Money in the Bank has ruined a lot about wrestling. It causes multiple problems and is a major reason why the world titles don’t mean anything anymore. Granted there are other reasons like automatic rematch clauses but we’ll get into those later. Anyway, there are a lot of things that MITB does which hurts wrestling and I felt like talking about them a bit so let’s get to it.

First and foremost, the title changes mean NOTHING. A few years ago at a PWG show in California, Kevin Steen gave someone three package piledrivers then put his six month old son on top of the guy that took the piledrivers and counted three, making the son undefeated as a wrestler. It was cute and everyone laughed and all that jazz. It was ok because it didn’t mean anything and was used to make a joke. WWE does the same thing, including once at Summerslam last year in front of 17,000 people at the biggest show of the year.

Let’s take either Alberto’s or Bryan’s win as an example here. Those wins don’t prove anything. There was a battle royal once where Jimmy Hart hid under the ring for the whole match but then ran in after everyone else was eliminated to win the match. It was a joke and the whole place erupted in booing. I could give you a dozen examples of matches just like that. You know what the one connecting factor would be? None of them would be for the world title. MITB breaks that rule.

It’s a joke instead of a real match. The guy that cashes in hasn’t proven he’s better than the former champion. Look back to Flair in 1991 in WCW. Lex Luger never beat him, so why should people have accepted Luger as the rightful champion? There was no reason to, so no one did. It’s the same here. Why should I have accepted Bryan as the world champion? He didn’t beat Big Show. He pinned a guy that was already beaten. Yes I get that that’s the point of his heel turn, but just like everything else in wrestling, it’s been done into the ground.

This brings me to my second issue: MITB allows the writers to be lazy. MITB has become a nuclear option in case something needs to be changed in a hurry. Don’t have someone built up (Oh we’ll get to that soon enough)? Let them cash in. Someone not working as champion? Give someone a briefcase. Want to give us a surprise with no thinking to it that gives you a way out of your bad stories? Here’s MITB to the rescue!

The writers are already lazy enough. They’ve come up with so many tricks to buy themselves months off (automatic rematch clauses for example) that they don’t need to actually think anymore. The writers need all the exercise they can get to show them what works and what doesn’t, so having then being allowed to just throw something out there with no thinking to it is making things even worse.

Don’t believe me that they need to be made to think? Flash back to the Attitude Era. The company was in big trouble and had to be pushed harder and harder to come up with new storylines. What was the result? Compelling storylines that had people glued to their sets every week to see what happened next. Now you get the same story every year. And their solution to the problem? DOUBLE THE AMOUNT OF CASES!!!

That ties into the next problem with the cases: they’re repetitive. At the end of the day, the winner has a perfect record with it. The shock value of it is fine for a few moments, but there’s nothing new to them. It’s like watching a great movie for the first time then watching the story being rehashed in a bunch of sequels. It’s cool the second time but after that, it really starts to get dull because you’ve seen it time after time.

Somehow the process needs to be switched up. First of all, drop it down to less competitors in the ladder match. Eight people is just WAY too many as you can’t keep track of what’s going on and it drains the rest of the card because everyone is in the ladder match. Cut it down to five or six and things would be much more interesting. The other thing, which has been beaten into the ground over the years but needs to be said again, is that someone needs to lose their cash-in attempt.

Money in the Bank was built on the idea of it could happen at anytime. When Edge originally cashed in, it was shocking because you didn’t see it coming. It’s a legit surprise and a great moment because it fits in with the idea that Edge was the ultimate opportunist. The second one at least had a twist on it as the cash-in was announced in advance to build to a match. Since then though, it’s been one surprise after another.

These are indeed cool at the moment but they need something changed about them. After the cash-in, the shock is gone and you’d left realizing how weak of a champion that person has become. In order to rebuild the shock value, they need to slow things down. This could be done by either cutting the amount of cases down to one, or having the surprise element taken out. Have someone cash in at a designated time like RVD did. Use it on a major Raw or at a PPV.

Daniel Bryan talked about doing it that way and cashing in at Wrestlemania, but at the end of the day we get the same thing all over again: someone cashing in as a surprise when the champion was down and the title change means nothing. Instead, spend the next few cash-ins on matches that are announced in advance. If nothing else it lets you build up to something instead of hoping that the people watch in hopes of seeing a cash-in.

