Post by jeffnipples on Jan 2, 2007 21:26:13 GMT -5
Leon Thomas's Dead Or Alive 2006
Welcome to the 2006 edition of Dead or Alive. For those of you who have never read a DOA before, it’s an annual list of the worst of the worst figures in wrestling. This is the fourth time I have done this. It is always half bitter and half light-hearted. Most people just find it a nice diversion and others scream and yell that their favorite wrestler or booker is listed. (“What have you got against Feinstein?!”) Oh, what fun.
I decided to mix it up this year. Unlike the past three editions, Dead or Alive 2006 is filled with not only the worst individuals in wrestling but also the worst groups.
* * * * * * *
Vince Russo. Although there is plenty of blame to go around in terms of the poor quality of Impact and the booking decisions of recent Pay-Per-Views, the worst has come in what is now considered the new “Russo era”. With that in mind, I’ll cut Jeff Jarrett and Dutch Mantel some slack and focus on Russo. For one reason, by comparison, the other bookers have been gold next to Russo. For another, word from Figure Four Weekly newsletter says Russo is largely responsible for most of the writing these days anyway.
I wasn’t always a Russo hater. The man had his ups and downs. Lately, however, I just can’t defend this man. He has actually turned Impact from an average-to-terrible show to a terrible-to-godawful show. His booking decisions from giving Abyss the World Championship on a disqualification to the resurgence of the “worked shoot” have been the lowlights of his latest tenure in TNA.
Some Russo defenders say that ratings have gone up since he joined the team. Actually, that’s not true. Ratings didn’t go up when he joined. Ratings went up when Impact switched to prime time. As a testament to the hardcore wrestling fan, Impact is doing better on Thursday, the most competitive night in television, than it did on Saturday. The ratings increase (about 0.8 to 1.1) is not because of Russo. It is because of Spike TV.
The ECW announce team of Joey Styles and Tazz. There is plenty wrong with the new ECW, but since there is only so much room, I’ll give the nod to Styles and Tazz as being among the worst. The ECW commentary is the worst of the three WWE brands. Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler still have that great chemistry and the best play-by-play in the company. Smackdown has the most entertaining color commentator in JBL and…that’s it. ECW just has Styles and Tazz.
Joey Styles is not an awful wrestling commentator in a general sense. He has a good knowledge of the business, seems legitimate and obviously has a lot of passion. The problem is he thinks he’s calling a football or hockey game on the radio. He thinks that “telling stories” is not the way to go in wrestling. Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but explaining the reasons behind the feuds is more important than super fast play-by-play. It’s television. We have eyes. We have a general understanding of what is happening in the ring. Go deeper.
Styles is joined by Tazz on color commentary. Tazz’s chemistry with Michael Cole was a beautiful thing, but now that the band is broken up, he just doesn’t have it in him to be funny or interesting anymore. I always thought that he carried the Cole/Tazz Smackdown announce team, but the more I look at it, the team was pretty equal. They’re great together. They’re awful apart and with anyone else. Maybe Tazz and Styles will develop that chemistry down the road. It took Michael Cole and Tazz a while too. For now, we’re stuck with shouts of “Not for nothin’” eight times an episode.
Part of the problem is not entirely the fault of Tazz and Styles. First, they are sometimes fed lines that they may not want to say. Second, they are caught in the same predicament that WCW’s commentators were in during the last couple years of that company. By that I mean they have to schill for a terrible product. They have to say how great it is. It makes them look foolish and ridiculous just by doing their jobs and hyping the product. Jim Ross somehow finds a way of letting people know what he’s watching is bad without burying it. He says something like “This is going to be bowling shoe ugly. Just a fight. Not a wrestling match.” It’s his way of saying this will flat-out suck but don’t turn the channel because it could be amusing. Styles and Tazz don’t seem to be capable of doing that. It’s a difficult skill to learn.
The new 2006 divas. Nearly all of them! This could be the worst year for new women in WWE. Before I get started, I should note that Vickie Guerrero and Queen Sharmell do not count as “new” divas. They grew to prominence this year, but they were part of the show before 2006. Some women are the victims of the writers having nothing for them. 2006 Diva Search winner Leyla has been given a brief feud with The Miz of all people and nothing else. Then there are the wastes of space...
