You know when a week has been neither here nor there? When nothing major has happened but there has been things transpiring that need to be mentioned and brought up because, well, that’s why I’m here. To bring you, the people who care, the truth. So this week, we have a number of things to get through. So knuckle down, and wrap your minds around all of this.
I Spit In The Face of People Who Want To Be Fools
Yes I know it’s a take on a catchphrase of a former WWE Superstar (the catchphrase was actually “I spit in the face of people who don’t want to be cool). But it’s this former WWE Superstar we put under the spotlight first.
Who remembers Carlito? If you don’t then you really didn’t miss anything. Carlito was a talented worker but one who was never going anywhere in WWE. Carlito’s end in WWE was signposted when WWE lumbered him with Primo in a meaningless tag team and then split them up for no apparent reason. The real reason why Carlito was fired from WWE we will delve into in a moment. First though, you may be asking yourself why Carlito is number one in our list of ‘To deal with’ this week.
It’s understandable when a talent is ‘Future Endeavoured’ for him to rant about how bad the promotion is or how unfairly he has been treated. Since his dismissal in 2011, Carlito has done nothing but bitch and moan and most of the things he says are rubbish. This wheel though Carlito really went into overdrive when he took it upon himself to add his pennies worth to the current TNA situation.
Taking to his favourite medium of social networking, Twitter, a site I have never used because, let’s face it, there are better things to do. Carlito, for no justifiable reason, began a rant on the TNA X Division. In case you’re not familiar with TNA and its X Division, the simplest way I can explain it is think of WWE’s Light Heavyweight Division but ten times better.
TNA have broke new ground in the last year, after the firing of the dire Vince Russo and the X Division has been one of its standout stars. The talent TNA possess in its X Division are one the many things it is currently doing better than WWE and one of the things that TNA can boast WWE do not currently have. Wrestlers like Zima Ion are a shining light in TNA. TNA’s greatest X Division success though, is the current TNA World Heavyweight Champion, the talented Austin Aries.
Carlito and I both know why the Puerto Rican has turned his attention to TNA and that’s simply because Carlito is harbouring some sour grapes. After his ‘no complete’ clause with WWE expired everyone including Carlito, who thinks he’s better than he is, expected TNA, who were already top heavy with former WWE talent, to hire the apple spitting jobber. They did not.
In this business, you have to learn to let go of grudges. Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart did. It took them a while but they got there. Mostly everyone who has been released by WWE in the past has gotten over it to make peace with the company. If you hold grudges in the wrestling business then it begins to create a wedge between yourself and those who may be thinking of hiring you. I’m a writer and actor. I’ve been turned down many times simply because I’m a brand new writer and people have reservations about hiring someone with no previous. If people just took a chance they’d see that new writers, with a little tutoring maybe, could bring something new to their products. The point I make is that even though I’ve been turned down more times than a bed sheet, I hold no grudge.
Carlito needs to be careful what he’s saying and via what medium he says it through. The world watches now. Carlito may have forgotten that. Wrestling promoters keep a watchful eye on wrestlers who have been released with a view to booking them on their independent shows. Carlito is doing himself no favours by having outbursts like this. A promoter is less likely to book Carlito now, in case talks break down between the two parties and Carlito goes on the warpath against said promoter.
If you didn’t catch it then this is what Carlito wrote on his twitter account about TNA and their excellent X Division:
“This TNA X Division should be eliminated! Nobody wants to see entertaining lil athletic wrestlers that can actually wrestle anymore! We should start a petition to get Rib Terry a mega push! All he needs is another layer of fake tanner and 20 oz more of baby oil! C’mon TNA!”
We’re all thinking the same thing right about now. What a jerk. Whether this was a deliberate attempt to make himself look like the biggest dick in America this week or he actually believes what he’s saying I can’t tell you. What I can tell you is that every wrestler in the TNA X Division is more talented than Carlito ever was.