However in the modern world of WWE, that’s as likely as a Diva having a match last longer than five minutes or most people caring about it. The idea is that bigger and more is better, which isn’t the case but in Vince’s mind it is. Money in the Bank is possibly not going to be its own PPV this year which would be a step in the right direction, but I doubt they’ll keep things going that way because that’s not how WWE works.

In summation, Money in the Bank is fine in the short term if you need something fixed, but the problems with it outweigh the good. It furthers the idea of being lazy in creative is ok and that there’s no need to give the fans a reason to care about guys as long as you do something that shocks them. It’s rationale like that which hurt WCW and look how well they did.

The idea can be fixed but it might be too far gone. If it were up to me, I’d drop the concept. Yeah imagine that: a guy having to earn a title shot and then win the title without someone else doing all the work. Unfortunately that’s probably not going to happen because at the end of the day, this is the WWE and they’re going to use the easiest method possible anymore, which is why things are weaker lately.

I’m watching a Flair match from 1985 and it got me to thinking:In a lot of Flair matches, you would see him put his feet on the ropes or cheat in some small way.  I remember at I think Starrcade 88 he had Luger dead and could have pinned him with one finger on Luger’s chest.  Flair threw his feet on the ropes anyway on the pin.  That’s something so small and so easy, but it’ll get people to boo you every time.

In short, bad guys cheat.  It can be anything, from feet on the ropes to grabbing a rope for extra leverage to hooking some tights to poking in the eye.  Any of those little things will get the crowd to boo you because the fans know that some things are just plain cheating.  The same is true of good guys: stuff like clean breaks or offering a handshake.  As long as it’s not campy, it’ll make it clear who the good guys is.

My question: who does no one do things like this anymore?  They’re so simple but they’re guaranteed heel heat.  Is that too complicated for them?

This is something I saw a similar version of in a comment on a blog but it made a lot of sense.Picture a group of wrestlers who look different enough to tell them apart but get no substantial mic time, have a generic name and wear generic outfits.

Back in the 70s and 80s we’d call them jobbers.  Today we call most of  them superstars.

Does it ever strike anyone else as odd that a lot of the contracts for main event level matches are signed the week of the show? I’m watching a Raw from 2009 and Cena is signing to face JBL at the Rumble on the last Raw before the PPV. Shouldn’t they have this locked up earlier than that?

Another simple question: what is your favorite comedy line ever in a promo?It’s a classic and used a lot, but I’ll go with “Who are you to doubt El Dandy?” by Bret Hart.  His delivery is perfect for it as he’s not known as a particularly funny guy but his timing there was spot on.

Your picks?

So lately I’ve been reviewing a lot of Invasion era stuff and some people have wanted to know how I would have booked it. I’ve got a little free time now so I figured I’d throw out my thoughts on it. I’m horrible at/don’t like fantasy booking but I’ll give it a shot here. First of all a few precursors.

1. I’m no professional. I’m a fan of over 20 years and I’ve watched a lot, but it’s like watching football and thinking you could coach the Rams: it sounds good on paper but by no means does it make it successful in real life.
2. I’m not going to go week by week and PPV by PPV. This is going to be more of a general overview and I’ll hit the high spots.
3. I’m going off the roster that was available based on the times they debuted. I’m going to assume that since they debuted, WWF could afford them. There’s no point in going into an “if you had anyone available” scenario because that wasn’t possible and such things get on my nerves.
4. I’m probably going to do this in one sitting and it’s almost 3am so if it’s a bit out there, let it go.
5. I probably won’t redo this unless I like it.
6. This is mostly going to be about WWF vs. WCW, because outside of RVD and maybe Rhyno, who in ECW was going to be a real threat to the WWF?
7. Let’s get to it.

Let’s begin with what was bad about the Invasion. In the order they come to me.

1. It Was Too Short.

This is a big one. We’re talking about the WWF vs. WCW. This is the debate that went on amongst almost all wrestling fans in the 80s and 90s. Which company is better? Which belt means more? Who would win in a fight between this guy and this guy? This is an argument that went on for almost twenty years….and the feud runs 5 months. In the words of a cartoon or movie that I can’t remember: Are you high or just really stupid? Think about this for a minute.

