weeks carried on.
6. Nexus - Massive idea, have all of NXT band together and destroy WWE, it was the most talked about thing in years in the wrestling world -- it worked for three weeks -- once Nexus didn't attack Smackdown! it soon became apparent this was all part of a major idea, in short, Barrett won NXT...but everyone else had contracts, thus making NXT Season 2 pointless and everyone in the competition pointless if they were going to just be hired anyway, however the real talent was the one whom got fired, again, it all became clear. It became a story more so about John Cena vs. Barrett. If I wanted to see Sting vs. Holly 'NWO' Hogan again, I'd pop in 98' and watch that.
7. 10-10-10 - This WHOLE thing started in January with TNA pulling in Hogan/Flair, getting some big names to help push TNA, in fact, that's what they should have been, names and nothing more. Once you have Hogan literally giving his friends a pay check and pushing the younger TNA to the back was a HUGE problem. Uninventive RVD was the champion and had meh matches, Joe is a joke, AJ is weak and Lethal had 'one good match' with a broken down Ric Flair whom reminded us of why he retired in the first place. Abyss with Hogan's music, Sting a heel for the right reasons and Anderson being the only real reason to watch TNA is a huge problem -- this was nothing more than a way to get Hogan over and push WWE talent over TNA, it's no wonder the rats are leaving the ship.
8. EV 2.0 - Bring back ECW, at least it'll make the smarks happy right? Instead of going to the Hammerstien Ballroom....or getting Paul Heyman...or actually allowing them to have all the ECW Stars...yeah, didn't work. No atmosphere, ECW fans weren't there, no leader of ECW, this was TNA making sport of ECW just to drag it out. WWE gave ECW Two One Night Stands and they were, looked and FELT like ECW, TNA's version was horrible in comparison. This was supposed to be a one night thing that turned out to be a four month thing and later...the destruction of an already dead ECW. Fans now realize that you should leave something which once was great dead in the grave instead of bringing it back and going for part II. Now the fans can remember ECW as the company that sold out to TNA and had a meager PPV and it's stars looking weak compared to their glory days.
9. Top Ten Tier - A GREAT idea....until you find out that Joe is 9 and Hardy is 4. Make the fans vote and you don't even need creditentials or a win/loss record, it becomes, literally, who's dick is getting sucked the most backstage. Kurt Angel tries to fix it by fighting all of them one by one, major problem, the top ten changes bi weekly, so again, it becomes an Angle Story rather an actual ranking system. Time to spin that wheel and make a deal I suppose.
10. Undertaker/Kane - This was a massive idea, give Kane the World Title, finally place him on the map (despite the fact Taker is in a vegetative state, but we'll ignore that) Kane goes on a rampage....and it turns out he's the one whom took out Taker. Kane and Taker have a three match series that was alright, Edge is the one that defeats Kane with cartoony/heelish tactics. Forget making Kane a monster, just give him his balls back. Way to make a monster heel into Zach Gowen.
In short, these are just ten concepts that started out great and in the end, crashed and burned. All of which could be cleaned up and fixed, but is passed the point of repair. 2010 has taught us a lot, it has taught us that pushes mean nothing, status mean nothing, and talent means nothing. What matters is if you can sell merchandise and if you get big crowd reactions. Forget 'calling' a match, forget actually having wrestling on a wrestling show, and forget pushing young stars -- what 2010 taught us was simply this -- Similar to the Attitude Era things are changing, the stars you once knew are gone, the concepts you found dear lost and the formula is lost, unless 2011 is a Phoenix of Ideas and bring realism back to the 'sport' of pro wrestling, my friends, it won't make it another ten years -- for that, I can promise you.
First off lets start with WWE, the year opened up with Taker and Shawn continuing their rivalry that would later filter into Elimination Chamber and later Wrestlemania 26 where he was retired. NXT was put upon the map as a 'reality based' show which again turned out more so to be FCW 2.0, again I wouldn't have minded the concept though I prefer they just put on, FCW. This is what they replaced ECW with mind you, a show that not many people watched. A man by the name of Bryan Danielson whom was the internet sensation due to ROH and general knowledge made a huge impression, got fired and came back at Summer Slam and continues to be a pain in Cole's ass while taking the U.S. Title. The I.C. Title has, essentially been placed on either Ziggler or Rey Mysterio. Punk opened up a Straight Edge Society which later ended up getting him shaved bald and having a announcers position. Swagger stared early as the World Champion with Mysterio taking it via Fatal Four Way, Kane taking it from him via Money in the Bank, having epic promos, defeating the Undertaker Three times to having Edge ruin the entire push (actually WWE not Edge) and becoming a Ten Time World Champion. The WWE Title nearly became as worthless as it's toy counterpart with Batista first holding it at the start of the year, Cena taking it back only to lose it at Fatal Four Way due to Nexus, Shaemus takes it back, granting the belt to Orton whom had a lackluster title reign (again) in where Miz whom won Raw's Money in the Bank cashed in and took it from him. At least title changes were minimal this year around but no real big names holding it. Triple H was taken out due to Shaemus whom became King of the Ring, Raw went Old School, had guest stars, Smackdown moved to Sci Fi, no one cared about NXT, Bret Hart made ammends with everyone, HBK retired and Michael Cole became a bigger heel than The Miz and Kane combined (something is wrong with that.) Legacy was broken up due to the fans wanting a push from Orton (yet cared nothing for his reign as champion) and now Rhodes is off being 'Dashing' while DiBiase is jobbing out. Tag team wrestling in WWE is a joke with the copper titles and the 'women's title' is forever destroyed by the word Diva. On the bright side, and there's very little, amiss the Pay Per Views being Hit, Miss, Miss, Near Miss, Hit, at least the lower/mid card has kept our attention while the Main Events make sure we get a good nights rest.
