January 9, 2012

Coffee Table Thoughts

Why Dolph Ziggler vs CM Punk took place

On the first episode of Monday Night Raw (or Raw Supershow), the WWE Title was on the line. CM Punk had to defend his WWE Title against Dolph Ziggler. There were various opinions on why this match was taking place.

Recent news reports suggested that the segments of the Raw involving CM Punk were not getting as much as expected views. This is after he has sort of become ‘the man’ of the red brand and carried the WWE Championship with him for a few months. So the obvious conclusion that people drew was that the Management had decided to take the title away from him due to poor ratings. This led to many a angry rants on many a message boards.

Some others believed that it had more to do with Dolph Ziggler than with CM Punk. You see, Mr Perfection has been giving Match of the Nights for the whole year, has been cutting entertaining and engaging promos through-out the year and has generally been showing a lot of charisma. I personally haven’t found his promos to be outstanding but he has indeed been taking a lot of punishment in the ring, has been involved in interesting matches and seems to be on the cusp of big things. Having Vickie Guerrero as his Valet/Manager doesn’t hurt his chances either. So when Dolph Ziggler was announced, all his well-wishers had started predicting a WWE Title reign for him on the very first day of 2012.

I personally thought that this match had neither to do anything with CM Punk generating poor ratings nor anything with Dolph Ziggler being perfect. It wasn’t about CM Punk or Dolph Ziggler but about The Miz and John Morrison. It’s that simple, really.

By putting the WWE Title match on the first day of the year for two consecutive years, WWE has started another tradition right before our very own unsuspecting eyes. In 10 years time, we would be witnessing the vignettes of The Miz vs John Morrison and other highlights from 9 other editions of the first day matches for WWE Title and the legacy involving it.

Umpteenth Column about Daniel Bryan

I didn’t know him. I haven’t seen the 10 years of his independent wrestling career. I haven’t seen any of his matches that won him the ‘Best Technical Wrestler’ Award by Wrestling Observer Newsletter for 5 years.

I first read about him during the first season of NXT. I read his praises on various parts of ‘IWC’. This was the time I was taking my entire wrestling intake through reading and not by actually watching shows. I read how he tried to kill someone in the commentary by a tie. I read that he was fired. I read how WWE was so dumb for doing this nonsense of an injustice. I read how everyone had already predicted that the seventh entrant for Team WWE against Team Nexus would be Daniel Bryan. I read that he got a nice pop. I read about his promo against The Miz. I read they had a good chemistry. I read that he became US Champion. I read how awesome his match against The Miz and John Morrison was. I read that both he and Dolph Ziggler had put not one, not two but three wrestling clinics.

I then saw his matches. I heard his promos whenever he got the chance. I heard his entrance music. It was classic. I heard his second entrance music. It was classic. I heard his third entrance music. It was classic.

I saw him getting dropped of the Wrestlemania card. I saw him getting invisible (Paradox).

And then came the night. It was in June or July. I had predicted a winner. Daniel Bryan wasn’t in the list of winner that I had predicted. He won. He became the Smackdown Money in the Bank winner. I was disappointed.

No, No – don’t get me wrong. While the above short timeline shows how little I know about this guy and how I came to know about him, don’t for a second think that I was not a fan of him. I was a fan of him before I saw his face. I was a fan of him before I saw him fight. He was a 10 year veteran. He was considered as the best technical wrestler. He was of small stature. These attributes were enough for me to become his fan. When I actually saw him wrestle, I was in awe. When I heard his promos, I saw charisma. I felt that the very fact that he didn’t have charisma WAS charisma – it gave him a character, different from all other characters. I liked how he used his story and logic in his promos. I literally loved this guy.

That is until he won the Money in the Bank. Sheamus, The Miz, John Cena, Randy Orton, Kane, Big Show, Chris Jericho, Dolph Ziggler, Jack Swagger, Christian, CM Punk, Rey Mysterio, Mark Henry and Daniel Bryan. 13 Former-Current World-WWE Champions. This is excluding Triple H, Undertaker, The Rock and Kevin Nash because they will not be involved in any Title matches. Add to this list, Cody Rhodes and Wade Barret, both of whom are on the cusp of main-eventing or becoming the World Champions. And we get what is the problem with the current product. Oh also, I don’t know, I am unable to remember, but there was some other World Champion too. In recent times. He had won something else very important too. Royal Rumble may be. Santino Marela?

The Miz had what, a single United States Title reign? Same goes for Daniel Bryan. This and they go on to become World Champions. We are already hearing people wanting to see Zack Ryder become the WWE Champion by December 2012. By this rate, in 2-3 years time, it would be difficult to find a superstar in WWE that is not a World Champion.

Look, I get that it is good for Daniel Bryan. I understand that his years of efforts have justified his title win. May be the character change that is in the works may make him the most hated heel in wrestling since Hulk Hogan, but I wanted to see his struggle in the WWE. I wanted to see him in the mid-card. I wanted to see him wrestle his way through the glass-ceiling, so to speak.

Nevertheless, I will enjoy his reign, the development of his character and his matches.

The Wild-Card Tournament

I have missed all the impact wrestling shows of November-December. Not because I thought that the shows were getting boring or because I was protesting against the heel turn of Bobby Roode. I was finding it difficult to get the time to see it. On top of that I couldn’t find a site where I can download the TNA PPVs for we, which isn’t that difficult for the WWE PPVs.

Regardless, there is news coming in that a tournament is currently underway to decide the number one contenders for the Tag Team Titles. And apparently, the team of Samoa Joe and Magnus have won the said tournament. So, they will go on to have a match for the Tag Team Titles against the current champions Matt Morgan and Crimson.

This is one of the reasons why I love TNA - The tournaments. A tournament is a story in itself; it can evolve many stories at the same time. It also brings credibility to the final price. These tournaments give the much needed sports like feel to the business of sports entertainment.

TNA has had a X-Division Tournament, a World Heavyweight Championship Tournament (Bound for Glory series- which btw would have been the best story of the year 2011 for me at least, if not for some of the shenanigans pulled during the tournament) and now there is this Tag Team Tournament. And this one is called the Wild Card Tournament, where in the participants did not chose their partners or something like that. I will come with more details when I look up some of the past episodes for this tournament.  

I would so like to see something like this in WWE and that too for Tag Team titles. Come on WWE, still the idea!

Someone is finally out of the doghouse!

After spending much of the year 2012 out of the WWE TV, finally Drew McIntyre was seen on WWE TV and was given some segments to showcase his charisma as well as an opportunity to wrestle on TV!

Don’t get fooled by the loss or two that he got in these episodes though. He was given time to showcase his charisma and give the management a reason to care. I think he passed with flying colours in doing that. He is in a storyline, for God’s sake! That cannot be said about the Tag Team champions or the Divas Champion!

In a matter of months, people will go all mad behind this man and waiting for a push to – you guessed it right – the World Championship.