You’re the WWF and you have officially beaten your competition. As far as wrestling goes, you are the world. Nothing is going to touch you for a long time (11 years running) and you own all of the names, trademarks, footage and all that of your greatest competition. You have a fantasy booker’s dream at your fingertips, and you give it five months. This is a story that could have gone on for YEARS, but the WWF decided that it needed to end after less than a football season.

2. The Alliance Roster Was Treated Like Idiots.

I’ve been watching the Raws from this era and one thing becomes clear very fast: other than Booker T, no one on the WCW roster got an ounce of respect. I totally get the idea that the WWF should look dominant. It’s their company, they won the Monday Night Wars, they’re the ones that WCW is coming to. I get all that. What I DON’T get is why these guys were treated like clowns. Let’s flash back for a bit.

(Dang it I’m going to do this full on aren’t I?)

When the Invasion started, it was Lance Storm that was the first guy to run in. The second was I believe Hugh Morrus. Now I love Lance Storm, but he was in WCW for like 9 months. He came in June of 2000 so the company was dead by then. Morrus is famous for losing to Goldberg and being named Hugh G. Rection. These are the guys that start the Invasion? I know Booker came in at King of the Ring, but by that point things had already started slow.

On the other end of the time frame, let’s look at the end of the Invasion: Survivor Series 2001. For Team Alliance, we have Shane McMahon (heir to the WWF throne at the time), Kurt Angle (never set foot in WCW or wrestled in ECW), Steve Austin (the biggest star WWF ever produced (Hulkamania was made in Rocky III and the AWA)), Booker T (I know he was a career WCW guy and was their top star at the end, but in reality he was just the top guy because everyone else left) and Rob Van Dam (great choice, but the guy never even won their world title. That’s fine inside ECW, but to other fans who weren’t familiar, he’d sound like a midcarder).

So in other words, we have three WWF guys, a guy that got titles because he was all that was left, and a legit big time ECW star (although Taz would have been better). Why in the world would I think this was about WWF vs. WCW/ECW? It sounds like a regular heel faction. Ok so any team with that talent isn’t regular but you get the idea. It doesn’t sound like a merger of those two at all. Austin got fired by WCW for crying out loud. Do you think he’d just go back to them and everything would be cool?

3. The People They Could Have Had

This ties into it was too short. Let’s take a look at who came in after the Invasion. Keep in mind that for the sake of this, I’m assuming these people debuted at the earliest possible date to avoid contract/major money issues, meaning they couldn’t have arrived any earlier. We have:

Ric Flair: comes in THE NIGHT AFTER THE INVASION ENDS. Do I have to draw you people a picture? Who embodies WCW and their history more than Ric Flair? The answer doesn’t exist because no one does. Flair WAS WCW, and he comes in afterwards and has zero connection to them at all? If nothing else, have him be a representative and bring in friends to fight with him. They ran the exact same story they should have run with Flair owning Raw. But hey, it got Shane on TV all the time right?

The NWO: they arrived in February, about three months after the Invasion ended. These three were the original invaders and could have been great as a third party or part of the WCW team. Hogan could have been the ultimate free agent as he had great success in both companies. As an aside, why did Hogan vs. Austin never happen? If it’s money, you pay them whatever they want as you’ll make more than enough back in PPV buys and ad money for it. Anyway, these three could have been great, just as figureheads.

Eric Bischoff: HELLO! Do I even need to explain this one? The real boss of WCW comes in July of 2002 and is put in charge of one of the shows for over three years. Think he might have made a good WCW boss? I don’t think this one needs an explanation.

Scott Steiner: Now to be fair, he was injured for a long time which is why his debut was delayed. As another aside, who thought making Big Poppa Pump into a face was a good idea? The guy is as natural of a heel as there has ever been.

Goldberg: Here’s your explanation: Austin vs. Goldberg. Think that might sell a few tickets?

In other words, if you let the Invasion go on, you could have had a GREAT sequence of guys popping in and being the big boost to re-energize things. But hey, we needed Shane and Stephanie to get more TV time right? That leads up to another problem.

