Idiotic if True: How an Impact Burnout May Have Screwed over the Young Bucks

Were these guys wronged by the competition?

Cageside Seats has a pretty good summary of the scuttlebutt surrounding the Sin Cara hood and the two men who play it, especially the original. It's a good read, but in describing one of the reasons why Mistico has become persona non grata in WWE right now, they brought up this nugget on a recent controversy involving two decidedly non-Sin Cara related wrestlers:

The Young Bucks shouldn't have bothered turning up for their recent WWE tryout, their chances were shot as soon as Rob Van Dam gave them the rep of dodging veteran's handshakes. In a predictable development, RVD's good friends Booker T and Goldust made sure to concur with his assessment via Twitter that they were a couple of disrespectful young punks and thus the Bucks could kiss their WWE chances goodbye.

First, a disclaimer, I don't assume that this is 100% truth here. Dave Meltzer (the source for the Cageside article) may have an element of truth to that slant on how things happened. He may be talking cynically. I don't know.

That being said, if there is any element of truth to this... what the fuck, WWE? Really? Really? I purported not even to want to judge how the WWE backstage culture was, and if the Bucks did "wrong" Booker T, then it's one thing. It's a personal beef, and they handled it the way that they handle those kinds of things backstage. However, if what Meltzer is insinuating is true here, then it's a clear case of a guy who works for another company influencing policy. Regardless of who the guy is, that seems pretty fucked up to me. The guy basically is using his influence to make sure that two guys who might have a future in the industry can't get ahead. Isn't that kind of blackballing considered unethical at the very least?

Furthermore, let's look into the guy who's starting this bullshit. Rob Van Dam. Apparently, if the insinuation is true, he cares about respect and petty bullshit, which is fine and dandy if you're into having your ego stroked, but let's look at some of the things he doesn't care about. He doesn't care about showing respect, since he mouths off about Impact in the media if he's unhappy (and regardless of whether you agree with him or not, you take care of that shit in house). He doesn't care about following drug policy obviously. He also doesn't care about co-worker safety, since his well-documented sloppiness hasn't abated over the years. In fact, I'd say it's gotten worse since his most egregious offense against protecting his fellow workers happened within the last six months, i.e. his amateur dentistry on Abyss with his foot. So now, WWE HR policy is going to be directly impacted by a burnout working for the struggling competition? That is hilarious.

That also isn't to say that RVD and his cronies Booker and Goldust would be totally at fault here. If WWE really is going to not sign the Bucks due to that backstage fracas without further investigation, then what does that say about them? It's one thing to have a guy in the doghouse in Mistico because of behavior that's widely observed, but wouldn't you think it funny that the Bucks, who apparently shook hands with everyone else, had a problem with only two guys, guys who were friends of a habitual drug user with a massive ego? If the reports are true, then doesn't this make WWE look fucking stupid for siding with a guy who ultimately is part of the organization that's most competing with them, whether they know it or not?

But that's the kicker. I keep going back to the disclaimer. There's no way to gauge whether any of these reports that are based on non-primary sources and conjecture are 100% factual. While I have my reasons to believe Meltzer over anyone, including his colleague Bryan Alvarez, wouldn't have an axe to grind, it's entirely possible that he has a journalistic bias against the WWE. It's not that big a negative. It's human nature. There's entirely a chance that this whole post is bluster, and within six months, the Young Bucks will be in WWE, and who knows, maybe Mistico will be Sin Cara once more. That being said, there's too much smoke in the form of wrestler chatter about this kind of thing for there not to be fire. If it was just something internal, then yeah, maybe I wouldn't have wasted any more words on it than I did back when I reacted to it first. But the fact that someone working for Impact may have something to do with the Bucks not signing WWE contracts seems stupid at least, unethical at the midpoint and illegal tampering/collusion at the very worst. It's so mind-bogglingly awful that even the very specter of it doesn't pass the smell test.

Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein - Please visit his site to view the plentiful amounts of pictures he's taken for DGUSA, ROH and other indie feds: Get Lost Photography

The Love Lives of the Rich and Famous

Slut or not? I don't think that's our business.
Photo Credit: WWE.com

There was somewhat of a Tumblr brouhaha over the weekend between my Fair to Flair colleague Razor of House Kick-Out!! and Tumblr/Twitter devotee Tom Warren. You can get the full deal of what they were squabbling over by reading the thread linked, but the gist of it is basically an argument over whether slut-shaming of Melina is really appropriate. On one hand, there's the traditional hotness going around that Melina cheated on John Morrison with Batista and Mike Knox, with the implication that she was some kind of conniving or controlling bitch because Morrison kept taking her back. On the other, there's another rumor going around that they were in an open relationship, and that it's equally as likely that Morrison was plowing other chicks with the same lack of recourse that Melina was getting her freak on with other guys outside their exclusivity.

I'm refraining from taking a side on this matter because mainly, we're speculating on rumors here, and not even rumors about what might be going on in the business, but what was going on in their love lives. I don't know, but I feel like unless people come out and start openly talking about what's going on in their personal lives, it's something that should be off-limits to speculation. To the best of my knowledge, everything that's come out about Melina has been through reports in dirtsheets and rumors that have been passed down the grapevine on the Internet, specifically through social media nowadays. This isn't a condemnation of social media at all, but more or less a statement of fact that Twitter and the like have made it easier for this kind of thing to disseminate, with the implication that it was going to get out there anyway. But I digress.

So now, we're sitting here making judgments on Melina, Morrison or really anyone they've been associated with based on rumors that may or may not be true. I don't know if they were exclusive when she "cheated" on him or if they were in an open relationship. So, how does that make me any better than Randy Orton when he went on the radio and basically implied that Kelly Kelly was a swampwhore who slept with anything with a pulse and a prick if I started making judgment, favorable or otherwise? It would make me worse since I have no firsthand knowledge of the situation.

Now, I'm not condemning either Razor or Tom here, because it's human nature to gossip. We all get caught up in rumors and talking about the airing of dirty laundry from time to time, and the fact that it was done interpersonally on Tumblr makes it all forgivable seeing as none of it was really passed off as news. I also realize that any sort of attempt at trying to get society on the whole to stop worrying about what people do on their own time is a futile effort, especially since sites like TMZ and publications like OK! Magazine are so firmly entrenched in our public narrative.

However, I'd like it if people at least made the attempt to keep the discourse away from the news in a way that would affect how they judge it, especially concerning the double standard that men who bang are somehow admirable while women who bang are the scum of the Earth. Speculating that Melina got fired because she's a "slut"? That's not journalism, that's borderline sexism from where I sit. If it's true she was fired for her proclivities in the bedroom? That makes WWE an incredibly sexist organization (although we probably could already figure that out anyway) and worthy of being called out by every group under the sun. That also goes for the rumors that Morrison's push being stalled more depended on him not standing up to Batista or Knox after the alleged cheating and not because he's a botch machine who can't cut a decent promo in the way that WWE seemingly is forcing him to do.

We recognize it's bad when Randy Orton speaks out of turn about a co-worker's love life. What does it say about us who comment on this without any of the knowledge an Orton might have? Whether Melina and Morrison have a good or bad relationship really is none of our business unless they decide to make it our business, and while I can understand and can't stop the offhand discussion of where this narrative takes us, I can totally condemn when it gets passed off as news, especially when we don't have the news to back it up.

Kings Reign Supreme: What I Hope for a Possible WWE Arrival for Claudio and Hero

Kings Reign Supreme!

If you believe the scuttlebutt, Claudio Castagnoli and Chris Hero, collectively known as The Kings of Wrestling, have an offer on the table for a WWE contract. The no-brainer answer would be to take it, but stranger things have happened. Hopefully, they will sign, because as much as I like watching them in the indies, I would rather see them every week on WWE TV and as a fan of theirs, I want to see them get paid as much money as they can get.

That being said, there's always that tricky question of "usage" that makes people take up the insane thought that they'd be "better off staying in ROH". Granted, there's almost nothing that would make me think staying in the indies is a better idea than going to WWE. However, I am a bit skeptical as to whether they'll get a good shake in terms of exposure. They could end up like CM Punk, exceed expectation and rule ass, they could be like Daniel Bryan (and admittedly, I don't think we've scratched the surface as to what we'll see from the former American Dragon) and get TV time but not get to the main event, or they could end up like Colt Cabana and be out of the company within a year. If they end up like Bryan, and again, Bryan's story in WWE is only beginning, then it's all good. However, there's one superstar whose career trajectory... well whose PROJECTED trajectory was exciting, fresh and totally game-changing for an entire division.

