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THE SPECIALISTS
DONOFRIO'S FALLS COUNT ANYWHERE: WWE Network & Road to WrestleMania Edition

Feb 26, 2014 - 4:50:55 PM
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By Tony Donofrio, PWTorch specialist

Falls Count Anywhere - WWE Network edition

-After weeks of patience, February 24 has come and gone. No, I’m not talking about the WWE Network (I’ll get to that). I’m talking about my internal patience waiting from something on Raw to really excite me as the Road to WrestleMania rolls on. Well, it didn’t happen. Sure, the end of Raw was good. Seeing Undertaker stab Brock Lesnar with a pen and put him through a table was a cool scene. However, fans of the Attitude Era will remember a time when Taker used a pen to bust open Steve Austin and sign the contract in Austin’s blood. Now, I know times have changed and we’ll probably never see something like that again in WWE, but I’m still waiting for something to really get me excited for WrestleMania.

Since the Royal Rumble, WWE programming has been flat. Don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t be awful, but it sure isn’t Road to WrestleMania type quality. I’m still taking a “wait and see” approach that WWE will slowly escalate interest leading up to the biggest WrestleMania is the history of the company.

In recent years, WWE jumped the gun a bit and a lot of the excitement seemed to fizzle out by this time in February leading to some stagnant Raws as WWE got closer to the event. I’m hoping the reverse is true and excitement will build to a climax at WM30. I thought February 24 would be the day it sparked, but maybe it’s March 3 in Chicago. Then again, there’s that whole C.M. Punk being absent thing. At this point, WWE needs to hope that March 3 isn’t a disaster with the best wrestling crowd in the world hijacking the show. Maybe March 10...?

-I’ve always been led to believe that WrestleMania is the culmination of the biggest storyline of the year; the event where the biggest babyface finally goes over and is at the top of the mountain. This is where that 6-to-8-month slow burn (at least in the glory days of WWE) finally pays off. That has to happen, right? I’m not so sure, but the theme of this column continues: I’m holding out hope. Since Summerslam, Daniel Bryan has been the ridicule of The Authority and has been robbed of winning the WWE World Heavyweight Title on nearly every PPV since then. At some point, there has to be a pay-off. At some point, the babyface has to go over and get his moment. That should be at Mania.

It just shouldn’t be in a match against Triple H.

It shouldn’t happen at Extreme Rules, either. Or Payback. It shouldn’t even happen at Summerslam 2014! If the slow burn culminates at WM30 and Bryan leaves as WWE champion with 70,000 people chanting “YES!” then we can consider that this was a great slow-burn (even if that wasn’t the plan behind closed doors) and that a half-year of frustration was all worth it. But, if it doesn’t, that’s a problem.

WWE could argue that they want to wait to the perfect moment to pull the trigger. However, something can be said on waiting too long to do so and losing all the momentum that was built up. WM30 is the last chance for that. If you noticed the silence and faces of most of the live crowd in Minneapolis this past Sunday at Elimination Chamber, it was apparent that WWE is now officially on borrowed time and that the only way most of its fanbase will be happy going forward is to see Bryan take home the title. It has to happen at WM30. Only time will tell, but I have a bad feeling it might not happen that way. The clock is ticking…

-The much anticipated WWE Network launched on Monday and I was thrilled that I had nothing else to do that day except watching wrestling all day. Let me say that from my laptop, it worked nearly flawlessly all around from minute one. From my iPad, that was a different story. The on-demand service during the first two days of launch seemed to be the biggest problem on my end. However, as I preached on Twitter, this is only Week One and I’m sure there are some bugs to work out.

I’m happy to report that as of this morning, the Network was also working flawlessly on my iPad. Since I’m out of town currently, I haven’t had a chance to try it yet on my Apple TV. But, from all accounts that I’ve read, I’ve heard that the Apple TV version of the network has been great so far. It seems as if there is a lot of untapped potential with the network and I’m very excited to see where WWE takes it in the future. However, for now, less than one percent of the WWE Library is keeping me very entertained.

I will say this also. If you have the WWE Network and didn’t have a Hulu subscription or haven’t got a chance to watch NXT, it’s a must-watch! If you’re a fan of a more traditional, one-hour wrestling show with great action, then this is the show for you. If you're a fan of ROH and independent wrestling, you’ll love the action here as well. If you haven’t seen the NXT Match of the Year from 2013 featuring Cesaro vs. Sami Zayn because you didn’t have Hulu or haven’t had time yet, I implore you to go out of your way to see this match on the latest “This is NXT” that is now on-demand.

I applaud WWE for putting this match up-front for those that haven’t had a chance to see any NXT yet. If that match doesn’t sell you on NXT, then I’m not sure what will. When you watch NXT, it gives you a lot of hope for the future of WWE.

-I also tweeted out this week that I like the “search” function on WWE Network. It allows me to look back at some moments and characters that I, or most wrestling fans, have forgot about. I would love some feedback on this on Twitter (see below how to contact me). I may be putting any credibility I have on the line here, but so be it - does anyone else feel like the Mordecai character was money left on the table? I loved the vignettes that aired when the character debuted and I thought that Kevin Fertig pulled the character off well.

I recall ten years ago when Mordecai debuted that WWE officials felt that Fertig’s in-ring work wasn't good enough yet or that he wasn’t quite “ready for prime time” (then again, I guess he really never turned out to be). I’m sure this was WWE’s way of trying to “re-invent” The Undertaker character, but after a while, the character was just dropped. I still wonder to this day, was it too controversial a character? Was he just not over enough in the short run he was given? Was Fertig really not yet ready in the eyes of those backstage? Or, am I the only person that watched the product that really thought that Fertig was going somewhere with the Mordecai character?!

Anyways, with the WWE Network now online, it gives wrestling columnists and fans alike so much more to talk about and brings about a great sense of nostalgia. I believe it’s a great time to be a wrestling fan and even if you’re not happy with the current WWE product, WWE has given you a major outlet to re-live moments from WWE's past and from the companies they bought the tape libraries of.

Tony Donofrio is a Specialist for the Torch covering a variety of topics and promotions. You can reach Tony at TonyDonofrio@icloud.com or follow him on Twitter @TonyDonofrio.

[Graphic (c) WWE]


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