Rebecca is an example of the useless “talent” hired out of the Diva Search. Women often have a better chance of making it as a failed contestant than as the winner. Rebecca was given a job as a backstage interviewer for ECW. She stood half in profile and half looking dead-on towards the camera and read her lines in a faux sexy voice that made me think she was auditioning for phone sex commercials. Her eyebrows darted around like they were trying to escape. She came off as quite possibly the dumbest woman in the history of WWE. Word is she’s dating Batista, so that may have something to do with her television time.
Speaking of ECW, let’s talk Kelly Kelly. A lot of people gave her respect for getting caned in the head by Sandman a while ago, but that is not a talent. It was dangerous for someone so new to this crazy business and should not have been done in the first place. Kelly’s claim to fame has been that she is portrayed as an exhibitionist. Her first night, during a strip tease, she could not figure out how to unhook her bra. It ruined the segment. Subsequent segments in which she understood the workings of her wardrobe did not make the not-quite-sexy strips any more watchable.
Amy Zidian (pictured above) was recently fired. She was introduced as Jimmy Wang Yang’s valet and on-screen girlfriend. Seemed like a decent role, but her undoing was off the camera and not on Smackdown. It seems (according to the newsletters) that Amy was very disrespectful to the other women. Specifically, she was fired for getting on the bad side of Stephanie McMahon. While Stephanie tried to give Amy advice, the new diva did not recognize the second most powerful woman in the company. It led to some unpleasantness and now Amy is history.
A lot of fans say the new divas serve a purpose in that they are “hot”. Yeah. Lots of women are hot. Millions of women are hot! Not all of them belong in professional wrestling.
Voodoo Kin Mafia. A related figure in this is Dixie Carter. I’ll explain in a minute. For a variety of reasons, VKM is one of the most ridiculous gimmicks in wrestling this year. Worse still, it will surely continue well into 2007.
Some people don’t watch Impact (3/4 of the Raw audience doesn’t, it seems), so I’ll summarize. Voodoo Kin Mafia is BG James (Road Dogg) and Kip James (Billy Gunn) teaming together to cut pseudo-shoots on Triple H and Shawn Michaels, referring to them by their real names. It consists of cheap shots and parodies of recent D-Generation X skits. At the last Pay-Per-View, VKM challenged DX to a legitimate fight. If DX won, they would receive a million dollars. Talk about desperate.
According to Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez, TNA head Dixie Carter actually thought that the proposed VKM vs. DX shoot fight had a good chance of happening. She set aside some money for the “million dollar challenge” in case Triple H and Shawn Michaels won. Anyone with even an ounce of knowledge about the modern wrestling scene knows that Vince McMahon would never take the bait. This speaks volumes about how out of touch Carter is.
Some people say that whether or not VKM is terrible, fans will want to tune in and see what happens next. A few problems with that. For one, there has been no evidence that they have been a ratings draw. For another, their segments last ten to twenty seconds. If they are keeping viewers, they aren’t doing it for very long. Finally, fans won’t keeping watching to see “what happens next” because NOTHING to going to happen next! Nothing! There will be no match and everyone will realize that.
Rob Van Dam. For the crime of wasting the greatest opportunity of his career, RVD deserves to be mentioned. Embarrassing the company is one thing. Screwing yourself out of two major championships is even more painful.
Earlier this year, Rob Van Dam received the biggest push of his career. He was awarded both the WWE Championship and ECW Championship. He held 2/3 of the big championships at the same time. Van Dam was positioned as the company’s top star at a time when one would assume that honor would go to John Cena.
We all know what happened next, so I'll just summarize. RVD was pulled over by a police officer and arrested for drug possession. This included marijuana and some pills, which I believe were eventually found to be prescription painkillers. This became a big news story and was covered in the mainstream press. It wasn’t a feature story on CNN or anything like that, but it was in various newspapers. This was a black eye for WWE. Months prior to this, they instituted a wellness program that included drug testing. While not the first violation, RVD was the highest profile star to get in trouble for it. His violation was also the most public.
Days later, RVD was jobbed out to Edge and Big Show to get rid of the WWE and ECW titles respectively. A public statement by Van Dam shows that he has little to no remorse for embarrassing the company.
* * * * * * *
There were other potential candidates for DOA ’06. Kevin Nash came to mind for making the X-Division look like a joke, but he has been too damn entertaining to make the list. Randy Orton was within a hair of making it in this year’s edition, but I’ve been bashing him all year. John Zandig, owner and booker of Combat Zone Wrestling, will probably make it next year. We’ll see.
That’s it for this year’s Dead or Alive. Do you agree with the chosen few? Disagree vehemently? Let me know at trophar@lycos.com
Bye for now. I’ll see you in 2007.
