Time to end the brand split

I’ve long been a defender of the brand split and multiple World Championships. I always thought merging the belts and unifying the rosters would lead to too many guys losing their gig and their card placement, but after watching the last two WWE PPVs, I just don’t see the need for it anymore.

During the Elimination Chamber, we saw a Raw Superstar defend the US Title against a Smackdown guy and Santino Marella challenge for the World Championship … in a match that also had to feature the Great Khali. And the Royal Rumble, while incredibly fun, struggled to fill the ring with 30 big-name Superstars. When Epico, Primo and an Uso made it in, on top of the fact they had several gimmicky entries like Road Dogg, Hacksaw and Kharma, you know the roster isn’t as loaded as it was ten years ago.

And that’s okay! WWE’s been getting back to basics and we no longer have the star overload that the remnants of the Attitude Era left us with. Right now, the only true HUGE name WWE has is John Cena; Triple H is part-time at best, Undertaker works once a year, Jericho is in Roddy Piper mode, and Rey Mysterio is shelved at least three months out of the year. The Rock could pop in and out now and then, Batista might return and who knows, we may still get one last Stone Cold match, but let’s face facts: the 1998-2005 WWE is long gone.

In its place, we have CM Punk, who is on the cusp of something big, and then a bunch of guys who are kinda big, but not really. And that’s all they’ll ever be as long as WWE oversaturates their programming with too many titles and too many brands. It worked when the Attitude Era overlapped the Cena era, but we’re in the beginning of something new now and there has never been a better opportunity to get back to basics.

Yes, it may mean some guys will get shunted down the card, but what difference does it make when the World Championship match is the fourth most important match at WrestleMania? And that’s assuming they don’t come up with some kind of big special attraction like the rumored Big Show vs. Shaquille O’Neal match. Simply keeping the World Title around and Smackdown as a separate show doesn’t make Sheamus and Bryan bigger deals, it just makes the World Title and Smackdown look lesser. Bryan and Sheamus will no doubt tear it up at Mania, but do you think the Miami crowd is going to be as into it as Rock vs. Cena, Triple H vs. Undertaker or even Punk vs. Jericho? Of course not, and that’s okay, let’s just stop pretending it needs to have a World Title involved to make it a great match. 

So let’s just get on with it and merge the WWE and World Heavyweight Championships and US and Intercontinental Championships. I don’t care when they do it — Night of Champions, SummerSlam, or WrestleMania 29 — let’s just make it happen. It’ll instantly increase the value of the WWE and IC Championships, guys in contention for them will seem like bigger deals and WWE will have to come up with new reasons and stories for guys to feud other than “it’s my turn to get a shot at the title.”

I can’t think of a better way to shake up the program, get people talking and make wrestlers feel like Superstars again.

Razor is a regular contributor to Fair to Flair and the founder of Kick-Out!! Wrestling. It’s pretty difficult to miss him on Twitter, trying to be clever in 140 characters or less. You can also check out Kick-Out’s Facebook and Tumblr pages, because there just aren’t enough social networking sites out there.

Edited by Jason Mann.

Thursday Raw Thursday Review: 01/16/12

Thursday Raw Thursday comes to you in our trademark WOO! vs. BOO! format. Everything “WOO!” was awesome, while everything “BOO!” was killed by that murderous, scary, serial killing wrestler guy Kane John Cena.

WOO!

ANGRY WRESTLERS SPEAKING ANGRILY TO EACH OTHER

It’s weird that I have to applaud that (angry, reluctant applause), but when today’s wrestlers usually speak to each other in some combination of winks and punchlines and G-rated filth, anger is suddenly refreshing.

This past Monday, Raw was bookended by two segments based around two people being angry with each other. There’s two key parts to that sentence: the angry part, and the with each other part.

The “angry” part is refreshing because we live in a world where John Cena can’t stop talking about underwear when Kane is trying to for real murder him. So when Dolph Ziggler rips Mick Foley a new place to hide his sock, or when CM Punk takes a page out of Big Johnny’s book and tells him to shut his mouth just like Eve should (show some goddamned respect, Eve), well, my pro wrestling boner grew three sizes that day.

The “with each other” part is refreshing because we live in a world where every wrestler is hyper aware of the people watching the show. It’s come to a point where John Cena has literally walked out to the ring to stand there and hold the microphone out to the audience as a promo. So when these four guys are all angry with each other over an issue that isn’t based entirely on how much “we people” like or hate John Cena, or how John Laurinaitis is or isn’t Mr. Exciting to “us people,” my pro wrestling boner grows three sizes more.

