James Caldwell and Mark Madden (former WCW Nitro cohost, former PWTorch Newsletter columnist 20 years ago, and now columnist at WrestleZone) both questioned whether C.M. Punk's promo included too much content that would go over the heads of too many viewers.
Madden wrote today: "Honestly, I’m not sure exactly what the purpose of Punk’s promo was. The delivery was excellent. The passion, the articulation, the earnest nature – there aren’t many better than Punk. But the majority of the audience had little idea what Punk was talking about. Let Impact book for the IWC. WWE has prospered by booking for the casual fan. This was a rare departure from that. Let’s see how effective it is. Who cares if it shocked those backstage? John Laurinaitis gets in free. Who cares about working the boys? Even the densest mark knows THE MINUTE SOMETHING GETS ON TV, IT’S A WORK. If Punk’s promo was a shoot, his mic would have been cut RIGHT AWAY... [CONTINUE READING]
As a reminder of the last time a promo got this category of buzz, here's a flashback to Joey Styles's "shoot promo" on Raw five years ago last month.
COVER STORY by Wade Keller
PWTorch Newsletter #912 - Cover-Dated May 6, 2006
Headline: Styles rips on WWE and fans, quits Raw
Subheadline: Memorable scripted angle sets the stage for formal revival of ECW brand
After months of being belittled and demeaned behind the scenes, WWE took it to the airwaves. But for a purpose. The real-life frustration built up in Styles translated into one of the most memorable, well-delivered "shoot-style" promos ever, and one of the best promos of the year anywhere.
With Spirit Squad given the role as guest general managers of Raw, they called Styles backstage during a match and threatened to put him in a female cheerleader outfit next week. Styles returned to ringside and was playfully poked and prodded by his broadcast partner Jerry Lawler. Styles eventually had enough, and shoved Lawler...[CONTINUE READING]
Last night's C.M. Punk promo at the end of Raw was brilliant for multiple reasons. The main reason it it works on roughly three categories of fans:
-Those who totally believe almost everything is real (these are mostly quite young fans).
-Those who don't get every reference he made, but get a sense he went places he wasn't supposed to and wonder where he crossed the line and how upset Vince McMahon is.
-Those who get that everything he said was fine with Vince McMahon, why everything he said was "safe shooting" and never crossed any real lines, but enjoy seeing the spectacle because Punk executed it so well.
As I talked about in detail in my VIP Keller Hotline for over 40 minutes last night, Punk's promo was a work - start to finish. Everything about that promo was aimed at getting people to...[CONTINUE READING]
Ten years ago, WWE fans weren't concerned about WWE being too "kid-friendly" or dumbed down by the PG limitations. Instead, they were getting a ton of violence and blood and big risky highspots. I made a case in a cover story ten years ago in the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter that WWE was taking things too far, creating needless risk and business-damaging injury hiatuses. Since then, WWE has definitely corrected course in terms of unnecessarily career-shortening risky moves and obviously they've toned down the blood and gore drastically for strategic corporate reasons. Here's a look at my case for cutting back ten years ago...[CONTINUE READING]
In just the first 60 minutes of Impact Wrestling on Spike TV last night, we heard these insults yelled at the top of various people's lungs:
-Low-life
-Con man
-Loser
-Scum of the earth
-Dirtbag
-Cancer
-Really Bad Virus
-Son of a Bitch (multiple times)
-Taking a leak
-Smart ass......[CONTINUE READING]
In the PWTorch Newsletter published ten years ago (the full back issue was just published in PDF format for VIP members), my back page "End Notes" editorial pleaded with the WWF get this "WCW" experiment over with quickly. I pointed out how incorporating WCW into the WWF brand was already being badly botched with the only approach I believed could save it.
This was a precursor to the frustration we'd have not just with WWF trying to promote WCW as a separate brand, but not really, with the same frustration we'd experience with the attempt to promote separate brands instead (Raw vs. Smackdown). It's hard to imagine Vince McMahon ever embracing the WCW name brand that represented the enemy, the threat, and the laughable incompetency that made them an inferior competitor business-wise most of their existence. Heck, he clearly favors Raw as his first-born over Smackdown, so WCW would have probably gotten worse treatment... [CONTINUE READING]
The following are my Random Thoughts on Raw from the PWTorch Newsletter #658 five years ago this week. The spotlight on a funny joke Kurt Angle told on Raw was a fun reminder of how funny Angle could be. Eric Young is now following in his footsteps. I do cringe a bit, though, at my endorsement of WWE incorporating more humor into Raw. We've seen where that road has taken us.