4. The McMahons

See, there’s this misconception out there that the Invasion was about two organizations teaming up to face off against the WWF. In reality, WCW, ECW, all their wrestlers and all their titles were pawns in the chess match of Vince vs. his children. Think about it: who was the focus of these angles? Vince, Shane and Stephanie. Why were they named the owners of the companies? For Shane, it was to one-up Vince during their feud around Wrestlemania. Stephanie, I’m still waiting on an answer. Was there ANY reason to not have Heyman be ECW’s owner? No? I didn’t think so.

5. This Was An Unnecessary Sequel

This is an easy one. The problem with the Invasion was that there was no need to see who was better between ECW and WCW. The fact that this was all happening on Raw and that they all worked for Vince was enough proof of that. Why do we need to do this again? The fans never really bought it I don’t think, which is where you lose fans in wrestling. If they don’t buy it, they’re not going to watch.

That sums up my issues with the Invasion. Now let’s get to how I would have gone about it.

First and foremost, things went too fast as I said. There are multiple reasons for this, but first and foremost it was due to HHH’s injury. From what I’ve found, HHH was supposed to do a slow face turn on Austin and face him at Summerslam in a blowoff match and probably win the title. Well obviously that didn’t happen and he was out for 9 months so they needed a new plan.

What I don’t get is why did they have to blow the Invasion off then? I mean, was there NOTHING else they could have run over the summer? What about that Jericho guy that was feuding with them and wasn’t hurt? I guess he couldn’t be champion or have 25 minute classics with Austin right? Angle was around and could have been a good rival to Austin. There were a lot of options but for some reason they went with potentially the biggest angle in history instead. Funny thing this WWF.

Now aside from that, we’re going to ignore the idea of WCW being its own show. This was the plan I believe but no network wanted it because WCW was such a damaged name and the reaction to Booker vs. Bagwell was so bad that it was clear that the WCW name wasn’t going to work anymore. That’s out.

So what would I have done?

Well to begin with, don’t have them be a unit at first. Just have them be like any other wrestlers that are coming in and integrate them into the show. You know, that old fashioned kayfabe non-sense that Vince Russo shot more bullet holes into than Bonnie and Clyde. Space out the debuts until the big named guys were already there.

See, where I think WWF really messed up was treating these guys like some big family in WCW that always got along. It’s the problem I have with Dreamer and Raven being such great friends in the Alliance. It makes the whole thing seem fake. Instead, have people come in one at a time and build their characters in WWF. This again ties into the It Was Too Short thing. Why did it feel like they were up against a clock here? There’s no time limit in wrestling.

I would have had guys slowly appear on Raw and Smackdown. Use the old system of having guys appear once in awhile then not appear then pop in and out and such like that. This way you can figure out which people the fans respond to, which work well with who, you have a short history to work with, all that good stuff. In other words, make these guys people the fans are all familiar with rather than just throwing out a bunch of guys you hope the fans care about.

The big criticism of the NWO was there were too many people and they were nothing without an NWO shirt on them. The same thing happened here. Why should I as a a WWF fan be worried about Hugh Morrus or Chuck Palumbo or Sean Stasiak? These guys haven’t accomplished anything here. More importantly, hardly anyone was watching WCW in its final year and ECW was only on nationally for a year, so how are most people going to be familiar with them?

So anyway, have guys come in one at a time and go from there. Don’t treat it as an invasion right off the bat. Instead have them be people and tag teams that are new around here. Then, after these people have been built up as threats with titles or whatever, then have them form into WCW. Let’s say that starts the night after Mania 18. The company is still a name, the bad taste it left is at least somewhat gone, and you have Flair and the NWO.

After that, you let things go as they did but with Flair/someone not named Shane as the WCW boss. Bring in ECW if you want and do what you want with them, but preferably don’t have them merge with WCW. That was so against Heyman’s character and history it’s unreal. Anyway, have the war go from let’s say 2002-2003 and culminate at Mania 19 with the main event being the WCW Champion (whomever that is) vs. the WWF Champion in a unification match and winner take all in the war.

Small aside: WHO IN THE WORLD DECIDED TO PUT THE UNIFICATION MATCH AT FREAKING VENGEANCE??? It’s the WWF Title unifying with the WCW Title to establish one champion of all and it’s at VENGEANCE??? Does the word WRESTLEMANIA mean nothing to anyone anymore? That’s still one of the biggest headscratchers I can ever think of in wrestling.