Now, I don’t want things to get carried away with anger and have everyone screaming and stabbing each other like in TNA (I haven’t watched TNA in a long time, okay [ed. note: this is still how it is over there]) because that would totally devalue what happened on Monday. But if we could dial back the self-awareness and the unfunny comedy, I think everyone would benefit.

Alternatively, we could just run rapid-fire replays of John Laurinaitis telling Eve to shut her mouth and I could giggle myself to sleep every week because that was so fucking funny.

BIG JOHNNY STUDD

In addition to being this close to telling Eve to shut her fucking mouth, Johnny Ace also launched into what I was hoping would slowly turn into a Will Ferrell “I drive a Dodge Stratus!!” dinner table speech. He just kept getting more and more frustrated with how he was being bullied, I felt like it had to end with “YOU DO NOT TALK TO ME THAT WAY! I CAN DO 100 PUSH-UPS IN TWENTY MINUTES! BIG TIME STUFF”

Also, The Squared Circle wrote a nice paragraph on why Big Johnny is so easy to hate (when you’re not choking on your own laughter at the things he says):

I love to hate Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and Interim RAW General Manager John Lauranitis. Just that whole fuckin’ title. It gets heat like a furnace.

I think he’s a better evil boss than Mr. McMahon, because Vince is so transparently Evil and Johnny Ace is a much more recognizable form of evil everybody has seen in a shitty boss before, the evil of incompetence. You can’t tell if he’s trying to fuck you over on purpose, or if shit just keeps rolling downhill, and there he is on his fuckin’ BlackBerry again, what a motherfucker.

And it’s true. Despite all of his Eve-silencing comedy, it’s not hard to get behind CM Punk when he’s calling him a douchebag. He even stumbles over his words (I swear he almost called Punk CP Munk), and while I don’t think that’s intentional, it seems to at least give Punk’s shots at his charisma a leg to stand on.

DANIEL BRYAN APPRECIATES AJ

I love seeing the wheels spinning in Daniel Bryan’s head as he grows as a heel.

When AJ says “I love you” and he says “how much” you can see a little thought bubble pop above his head with a clip of Big Show running her over and ending the match playing inside of it. When Big Show actually does run her over, you can see the gears turning in Bryan’s head until he finally realizes how he can use this against Big Show and then he makes him fucking cry.

He. Made. The Big Show. Cry.

The best part of this is that Daniel Bryan essentially showed up on Raw to tell a live television audience that the Big Show is an unapologetic, crying, blithering idiot. That makes him my favourite person. To be fair, he already was.

I just realized that last week I made a joke about Big Show looking like a camouflage fake penis, and then this week Big Show started crying (you know, out of the tip of his face, his eyes), which means Big Show is pretty much forcing me to make a semen joke I don’t want to make. 

SECOND FUNKASAURUS VERSE, SAME AS THE FIRST

Okay, it’s the same match twice, but it’s still funny as shit to watch.

I think it might get better and more fun if it keeps happening this EXACT way. Same moves, same catchphrases, same timing, same jobber opponent making “what the actual fuck” faces at the camera, same everything. It’d be like the shortest cult movie ever where people go to the theatre and shout out punchlines and sing a long to the songs, except everyone would be shouting “SHEEPLEX” and answering “YEAH” in a sassy voice to “SHOULD I… GET HEE-YIM?”.

What’s even better about this is that he’s had three matches as the Funkasaurus, and with the dance routine, the booty shake, the opponent feel-up, the big headbutt, the SHEEPLEX, the avalanche in the corner and the “Aw, Funk It!” he’s already got more moves than Diesel (and that’s including the hair flip).

CHRIS JERICHO, MR. SPARKLE

It looks like the ‘Quiet-ollah of Rock and Trolla’ (I tried, and therefore no one can criticize me) is on board with my “Every WWE Heel Needs A Non-Verbal Catchphrase Initiative,” which I started last week. Crying invisible tears would’ve been a good one, but Big Show already aped that, so he went with turning off the lights of whatever room he’s in and illuminating his Flyerman jacket.

I wonder when the cheers will fully stop, and how he’ll keep them that way. Don’t think for a second, no matter how hard he trolls people, that the crowd won’t go apeshit if he wins the Rumble.