Yes, if the Kings make it to WWE, I would love to see them take on the Kharma role for the tag division.

Before she stepped away from WWE due to her pregnancy, Kharma was set to turn the Divas division on its head. She wasn't presented as your normal model-turned-wrestler who had silicone implants, and because of that, she got a genuine reaction. All signs pointed to a more "serious" women's wrestling division, one where Kharma would destroy the chaff and set up for a hero, be it Nattie Neidhart, Beth Phoenix or Kelly Kelly, to take her down and maybe establish that the Divas were deserving of more attention than, as Razor and I talked about last night, which of the males they were dating.

Of course, there's no stigma attached to the tag team division in terms of sexism, but it seriously is lacking of teams that could be considered legitimately over as a tandem. I mean, the only two that I think come close are Kane and Big Show and the former Champions of Justin Gabriel and Heath Slater. The former are a mongrel team of two fan-favorites-because-they've-been-around-since-the-dawn-of-time, and the latter got their overness more because of the groups they were associated with rather than a build as a team. Even then, with the dissolution of Corre, they even seem floundering. And at this point, neither team has the titles. In what may be the lulziest Tag Team Champion tandem in WWE history, Michael McGillicutty and David Otunga hold the Tag Pennies right now. Even though the Divas division had and still has its own problems, at least they have attention paid to them.

That's where the Kings should come in. Let them debut and destroy the Usos, Slater and Gabriel and then earn a title shot, where they win. Build them up as an unstoppable force whose teamwork is unmatched. Let them defeat Show and Kane, maybe not in short order, but convincingly enough. Give them mic time so they can develop their characters as more than just a win streak. Let them become the tag division so that when you build up a new set of challengers to them, be they an existing team like the Usos (who have potential but haven't had great opportunities to develop heat) or Slater and Gabriel, or another new team, either of guys who are on the roster or of a new team from FCW that's built up. That way, when the Kings lose the titles, it's a big deal. When they lose, they don't lose their heat because Hero and Claudio have been developing their characters through feuds and promos. It's all a matter of smart booking and attention.

Of course, this may very well be a pipe dream. Given that the failed TV writers have shown no desire to build a midcard or a tag division past a token "feud" that involves either bullshit parity decisions from week to week or a series of matches where it's a series of clean victories by one party while the crowd is expected to care when the result is never in question and there's no other factors making the losing party seeming like he's still got a story to tell. That being said, if they can try to revolutionize the Divas, why not tags?

That is, of course, if the Kings sign with WWE. There's still a chance that they might opt to stay with ROH, or that the scuttlebutt is just something that was sensationalized through being passed down the grapevine. Still, there's no doubt that Claudio and Hero deserve a chance to be in the top company in their field. Hopefully, the people potentially signing them know what they're getting.

Because it has the chance to be special.

Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein - Please visit his site to view the plentiful amounts of pictures he's taken for DGUSA, ROH and other indie feds: Get Lost Photography

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!

Layla Injured

So photogenic too...
Photo Credit: WWE.com

Via Diva Dirt

Layla, after winning the biggest match of her career and looking to bust out as a singles star after splitting from former BFF and current retiree Michelle McCool, revealed via Twitter that she tore her ACL and MCL and will miss six months. Very tough break for an already beleaguered Divas division which, depending on what rumor source you believe, will be losing Kharma (or won't be losing Kharma) to anything from pregnancy to a bad back to a really rough case of indigestion to being sent down for retooling because the other Divas weren't smart, sexy or powerful enough to stand up to her Awesome fury. Of course, nothing has really been confirmed from a primary source about Kharma, so yeah, that was an exercise in snark and futility.

But the real story here is that Layla will be missing time. It's a shame because she's really come into her own in the last year or so, and she was miles away the hottest Diva on the roster. I know that's a shallow reason, but I am a guy, and THAT'S ALL US GUYS THINK ABOUT ARE TITZ AND SAMMICHES AMIRITE?

Anyway, here's to wishing Layla a speedy and full recovery.

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!