That’s about it really. Have it run about twice as long, build up the characters, and end it at Wrestlemania with Hogan vs. Austin for the Undisputed Title. Oh and don’t have Shane or Stephanie in it. They sucked in the entire thing.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

I’ll give some quick thoughts on them here. A few quick notes though:

I don’t particularly care for Dave Meltzer and find him to be biased and overrated at times, but the guy is a force in the IWC and should be acknowledged. I also don’t subscribe to his newsletter. I’m not paying a month or whatever to hear about stuff that either might happen, has already happened, that I don’t care about, or that I’ll see on TV in a few months max.

I don’t watch puro period so if I don’t know someone or skip something from there, go ahead and complain that I have no idea what I’m talking about. I’ll gladly call you a lunkhead for it.

I will probably complain about MMA being compared to wrestling because of a lot of reasons. In short, there is no logical reason to put them together. If you’d like to know why, ask and I’m sure I can find something to rant about for awhile.

Also, I watch Brock and GSP fight and whomever else is fighting on their shows. That’s the extent of my MMA watching habits.

I don’t know who finished 2nd, 3rd or anything other than first, nor do I really care.

Lou Thesz/Ric Flair Award (Wrestler of the Year): Winner – Hiroshi Tanahashi

I know who he is and I know he’s (I think) New Japan’s best, but I have a problem with CM Punk not being the best wrestler of the year. That being said, Punk’s first 4-5 months did pretty much bomb so I can live with this.

MMA Most Valuable Fighter: Winner – Georges St-Pierre

I’ll take his word for that.

Most Outstanding Wrestler: Winner – Davey Richards

And we’ve already lost all credibility in these for me. Richards is one of the least interesting whatever he is (it’s not wrestling as far as I can tell) that I’ve ever seen but if you like 75 kicks and strikes a match followed by an ankle lock, he’s your boy. How this isn’t Punk is beyond me.

Best Box Office Draw: Winner – The Rock

Real hard to argue here. If you count Rock as a wrestler/wrestling guy which is certainly fair to do, there’s not much argument to be made here.

Feud of the Year: Winner – John Cena vs. CM Punk

I think I’d go with Christian vs. Orton (I think I did actually) but this beats anything else for second place. Not what I’d pick, but I’m ok with this.

Tag Team of the Year: Winner – Bad Intentions (Giant Bernard & Karl Anderson)

I think I’ve seen one of their matches so I can’t really comment on them. I know they’re a big deal over there and since tag wrestling is dead in mainstream American wrestling, I’ll go with this.

Most Improved: Winner – Dolph Ziggler

Uh…..ok I guess as I can’t really think of anyone else that jumps off the page at me. Punk maybe? Storm? I think Dolph gets this by default and I’m totally ok with that.

Best on Interviews: Winner – CM Punk

His interviews were the strong point of Raw over the Summer. That sums it up just fine.

Most Charismatic: Winner – The Rock

Ignoring the fact that I’ve given Cena the edge in every promo war they’ve had, Rock oozes charisma so again this is fine.

Best Technical Wrestler: Winner – Daniel Bryan

This is something like his 7th in a row so I’m cool with this. Since most everyone anymore is a brawler more often than not, he doesn’t have much competition. No complaints again.

Bruiser Brody Memorial Award (Best Brawler): Winner – Kevin Steen

Again, I’ve only seen a handful of his matches but from what I’ve heard he gets crazy at times. If he breathes some much needed fresh air into ROH, I might start watching again.

Best Flying Wrestler: Winner – Ricochet

Don’t know anything but his name so moving on.

Most Overrated: Winner – Crimson

A-Men. I’m totally in agreement here as Crimson hasn’t had a single memorable match and yet TNA feels the need to cram him down our throats about how he’s undefeated. He’s also perfect in terms of making me not care but that doesn’t sound good on TV.

Most Underrated: Winner – Dolph Ziggler

….huh? Ziggler was World, US and IC Champion this year. He stole the show a lot of the time and he’s apparently on the verge of the main event. How is he underrated? I don’t understand this at all. I’ll go with Storm as underrated because he was overshaddowed by Roode all year. I don’t get this one.

Promotion of the Year: Winner – UFC

See my complaints about how this is a wrestling awards list, not MMA.