Speaking of the Rumble, I’d love it if one of two things happened:

1. Jericho enters at number one and manages to never actually enter the ring or the Rumble by continuously milking a crowd reaction for the duration of the match. It would be a social experiment so see how many times over the course of an hour people would cheer, start booing, then slowly start to laugh, then cheer again, then start booing again, etc.
2. Jericho enters the Rumble, lasts ‘til the end with one other jobber like Tyler Reks or someone, then eliminates himself so people have to deal with Tyler Reks winning the Royal Rumble. No one could cheer that.

Honourable Mention: Tag Team Match, Play— URRRGHHHHAAGGH NO! NO!!! I CAN CHANGE!!!

Teddy Long did the unthinkable. He saw four guys in a ring, in conflict with one another, came out, and didn’t make a tag team match. In therapy this is called a “breakthrough”. 

I can’t stop picturing Teddy Long watching Sheamus, The Miz, R-Truth and Wade Barrett all fight in the ring, vibrating in place at the thought of a tag team match. Part of me wishes that after he announced the Over The Top Rope Battle Royal, he went “just kidding, tag team match playa!”

Honourable Honourable Mention: This Teddy Long “Tag Team Match Dubstep Lolz” video that for some reason I laughed at.

Honourable Honourable Honourable Mention: Dolph Ziggler referencing John Cena’s hilariously awkward run from last week. 

BOO!

JOHN CENA MIGHT BE A SOCIOPATH

I understand that this whole thing was supposed to be John Cena “embracing hate,” but it sure as shit was the weirdest thing to embrace hate over. 

He’s just a sociopath. Kane tries to murder him and the next week he comes out to wish everyone a Happy New Year and make underwear jokes. Zack Ryder loses a match and John Cena attempts to FUCKING KILL Jack Swagger while everyone screams STOP STOP HE’S ALREADY DEAD.

What’s also weird is how he referenced Johnny Ace’s “my bad” when confronting him backstage, which means he was watching Zack Ryder’s backstage promo. NO OTHER WRESTLER seems to watch these backstage segments, but no, John Cena is somewhere backstage, eyes glued to the monitor as Zack Ryder is being tended to by doctors. I don’t know why I find that so weird. Everyone else is off preparing for matches while John Cena has his thumb up his butt watching the show he’s on.

Point is, John Cena is a crazier crazy person than Kane, who is still pretty crazy, because he did his “ringpost pyro taunt” from backstage to a camera, as if that’s what actually sets off his fireworks.

All of this stuff is in the BOO section, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I liked it at least a little bit for how goddamn funny it is.

CM PUNK CAN DO BOTH FUNNY AND SERIOUS!

Brandon Stroud of the Best and Worst of Raw tackled the shit out of this already. He made great points about Punk’s awkward jabs at Ziggler, and I was certainly caught off-guard by his “hiding behind a woman, and a poor excuse of a woman” comment towards Vickie Guerrero, but somehow I’m more offended by his unfunny comedy.

Coming out and saying things like “turd in a punch bowl” and making fun of a guy’s spray tan and highlights reeks of so much John Cena that he was one Shouty Preacher Voice away from evolving into him. John Cena’s “funny voice / serious voice” on-off switch doesn’t work for him, so it’d be sweet if no one else, especially CM fucking Punk, would give it a shot ever again.

ZACK RYDER HAS FIGHTING SPIRIT

Remember two years ago when Jack Swagger won the World Heavyweight Title by beating Chris Jericho (with injured ribs) using one Gutwrench Powerbomb? How the hell am I then supposed to believe that Swagger needs THREE of those to beat Zack Ryder (with Kane-injured ribs [BBQ ribs?]) for the US Title?

This is nit-picking, but it was just a bit odd to see him kick-out TWICE when his ribs are injured, and it’s a totally acceptable loss if he were to just take it once and get pinned. If Ryder can kick-out of finishers like that, let’s line him up against Undertaker this year at Mania.

PEREZ/PARIS HILTON

Whichever one the announcers want to go with, I guess.

Anyway, nothing needs to be even said about this, nor does any penis or cocaine need to be drawn on a picture about this. It was more than uncomfortable watching him sell a Bella shove like someone yanked a rug out from underneath him. It was a bad idea from the second they announced it, all the way through to when it was over. It went exactly as we expected, ninety seconds of plugging his website, a roll-up finish, everyone booed. 

Now we can all go back to having that exact same match without him next week, and he can go back to, I don’t know, mashing the exclamation point key?

Honourable Mention: Evan Bourne’s second wellness strike.

Okay, I’m not going to say much here. Everyone’s piped in and gone “lol dumb” or whatever enough. I might take some flack for this, but here goes.

