Another Wrestling Tragedy

[MetalBlade]

It has been confirmed by me that the WWE Cruiserweight Title was pronounced dead on arrival, the second it was awarded to Hornswoggle.
With a prestigious lineage dating back to WCW in 1996 when Shinjiro Ohtani lifted the title for the first time in his home country of Japan, the title has over the years been held by such great names as Dean Malenko, Ultimo Dragon, Rey Mysterio, Chris Jericho, Eddie Guererro, Chris Candido, Lance Storm, Yoshihiro Tajiri, Paul London, Kid Kash, and the man who brought the title the most respect in recent years, the almost year-long reigning Gregory Helms.

All this history in just over eleven years was vanquished in one fell swoop, when at The "Great" American Bash this past Sunday, WWE saw fit to usher us into the new "cartoon era" by awarding this highly regarded title to a little person saddled with a stereotypical Leprechaun gimmick.

At the risk of being branded politically incorrect, I ask you, are we to believe that a dwarf sidekick is capable of winning a major singles title in World Wrestling Entertainment?
I am all for equal opportunities, but that's where it should have ended - with an opportunity, not a fucking VICTORY!

Not content with burying ECW, once again McMahon Manor has systematically destroyed yet another legacy.

Welcome to WWE post-Benoit.

[Knoxville]

Let's face it, Pro Wrestling in it's current state is awful. Even the stuff in Japan is slowly getting worse and worse.

I think in a decade or so, we will be lucky if WWE are still even broadcasting. They are progresivly getting worse. I mean Hornswoggle as Cruiserweight Champ and Khali as World Heavyweight? What does McMahon think he's achieving by doing this. All I know was that two weeks ago I found the Smackdown brand the best there was, with ECW behind and Raw in last place. Now I can't bring myself to watching any of them, thanks to this sunday's pay per view.

[xenite]

I thought that was kind of a weird choice (Hornswoggle) but what the hell. We're talking about something other than his name that shall no longer be said, so it's actually brilliant.

[Angel]

I'm not too worried about the Cruiserweight title. He won't hold it long.

I have to agree with Knoxy though. Wrestling's in rough shape right now. But personally for me I blame that on all the wrestlers injured.

[MetalBlade]

There are a lot of guys injured at the moment. There's no other reason but the schedule. Simple.
But I definitely believe the reason for the current deep slump the industry finds itself in, in America at least, is the fact the creative departments of both TNA and WWE, have seemingly failed to keep up with the image of pro wrestling in the real world.
Fans today are wiser, smarter and more knowledgeable than ever before, and since the heyday of ECW, far more unforgiving.

WWE up to a point grew wise to the internet generation, and pandered to the older audience - with great results.
Then all of a sudden, they stopped dead in their tracks and reverted to a gimmick-filled cartoon-era. I can sort of put a finger on the exact moment it happened - when a babyface Rock took on a heel Hogan at WrestleMania, and The Rock got booed out of the building as Hogan basked in the adoration.

A great moment in itself, but in hindsight, it almost seems as though staffers thought "right, new plan of action, lads. Pretent it's 1991 again."
And in came gimmick tag teams like Latino Heat, and The Heartthrobs.
And it continues today with The Highlanders and Deuce & Domino.

I've not really enjoyed wrestling since Brock Lesnar left. I think it's lacked a big monster champion, and has begun to look far more choreographed than ever before as opposed to the pseudo-legit Attitude era for instance.

The same cannot be said of TNA though. Their product shot to fame because of their realistic and legitimitely presented wrestling style.
But they too have succumbed to the crazy idea that "old is the new new".
We all like to reminisce, but why do TNA management believe we want to see a pay per view where every match is a gimmick match (and I don't mean Lockdown), and the avarage age of half the the participants is over forty.
That's for town halls on a Saturday afternoon.

We expect more. I get that more children watch wrestling than ever before, but instead of trying to get them to enlist as soon as they leave school, try showing them there is an exciting thing to watch with respectable role models and foes for them to vanquish.
They are well on their way to doing this with John Cena, but he seems too fake to me.
He oversells to point of absurdity. He trys WAY too hard to impersonate The Rock - a far more gifted promoer.
And there is no rebelliousness about him at all. Not really. He claims to rebel against authority, but compared to Stone Cold, Cena is a slave. And in the next breath he is gushing about our armed forces - a symbol of authority, where rebelliousness is virtually non existent and punishable by Court Martial.
What a hypocrite.

And don't even get me started on the Burger King endorsement... THIS IS 2007!
This is a product that claims to promote health, fitness, moral values and athleticism, yet before every match they tell you to "HAVE IT YOUR WAY". No thanks, I'd rather eat my own spleen.