TNA started off the year with Hogan taking over TNA and having 'plans' making Abyss one of his disciples, Jarrett being a heel/face and Sting being a 'heel', Nash retires, god knows whatever happened to Scott Hall and Waltman, ECW was revived for the last time and had an alright PPV, dispite the fact it was suposed to be 'one night only' and had TNA all over it (Watch One Night Stand from WWE, that's MORE ECW than ECW/TNA), an ROH faithful by the name of Nigel McGuinness was barely used, talents were let go while James, Lea, RVD, Hardy, Moore, Half of ECW, Kennedy all got huge pushes leaving the TNA Faithful (like we all predicted) were tossed aside. Fortune was later considered a joke with AJ Styles defending a title that was never defended, Hardy becoming a poster child for TNA only to be considered and Anti Christ, Joe as a competitor is now a joke to MMA Specialist Jeff Jarrett, The knockouts were cut in half, the X Division Title wasn't given a big enough of a push and placed on a guy whom only wrestled for a month with the company and now is no longer a 'flavour of the month' and surprise surprise, Hogan turns heel with Hardy, Bischoff, Abyss and Jarrett while the rest of TNA 'bow down' to them with Morgan leading the charge. With ECW getting involved it screwed up the Dudley's storyline, which again, went no where just to be picked up, Pay Per Views consisted of Old Men in shirts battling either more old men in shirts or squashing younger talent. AJ Styles started the year as World Champion, only to drop it to, of all people. RVD whom dropped the title after being 'taken out' by Abyss, only to have it be placed up Hardy, and lets not forget, Angle is 'retired' now. TNA also opted for a Top Ten Tier which was fan voted (not by credentials or win/losses) which saw Kurt Angle fight up to about Tier 3 and give up the whole idea, having rematches that he already had for the last two years, nothing epic there. The ONLY thing bringing us back to TNA has been the Tag Team Titles which FINALLY Motor City was able to achieve, however sadly after 7 matches week after week spilling into Pay Per View, now they have no where to go. Also they created a 'shoot show' called Reaction that now has the Main Event spilling into it....everyweek. Gimmicks work great the first two times, after that, it's old, another reason why TNA, this year, went no where and if anything, went backwards.
In short, Wrestling for both companies has done very little to the avid fan. For the casual ones it was probably a trip with headlines of Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan, Jeff Hardy and Brian Danielson along with Nexus and EC (EV2.0). Anything else that can be considered credible either has HBK retiring or Ric Flair coming OUT of retirement--anything and everything else isn't note worthy compared to an avid fan whom has watched the product slowly diminish. The real scary thing is that 2000 opened up with a BANG, an explosion of Mid Carders, the Women's Division, Cruiserweights, Brand Splitting, Main Event Blow Outs, the Death of WcW and ECW, Shock Television, and sadly, several wrestling deaths including Guerrero and Benoit being the most controversial, it seems that once 2005-06 struck, nothing has gone right, not just for WWE but also for TNA as well. Fans are getting smarter or change their flavour from show to show, titles mean less and less as the year passes on and sadly, the ones whom used to give credit and worth to the gold and shows, are either retiring or need to be retiring. TNA has become a playground of writers with bad ideas and WWE has become a corporate playground of writers with no ideas. A sad truth is that nothing inspiring came from Wrestling towards the end years of this decade, it could be due to the fact things again are getting stale, hense the New Generation then Attitude Era, it seems the 2000's started off strong and got stale towards the end, will there be another promotion to kick competition gears? Probably not. Some say it'll be TNA, problem is, they're taking concept from WcW 99-2000 which didn't work then nor now and ROH, sadly, unless you have internet or HD (which people won't pay for in THIS day in age due to the economy) can't get off the ground. Hell NWA is still going strong but with no TV syndication, there's nothing to float on, and with nothing competiting, why should WWE try?
Good Concepts that ended bad :
1. Jack Swagger - They made him win money in the bank and made him World Champion -- pushing young talent is always a plus. How they ruined it, having Swagger lose on Smackdown and Raw concecutively and only win to my knowledge two Pay Per View matches just to drop it to Mysterio to drop it to Kane a month later.
2. Edge - Edge was rumored to be out for months due to the injury -- very few actually thought he'd return -- he returns and gets a massive pop at the expense of Shawn not winning the rumble. Edge goes to Mania, however, fans collectively over the age of 12 didn't really care for the match due to turning Edge cartoony with 'spear, spear, spear' Jericho was the only interesting factor in the match and Edge not winning, a shock, but later, killed the return as he was later shuffled to RAW back to Smackdown!