Welcome to the 2006 edition of Dead or Alive. For those of you who have never read a DOA before, it’s an annual list of the worst of the worst figures in wrestling. This is the fourth time I have done this. It is always half bitter and half light-hearted. Most people just find it a nice diversion and others scream and yell that their favorite wrestler or booker is listed. (“What have you got against Feinstein?!”) Oh, what fun.
I decided to mix it up this year. Unlike the past three editions, Dead or Alive 2006 is filled with not only the worst individuals in wrestling but also the worst groups.
* * * * * * *
Vince Russo. Although there is plenty of blame to go around in terms of the poor quality of Impact and the booking decisions of recent Pay-Per-Views, the worst has come in what is now considered the new “Russo era”. With that in mind, I’ll cut Jeff Jarrett and Dutch Mantel some slack and focus on Russo. For one reason, by comparison, the other bookers have been gold next to Russo. For another, word from Figure Four Weekly newsletter says Russo is largely responsible for most of the writing these days anyway.
I wasn’t always a Russo hater. The man had his ups and downs. Lately, however, I just can’t defend this man. He has actually turned Impact from an average-to-terrible show to a terrible-to-godawful show. His booking decisions from giving Abyss the World Championship on a disqualification to the resurgence of the “worked shoot” have been the lowlights of his latest tenure in TNA.
Some Russo defenders say that ratings have gone up since he joined the team. Actually, that’s not true. Ratings didn’t go up when he joined. Ratings went up when Impact switched to prime time. As a testament to the hardcore wrestling fan, Impact is doing better on Thursday, the most competitive night in television, than it did on Saturday. The ratings increase (about 0.8 to 1.1) is not because of Russo. It is because of Spike TV.
The ECW announce team of Joey Styles and Tazz. There is plenty wrong with the new ECW, but since there is only so much room, I’ll give the nod to Styles and Tazz as being among the worst. The ECW commentary is the worst of the three WWE brands. Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler still have that great chemistry and the best play-by-play in the company. Smackdown has the most entertaining color commentator in JBL and…that’s it. ECW just has Styles and Tazz.
Joey Styles is not an awful wrestling commentator in a general sense. He has a good knowledge of the business, seems legitimate and obviously has a lot of passion. The problem is he thinks he’s calling a football or hockey game on the radio. He thinks that “telling stories” is not the way to go in wrestling. Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but explaining the reasons behind the feuds is more important than super fast play-by-play. It’s television. We have eyes. We have a general understanding of what is happening in the ring. Go deeper.
Styles is joined by Tazz on color commentary. Tazz’s chemistry with Michael Cole was a beautiful thing, but now that the band is broken up, he just doesn’t have it in him to be funny or interesting anymore. I always thought that he carried the Cole/Tazz Smackdown announce team, but the more I look at it, the team was pretty equal. They’re great together. They’re awful apart and with anyone else. Maybe Tazz and Styles will develop that chemistry down the road. It took Michael Cole and Tazz a while too. For now, we’re stuck with shouts of “Not for nothin’” eight times an episode.
Part of the problem is not entirely the fault of Tazz and Styles. First, they are sometimes fed lines that they may not want to say. Second, they are caught in the same predicament that WCW’s commentators were in during the last couple years of that company. By that I mean they have to schill for a terrible product. They have to say how great it is. It makes them look foolish and ridiculous just by doing their jobs and hyping the product. Jim Ross somehow finds a way of letting people know what he’s watching is bad without burying it. He says something like “This is going to be bowling shoe ugly. Just a fight. Not a wrestling match.” It’s his way of saying this will flat-out suck but don’t turn the channel because it could be amusing. Styles and Tazz don’t seem to be capable of doing that. It’s a difficult skill to learn.
The new 2006 divas. Nearly all of them! This could be the worst year for new women in WWE. Before I get started, I should note that Vickie Guerrero and Queen Sharmell do not count as “new” divas. They grew to prominence this year, but they were part of the show before 2006. Some women are the victims of the writers having nothing for them. 2006 Diva Search winner Leyla has been given a brief feud with The Miz of all people and nothing else. Then there are the wastes of space...
Rebecca is an example of the useless “talent” hired out of the Diva Search. Women often have a better chance of making it as a failed contestant than as the winner. Rebecca was given a job as a backstage interviewer for ECW. She stood half in profile and half looking dead-on towards the camera and read her lines in a faux sexy voice that made me think she was auditioning for phone sex commercials. Her eyebrows darted around like they were trying to escape. She came off as quite possibly the dumbest woman in the history of WWE. Word is she’s dating Batista, so that may have something to do with her television time.