So I fear this slump can only be ended by re-injecting the element of realism into wrestling.
It's been without it for too long now. To the point where I have begun seeing signs in the crowd reading "SAVE US TRIPLE H" and "I'M BEGGING FOR THE RETURN OF THE KING OF KINGS".
I just hope he comes back as the post-Evolution, pre-DX#II King Of Kings.
That's one gimmick I will never tire of.
What an old mark I am.

[macdaddy1984]

As big a fan of Hunters as i am he alone is not gonna be able to save WWE programming, i mean lets face he'll go back to Raw and sooner or later win the title from Cena/Orton whichever of the 2 has it
But then wot you can only have those 3 feud over the belt for so long before its gonna grow stale and even if HBK's back by then unless they push Booker back to the main event and continue pushing Mr Kennedy then really nothins gonna change

As for SD that brand died the moment Edge was injured since their now missing their top 2 guys who can have top matches (Edge & Taker) so all we'll be seeing for now is Batista continue to be in the main event against Khali or whoever they put the belt on next when he gets injured

[MetalBlade]

Yes, a grimmer outlook than this frigging weather!

[xenite]

Metal, looks like someone got on a little tangent. Anyway, I agree with you about the gimmicky stuff. I used to watch as a kid (Von Erichs, Freebirds, etc.) And even though these were "tag teams" they weren't gimmicks. They were very real. Unfortunately, as the Von Erichs started dying off, I stopped watching so I missed the whole Hulk Hogan era (but from what I hear from you guys, I'm lucky I did). I started back watching in 1999 which I believe was the attitude era (or at least its beginning). Again, no real gimmicky stuff that I can recall. But now, as mentioned, Hearthrobs, Dominoes, hell even Cena are all too gimmicky for me.

Finally, this is going to kill me to say this: I don't mind that behind the scenes, Cena does a lot for the Military, the police, etc. In fact, if you'll look at his on air attire, it's very military-esque so it makes sense that he's pro- military/cop. I don't mind the fact that he rebels against the [business] man while respecting the uniformed man. Actually, it's stuff like that that makes me like him in spite of myself.

[Woo]

The WWE is in a bad way, but this isn't the first time it's been in a slump as anyone who watched in 95 will tell you. The WWE will get better, but the hey days of Hulkamania (I am shocked I just typed that) and Attitude are well gone.

TNA though is really improving at the moment and is much better than the WWE. Let's hope they don't revert to the stupid stipulations that plagued the company at the start of this year.

Anyway.....Hornswoggle is a terrible champion, but worse that Jacqueline? Really?

[Knoxville]

boyno7 said:

TNA though is really improving at the moment and is much better than the WWE. Let's hope they don't revert to the stupid stipulations that plagued the company at the start of this year.

Just you wait til iMPACT! this week. The matches announced for Hard Justice are awful.

[Angel]

I watched TNA this week. So, ok. Someone tell me why we had to watch almost tons of Angle throughout the whole thing? I certainly didn't, I wasn't impressed. TNA was SO much better during the winter. No?

WWE has been in a horrible slump, but I think it's because we have so many wrestlers injured. But with Rey's and Trips's return, it may turn around for the better.

But still, we have Lashley and Taker that are out and by the looks of things it will be a long while before they return. Plus HBK. A lot of main eventers right now. Which is why I think it's slumpy.

[Knoxville]

I think WWE have had a wake up call over the last week, they only scored a 2.5 and know they need to do something to better the promotion as a whole. According to PWI, Vince has been calling meetings all week to get wrestlers and writers inputs on ideas. Vince is even coming back to Raw this monday, it's great that he still thinks Vince = Ratings. Shame he's wrong.

As for TNA, it's almost as if they were like "we don't have enough gimmick matches at HJ" and added a few more just for safe keeping. Someone described TNA perfectly to me the other day as "Jeff Jarrett and Vince Russo's dream promotion."

[Woo]

I didn't think that Impact this week was too bad...besides the arrivial of Andrew 'The Punisher' Martin's debut. The Kurt Angle stuff is just setting Angle up to go crazy after he loses everything at Hard Justice imo. The same thing happened in the FWE to Chris Jones I think...another angle that was copied from our fed.

I don't think HJ looks too bad either:
Angle vs Joe
Abyss vs Cage
Triple X vs Dutt & Lethal vs Motor City Machineguns
James Storm vs Rhino

Them matches should all be good, even if the 3D/Stieners/VKM/LAX, Harris/Rhodes and Styles/Tomko/Sting/Test matches aren't very good.

[xbox360owner]

I just don't like the fact that after this ppv, one man will have every title in tna; seems kinda silly if you ask me...

[Woo]

Well yeah I agree that the whole idea is pretty dumb, as Christopher Daniels is the no.1 contender for the X-Division titles, yet that will either be held by Kurt Angle and Somoa Joe and after Daniels put over Sting in no time at all at Sacrifice, he isn't too credible. Also Lethal had finaly won that belt and made it mean something again, only to have Joe win it back making him look like a jobber.

But the main event match looks good and if Joe wins, I won't be complaining.