3. NXT - This was a brilliant idea at the expense of ECW however by the third week it was easy to see the strings from the puppet master, it became a 'build up Danielson/Cole' show rather the actual focus being on the rookies. They corrected that by getting rid of him, but also ruined it by having Good Talent vs. Horrible Talent in the finals -- it became obvious NXT was a trial run for Tough Enough and did 3 more seasons which sadly, season 3 went via internet and no one is watching season 4.
4. Straight Edge -- Punk was over as one of the biggest heels in WWE, surpassing Shaemus and Batista collectively. They gave him a stable that eventually broke down and they got rid of, making it be an afterthought as Mysterio and Show were the demise of Straight Edge. Was it over? Yes. Did he win matches? No. Why? Cause that would make sense.
5. Randy Orton/Legacy - Making them run Raw would have made sense, never happened, having them own all the gold would have made them over, they didn't, having these men break up and fued would have been great, one match is all you get, end result, World Over Randy Orton, nothing for Legacy except for Rhodes whom still isn't title worthy. Orton was the fan favorite over Cena, booked him as the next Stone Cold when, lets face it, he's no Stone Cold. Orton became God and defeated everyone, hot shotted to the title and the fans fizzled after three minutes. Making Orton the face after Legacy, the group the fans cheered for, was a horrible idea in concept and it only got worse as the weeks carried on.
6. Nexus - Massive idea, have all of NXT band together and destroy WWE, it was the most talked about thing in years in the wrestling world -- it worked for three weeks -- once Nexus didn't attack Smackdown! it soon became apparent this was all part of a major idea, in short, Barrett won NXT...but everyone else had contracts, thus making NXT Season 2 pointless and everyone in the competition pointless if they were going to just be hired anyway, however the real talent was the one whom got fired, again, it all became clear. It became a story more so about John Cena vs. Barrett. If I wanted to see Sting vs. Holly 'NWO' Hogan again, I'd pop in 98' and watch that.
7. 10-10-10 - This WHOLE thing started in January with TNA pulling in Hogan/Flair, getting some big names to help push TNA, in fact, that's what they should have been, names and nothing more. Once you have Hogan literally giving his friends a pay check and pushing the younger TNA to the back was a HUGE problem. Uninventive RVD was the champion and had meh matches, Joe is a joke, AJ is weak and Lethal had 'one good match' with a broken down Ric Flair whom reminded us of why he retired in the first place. Abyss with Hogan's music, Sting a heel for the right reasons and Anderson being the only real reason to watch TNA is a huge problem -- this was nothing more than a way to get Hogan over and push WWE talent over TNA, it's no wonder the rats are leaving the ship.
8. EV 2.0 - Bring back ECW, at least it'll make the smarks happy right? Instead of going to the Hammerstien Ballroom....or getting Paul Heyman...or actually allowing them to have all the ECW Stars...yeah, didn't work. No atmosphere, ECW fans weren't there, no leader of ECW, this was TNA making sport of ECW just to drag it out. WWE gave ECW Two One Night Stands and they were, looked and FELT like ECW, TNA's version was horrible in comparison. This was supposed to be a one night thing that turned out to be a four month thing and later...the destruction of an already dead ECW. Fans now realize that you should leave something which once was great dead in the grave instead of bringing it back and going for part II. Now the fans can remember ECW as the company that sold out to TNA and had a meager PPV and it's stars looking weak compared to their glory days.
9. Top Ten Tier - A GREAT idea....until you find out that Joe is 9 and Hardy is 4. Make the fans vote and you don't even need creditentials or a win/loss record, it becomes, literally, who's dick is getting sucked the most backstage. Kurt Angel tries to fix it by fighting all of them one by one, major problem, the top ten changes bi weekly, so again, it becomes an Angle Story rather an actual ranking system. Time to spin that wheel and make a deal I suppose.
10. Undertaker/Kane - This was a massive idea, give Kane the World Title, finally place him on the map (despite the fact Taker is in a vegetative state, but we'll ignore that) Kane goes on a rampage....and it turns out he's the one whom took out Taker. Kane and Taker have a three match series that was alright, Edge is the one that defeats Kane with cartoony/heelish tactics. Forget making Kane a monster, just give him his balls back. Way to make a monster heel into Zach Gowen.
In short, these are just ten concepts that started out great and in the end, crashed and burned. All of which could be cleaned up and fixed, but is passed the point of repair. 2010 has taught us a lot, it has taught us that pushes mean nothing, status mean nothing, and talent means nothing. What matters is if you can sell merchandise and if you get big crowd reactions. Forget 'calling' a match, forget actually having wrestling on a wrestling show, and forget pushing young stars -- what 2010 taught us was simply this -- Similar to the Attitude Era things are changing, the stars you once knew are gone, the concepts you found dear lost and the formula is lost, unless 2011 is a Phoenix of Ideas and bring realism back to the 'sport' of pro wrestling, my friends, it won't make it another ten years -- for that, I can promise you.