I agree. It is dumb. He probably should’ve had his shit together knowing he’d be tested again. My problem is more with the reaction it got online. Sure, everyone was correct that he was stupid for getting busted (probably for pot or fake pot or whatever, although I don’t think it was ever actually said what it was). But it’s also not exactly flattering to see your timeline fill up in seconds with people leaping at the chance to point and laugh at a guy, who’s done nothing but hurt his own future.

I feel like I can’t really say that and come off like my hands are clean or whatever, considering how much fun I’ve made of Matt Hardy in the past or whoever, so I know I’m no different, so all I’m going to say, in this run-on sentence, is for whatever reason, to see the news break and how everyone immediately reacted, it irked me, and now I’ll move on, enough preaching, especially since I’ll probably ruin it within the week by pointing and laughing at Matt Hardy or something.

And, even I can’t deny that this was funny. So there.

Mitch is a regular contributor to Fair to Flair and the founder of PIZZABODYSLAM. He is also on Twitter, where he talks about how he watches and writes about and thinks about wrestling all-day everyday. He is also a grown-up.

Edited by K Sawyer Paul.

Thursday Raw Thursday Review: 01/09/12

A quick intro - I’ve come to realize that my reviews, if one even gets done, get done late. So, I’ve decided to brand my own tardiness! Every Thursday you can find my review of Raw here, and over on my blog, PIZZABODYSLAM. If you haven’t seen the Thursday Raw Thursday, please watch this video so whenever you read “Thursday Raw Thursday” in this or any future post, you can say “Thursday Raw Thursday” in your head in that weird stilted phrasing, like I always do.

Thursday Raw Thursday comes to you in our trademark WOO! vs. BOO! format. Everything “WOO!” was awesome, while everything “BOO!” is still changing a tire at the American Bank Center Arena in Corpus Christi.

WOO!

THAT’S GOTTA BE KANE (MAYBE NOT, BUT LET’S RUN TO OUR RENTAL CAR ANYWAY)

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been gone ever since Kane returned and forcibly caved John Cena’s mouth in on itself. But now, like Kane, I’ve been resurrected (I guess you can be resurrected if Mark Henry sits on your leg and you take ‘er easy for a while), and I too am wearing a big silver Vega mask.

I’ve already missed some instant Kane classics in the time I’ve been gone. Such as Kane Hadokening John Cena. Or when he stood around trying to get a “Cena Sucks” chant going, but mostly failed and had to just sit there idly twiddling his yarn pants (I wish he started it with a falsetto “let’s go Cena!”). Even last week’s promo from backstage (I hope he was in full gear with a microphone just sitting there poking at the lights and pyro board trying to spook Cena) had me in stitches (like his yarn pants).

And now he’s claiming he almost brought Zack Ryder to “hell” with him (hopefully the same “hell” that Edge was in and later made fun of). 

But nothing was funnier than watching Zack Ryder change a tire while Eve squirmed in the passenger’s seat for like three commercial breaks. There was absolutely no logic or voice of reason in this segment (which I’ll get to), and I died laughing, much like Zack Ryder presumably died when he was chokeslammed onto a grocery skid, and like John Cena died when Kane suffocated him with the cup your hand around your fart and make someone smell it move.

BIG JOHNNY VS. LITTLE JIMMY

In an instance of perfect timing, R-Truth stops being funny just when BIG JOHNNY steps up to the plate, texting and quipping like a boss Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and Interim General Manager of Monday Night Raw. Even Jerry Lawler was casually calling him “Big Johnny” by the end of the night - that shit STUCK.

More importantly, I’d like it if every heel could have a non-verbal catchphrase. Kind of like when you play Sonic the Hedgehog, and if you do nothing for long enough he’ll start tapping his foot, but if you were playing David Otunga the Hedgehog, he’d whip out a hot beverage thermal mug and take a swig. This would all build to one show where they could do one of their “DAMN” backstage sketches that would actually be funny, where Johnny Ace texts, Otunga slurps, Del Rio winks, maybe Swagger gets his facial twitch back and Jinder Mahal pets a cat or something.

DANIEL BRYAN IS MICHAEL COLE

He is.

It’s both alarming and amazing, but he is. At first he was just a douche, and I hate Big Show so he’s a douche to me, so it was two douches feuding for a week or two, so that sucked for me. But now, it’s better (except for Big Show, who I still hate, and will get to later).

It’s a bit odd that DB’s celebrating exactly like Michael Cole would (endless shouting of YES YES YES YES [he may as well be saying WHATAYA THINK OF THAT LAWLER]). I’m bracing myself for Big Show eventually squashing Danielson and Michael Cole standing up and going “YES YES YES SEE HE IS A NERD WHATAYA THINK OF THAT LAWLER” and farting on his head.

