Home schooling no. 1

Welcome back to the Aussie Mouthpiece blog. Another week, another installment of RAW, and another chance to talk about the goings on in wrestling.

You may notice this post is entitled "home schooling no.1". I'm changing things up a little to see how it feels. But this week, i'm not just going to talk about RAW. Sure, none of the other shows have happened yet, but I did get a chance to see Ring of Honor's first episode over the weekend, and i've also got a couple of other things to talk about.

So this new idea I have is basically to make these "go home" posts less about RAW specifically, and talk about a wider range of topics. If RAW has an amazing week, like the builds to Summerslam or the night Vince was "fired", then i'll do a specific post about it. I just have to come up with a catchy name.

Anyway... for now, it's installment one of "Go Home time" (which will probably have a name change eventually, that's how these things go.)

Let's start with RAW, because I just finished watching it.

I didn't like this week's episode. This is your "go home" show right? The last RAW before the pay per view. Don't get me started on how ridiculous it is to have a 2 pay per views two weeks apart (i'll get to that later). Regardless though, isn't this the RAW that is supposed to make people want to buy the pay per view? I'm no closer to buying it than before I watched this week's episode.

So Triple H comes out and does his "i'm going to make a joke out of everyone" schtik... yeah great, you're just making a joke out of two guys who have massive potential as main event wrestlers. That's the problem.

Ok i'm deviating from RAW, but I watched something today that has altered my perception a little. I'm not claiming to be smart to the business or anything though.
Today I watched the "Guest booker with Al Snow" dvd from Kayfabe Commentaries. It was amazingly good. But the one thing that stuck with me is when he talked about heels. And what they're supposed to do.

My idea (now) of a heel, is a guy who you want to see the babyfaces beat up and give him what's coming to him basically. His job is to draw people in, to sell tickets, all that stuff. But to get heat first and foremost. And to get fans to come back/watch again so they can see him get beaten up.

Most of the heels today in WWE.. and I think maybe in TNA (haven't watched it for a long time now) don't do that. I just plain do not want to see them on tv, in matches, in anything. Laurinitis is a perfect example. I really want to see someone kick his ass (because of stories i've read/seen) .. but as an on screen character, it's boring, it makes me want to skip to the next scene.

Del Rio is good, but I'm not that interested in seeing him wrestle.
I don't want to see Jack Swagger at all.
Hogan.. well.. y'know. Sick of it ten years ago.
Christian. He doesn't look like he could beat anyone. And he's orange. I don't buy him as champion. I never have.

BUT, there are some great heels at the moment too. I don't understand why they don't use them more. Dolph being the first guy that comes to mind. Mark Henry (now) has taken that next step. Cody Rhodes is pretty entertaining.

It just seems that a lot of the "bad guys" .. at least to me, get booed because people don't want to see them. As opposed to they get booed because they're actually bad guys. Something needs to change there.

Remember 5, 6.. even 8 years ago? Who were the main heels? Jericho, HHH, Big Show, Kane (when he took his mask off for the first time), Vince, Flair. How could things have gotten so far off track in such a short amount of time?
My point is that people should still want to see the bad guys on tv. At the moment it doesn't feel like there's a lot of those guys around.

Anyway, i digress. Back to RAW.

So as I said, I really wasn't into Triple H making jokes of Dolph and Cody. Christian.. well .. ok that wasn't cool either. There's no point to it. It's not like it builds up your heel guys .. all it does is make the COO look like a bully. As in "Just because you pissed me off, i'm putting you in this match".

The intercontinental title match however, made Cody look somewhat good. It's just a shame that the match for his title belt was overshadowed by the Christian/Sheamus storyline. Why not have a triple threat, Cody, Christian and Sheamus? Or a tag match.. or one on one? Cody and Sheamus for the belt.. and Christian tries to interfere, fails, and Cody picks up the win slightly cleaner... Seems better? Didn't Cody not get involved in the battle royal straight away?

Ok I either really don't understand fashion, or David Otunga dressed in the dark. A bowtie? and an army green shirt? I don't get it. And of course we have to have our obligatory "I'm the executive vice president of dull monotonous sounding promos" bit from Johnny Ace. Really didn't like it. Maybe they're trying to change things up, but .. change isn't always the way to go. If it ain't broke.. dont' fix it right?

FINALLY... something good to say about the divas match. As in, the dominant looking women beat the scrawny model looking girl. Because that seems like it's what would happen if all this was real.. and isn't that the point? To get people to believe it's real? even for just a split second?

Mark Henry is a badass. Slamming Khali just re-asserts that. And that is the only reason that man should be on any kind of WWE TV. To make other guys look awesome. Khali that is, not Mark Henry. Khali needs to be gone.