Speaking of ECW, let’s talk Kelly Kelly. A lot of people gave her respect for getting caned in the head by Sandman a while ago, but that is not a talent. It was dangerous for someone so new to this crazy business and should not have been done in the first place. Kelly’s claim to fame has been that she is portrayed as an exhibitionist. Her first night, during a strip tease, she could not figure out how to unhook her bra. It ruined the segment. Subsequent segments in which she understood the workings of her wardrobe did not make the not-quite-sexy strips any more watchable.
Amy Zidian (pictured above) was recently fired. She was introduced as Jimmy Wang Yang’s valet and on-screen girlfriend. Seemed like a decent role, but her undoing was off the camera and not on Smackdown. It seems (according to the newsletters) that Amy was very disrespectful to the other women. Specifically, she was fired for getting on the bad side of Stephanie McMahon. While Stephanie tried to give Amy advice, the new diva did not recognize the second most powerful woman in the company. It led to some unpleasantness and now Amy is history.
A lot of fans say the new divas serve a purpose in that they are “hot”. Yeah. Lots of women are hot. Millions of women are hot! Not all of them belong in professional wrestling.
Voodoo Kin Mafia. A related figure in this is Dixie Carter. I’ll explain in a minute. For a variety of reasons, VKM is one of the most ridiculous gimmicks in wrestling this year. Worse still, it will surely continue well into 2007.
Some people don’t watch Impact (3/4 of the Raw audience doesn’t, it seems), so I’ll summarize. Voodoo Kin Mafia is BG James (Road Dogg) and Kip James (Billy Gunn) teaming together to cut pseudo-shoots on Triple H and Shawn Michaels, referring to them by their real names. It consists of cheap shots and parodies of recent D-Generation X skits. At the last Pay-Per-View, VKM challenged DX to a legitimate fight. If DX won, they would receive a million dollars. Talk about desperate.
According to Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez, TNA head Dixie Carter actually thought that the proposed VKM vs. DX shoot fight had a good chance of happening. She set aside some money for the “million dollar challenge” in case Triple H and Shawn Michaels won. Anyone with even an ounce of knowledge about the modern wrestling scene knows that Vince McMahon would never take the bait. This speaks volumes about how out of touch Carter is.
Some people say that whether or not VKM is terrible, fans will want to tune in and see what happens next. A few problems with that. For one, there has been no evidence that they have been a ratings draw. For another, their segments last ten to twenty seconds. If they are keeping viewers, they aren’t doing it for very long. Finally, fans won’t keeping watching to see “what happens next” because NOTHING to going to happen next! Nothing! There will be no match and everyone will realize that.
Rob Van Dam. For the crime of wasting the greatest opportunity of his career, RVD deserves to be mentioned. Embarrassing the company is one thing. Screwing yourself out of two major championships is even more painful.
Earlier this year, Rob Van Dam received the biggest push of his career. He was awarded both the WWE Championship and ECW Championship. He held 2/3 of the big championships at the same time. Van Dam was positioned as the company’s top star at a time when one would assume that honor would go to John Cena.
We all know what happened next, so I'll just summarize. RVD was pulled over by a police officer and arrested for drug possession. This included marijuana and some pills, which I believe were eventually found to be prescription painkillers. This became a big news story and was covered in the mainstream press. It wasn’t a feature story on CNN or anything like that, but it was in various newspapers. This was a black eye for WWE. Months prior to this, they instituted a wellness program that included drug testing. While not the first violation, RVD was the highest profile star to get in trouble for it. His violation was also the most public.
Days later, RVD was jobbed out to Edge and Big Show to get rid of the WWE and ECW titles respectively. A public statement by Van Dam shows that he has little to no remorse for embarrassing the company.
* * * * * * *
There were other potential candidates for DOA ’06. Kevin Nash came to mind for making the X-Division look like a joke, but he has been too damn entertaining to make the list. Randy Orton was within a hair of making it in this year’s edition, but I’ve been bashing him all year. John Zandig, owner and booker of Combat Zone Wrestling, will probably make it next year. We’ll see.
That’s it for this year’s Dead or Alive. Do you agree with the chosen few? Disagree vehemently? Let me know at trophar@lycos.com
Bye for now. I’ll see you in 2007.