Carlito was released from his WWE contract because he was found to be taking medication that he didn’t have a prescription for. When WWE insisted he enter rehab at their expense, Carlito refused. In denial about his ‘habit’ or ‘problem’ Carlito insisted there was nothing wrong with the drugs he was taking and ignored everything his employer asked of him. Not only was Carlito so dumb that he pissed off a company that were paying him better than he will ever be paid again. Carlito chose to ignore what the kind of drugs he was knocking back did to all those that wrestling has lost over the years. Did Carlito want to go the same way as so many of his friends?
Sunny, With a Chance of Reprisal
If you were a fan of WWE in the mid nineties then you’ll remember Sunny. Manager of The Body Donnas, the Smoking Guns and L.O.D 2000 Sunny was the really life girlfriend of one of the best wrestlers this business has ever produced, the late, great, Chris Candido. It’s a well known fact that Sunny, real name, Tammy Lynn Sytch and Candido had a habitual drug problem in and out of the ring, but it was really a sight to see the hot potato that was once a pin up on my wall put on so much weight due to the drugs.
Sunny looked like someone else totally. It was heartbreaking if I’m honest to see one of my former heroes come to that. Basically a walking pill box. The story gets better though because Sytch kicked the habit, the drugs, went into rehab and got her life back on track when WWE rightfully inducted her into the WWE Hall of Fame 2011. No one was really sure what to expect when Sunny turned up to the ceremony. What we got was a wonderful, uplifting and heart rendering surprise. Sytch was no longer the walking pill box she had become tarnished with in 2005. The woman that came out on stage to accept her award, was the original Sunny. Slimmed down, clean of all drugs. In 2011, Tammy was a true wrestling success story.
But, nothing good lasts forever. In 2012 Sytch is slowly slipping back into her old ways. It’s sad and tragic. We want our heroes to have a life outside the ring but someone like Sytch, a life-addict, needs help to stay clean. In the recent week Stych has been arrested three times, for among other things, drinking under the influence. After her arrests Sytch agreed a deal to go on the Oprah show in America to talk about her addiction.
I urge Sytch to, if she can’t control her urges and her habit, go back into rehab. WWE funds all their former and current wrestlers rehab trips in a bid to purify the business after too many deaths related to drugs. If Sytch could stay clean then she’d be a huge and welcome addition to WWE behind the scenes. Sytch could help the current managers of our time to stand out like she did. She’s wasted on drugs, no pun intended.
Sytch could make herself relevant again and reprise her WWE career behind the scenes. She’d not only be a good road manager for valets in WWE but she’s the best person I can think of to warn future WWE Superstars against the use of drugs. This would be her reprisal. And I sincerely hope she can stay clean.
Things We Don’t Need To Say
Last but surely not least this week, we have those who think they know, once again. If you’re a long time reader of this blog you’ll know how much I hate people who think they know about wrestling after watching three shows. Unless you’ve studied the sport religiously for the past twenty plus years like myself and most of you, my minions, then there’s no way you can know enough.
If you’ve only been watching for six months how can you possibly know if a match was good or bad? How can you know what makes a good match? What constitutes a good match? How can you know what makes a wrestler a great wrestler? We’ve had too many of these people in this business in the last few years. Which is why John Cena is where he is. You can’t. And if you think otherwise, you’re either out of your head or severely stuck so far up your own backside you can log what you had breakfast on Monday. Or as we call them ‘John Cena fans’.
This final part concentrates on some letters I came across in my favourite wrestling magazine. Power Slam. An awesome magazine and the only one which I trust to give me the info that even I don’t know. If you’ve never read Power Slam, then pick yourself up a copy, you won’t be disappointed. All but one of the mentioned consist of people who know just enough about wrestling to point at a wrestler and cheer or jeer, trying their hardest to evaluate SummerSlam. It infuriates me, but hell, I read them anyway.
The first letter we look at is about the SummerSlam 2012 main event. Brock Lesnar vs Triple H. A master class in storytelling. Yet for one blind viewer the match was ‘a slow, boring exchange of kicks, punches and body slams.’ Anyone watching who knows anything about wrestling knows that this match was a great example of how to tell a story that has been built up for months, with great storytelling and an outcome that no one was expecting.