But for now, I can enjoy the slow potential return of “I have ‘til five, referee” Bryan Danielson heel World Champion.

HAS BRODUS CLAY DEBUTED YET?

So now we know why he took so long to debut. He had to come all the way from Planet Funk.

WHAT. THE. (RESISTING THE URGE TO SAY FUNK) FUCK. I’ve only watched this segment once, so it’s still spinning around my brain like a fever dream. I once had this dream when I was ten where I was Owen Hart and I was wrestling the Ultimate Warrior, but then I looked up and saw Vader climbing the seats in the crowd like King Kong scaling a skyscraper, but his red singlet was all sparkly and he was wearing all kinds of gaudy gold jewellery. It’s stuck with me forever. Now I know why.

I don’t want to ruin this already for myself by saying this is something that will probably get less and less fun as it goes on, so I’m just going to say that I laughed for the entire duration of that match, and hope to do so in the future. 

BONUS WOO: “Should I get ‘im?!!??!”

PUNK VS. SWAGGER, ZOLPH ZIGGLER, PREMATURE JACK DOAN

Okay, a lot of names to get to. I’ll get Zolph out of the way first, because John Laurinaitis flubbing his name made me bust a gut.

CM Punk has finally made it back to where he should be. No more weird Triple H and Kevin Nash heart-breaking, no more goofy John Cena forced humour, he’s just the WWE Champion and wrestling in the best match of the night, each night. 

It’s so much more simple now. He has legitimate beef with John Laurinaitis for his constant “good intentions” interference in Punk’s affairs, and everything else seems to fall into place nicely. Nothing is too convoluted, it’s simple enough, and Punk is more than good enough to make simple good. 

Punk vs. Swagger was great, and somehow made even more great with Jack Doan’s premature “1… 2… 3! WHOOPS SORRY FUCK”. The announcers replaying it and treating it as something that actually happened instead of ignoring it like they usually would made things feel that much more real, even if it was a mistake. It’s something that makes you look up from your laptop or put a stop to the conversation in the room (who am I kidding, we’re all on our laptops, NERDS! TWITTER TWITTER TWITTER WHATAYA THINK OF THAT LAWLER) and pay attention because the wrestling program has stopped continuing on as a normal wrestling program would.

Honourable Mention: Chris Jericho

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You can’t see me right now, but I’m crying.

BOO!

BUT SERIOUSLY, KANE (AND ZACK RYDER AND EVE)

WOW. Okay, Razor handled this whole “horror movie” storyline in his Raw review (he also handled “Raw” in his Raw review, so I’m here to just, y’know, beat that dead Funkhorse!) but I do have a few things to say about the logistics of this.

On the one hand, Eve running out of the ring, out of the building, into a car and attempting to get away is AMAZING. It’s what you (maybe just me) always want a wrestler to do (or at least just calmly walk away) whenever The Undertaker starts slowly making his way to the ring to standing 69 him. Just walk away. Theme music is not paralyzing. 

On the other hand, once she and Ryder made it to the rental car and spent forty minutes replacing the wiper fluid, shouldn’t one of them have gone “oh, he’s not coming, let’s just go” and leave? I’m still not sure what they expected from driving back to their hotel when they’ll just be seeing Kane at the next live event anyway, where he’s free to palm their mouths as much as he so pleases. 

But when Eve was standing in the ring all giddy, primed and ready to air-hump, and then Kane’s music hit and she instantly took a knee and shit herself, I shit MYSELF laughing (seriously, best reaction to Kane since John Cena’s scared face from two weeks ago).

There’s still no proof that Kane was ever coming out. He could’ve been in the washroom watching Superstar after Superstar brush their teeth while the light and pry guy was like “whoops, hit the Kane button” and all of a sudden Eve and Zack are bookin’ it for the parking lot before he can hit pause.

This has to be the biggest and most hilarious overreaction in wrestling history. I kind of wish it was taken even further. Maybe next week Zack can shoot Kane with a real gun because he’s still overreacting.

At the very least someone should follow Eve around playing Kane’s music until she has a nervous breakdown.

A NEVER ENDING LACK OF LOGIC

I don’t want anyone to think this bothered me that much, but sometimes the way this show is shot is dumb. I understand that this is a television show and it’s fake, I just hate when things happen to remind everyone it’s fake. 