The WWE title match .. who knows what's going to happen...? They make Del Rio look like he can take both guys.. so clearly he's not going to win the title. My hope is that Cena holds on to it. Not because I don't want Punk to win, but because then Cena will just win it back in a couple of weeks, and he'll be a 13 time world champion.
 Triple H is a 13 time world champion. Cena's been wrestling in the wwe for 9 years, and already has more than 1 title run for every year he's been with that company.
Triple H has been wrestling for ... 20 years? Been with the WWE for roughly.. what... 17 of those years? Something like that anyways. Something's wrong there...

Anyway, Cena's promo was a Cena promo.. "I know you all don't like me, but i'm going to do this and i'm going to win, because i'm a man of my word and i stand for hustle etc etc etc". I know he didn't say that, but it was the equivalent. Step backwards for me.

Awesome to see Zack Ryder getting a (real) title shot! The guys deserves it. I don't see the point of after Dolph won, to then have a second match.. I guess they needed something for the Tag champs to do.. surely they couldn't just wrestle against a tag team ..could they?

Raw was missing something this week. Do you know what that something was?
Realism.
CM Punk, talking, on a microphone.
It's the last RAW before a pay per view.. John Cena cut a promo. Alberto Del Rio cut a promo. Why not Punk?
Surely out of the 3, he's the guy you want talking the most right? Yes he was on commentary, but that's not the same thing.
Also they tried to re-do the "My diet soda" spot from a while back... or at least it seems that was the idea.. I don't understand that at all.
Punk and Cena are so good, especially when they work together, that you don't need to rehash things, no matter how funny they are.

So that's about it, I thought RAW was really disappointing, most of it felt like a step backwards. This whole 2 weeks between a pay per view just feels weird. I mean, surely the Titles aren't going to change hands. What a way to destroy a talent.. make them look awful. "Mark henry was a world champion from the middle of september to the end of september".. doesn't really work for me.

Here's what i liked:

• Beth and Natalya finally getting a win after a long time
• Mark Henry destroying Great Khali
• Zack Ryder getting two matches in one night

Here's what i didn't like

• Messy title picture, very confusing
• Triple H being "funny"
• Christian being on RAW (where was orton... isn't he going to be in a title match?)
• Battle Royal
• David Otunga's bow-tie (seriously, it was bad)
• CM Punk being the only guy out of the three who didn't get any promo time

So.. RAW was kinda bad this week. Maybe all the good stuff is being saved for smackdown? 

Ok.. quick little thing on Ring of Honor

I don't really know a lot about ROH, it's really hard to watch it over here in australia, but I saw the first episode. Liked the wrestling, thought it was cool to see Haas and Benjamin, But it felt like there were way too many ads. And the vignettes, interviews, whatever, were too long. It's an hour show, surely you could get three decent matches into an hour right?

But it was good, as i said I liked the matches. I'll be tuning in next time for sure. 

So what else is there to say.. Well.. i have a few points.. one is.. how much longer are Kane and Big Show going to be off of tv? They've been gone since a couple of weeks (or a few in Show's case) before Summerslam... which was the middle-ish of August.. that's about 6 weeks ago. Hopefully they come back soon. Feels like we just keep seeing the same matches all the time. We're getting Randy vs Christian yet again on Smackdown this week.. why not Christian vs the Returning Big Show!.. I'd tune in for that.

Matt Hardy went to rehab. Not got much to say about it, except that I hope it works for him. At least he had the balls to admit he has a problem, and is doing something about it.

The other thing, and again this something that stuck with me from watching the Guest Booker with Al Snow thing.. he talked about how the idea of wrestling is to get people to suspend disbelief, to buy in to it being real,  even though we know it isn't. To buy into the idea of both guys wanting to win, to be specific.
His thoughts about why wrestling isn't as popular as it once was is because people don't believe it anymore. The one example that really stuck out, was when he said something like "One guy knocks his opponent down, and then reaches down and picks him back up".

This happens a lot in wrestling, we've all seen it probably countless times. I've never really even thought about it until I watched this.. but it doesn't make sense at all. Why pick a guy up when you've knocked him to the mat and could possibly get a 3 count? Sure, probably the guy would kick out most of the time, but the point is that people should feel like you're always trying to win, as a wrestler.
And that's what's missing.

It's a really interesting dvd, i would recommend people trying to watch it if they haven't already.

Anyway, that's about it from me, as always leave me a comment (seriously, no-one ever leaves one.. please do!), follow me on twitter @TheOZMouthpiece and that's about all i have to say.
That's it, and that's all.

