As I See It - June 25, 2009
Hello and welcome to the return of the highly acclaimed As I See It series. It may only be highly acclaimed in my own mind but that’s neither here nor there because this marks a significant part of Pinfall Recall history. As we edge ever closer to the fourth anniversary of the creation of Pinfall Recall, I am pleased to return to your computer screens with my thoughts on the world of professional wrestling and, what’s more, I’m pleased to once again improve your lives by giving you something to read that can only be described as simply ‘Genius’.
Since Pinfall Recall began this journey about 4 years ago, we’ve all had to endure some pretty horrendous wrestling from WWE and TNA alike. However, I think there are definite signs that we are finally being rewarded for the years of disillusion as the WWE product at this point is pretty damn good. Well, to be honest, Raw is still quite terrible on most occasions but I really can’t speak highly enough of the other 3 shows that WWE puts out on a weekly basis. Smackdown really demonstrates some of the best wrestling programming that I personally have seen in quite a long time to be honest with you. ECW consistently puts out a solid hour of TV each week and the last episode of Superstars that I caught had John Morrison and Chris Jericho tear down the house.
Now whilst we’re finally being repaid for our years of loyalty to the product, the powers that be may not be so pleased as the sheer awesomeness of the aforementioned television shows is not portrayed in the slightest when it comes to the ever important ratings. And it is that fact alone that leaves me with a bit of trepidation going forward as I’m concerned that these really good shows will not be given the time to blossom before some change is inevitable. But for the time being, wrestling fans all over the World should join me in taking pleasure in the extremely high quality of the perceived “B” shows.
Now whether it’s down to the intriguing direction CM Punk is going or the great matches put on each and every week by the mid and upper card respectively, Friday Night Smackdown has been a joy to watch every week for quite some time now. I think it’s no real coincidence that the shows that have blossomed have been the shows that were left to their own creative devices without any array of McMahon influence. Touching back to the point I made a little earlier and with the under-performance in the ratings department, I am a little concerned that big ol’ Vinnie will feel the need to get involved and give it that extra special touch we all know and love…and by ‘love’ I of course mean ‘absolutely despise’. But that’s not something I want to delve too deeply into at this stage as, for the moment at least, we’re being treated to some damn good television.
Whilst on the subject of ratings, I wanted to take full advantage and take a cheap shot at TNA. That being the fact that WWE Superstars airs on the same night (albeit an hour earlier) to a fraction of the potential viewers that TNA iMPACT! reaches yet is only a 0.1 or 0.2 down in the ratings on a weekly basis. I don’t hate TNA by all means but facts like that should be made fun of, simple as that.
So what I’m getting at with this is that it is your duty as a fan of great wrestling that you watch Smackdown each and every week to show the powers that be within WWE that it is this type of show that we wrestling fans like to see. And I’m 100% confident that if you do watch the so called “B shows” (Smackdown in particular) then you will agree with me implicitly. In the past I’ve been first in line to take shots at WWE and I think that it should be noted and appreciated when they outperform the relatively low expectations that I have for their creative team.
I touched earlier on the direction that CM Punk is taking, which is another big factor that is keeping me drawn to Friday Night Smackdown each and every week. They’ve not turned him full on heel, they’ve kind of just let him linger and I really think that Punk is one of the few guys that can pull this off.
I really do think that the direction they are taking CM Punk has been quite genius in execution thus far. I’ve heard in some pockets of the IWC that Punk should attack Hardy for having a past riddled with drug problems whilst he has reached the top by completely clean and “straight edge”. In my opinion, this would be the wrong way to proceed. Don’t get me wrong, it would definitely add an intriguing aspect to the storyline but in it’s current form I think it would be detrimental to the progress Hardy has made to step up to the main event level. To focus solely on the somewhat shady and questionable past of our supposed hero would be a quite absurd thing to do in my opinion. Let alone the impact that it could have with regards the views of the parents of the WWE Universe by highlighting the drug addicted past of their youngster’s idol. What it boils down to is the fact that they haven’t put all their eggs in one basket by turning Punk heel straight away, they’re letting the crowd make their own minds up on him and to me that’s the best way to handle him. My only hope now is that they can give him some good storylines going forward to keep him at the top of the card and a fresh heel run may eventually the way to go with him.
Changing tact a little bit, has there ever been a bigger waste of our time than the Donald Trump storyline that lasted 7 whole days? I certainly can’t think of any in recent memory. I cannot see how that enhanced the product in any way shape or form. The whole thing was stupid and it actually resulted in them losing money as some retarded shareholders actually believed this shit to be real. I must admit, I’m not sure how I’d progress with Raw in terms of the management/authority figure but surely there was a more logical way than what we saw with this Trump fiasco. If, as rumoured, Ric Flair is to be the new general manager of Raw then I do not see the problem in having the Trump angle run a little longer but have Flair running the show for him and Donny would be seen rarely, if ever. I would much rather have seen something like that happen than what we were indeed treated to.
As it pertains to this Sunday’s ridiculously named Pay-Per-View “The Bash”, I think it has to the potential to be a fairly interesting show. Either way, it’s free to air in the UK on Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports HD1 so I’m not fussed one way or the other. There’s definitely a few matches in there that I’m down for…and there’s the added bonus that as it stands three days away from the PPV, there is no Big Show to be seen on the card! I’m interested in seeing The Miz against Cena, purely as a result of the long (by today’s standards) drawn out development of this angle. The Tag Title match with Legacy against Carlito and Primo should be another exceptional contest in my eyes, especially since the Colons are easily one of the best teams I’ve seen in quite a while. So with a fairly stacked mid-card and a couple good main event matches on the card hopefully this year’s Bash will not be the joke that it has been in pretty much every year that the WWE has promoted the show.
So that’s that ladies and gents, the returning column from yours truly is in the books. I hope you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read and by all means get in touch either by commenting on the blog or posting on the forums or even sending me an e-mail at AK@pinfallrecall.com.
Thank you for reading and may the next week of wrestling viewing be a happy one!
-Andrew Kearney