Like the camera panning to a closed door, seemingly for no reason, after Zack Ryder makes idle threats about Kane, and then the door creaks open and out pops Kane’s head. Or when the cameras cut to Zack Ryder CHANGING A TIRE during the main event. Why is this important, unless, yep, here comes Kane to MURDER — NOPE — CHOKESLAM him? The only other noteworthy reason to cut to Zack Ryder changing a tire during the main event is to go, “haha, ho man he’s still changing that tire, okay carry on”.

A GOOD R-TRUTH

It’s subtle, but allow me to illustrate the differences between A Bad R-Truth and A GoooOoOoOoOoooD R-Truth:

A Bad R-Truth: Requires water.

A Good R-Truth: Is still trying to get an open water bottle over as a believable weapon.

A Bad R-Truth: Punctuates his crazy actions with goggly eyes.

A Good R-Truth: Punctuates his crazy actions with a wink and a smile.

A Bad R-Truth: Hates Little Jimmy.

A Good R-Truth: Wants Little Jimmy to wish The Miz a Happy New Year.

A Bad R-Truth: Is funny.

A Good R-Truth: Is not funny.

FELLLLAAAAAAAA

I laoch Sheamus. In fact, his DUSH DUSH DUSH DUSH DUSH style of wrestling has somehow caught on with me. I like how he makes the same noise when he hits someone as when he’s being hit. But when he walks out on the ramp and yells “FELLLLAAAAAA” instead of “LAOCH”, I laoch him a little less.

It just doesn’t really make sense. Sure, Sheamus, I realize you like saying “fella” a lot, which is cool, but would it make sense for me to walk out on the ramp and go “DUUUUUUUDE”? At least laoch sounds like something you would scream to get psyched up because you’re Irish and that’s an Irish word meaning “powerbomb” or whatever and I can run with that. Screaming “fella” directed at no one in particular is a weird battle cry, so stop doing it. But please continue kicking Jinder Mahal in the face because fuck that guy.

BIG SHOW IS ACCIDENTALLY MORE OBNOXIOUS THAN THE GUY TRYING TO BE OBNOXIOUS

No matter how hard Daniel Bryan tries to be an annoying doucher, Big Show always manages to one up him. What’s worse: Bryan celebrating after winning a match in two minutes, or Big Show interrupting said celebration to come out WITH FIREWORKS, cheering and pointing like he’s at some National Cheerleading Final, slapping hands with everyone, going “OH YEAGGHHH”, putting his toque on a soldier, to only get in the ring and go “now, about last week”.

Are you really THAT PUMPED UP to talk about last week? I hate when Big Show is like this. I hate his Kevin Nash Just For Men: Beard beard. I hate how no matter how many times Daniel Bryan takes him to the limit, every time a new rematch is announced, Big Show is all “HAHA YEAH WHATEVER UR DEAD”. 

P.S. Stop dressing like a camouflage dildo.

Honourable Mention: Wait, I forgot the most important part - TWITTER!

I understand that the WWE is really proud of it’s social media accomplishments. I get that they are pushing Twitter on their TV shows and what have you. But I can’t handle one more WWE Superstar or announcer saying to another WWE Superstar or announcer “sure, you may have [done something actually important like win a title or match] and you may be [concerned with something actually important like your current storyline], but who cares?! YOU ARE [TRENDING ON TWITTER / FOLLOWED BY MORE PEOPLE THAN SOMEONE / TWITTER TWITTER TWITTER]

On that note, here’s the end of my review where I tell you to follow me on Twitter.

Mitch is a regular contributor to Fair to Flair and the founder of PIZZABODYSLAM. He is also on Twitter, where he talks about how he watches and writes about and thinks about wrestling all-day everyday. He is also a grown-up.

Edited by K Sawyer Paul.

WWE Raw - January 10, 2012

There are good Raws, there are bad Raws and then there’s last night’s Raw. It is possible for a show to be so bizarre, ridiculous and quirky that you totally love it and the guy next to you thinks it’s the dumbest thing that’s ever been put on television. Hell, even a flat-out great episode of Raw can elicit that kind of reaction, so just imagine how polarizing last night’s acid trip will be perceived. 

And that’s really the best way I can describe it. I woke up this morning at 5:18am wondering if I had dreamed the entire thing after a Cheetos bender gone wrong. Surely they didn’t bring back Brodus Clay as Amish Flash Funk, the dancing dinosaur from an undiscovered planet outside of our solar system, right? Right?! Well…

Only in wrestling, my friend.