The case of the Hardy boys and the poor management.

Welcome to another edition of the Aussie Mouthpiece. I am said mouthpiece.

I want to talk about the news that broke today (in australia at least), that being the firing of Matt Hardy from TNA wrestling.

I'm not going to talk about what happened with Matt, I don't know the circumstances, I'm not in any position to judge him, however, as we say in this country, if you drink then drive, you're a bloody idiot. so Matt, you're a bloody idiot.

What i want to talk about is TNA.

More specifically, how the hell can they justify firing Matt Hardy, yet keeping Jeff Hardy on the roster? Matt, who was already suspended from TNA, was caught driving over the alcohol limit. Not at a TNA event, not presently associated with TNA from the suspension. Jeff Hardy showed up to main event a pay-per-view either off of his head, or he became off his head on drugs during the broadcast! How is that not as bad as what happened with Matt Hardy?

How can you keep Jeff Hardy on your roster after that? He made the company look bad. Well, worse than it already looked with Hogan running the show. But showing up and trying to wrestle like that.. I just feel really bad for Sting especially, having to go out there and try to work a match with that guy.

I remember watching Jeff Hardy break out in WWE in 2007 or so I think. He had a match with Triple H, on RAW, and it was great. He was clean, he wasn't botching, he was connecting majorly with the fans, and if i remember correctly, he may have gone over that night. And then he got suspended and missed Wrestlemania 24.

But I remember him coming back, working his way back up and then finally winning the world title at the end of 2008. It was great, I was in, i was a fan.

And then what happened? 6 or so months later, he left. and 2 weeks later was busted with drugs. That was almost it for me with Jeff Hardy.

Let me just stop there, i was a big fan of the Hardys for years, those TLC matches were amazing, and I always liked Jeff because he was different.

So when he left and then straight away was back into drugs.. it was a let down. I'm sure for his more rabid fans it was a big let down. Like "he left just so he could get high again".

So this brings me to TNA again.
First of all they bring Jeff Hardy in, and then turn him heel? Jeff Hardy .. the guy with some of the most loyal fans i've ever seen? Heel? that ain't gonna work. It didn't. he just got high instead.
Then they bring in Matt Hardy, who had claimed on his youtube videos to be in great shape, but it appeared that wasn't the case when he made his first TNA appearance.
Now i don't think Matt looked bad at all, he looked in decent shape, but still, he had enough time after his WWE release (by the way.. the grapes thing.. yeah that was just weird. Trying to explain it as a gimmick.. i didn't buy it. It seemed like drugs.) He still had time to get in shape even better. But that's neither here nor there.

What did he have.. 3 matches in TNA? I didn't really notice when he got suspended to be honest.

Now we all know what happened at Victory Road. Hardy was off his face, and Sting had to wrestle a short match, and basically hold him down for the 3 count, after which Jeff completely no-selled Sting's finisher. Terrible. Made the company look bad as i said earlier.

But what happened? They just gave him time off to "get himself right". No suspension.. no firing.. Why the hell was he allowed to go to the ring in the first place? Who's foolish idea was that? Oh.. i forgot who runs TNA for a minute there....

So Matt Hardy got suspended for "showing up late".. that tends to happen with hangovers.
But the only thing i can think of is that TNA were planning on releasing him before the DWI or whatever you Americans call it happened.

But my point here is, how in the blue hell does Jeff Hardy, who is on trial for drug possession, still have a paid position at TNA, whereas his brother, WHO CAN WRESTLE and isn't potentially going to jail.. well until today.. how do they fire him first? Something is very wrong in TNA. Are they going to have James Storm stop coming out with a beer now? Probably not. Will they make Ric Flair stop talking about his reservations and crap at nightclubs? No.

WWE would.

Matt Hardy, probably shouldn't have a job. But not because of a drink driving incident. Especially when his drug addled brother (have you see those videos Jeff has put on youtube... Jeff.. don't give the guys trying to put you in jail more evidence.. jeez).. has a job in said company.

So as you can probably tell, I've given up on Jeff Hardy. I remember CM Punk cutting a promo about him just after the news of his drug possession came out. I hated CM Punk for that, I thought it was low, and whoever gave that the green light was a scumbag.

But now, after Victory Road.. i couldn't care less.


Anyway, I've written enough about these 2. I really hope they can both sort their lives out, if only for themselves. I don't think we'll see either of them in a (well known) ring for a long time, if ever. But the fact that Jeff Hardy is still employed by TNA shows you what kind of company they really are. And if i was one of the employees of that company, i'd be exteremely pissed off.

That's it, if you liked it, comment it, if you hated it, comment, and then go suck a lemon.

Signing out now.