The fact that the face, Triple H, tapped out on a huge pay per view like SummerSlam was big news. Especially when you take into account how selfish Triple H used to be in the ring. And believe me, he was. This is the man that refused to allow Jeff Hardy a WWE Championship and WWE Intercontinental Championship reign because in order for it to happen, Hardy would have had to defeat Triple H. And as successor to the WWE throne when Vince McMahon steps down, Triple H wasn’t ready to pass the torch and allow someone else to have the spotlight.
Triple H vs Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam was an excellent example of wrestling at its most bare. If anyone wants to get into this business I urge them to take a look at this match and learn from it.
The next letter came from someone who I would gladly slap in the face if I met them. I don’t know them and I don’t wish to. Just by their letter you could tell their the sort of person who thinks they’re right and doesn’t care about actual fact. It detailed the WWE Tag Team Championship Match at SummerSlam between Kofi Kingston and R-Truth vs the Prime Time Players.
According to, we’ll call him Mr. Know-nothing, the dull, drab and just awful Prime Time Players should have gone over Kingston and Truth. This is what Mr. Know-nothing said. ‘The Prime Time Players could have brought something new to the ailing Tag Team Division if they had won the belts at SummerSlam.’ Really? Because Young and O’Neil, the Prime Time Players have been a tag team now for going on six months, maybe less and they have offered nothing to the division.
Titus O’Neil and Darren Young are just awful in the ring. We saw this when they competed on NXT, WWE should have given then their marching orders back then. To allow them to continue on is just criminal. They can’t wrestle and they cannot hold a division that needs a strong team on top. The only thing the Prime Time Players could bring to the WWE Tag Team Division is a sigh of relief when both are sent packing and a team that can actually wrestle take their place.
Chris Jericho and Dolph Ziggler seemed to draw a lot of letters from people. All but one knew what they were talking about. The letter concerned read ‘Jericho and Ziggler was an excellent opener, the finish of which made sense 24 hours later.’ In case you’re not familiar with what we’re talking about, Dolph Ziggler lost to Chris Jericho at SummerSlam, the wrong decision as Ziggler, a man who is chasing the World Heavyweight Championship, should be beating all comers in his attempt to climb to the top of the mountain. The next night on Raw WWE had Ziggler defeat Jericho. The stipulation of the match saw Jericho leave WWE (so he could tour with his band).
If WWE had have wanted this match to make sense then they’d have booked the stipulation and the Ziggler win on WWE’s second biggest pay per view of the year and not on free television. Not half of many people watch Raw as they do pay per views. WWE made Ziggler look like a jobber on pay per view and then gave away the result everyone needed to see on free television that the majority of people who order the pay per views don’t watch. Yes, it was an excellent opener. As far as making sense? Not a bit.
The last letter I’ll leave you with is one pondering why WWE audiences have no interest in most undercard matches or talent. The persons reasoning was because WWE has conditioned its audience to only care about big matches and big names. I’m afraid that’s not true.
WWE audiences in 2012 don’t care about the under card matches or talent because WWE simply don’t plug enough time or their unlimited resources into them. Instead of seeing their undercard as future main event stars, WWE see them as time fillers. WWE is a multi-billion dollar company with unlimited cash resources which mean it will never go bankrupt. Why don’t they take some of that money and the seemingly never ending time on the three hour Raw and use it make some new stars? The answer to that, only WWE have. Can you imagine if WWE had have done to the undercard in 1995 – 1999 what they’re doing now? They’d have been no Shawn Michaels, no Rock, no Triple H, no Stone Cold Steve Austin. WWE and its history would have been a very different place than in is now.
Punk’d
Just a small piece of news for all those saying that C.M Punk, the current and reigning WWE Champion, is getting stale and boring! Which are mostly John Cena fans. C.M Punk is the very best thing WWE have right now. Without him, we’d be subjected to yet another John Cena WWE Championship run. Be thankful for small mercies.
Onwards and upwards...