===
Watching Steve Austin interact with Spike Dudley reminded me of something, but at first I couldn't figure out what. Then I realized Steve Austin was Lou Grant and Spike Dudley was Mary Richards. At one point I expected Austin to tell Spike he liked him because he had "spunk." Austin continues to open up his character to new dimensions that I didn't think I'd see. He's having fun and showing a comedic side, something we have...[CONTINUE READING]
Cee Lo Green found himself in a similar (but exact) same situation as John Cena, having to apologize for the use of the word "gay" in a response to a critic.
At his concert in Minneapolis, an exchange with the audience was covered by the City Pages music critic:
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"Do you realize I'm just foreplay for Rihanna?" Cee Lo Green asked the near-capacity crowd, taking a break from his lackluster set to attempt to rouse the bored audience. "Rihanna's gonna fuck you," he said. "I'm just here to get you wet."
John Cena, in an interview with the Washington Blade, was asked about the controversy surrounding his anti-gay jokes aimed at The Rock during the build for WrestleMania earlier this year. His comments showed me he still doesn't get it. Not even close. Here's what he said:
•"I think it was completely misconstrued. I certainly have no judgment or am in no position to judge how anyone lives their life or their lifestyle. I just think it was something Rock (or Dwayne) might have taken out of context. I think it was completely blown out of proportion.
•"When you get a shockwave of that magnitude, especially when I'm in the position that I am. I'm certainly put at the forefront of our programming and I like being in that spot. So, if I have offended anyone, I've certainly made my apologies just due. It's not some...[CONTINUE READING]
The following is the cover story of the PWTorch Newsletter from five years ago this week that I wrote covering TNA's Fourth Anniversary event, Slammiversary. It included the end of Christian's NWA World Hvt. Title reign and the end of America's Most Wanted long NWA Tag Team Title reign. Jim Cornette was a prominent part of the show, plus TNA responded to the revival of ECW.
PWTorch Newsletter #920
Cover Dated: June 24, 2006
Headline: TNA celebrates four years at Slammiversary
Subheadline: Christian loses title, Samoa Joe scores big win, Cornette introduced
Aware that the relaunch of ECW and it's stellar first-week rating changed the wrestling landscape, TNA came out firing on Sunday. The Slammiversary PPV marked the four year anniversary of the country's only nationally televised alternative to WWE's three brands...[CONTINUE READING]
-Unfortunately, we got way too many tasteless bullying fat jokes by the svelte 32 inch waisted Jerry Lawler aimed at Vickie Guerrero. Even Booker T joined in, first laughing at Lawler, then adding some of his own. I don't get how people like Lawler can get past the utter hypocrisy of making fun of Vickie's weight when she's probably got a better BMI than he does at this point. It's sexist, also, at this point because women are supposed to be Michelle McCool shaped and a man can just wear a loose shirt...
-In the end, Vickie stopped a Kofi rally by jabbing him "in the pupils" (as Michael Cole put it). Ziggler applied a sleeper and the bell rang. The announcers weren't sure why, but it turned out that Kofi simply passed out and the ref called an end to the match. [CONTINUE READING]
I took this photo earlier today at the Minneapolis Stone Arch Bridge art festival. Fortunately, R-Truth was nowhere in sight. This is the cropped version. Click on the link to see the full sized version and find out why... [CONTINUE READING]
With the Bound for Glory Series, TNA has launched a concept that I like, although one that even TNA brass have to admit we have a right to be nervous about them seeing through with conviction and attention to detail. They abandoned the TNA Ratings last year after massive mocking by online fans that there was no connection between who was ranked where and how active they had been and whether they were winning. James Caldwell's chronicle of actual win/loss records put hard data behind the criticism of the arbitrary, sloppy execution of an otherwise intriguing idea.
One good thing about this concept is that it gets us talking already about TNA's signature annual supershow, Bound for Glory. it helps cement that title as their version of WrestleMania.
There are 12 wrestlers in the Bound for Glory series. Just as important as how they execute the concept is whom they choose to win it all. Here is my Power Ranking listing the order of whom I want to see get the high-profile title shot at Bound for Glory this fall...[CONTINUE READING]
With the revival of Tough Enough coming to an end last week, let's flash back ten years to my cover story in Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter #658 (6/23/2001) covering the launch of the original "Tough Enough" series.