Best Weekly Television Show: Winner – WWE Friday Night SmackDown!

Perfect choice. Smackdown is a wrestling show that airs for two hours every week and they get stuff done. I honestly don’t remember the last time there was a truly bad Smackdown. With Raw or Impact, you’re lucky to go .500 every month.

Most Outstanding Fighter (formerly Shootfighter of the Year): Winner – Jon Jones

Sure why not.

Worked Match of the Year: Winner – John Cena vs. CM Punk @ MITB 2011

Is there another option? Didn’t think so. Next.

Fight of the Year: Winner – Dan Henderson vs. Shogun Rua

Sure why not.

Rookie of the Year: Winner – Daichi Hashimoto

Bring him to NXT. He has to be better.

Best Non-Wrestler: Winner – Ricardo Rodriguez

Well since he and Vickie are pretty much all that are left and Dolph hasn’t needed Vickie for months, this is fine.

Best Television Announcer: Winner – Joe Rogan

Well he’s better than Cole.

Worst Television Announcer : Winner – Michael Cole

Believe it or not, I’m going to disagree. Cole is INCREDIBLE at ticking people off and getting on their nerves. He’s outstanding at what he does. The problem is the job he’s been given is a horrible one. Make this guy a manager and he’s perfect, but I see the argument here for sure.

Best Major Show: Winner – Money in the Bank 2011

No argument there. It was indeed an awesome show.

Worst Major Wrestling Show: Winner – TNA Victory Road 2011

And yet the TNA diehards still try to defend what happened here. They’re consistent, I’ll give them that.

Best Wrestling Maneuver: Winner – Ricochet for the Double Rotation Moonsault

Nothing else jumps out at me so ok.

Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic: Winner – WWE anti-bullying campaign & treatment of Jim Ross

Uh…..no. I get annoyed by the anti-bullying campaign but there’s a point to it and WWE is trying to help others rather than themselves. I get the Stand Up For WWE being blasted, but this? Not so much. JR I understand but I’d give this to TNA for pushing Jeff Hardy as a main event guy again after the debacle at Victory Road. Or Garrett Bischoff. Either one.

Worst Television Show: Winner – TNA Impact/Impact Wrestling

I really am the only person that watches NXT aren’t I? And yes I know I am.

Worst Worked Match of the Year: Winner – Sting vs. Jeff Hardy @ Victory Road 2011

I went with something else (probably a Divas match) because I didn’t consider this a wrestling match. No complaints again though.

Worst Feud of the Year: Winner – Triple H vs. Kevin Nash

No. The feud was bad and all, but stuff like Pope vs. D-Von and Bateman vs. Curtis and Immortal vs. TNA (I guess) and NXT vs. my sanity trump this.

Worst Promotion of the Year: Winner – TNA

Yeah I guess, although I’ve heard Botswana Pro and Czech Championship didn’t have the best years either.

Best Booker: Winner – Jado & Gedo

Sure why not.

Promoter of the Year: Winner – Dana White

Sure why not.

Best Gimmick: Winner – CM Punk as the anti-corporate rebel

Aside from the fact that it’s hurt the ratings a good bit and not many casual viewers seem to care, it was certainly the most interesting, even if it probably went over most people’s heads.

Worst Gimmick: Winner – Michael Cole as a heel announcer

Now this I can get behind.

Best Pro Wrestling Book: Winner – Chris Jericho: Undisputed

Haven’t read a wrestling book this year so ok.

Best Pro Wrestling DVD: Winner – Greatest Rivarlies: Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart

Gave it as a Christmas gift and I don’t remember the rest of the DVDs that came out this year so I’m ok with this. Although WHY WAS MONTREAL JUST ON THE BLU RAY???

And that’s it. I’m sorry if I wasn’t as argumentative as I was expected to be but this year a lot of the awards were layups so there wasn’t much to argue. Not many arguments this year but any thoughts/complaints from you all?

This is something I might try to do every few days but don’t expect it to happen every day.  It might be short, it might be long, it might be stupid.  Kind of mixed bag if you will.When a tag team breaks up, why is it such an insult to call someone the Jannetty of the team?  Marty Jannetty won two tag titles and the Intercontinental Title after the Rockers broke up.  That’s a better career than most guys ever have.  You know what the insult should be called?  Being the Neidhart of the team.  What in the world did Jim Neidhart ever do without Bret?

