Right so here we are; James Strom is the TNA champion over Robert Roode and Johnny Ace is GM of Raw over Triple H, things are certainly different now at least. Then again saying that there are quite a few different and better ways that things could have gone down in both companies and at the moment I am hoping that ROH gets crazy-popular really quickly so both promotions have to buck their ideas up and stop swerving and playing it sage in equal measure and fucking up no matter what they do. Anyway enough of this negativity for now, let’s get on with the report…

Weekly Top Ten:

1st Place: Mark Henry (10/10)

Despite finishing the week by being knocked out by the Big Show, Henry got two squash victories against the WWE’s resident mid-card jobber; John Morrison. These wins, while not epic battles, allow Henry to keep the majority of his momentum going into Vengeance. I think most people are hoping that Henry retains in his match with the Big Show, just so someone has a sustained title run at some point this year outside of the Miz. Who knows, Henry might turn out to be the next JBL, coming out of nowhere and keeping the title for the better part of a year, or he could be like all the other champions of recent memory and drop the belt on a whim from creative, killing all the carefully crafted pushing that went into making him be seen as fit to be a monster heel champion in the first place.

2nd Place: Wade Barrett (9/10)

I would say this was unusual for the distinguished English gent but the truth is that his solid promo and convincing win over Daniel Bryan out of nowhere completely fits with the way the WWE have been booking him since his crossover to the blue brand. Barrett is a solid wrestler and really could be the next big thing if he was given a sustained push. Instead he is wheeled out every couple of months for a brief glimmer of greatness before being squashed again by Cena or Orton. One major problem with the WWE is that they are too short sighted, they spend all their energy on maintaining their two biggest stars and don’t give anyone else the chance to shine. Barrett would make a great upper-card face if given the chance as he has all the charisma in the world, but instead he is one of the company’s many mid-card heels that are periodically pushed, only to fall to Cena or Orton at some point, possibly getting a short title run in the meantime if they are lucky, Barrett would be lucky if he even got that.

3rd Place: R-Truth (8/10)

I have to admit it wasn’t a great week for the heels of the WWE. R-Truth got to this position by appearing on Raw without having a match and then beating down Punk when he got the chance. Like most other people I don’t think the Awesome Truth have a hope in hell of beating Punk and Triple H in a straight match at Vengeance. However with help from Johnny Ace and a returning Kevin Nash there might be some hope for the WWE’s most promising heel tag team. This might not happen, but with Survivor Series coming up I could see those events as adding fuel to the fire for a four man match with Del Rio, Nash, R-Truth and Miz vs. Triple H, Punk, Rock and Cena, possibly with the stipulation of the Raw GM position being on the line.

4th Place: Jinder Mahal (7/10)

Following on from his placement in the Smackdown Battle Royal last week, Mahal proves that he is perhaps seen as more than just a glorified jobber by the WWE by beating the newly face-turned DiBiase clean in their match on Superstars. The match itself was pretty decent and once again added to the backwards thinking that an hour show is the place to showcase solid wrestling matches that last for a good fifteen minutes at least. It makes me think that a show like Reaction could work, as in the short-lived show that TNA did for an hour after Impact where guys just talked about the previous show. However unlike that show, which was disjointed and was just more talk after a near two hours of talking and backstage promos, if say Smackdown was booked as almost all wrestling then you could have promos and confrontations relating to those matches and storylines for an hour afterwards. So you could have a two hour wrestling show and anything that didn’t get worked out or explained in the ring could be covered in the hour-long post show. Hell it would be better than what we get now which is a two hour show that is two-thirds talking and one-third wrestling.

5th Place: Alberto Del Rio (6/10)

The WWE champion continues to be undersold. Losing to Cena due to Michael Cole on Raw and barely making it out alive against the No. 1 contender for the World Heavyweight title; The Big Show. The icing on the cake was Cena’s arrogant count out of Del Rio at the end of Raw. I’m just hoping that this is all a precursor to Del Rio winning at Vengeance because otherwise both his title runs will have just been a joke and the guy will probably never recover from being seen as John Cena’s bitch. It will also mean that it will have been twice that Del Rio has pinned Punk for the title only to have Cena take him out a month later like he was nothing, thus indicating that the WWE’s possible new face star is little more than a glorified jobber, at least where the WWE title is concerned.