HEADLINE: Tough Enough to offer window into industry
MTV's 13-week series should raise the level of appreciation general public has for "fake sport"
By Wade Keller, PWTorch editor
A wider audience than ever before is about to see what it takes to become a professional wrestler. The trend of reality TV, such as MTV's "Real World," CBS's "Survivor," and Fox's "Boot Camp," is melding with a pro wrestling training school for a new series on MTV. [CONTINUE READING]
-Good lines from the Miz... Miz to Alex Riley: "Tonight, I'm going to expose you more than a Tweet from Anthony Weiner"... Miz to the crowd shouting "What?!": "That was cool in 2001, by the way"...
-Steve Austin and Miz had nice chemistry out there. Austin still has it. Although he emasculated Miz a bit, that's the type of character Miz plays. It was good of Austin to give an endorsement to Alex Riley.
-Good basic paint-by-nuimbers set-up for the Big Show vs. Del Rio match on PPV. Not that Austin necessarily wants it, and not that there might not be diminishing returns with a personality as big as his, but making him the official G.M. going forward would be tempting given how he's performing in the role tonight... [CONTINUE READING]
1 -- ALEX SHELLEY & JAMES STORM (w/Robert Roode) vs. BRITISH INVASION (Magnus & Douglas Williams -- TNA Tag Team Title Match
-Storm brought a six pack of beer to the announce table and joined Tenay and Taz on commentary. Roode acknowledged he's nervous about Shelley taking his place in this title defense, doing a great job conveying that the tag belts mean the world to him.
-Shelley dove through the ropes with a dive onto Williams at ringside, helped by Storm standing on the second rope and spreading his legs to create a large opening for Shelley to dive through. Roode said they'd practiced this and he hoped it worked.
-Roode did his half of the hand wiggling before Storm went into the "Beer! Money!" routine. It once again made the heroes look like undisciplined fools because all of that showboating gave the heels time to recover and reverse momentum...[CONTINUE READING]
-I didn't get the feeling listening to Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler that either had watched much or any "Tough Enough." Their lines sounded quite canned.
-Vince McMahon wears the strangest looking pants in terms of how they hang on his body. They're like clown pants, especially the way he posed on his way to the ring.
-They've gone from real people with some natural star power that needed some refining and amplifying to those over-amped scripted-sounding characters spewing practiced lines that sound rehearsed. It's like Ken Shamrock, who was real and marketable...[CONTINUE READING]
I talked on the PWTorch Livecast last week about Khama's promo on last week's Raw. I've gotten a number of emails and Twitter messages regarding the alternative scenario I created that make it worth my expanding and clarifying my points of view here...
PWTorch Livecast listener Brain J. Adkins sent this:
======
So, you think it would have been better to have the anonymous RAW G.M. suspend Kharma? Let's say they had done that. The reason you give was to show the heels that there are consequences to their vile actions. Also,you wanted them to act like they didn't know how she got in the building nor why she's there because she's doesn't work there!? Are you serious with this!? This is the type of bad writing you criticize others for.
If the RAW G.M. wanted to punish the heel, why wait until after she had attacked more than one Diva?... [CONTINUE READING]
WWE OVER THE LIMIT PPV BLOG
MAY 22, 2011
SEATTLE, WASH.
-Josh Matthews introduced the show. It's a four-man announce team, though, with Jerry Lawler, Booker T, and (in his cage) Michael Cole.
1 -- R-TRUTH vs. REY MYSTERIO
-It was odd seeing Truth walk to the ring without music. Truth said the fans should't be booing him, they should be booing themselves. He said they don't deserve the truth, but they're going to get it.
-"It's all about parking lots," said Truth. He said he had to park with the stank-filled hippies, and that's not his style...[CONTINUE READING]
It was ten years ago that Vince McMahon conceded that the XFL was a failure. He put a lot into that project, as did NBC Sports head honcho Dick Ebersol, who announced his departure from that post this week. They went "all-in" with the goal of a competitive sports league, but ran it like people who didn't understand a few key things:
-Sports fans love the NFL. If you market yourself as the anti-NFL, you'll be seen as hating on their favorite product
-The strict defensive rules in the NFL aren't wimpy, they're there to protect the best athletes on offense who are part of dazzling scoring plays do their thing (mainly quarterbacks and wide receivers). The XFL's naive "no rules" approach led to all of those single-digit scorecards that turned people who were open-minded in week one away from the product by week two.
The following is my cover story for PWTorch Newsletter #654 (cover dated May 19, 2011)... [CONTINUE READING]
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