This is one of those things that came to me when I was in the shower, which for some reason is where most of these ideas come from. Character development is one of the major things that is lacking in today’s product. I was reading a Jim Cornette commentary the other day and he said something to the effect of it’s not about what your character would say, but rather that the people you see ARE their characters. For instance, Ric Flair wasn’t playing the Nature Boy Ric Flair. He WAS the Nature Boy Ric Flair. That was then.

Today, most people on a wrestling show don’t have characters. Take for example Heath Slater. What do we know about him? Well he likes southern rock and he was on NXT and he was in the Nexus. What else do we know about him? For the most part, nothing at all. There’s nothing else that we have to go on about him. Oh and he’s not nice. Why should I care about this person? In short, there’s nothing there. He isn’t developed in the slightest. What exactly is a One Man Southern Rock Band? Does he play the bass with his toes?

Let’s compare Slater to someone who is currently the talk of the WWE world: The Funkasaurus himself, Brodus Clay. What do we know about this incarnation of Brodus Clay? He’s big, he’s a monster, he’s presumably a good guy, he loves to dance, he likes to have fun, he talks in the ring, and he has a thing for funk music. We got all that from him in a five minute segment. Heath Slater debuted on WWE TV on February 23, 2010. He’s been around almost two years and we learned more about Clay in five minutes.

Slater is one of the vast majority of the roster that has the same problem. It’s a long standing problem that has been getting worse and worse every year. Anymore, we never hear anything from these people other than whatever factoids Cole is willing to throw out to us this week, when he has time to stop arguing that is. Clay is a rare occurrence but the problem at the end of the day is that no one ever gets the chance to tell us anything. Let’s take a closer look at this.

Look at some of the big stars in WWE: Cena, Orton, Sheamus, Punk, Rhodes, Ziggler etc. Off the top of your head, you could probably tell me a good bit about any of their characters without saying a single thing about any of their matches. Sheamus for instance: he’s Irish, he loves to fight, stands up to bullies, he has a rather interesting family, and he likes to pretend to be angry before smiling. Oh and he’s related to Beaker from the Muppets. In short, he’s someone that we know a few things about and we could determine if he’s someone we want to support.

You could do that for most of the top names on the roster. What do those names have in common? They’re all developed characters of course. Now for the important question: how did they get that way. The answer is simple: they’ve been allowed to talk and explain their characters through their actions. Now, the majority of the roster doesn’t get this luxury because we’re just told what happens to them. Even the main guys have limited characters. Let’s go back to everyone’s favorite era: the Attitude Era.

Consider one bald headed rattlesnake. When Austin arrived, he was the Ringmaster. What the heck is a ringmaster? He had a feud with Savio Vega over….something. Then he was turned into Stone Cold, which still didn’t really mean much. Then he started talking about how much he didn’t like authority. Then he had a match at King of the Ring 1996 with Jake Roberts, and he cut a promo after it. He talked about being the new generation and at the end of it, he tied it together by talking about a Bible verse, connecting to Jake’s preacher character. A superstar was born.

Now I’m not saying that everyone who gets to talk for 90 seconds is going to be Steve Austin. However, what it does do is give them a chance to let us know a little more about them. What are they like? What should we know about them? What’s their take on things? We don’t know that about most wrestlers today. There’s a simple solution to this problem: have them tell us. Instead of Cole telling us that Justin Gabriel is the South African Werewolf (whatever that is) or what the significance of Hunico’s bicycle’s bike is or where Kofi went to college. Let us tell us these things, or better yet SHOW US these things.

Going back to Austin, imagine this. Now Austin can best be summed up as a rebel right? He rebelled against tradition, authority, pretty much everything. Now imagine if when he came down the ramp, Vince called him a rebel and he wore a Confederate flag and Vince kept pounding it into our heads that Austin was a rebel. How long do you think his character would have lasted? He’d have been lucky to make it out of 1996. Vince and JR treated him like someone who had done something rather than slapping a label on him and inserting that word into their commentary like a Mad Lib. Characters need to be acted out, not named.

How do we go about doing this you ask? There are a few ways to accomplish this, so let’s take a look at them.