6th Place: Cody Rhodes (5/10)

On the run from the Viper, Rhodes will have to work hard to have a hope of winning in his match at Vengeance. The only way I think it could be possible is if the title is on the line and the WWE are dead serious about bringing back some prestige to the belt. Having said that, how amazing would it be if the title was on the line and Rhodes could win against Orton clean, that would be a HUGE momentum boost for both Rhodes and the title. Alternatively you could have Rhodes drop the belt to Orton and then have the two feud over it for the better part of the remaining year until Wrestlemania, which would also raise the status of Rhodes and the belt. Instead though I’m betting that the WWE will be sticking to the same old ‘safe’ booking strategy of not putting the title on the line and having Orton go over Rhodes, making Rhodes look possibly good in the match, but not good enough to beat the Apex Predator.

7th Place: The Miz (4/10)

The second half of the Awesome Truth got the short end of the stick this week, having to eat a pin from Punk before getting his own back with a post-match beat down. As I said before, nothing short of major interference will result in them getting one over on Punk and Triple H. No matter what though, the Miz being back on TV screens is definitely a good thing, even if he won’t be seeing the WWE title shot again any time soon.

8th Place: Christian (3/10)

The world’s biggest coward; Captain Charisma. Christian ran out on two tag matches this week, leaving one partner to win and the other to lose. One thing is for sure and that’s that there will be no running from the Celtic Warrior at Vengeance. I say that but now I think about it a dubious count-out victory where Christian tricks Sheamus would be great and could lead to a cage match between the two at Survivor Series to settle the feud once and for all.

9th Place: Dolph Ziggler (2/10)

A nice little promo does little to counteract being pummelled near half to death by an angry Welshman on Raw. Then on Smackdown, the US champ got run out on by his partner in their tag match and received a boot to the face for his trouble. All in all things don’t look good for Ziggler, who has to pull double duty at Vengeance. On the one hand he could walk out of the PPV with two titles, on the other he could walk out with nothing, we’ll just have to wait and see which is the case.

10th Place: John Laurinitis (1/10)

The man we all love to hate. If this guy had any sense of timing he might have appeared higher on the chart since his promo mocking JR and Rey Mysterio could have been really great, certainly the writing was there, but the delivery was shit. Johnny Ace stuttered and mumbled his way through some brilliantly crafted lines that were designed to get the crowd all riled up, but instead they were occupied with figuring out what the hell he was trying to say. Get this guy off the air now!

2011-2012 Season Top Ten: Overall Top Ten:

1st Place: R-Truth (174/290) – 1st Place: The Miz (697/1290)

2nd Place: The Miz (153/290) – 2nd Place: C.M. Punk (666/1290)

3rd Place: Cody Rhodes (145/290) – 3rd Place: Chris Jericho (564/1290)

4th Place: Alberto Del Rio (141/290) – 4th Place: Cody Rhodes (382/1290)

5th Place: Mark Henry (130/290) – 5th Place: Jack Swagger (371/1290)

6th Place: Christian (127/290) – 6th Place: Alberto Del Rio (336/1290)

7th Place: C.M. Punk (88/290) – 7th Place: Dolph Ziggler (333/1290)

8th Place: Wade Barrett (79/290) – 8th Place: Sheamus (294/1290)

9th Place: Jack Swagger (63/290) – 9th Place: Wade Barrett (282/1290)

10th Place: Dolph Ziggler (52/290) – 10th Place: Randy Orton (224/1290)

Weekly Filler:

The Face Off: TNA Egos

This goes back to Hogan’s face turn at Bound For Glory. Him and Sting acting like they can take out guys younger and tougher than them just because they beat their chest and through sloppy punches. The company is being run by a bunch of guys who just want to put themselves over and care more about proving critical fans wrong than pleasing their audience. The worse thing about TNA at the moment is their knee-jerk slogan of ‘Wrestling Matters’ since Impact has the least wrestling of any televised show, so the whole thing just makes no sense. Of course there is also the problem with Robert Roode failing to win the TNA title after a huge build, and then his partner taking out Angle in the space of three minutes a few short days later, negating everything that has happened in the past few months. Added onto this was the annoying comments by Bischoff and Hogan about the ratings for that episode of Impact. The clear reason for these ratings is that everyone read what was going to happen due to the spoilers posted on sites like this and tuned in to see if TNA had really fucked up that bad. TNA should be thanking the ‘internet marks’ not making fun of them. The WWE is a mainstream product, you don’t really have to be too into wrestling to tune in, I.e. you don’t need to look at these sites or feel the need to look into the business too much, but TNA is surely more tailored to those who are interested in wrestling and so would probably be part of the IWC, at least to some extent. What I am trying to say is that when Hogan and Bischoff take shots at the IWC they are taking shots at their biggest potential fan base, and it is pure ego that prevents them from seeing that.

Face the Facts: Sin Cara vs. Sin Cara

Despite the terrible build this was a decent match. The end meant a lot and I am glad that they actually went through with it and had the black Sin Cara actually have to unmask. The thing I really liked about this match though was that the commentators, such as they are, were able to talk about wrestlers as characters. Sure they were only acknowledging character because they could frame it as a Lucha Libre thing but it is still good to hear. Now I know you couldn’t really refer to wrestlers as playing characters rather than as ‘real’ people since it would ruin the illusion, but it’s certainly an interesting idea, and it could be a new avenue for professional wrestling to look into, bringing the audience in on the game rather than trying to play them with it.

On the Rise: The United Kingdom

Those of you who are regular readers of this column might remember that I often bang on about the WWE creating a stable of Barrett, McIntyre, Ryan, and Sheamus, with William Regal as their manager. Now it seems as if someone at THQ was taking notice as in the new WWE 12 game there appears to be a story mode where a stable between the superstars comes together under the name ‘The United Kingdom’. While I wish that the stable had been realised in real life it will be nice to see it shown somewhere. It’s also nice to know that my booking decisions are shared by at least some people linked to the WWE, even if it is the design team for a games company rather than anyone actually from WWE’s creative team. Then again if I think about it, if they had shared my idea then I would be quite disturbed since it would mean I thought like them, and at this point I don’t think that would be a good thing.

Flat-Footed: USA Booking

This goes back to my old annoyance with the WWE about them being an international company and yet giving little thought to their international audience. The fact that the brilliant United Kingdom stable is only being seen in their games rather than onscreen is a testament to that. More importantly though they managed to really screw up their Mexican tour, having made Del Rio their champion in preparation for the tour they then waste him by putting him in a joke match with JR and Cole, only to be dominated by the All American boy; John Cena. Then he has a close match with the Big Show where he is knocked on his arse at then end of things. So basically the guy that was so over in Mexico and that you made champion for the express purpose of pleasing a crowd of people over the age of eight that actually think the WWE is still cool is left lying on his back at the end of both your main shows, is that any way to showcase your talent? Then there is the Mask vs. Mask match on Smackdown, while it was a good match the fact is that it had two days build and wasn’t even the main event! During the match all the announce team could do, besides highlight the wrestlers as playing characters, was go on about how important the match and the masks were in Mexico, if that was the case why wasn’t it plugged way in advance and made the main event. Bottom line is that despite whatever efforts they might have made, the WWE’s mindset will always be far too American biased, even though for now the ship has sailed on wrestling being the ‘in thing’ in the good ol’ US-of-A. Basically both major promotions are headed by small-minded dinosaurs that have no idea what is relevant or how to move the business onto a place where it can become truly successful again.

That’s all for this week, hopefully Vengeance has seen some good results and the WWE is at least in some form of good shape heading towards Survivor Series. Hell maybe by next week TNA will have capitalised on James Storm becoming champion and the company will start to respect and push its original stars. However at this point it all seems pretty unlikely, for now this is James Wright signing off.

Source: wrestlingtruth.com