And while that’s the most obvious example to illustrate Raw’s oddness, it was really just the beginning. 

The major storyline throughout the show was a mini horror movie… literally. Kane made his intentions clear(ish) to start the show: he wants Cena to embrace his hate because he always gets what he wants, the fans suck or the camp counselors let him burn while they were off having sex, one of those. John Cena tried to confront Kane early in the show, because every good horror movie needs the first encounter with the monster, but managed to stun him well enough to send him running.
Inspiration: Sydney fighting off Ghostface in her house early on in Scream

But like any good villain that gets embarrassed by the protagonist, Kane decided to murder John Cena’s friends instead. All throughout the night, Kane was lurking in the shadows while Zack Ryder performed various tasks like hitting on the hot chick, brushing his teeth and babysitting the Doyle kid.
Inspiration: Michael Myers in Halloween

Late in the evening, Eve was supposed to battle Beth Phoenix for a shot at the Divas Championship, but instead Kane’s music played, in a clever ruse to draw out Zack Ryder. Ryder “rescued” Eve and took her to his Kia Soul, except the tire was flat! Oh no, whatever will they do?! They have a flat tire in the middle of nowhere this 15,000-seat arena with cabs lined up around the block to pick up drunk wrestling fans, they’ll never get out of this one! Luckily, Zack Ryder (sorta) knows how to change a tire, but Eve’s just a girl and can’t figure these things out, she just hopes Zack knows what he’s doing!
Inspiration: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, any movie with crazed hillbillies in a small town.

And while Ryder struggled with changing a tire (righty-tighty, lefty-loosey, c’mon!) and Eve cried from the passenger seat, their best buddy John Cena just went about his business in a main event match with Dolph Ziggler. Hey, he can’t worry about something as silly as a serial chokeslammer on the loose, he’s got a football game to win! Eventually Cena did the right thing and tried to save his friends, but of course it was just a clever trap; Kane finished him off with “The Nasty Hold on Cena’s Face Again™” and Raw ended exactly the same way as it has for the last month.
Inspiration: Any horror film with more than three entries in the franchise.

Now the big question this week was WWJD: What Would Jericho Do? After being “overwhelmed with emotion” last week, as Jerry Lawler put it, surely Jericho would talk tonight, right? Sorry, he just couldn’t, the tears were welling up in his eyes and he became even more overwhelmed! “MY EMOTIONS! MY EMOTIOOOONS!”

Remember that episode of The Office, back when it was still funny, when Jim couldn’t talk and he makes up a story about a family member affected by substance abuse and he conveys it entirely through fake crying? It was kinda like that, so my only guess is someone has placed a jinx on Jericho and he can’t speak until he buys them a Coke.

My other theory is that Chris Jericho is playing Hulk Hogan circa 2002 where he just basks in the adoration of the fans every week for five to ten minutes. Maybe next week he’ll team up with Edge and beat two gay guys for the tag titles. Don’t worry, it’s just a publicity stunt, so it’s totally not homophobic.

Elsewhere on Raw, CM Punk battled Jack Swagger in the 10pm main event and it looked like things were finally going to settle down. Hey it’s Punk and the very capable Swagger in the longest match of the night, surely this would be our moment of zen? WRONG! Right in the middle of a great match, CM Punk landed the Flying Elbow Smash, only for the ref to screw up a near fall and count the three too early. CM Punk look pissed, but commentary did an awesome job covering things up and it felt like one of those moments where an NFL ref blows an obvious call. As well as it worked, it continued the bizarre thread that weaved its way through the evening.

Daniel Bryan vs. Kofi Kingston was a one-minute squash with the World Champion easily dispatching one half of the tag champs. Apparently there was a backstory to this match on WWE.com, but they put up the link while the match was going on. Like I said, weird show. Bryan’s excessive celebrating escalated further, which I love, but apparently Big Show does not. Show came to the ring after the match to tell Bryan he has to defend the World Championship again this Friday, and this time it’s no count-out and no DQ. If that match happened on this show, Bryan would’ve made Big Show tap out in 45 seconds.

Oh yeah, did I mention Curt Hawkins was Brodus Clay’s opponent? Like I said, weird show.

Another ongoing story throughout this show was The Miz trying to lure R-Truth out of hiding to give him a beat down. This culminated with Miz forcing Ricardo Rodriguez to go out to the ring and say “really offensive things,” which made me really nervous. Also, why the hell does Ricardo have to work while Del Rio is injured? Did Virgil have to work when Ted DiBiase was vacationing at his seasonal residence? That ain’t right!