1. Inset promos. These are one of the greatest ideas ever in wrestling. They were a lot more popular in the old days, but they seem to be making a small comeback. When someone is coming to the ring, have a small box pop up with them in it talking. They can talk about their current feud, an upcoming match, or something about their character. Have them out doing something or whatever. They’re short, they’re easy, and they can tell us a lot about someone.

2. Cut a few other things on the show to say time. There are so many things that happen on an episode of Raw that could be shaved off to give us more time. First of all, you could cut the Divas matches. Think about it: what do these matches add? The Divas don’t have storylines, most of them are interchangeable, the matches last at most two minutes, and they don’t go anywhere most of the time. When did Beth last defend the title anyway? Or cut the Did You Knows. 3 of them per show, 15 seconds each, you could cut a nice little promo in 45 seconds. See how easy it can be?

Another thing that could work wonders for the character development: let these guys develop their own characters. Think about it. Have you ever seen someone with the completely wrong character for them? Think of the Undertaker for instance. Can you imagine him as say….Doink? It would be the totally wrong fit for him. Giving someone the right character is essential.

Look at the Rock. His character basically was a jock that cracked jokes. In real life, Rock was in fact, a jock who probably cracked a lot of jokes. Austin really is a redneck from Texas. Vince McMahon really is a somewhat crazy, self-obsessed rich guy that owns the WWE. Their characters worked really well because they knew how to be themselves and it was something they could get behind because they didn’t have to act.

Let’s look at an example of this not working: Lance Storm as a fun loving dancer. Lance Storm is a very talented wrestler. He’s fun to watch, he’s smooth, he’s very smart (read his stuff), and he couldn’t have looked more out of place as a guy who loved dancing and having fun. Now, maybe that’s how he is in real life, I don’t know. The character was totally out of place and I think everyone knew it.

Shifting gears a little bit, let’s look at wrestlers’ ring names. This is where a lot of the appeal is being lost I think. Today, here are some wrestlers’ ring names: John Cena, Randy Orton, Darren Young, Heath Slater, Justin Gabriel, Evan Bourne, Wade Barrett. What do any of those names invoke images of in your heads? They’re just names. None of them are exciting or interesting or make me want to go and see who they are.

Let’s look at some of the old generation’s names.

Hulk Hogan: someone big, strong, the Incredible Hulk.

Ultimate Warrior: speaks for itself.

Randy Savage: crazy, wild, violent.

See how easy it is? These people are supposed to be wrestlers and larger than life characters, but for some reason Vince has decided he’d rather they sound like accountants. The appeal of the name is something that can make you pause and want to hear more about them. Why is this such a horrible thing to do anymore? For some reason the WWE seems to think that the best thing to do is make everyone as generic as possible, probably in case they jump or whatever, but still it gets annoying. If you can make up a name, make it something decent.

Finally we have entrance music. Often times the theme song of someone can tell you all you need to know about them in just a few seconds. Think of Ted DiBiase’s song: money, everyone has a price, I get what I want. Hogan: he loves America, he’ll fight for everyone, he’ll never quit. Shawn: I know I’m awesome, I know I’m good looking, I know I’m the best. How many people today have a song that could ONLY go with their character? The answer is very few.

Character development is lacking so much in the modern wrestling product anymore today. Even the slightest bit of it seems to be stamped out almost as quickly as it came. Look at Del Rio: there is NOTHING we know about his character that we didn’t know a year ago. He had the wink and it was implied that he was a very evil person, but then they took care of that and made him a guy that was rich and talked about destiny. Well what then? Once he reaches his destiny, what can come from him then? It’s like the company has decided they want everyone as generic as possible and it’s really hurting things. Why would I want to see people who are as uninteresting as possible? If you can figure that out you’re a lot smarter than I am.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Very simple question here: of all the wrestling companies that you’ve ever seen (doesn’t have to have been live/at that time), what is your favorite? It could be anything from WWF/E to WCW to the old NWA to WCCW to TNA to ECW to some local company to some foreign company. What’s your pick?This shouldn’t shock anyone, but mine is WWE.  It’s what I grew up on and it’s what I watch to this day.  They have incredibly talented guys who use a lot of psychology in their matches and they work for the most part.  Good stuff, although i can easily understand people getting sick of them at times.

Your thoughts/picks?