By Shane McKinley, PWTorch Specialist

When I saw that 6:00 p.m. rolled around, I once again had that terrible feeling in my gut that Impact was about to start. It usually is a "moral dilemma" of sorts. Fast forward to the part where Scott Steiner yaps and yells in an inane promo about punk asses and mark wrestling websites. Nothing quite like wrestling, where you have a general feeling that you know it is going to suck and then wrestling all too happily goes beneath your expectations.

It's not like in football, basketball, or baseball where the team playing would suddenly get on the mic and start talking about main street, fat asses, billboard signs, and half breeds. Yeah, take that you half breeds. Come stink up the joint with the rest of us cool dudes. Then I thought that I could be much happier if I went for a run instead of watching wrestling.

Wrestling fans go through this. After a while, wrestling becomes stale and cold. And then you find yourself wondering if you should even bother watching the show. Heck, long-time fans of wrestling would attest to this. No one would yell at you for not watching "Dancing With The WWE" bit on Raw, watching Vickie Guerrero on Smackdown do promos like she was reading a book to a kindergarten class, or watch yet another frustrating Impact match. I was busy doing work covering the election on Monday and Tuesday, so just today I watched Raw and ECW on TiVo. I stopped watching Impact after the Steiner bit, and I felt much happier.

Some things from Raw:

The Hardys vs. Jobber MVP and Brian Kendrick was pointless. You can't show MVP losing to Kung Fu Naki and then expect fans to believe he has a shot of winning against the Hardys.

Randy Orton might as well be wearing a sign that said "Please Stay Tuned" as he conducted his "sit-in" for the first two matches.

I threw up in my mouth a little thinking about the cheesy WWE "hometown boy" William Regal vs. Santino next week. Does a tough bastard like Regal really have to lose an IC match to Santino?

Adamle breaks down on national television. Fires himself. Fans rejoice.

Mocking Bret "the Hitman" Hart? Bad move. Kozlov doesn't need any more squash matches. Why not be creative and show him fighting a bear, pumping iron in the gym; something else than just another Umaga squash? (And the list goes on and on.)

WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009's main feature is that you can create tag teams? Next year the feature will be "We actually fixed the game play, got new outfits, and the sound effects sound great." They want to make the best-selling wrestling video game, not the best wrestling video game.

When I think of DX, I think of them as merchandise whores. Raw in general feels like an old rock band. They keep playing it safe, bringing out the old stars, and are generally happy in "just getting by." Triple H must have called Scott Steiner to see who could do the better "asshole promo." The DX promo started off pretty good (pyro mishap was actually endearing), but then the whole "Lillian = Horseface" and the very tired "JoMizzy = Gay" took this into a nosedive.

Don't know what it says about a WWE champion when he takes it upon himself to make fun of Joey Styles and Lillian in order to get over. Or DX making fun of a group that talks about their ding-dongs a lot. And has the catch phrase "Suck It!" Oh wait, that's DX. Triple H could have made fun of JoMizzy as "pretentious Hollywood types who are more hype than substance,"
but I guess gay jokes get over more. I would like to believe that JoMizzy could have gotten the victory, but the main obstacle was that Triple H is WWE champion. If he was not holding the belt, it could have worked out for JoMizzy.

Yes, 15 divas pale in comparison to one Mae Young. At least somebody knows that divas matches are pointless and now sort of require crazy outside crap.

Punk vs. Orton. Sure is a lot of ink on these boys's arms. WWE sure does not like Punk anymore, as this once potential hot feud got cooled down. So while Punk wanders around, big ups to Orton's "pissed off" promos. You could tell just by looking at him that he could break somebody's neck.

No matter how much the announcer pushes somebody, a loss is still a loss. "But he had a very entertaining match!" True. But wins and victories (in a sense) still matter from a fan's perspective. MVP could have all of the "entertaining matches" he wants, the fact remains that he cannot win.

Another throwaway with Undertaker vs. JBL.

I was actually screaming at my TV when Kung Fu Naki appeared. No! What the hell is this crap! Goldust does the sprinkler. Hey, everybody! Get down and dance! (Whimper.)

Burned out during the Kane/Henry vs. Mysterio/Kofi. This show will seemingly never end. Kofi nowadays is just another one of those dudes.

John Cena as #1 contender? Uh, that's real fair. I'm hoping that Jericho will at least point this out next week (to at least assuage fans who feel the same way). I actually believe that Cena will win the championship, considering the disappointing title reign of Batista. ("Cole, it took me a very long time to win this championship. I am going to be champion for a very long time". And then he loses next week. What the hell?) It will be easier to boo heel Jericho, Cena is in his hometown, and damn if Raw doesn't need a spark to watch nowadays.

Remember during the start of the year how a three-hour Raw was like a present from the WWE to their fans? Not so much anymore. Frankly, I did not wake up until the last hour and a half.

And on ECW, Jack Swagger had a very nice promo, but I did not really watch the entire show. The opening bit with Matt Hardy, Finlay, and Mark Henry? I have already seen this. Ricky Ortiz in a match? Yawn.

Finally, on Impact the newest, hottest boy band MEM comes your way! Five dudes who can't really move well! There's the centerpiece Angle, the strip club grandpa Nash, the muscle freak Steiner, the respectable Goth Sting, and the delusional one Booker.

I'm not sure why TNA has such a beef with "mark wrestling websites." It does not matter to me if I have whiny fans or mark fans, as long as their asses are in the seats and they are buying, I don't care. But TNA seems to take it personal with the criticism of their product. In a perfect world, every TNA fan would not complain and would just "baa" like sheep. But that's not the real world.

I'm content in the knowledge that Steiner will forever continue to embarrass himself on the mic. I actually have not followed the career of Scott Steiner, so in large part I don't know who the hell he is. Or why I should care that MEM had guys who had "great matches" ten years ago. Every wrestler still needs to produce, regardless of how many years in the business.

As a wrestling fan, I am sort of burned out. Everything seems to be repeating itself and there aren't solid reasons to watch WWE programs or Impact. Like most fans nowadays, I believe WWE and TNA are just shoveling the same stale product.

I will still read "mark wrestling websites" to get my info (and by "mark wrestling websites," I mean tnawrestling.com), but for me it's no wonder why the business is not doing so hot at the moment. Big ups to TNA for at least trying to do something sort of unique with the whole MEM vs. Young Lions things, even though great matches or feuds will often get thrown out the window for "loads of run-ins/overbooking."

Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com.

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