Anyway, Truth finally came out of hiding, but fought off a Miz blindside (that’s what happens when you broadcast your evil plan on a TV show watched by 5 million Lil Jimmies) and this story ended exactly the same way as it has for the last three weeks. Sound familiar?

And finally, Sheamus & Santino Marella (what?) took on Wade Barrett & Jinder Mahal (what what?!) in the most pointless tag match ever. This was a match that made you question if WWE knows what the word “super” means when they call it a “SuperShow.”

There were two really awesome bits of news though, they announced the first two inductees into the 2012 WWE Hall of Fame: Edge and The Four Horsemen! That’s really sweet of them to give the nod to Edge so soon. I bet he nerded out when they told him. And I’ve wanted them to induct The Horsemen as a group for years now and it’s especially great because Ric Flair will be the first-ever double inductee in the HOF. I know there were a lot of people wondering if he’d be at the ceremony due to his contract with TNA, but somehow I think WWE can work around a legal document written in crayon. And yay, Arn Anderson’s finally going in!

Oh and I need to put the kibosh on this now: Chris Benoit is NOT a Hall of Famer due to this. No, not even “technically,” unless you also want to say Heidenreich is a Hall of Famer since the Road Warriors went in last year. Just knock that shit off right now.

So yeah, that was Raw. There were ass loads (that’s slightly less than a shit ton) of problems, problems that have plagued Raw for the last two months, but somehow they didn’t really matter. It was so absurd and stupid that it would’ve just pissed me off more if they tried to fix it on this show and it probably would have made things worse. My guess is they figured no one would watch due to the BCS game and just dove in head first. Sure, it’s the middle of January, so the pool was empty, but sometimes wrestling is more entertaining when you’ve suffered massive head trauma.

Razor is a regular contributor to Fair to Flair and the founder of Kick-Out!! Wrestling. It’s pretty difficult to miss him on Twitter, trying to be clever in 140 characters or less. You can also check out Kick-Out’s Facebook and Tumblr pages, because there just aren’t enough social networking sites out there.

Edited by Jason Mann.

You Wanted the Best in the World, You Got the Best in the World

I love the band KISS. Sure, they’re pretty terrible musicians, Gene Simmons is an unlikable douchebag and they’re the biggest product whores in the history of entertainment, but they’re also one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen. Despite line-up changes, endless gimmicks, and again, the fact that they’re not very good, they’ve managed to remain a major act for nearly 40 years and are scheduled to put out their 20th album in early 2012.

But the band was not an overnight success. Three albums into their career, they were on the verge of losing their record deal. But at the same time, they were selling lots of tickets. Why were people paying money to see them perform live if they weren’t throwing down a couple bucks for a record, even the record with the iconic “Rock and Roll All Nite” on it? Simple, their albums were a bit lifeless but their concerts were (and continue to be) amazing. 

So the band released Alive, a double live album and the general public finally got a taste of what they were missing when they didn’t go to the KISS show. Here we are now, 35 years, millions of records, movies, and condoms later and there’s not a man, woman or child in the civilized world that hasn’t seen that makeup.

It makes me think about all this uproar over CM Punk’s ratings (or lack thereof) on last week’s Raw. Ignoring the fact that it was a holiday week when most networks don’t even bother running new programming, let’s just accept for the sake of argument that Punk isn’t getting the numbers on TV. Well, you wouldn’t know it if you were just paying attention to live crowds, who have been going batshit insane for Punk since July.

So why isn’t it reflected in the ratings? Because overnight successes are rare and when WWE tries to force it, it usually backfires. Steve Austin was no overnight success — he didn’t even wrestle at the SummerSlam following his King of the Ring victory (unless you count a Free For All match against Yokozuna) — and his first WWE Title reign didn’t happen until almost two years later. Obviously wrestling moves much faster now than it did then, but CM Punk isn’t going to turn ratings around all by himself in a month, especially with WWE’s chaotic booking.

But he is resonating with the audience, judging from reaction alone, he’s probably the #1 active wrestler in the company and his performances are consistently stellar. As long as WWE continues to let him do his thing and starts plastering his face on every piece of merchandise they sell, it should translate to ratings success. Just please, no CM Punk coffins. 

Razor is a regular contributor to Fair to Flair and the founder of Kick-Out!! Wrestling. It’s pretty difficult to miss him on Twitter, trying to be clever in 140 characters or less. You can also check out Kick-Out’s Facebook and Tumblr pages, because there just aren’t enough social networking sites out there.

Edited by Jason Mann.