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By Shane McKinley, PWTorch Absurdity specialist

“Don’t back up, don’t back down
Full throttle wide open
You get tired, you don’t show it
Dig a little deeper when you think you can’t dig no more”
- “That’s The Only Way I Know How” by Jason Aldean

Has John Cena seen this commercial yet?

Too bad future Cena won’t tell young Cena this fashion advice.



Kinda wishing John Cena would overcome the odds once again, because he doesn’t look like a happy camper in this A.J.-Vickie feud. I don’t understand why, this angle is going over huge with the valued 10-year-old girls market. I'm making that up. I don't know what market this angle is getting over with.

What more family-friendly and socially acceptable secrets will Vickie spew out during the second hour of Raw? That Cena likes Justin Bieber? (C’mon, John, think of the 10-year-old girl demographic.) That Cena likes to dress up in furry cosplay and A.J. pets him?

Yeah, nobody asked for and nobody wanted a PG-rated Claire Lynch storyline. It’s something to keep Cena in the loop while he’s out of commission. And, if we rub enough of our collective rabbit’s feet, we could get an A.J. vs. Dolph Ziggler match on a Raw one day. Hey, imagine that. A Raw match that’s unique and that people want to see.

Plus, Ziggy gets to be cast as the ultimate douchebag. Of course, considering that WWE is family-friendly and PG, boys can't hit girls. They would need something signed from the President for it to happen. Solution: Ziggy in drag. Mr. Money in the Bank, everybody.




The problem with this A.J./Cena storyline is that Vickie promised shocking footage and she rolled out...them holding hands. *Gasp

I mean, what Beatles song is more attention grabbing to you:

“I Wanna Hold Your Hand”

or

“Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?”

You really can’t do too much when creating stories like this in WWE PG. So, you have Cena and A.J. in an elevator. And, no mack-out sessions take place. How Vickie gets this secret camera footage I don’t want to know.




I hope Vickie takes off her mask and reveals she’s been Cena’s ex-wife all these years.

And, I hope we won't hear these words coming from A.J.'s mouth: "I'm pregnant."

If this were back in the Attitude era, WWE could get away with stuff, because no McMahon was running for public office back then. WWE could get as stupid and sexist they we wanted, baby. Really stupid sexy.

At least back in the Attitude Era, people weren’t carrying sleeping children out of the arena early, like what some people were saying from last Monday Night Raw.

There are 12 million hardcore WWE fans who don’t fall asleep to Raw. Seriously. 12 million. 90 million won’t vote in this upcoming election, but 12 million will love every second of three hours of Raw.

Are you jonesing for yet another “Alberto Del Rio picks up easy TV re-building win after yet another PPV loss?" And, why wouldn’t you be? It’s like clockwork now.

To me, the statement that “the crowd did the performers a disservice by being silent/dead” is an excuse. If you want a crowd to blindly go along with what you’re selling, pay them. Fans pay WWE to be entertained, and if Hell in the Cell was any indication, they clearly are not that entertained.

I don’t understand. It’s WWE. It’s a multi-national wrestling company that earns millions. They have some of the best sports-entertainers in the world. Flashly video packages. A Creative staff run in a North Korea sweatshop. You’re telling me you can’t stop Little Jimmies from falling asleep during a Raw? You call yourself entertainment, yet you can’t stop fans from looking down at their smartphones during your matches?




I still don’t quite believe kids were sleeping during a WWE event. Have you ever gone to a wrestling event and fallen asleep? I think it would damn near be impossible. From the loud music to the loud pyro to the millions and millions of people chanting “3MB! 3MB! 3MB!”

On the flip side, the performers can get frustrated with the lack of time they have in the ring, annoying fans, pushy fans, belligerent fans, or, if you’re C.M. Punk, fans who brush up against you. Jerks.

Mick Foley, President of the Foley Fanatics who will face Punk's Pansies at Survivor Series, once wrote in one of his New York Times bestselling books that the “fans don’t care unless it’s a catchphrase or a nice pair of boobs” (paraphrasing here, for those who smell what I’m cookin’).

Also, if you replace Uncle Mick Foley with Uncle Sting, throw in a cage with weapons...and poof, a Lethal Lockdown match appears.



Rumors has it that Triple H says, "Let's do something terrible," to the crew before every Raw.

What’s funny about the whole ref Brad Maddox scandal is that at first they couldn’t find him, then they did, and now he has to explain himself…which should have been done on last week’s Raw, when, you know, the getting was good. Me thinks they needed a extra week to come up with the story to this storyline.

Maybe Maddox just wasn’t a big fan of the Ultimate Warrior. Or maybe because Ryback uses HGH and Maddox didn’t want a drug user to win over Drug Free C.M. Punk. Or maybe Maddox himself had enough of the worst Hell in the Cell match there is and wanted to put us out of our misery. Thank you, sir. Applaud this man.

To me, booking needs to be flexible. It can’t be cast-in-stone storylines two months before, because I believe you need to pay attention weekly to how your audience is reacting to your audience. It’s one of the problems TNA Impact had before they went live. Now they’re daring and exiciting! Lord knows we needed to hear Jeff Hardy’s inner monologue to make us firmly believe in the direction they’re going.

I can see the value in booking shows as they go on by how the audience is reacting. And, injuries/setbacks can occur at any time, and you need to call an audible. Not everything can go according to plan.

But, I hate when wrestling goes, “Well, we’ll just do the action now and explain it later.” I was fine with the apparent last-minute decision of the Ryback-Punk match, but the ref follow-up was weak. That’s why people say WWE treats them like idiots. As a wrestling fan, there’s already a sense that you want to be conned, you want to buy into the hype, you want for wrestling to wave its magic wand.

What you don’t want is WWE not knowing what the hell they're doing and going through the motions. An example of this was the Raw after the Cena-Laurinaitis PPV match, and they had the royal screw-up of explaining Big Show’s involvement in that fight.

Survivor Series is rapidly approaching. I dig the old-style five-on-five match-up. I would hope they will hype up each team good and proper, but right now I don’t trust WWE to wipe themselves after they use the toilet. Three-hour Raw. Y’all can do it. I would also suggest a “3MB concert” at the PPV. If that doesn’t get the crowd to wake up, nothing will.

Oh, WWE '13 is out. I’ve played it. Here’s my review:

The Attitude Era. It was a great time. Violence, sexism, chairshots, and penis jokes. Alcoholic Stone Cold was our hero, who solved things by running people over in his monster truck. His biggest enemy was The Rock, who called everyone trailer-trash and cut promos about shoving things up Triple H’s butt. The millions still chant his name.

Now, you can re-live those memories in WWE '13. The Attitude Era career mode is a treat to play. Oh, the Attitude Era. Attitude Era Attitude Era Attitude Era. Sigh…




As for everything else about the game, see WWE '12. This year, they were nice enough to give you visual icons that you still suck at our split-second reversal system. Seriously, what’s wrong with you?

I hope for WWE '14, they decide to focus on '80s wrestling, where Hulk Hogan was applauded for when his sex tapes were released. And, Rowdy Roddy Piper was actually coherent.

It’s not like they could do a video game about the PG Era. OMG, kids sleeping in audience!

So, to sum it up, I love the Attitude Era.

WWE '13 Absurd Verdict: 12 Million People Think WWE '13 Is Better Than Halo 4, and I'm One of Them

Man, I’m in the wrong racket. That video game review was ace.

That’s it for me. Eagerly awaiting the Royal Rumble, where C.M. Punk will face Rock and Rock’s balloon muscles from...you guessed it...the Attitude Era. Be nice to the kid, Rocky.

Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com

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