It's Still Real to Kevin Kelly, Dammit

Not the best in the world, according to a hermy
Photo Credit: WWE.com

It seems like Kevin Kelly's new gimmick is saying and writing dumb shit. A month or so after attempting to go America all over everyone's asses and failing, the man dubbed by The Rock as a hermaphrodite did an interview with Right After Wrestling, with excerpts transcribed by Lords of Pain, where he had some gems to drop on our ignorant asses.

I love CM Punk. I never met him personally, but when I meet him I will shake his hand and tell him how much I appreciate his talents.

Okay.

But Punk wears a shirt on TV saying he's 'the best in the World'. Well he's not the best in the world until he defeats Davey Richards.

*spit take*

HAHA, that's fucking rich.

Davey Richards is the best wrestler in the World hands down!

Wait, is this a podcast transcript with a well-respected former WWE referee/agent, or is this the ravings of the ROH message board n00bs that @typicalROHfan makes fun of all the time?

You could put the Miz at #1 in the PWI 500

PWI 500? I think I give him too much credit for being savvy enough to post on ROH's message board.

...and then burn that magazine for printing that.

"A kayfabe publication doesn't rank our guy who didn't even win the Championship until after the cut off date for a list that even its target audience doesn't take seriously over someone who held the biggest title in the largest wrestling company for four and a half months? BURN IT! BURN IT!"

Davey Richards is the best in the World and I defy anybody to argue with me on that.

A small sampling of people I would argue are better workers than Davey Richards:

El Generico
Austin Aries
Dasher Hatfield
Robert Evans
Bully Ray
Sheamus
Mark Henry
Santino Marella

I could keep going, but I don't want to seem too pedantic.

Watch the match with Eddie Edwards. It was a 36-minute perfect match. Not one flaw.

I'm going to refrain from commenting since I didn't see it, but if it was anything like some of his other singles matches I've seen, then it's very hard for me to believe that there are zero flaws in that match. Unless you wanna use the whole "Don Larsen pitched a perfect game in the World Series despite not being that spectacular in the rest of his career" argument. I still would find it hard to believe, especially since what a perfect match is to me probably isn't the same as what it is to Kelly, or to really anyone else.

He trained for 4-weeks for that match - like a fighter.



He's revolutionizing the business right before our very eyes.

Oh man, if he's revolutionizing the business, then I'd hate to be a fan in 10 years when he's noted as the most influential wrestler around then.

But back to the whole "best in the world" argument, even if you tried framing it as an honest discussion, not as one just to try and pump yourself and your top star up at the hot ticket's expense, it doesn't work here. Wrestling is not some kind of sport (which makes Kelly's whole point about Richards training for a match for four weeks asinine... seriously, who stops training when they're a pro wrestler?), it's a hybrid artform that combines sport with theater and blends in so many different areas of entertainment that to distill it down into just wrestling ability is such a cop out. Plus, I firmly believe that if CM Punk doesn't hold this nebulous "best in the world" title, he's at least on the shortlist of guys who could hold it. He's a damn fine worker.

But because it's not just wrestling that defines you as best, you have to look at other things, like promos. And in that department, Richards is woefully behind Punk. But hey, I guess Kelly got his wish. He got me to take the bait and reply to him, as well as others to get talking. So in a way, he wins.

That still doesn't mean he's not delusional and shortsighted.

Kevin Kelly Tries to Go America All Over Everybody's Asses, Fails

Sheamus and Santino prove Kelly wrong
Photo Credit: WWE.com

Former WWE commentator and current ROH/Lucha Libre USA announcer Kevin Kelly raised some eyebrows about the viability of foreign-born/-billed wrestlers as draws in WWE. I guess he has a bug up his ass about Sheamus or Wade Barrett getting main event pushes, or maybe he's just xenophobic. I'm not going to FJM him, because K. Sawyer Paul did it first and probably did it better than I could. Damn these snazzy bloggers with their quick triggers on doing FJM to shitty journalism/opinion writing! I will, however, take another angle with Kelly. He claims that foreign stars will never be big in WWE or in any sport in America:

Hulk Hogan, Rock and Stone Cold are household names. Macho Man is too. John Cena is close but the WWE is not what it was a few years ago and as a result, Cena is not a true household name with the American casual fan. Kids, yes but not adults. Bret Hart is close too but he was on top when the business was in the toilet. Not his fault but while Bret is super-over with hardcore fans, the business climate from his time at the top knocks him down a peg.

Emphasis there is mine. Let's forget for a second that Andre the Giant was perhaps the greatest draw in the regional era of wrestling. Let's forget that Bruno Sammartino, Antonino Rocca, Eduoard Carpentier, Ivan Koloff, Nikita Koloff, the Great Muta, Davey Boy Smith and even Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio (who, even though were born in America, have strong Mexican roots and could almost be considered "foreign" if you stretch the definition enough) all were super over and either drew money here or helped other guys draw money despite either being born in another country or billed from another land. No, Kelly's argument is flawed right from get-go one.

It really doesn't matter what the fuck Americans think about these foreign guys to an extent.

Kelly mentions the WWE's global initiative in the first paragraph, and then ignores that it exists when he rails against the WWE pushing them dirty foreigners here in the States. That's a dangerously ignorant thing to do, especially given how popular the WWE is in other countries (and conversely, how unpopular MMA and UFC are in some of those other countries... given how much UFC cuts into the WWE's PPV market and other demographics here, that's not trivial). If you're a company trying to make inroads into Ireland, wouldn't you want U2 on your side? Yeah? Okay, so then why is the WWE stupid for pushing Sheamus when they're trying to struggle for a market share in Ireland? Same with Wade Barrett in Britain or Alberto del Rio, Rey Mysterio and now Sin Cara in Mexico or even Great Khali in India.

The truth is, the world is turning into a global marketplace. Local business is being drowned out by Internet commerce and the wide reach of companies trying to use new media, new technology and the burgeoning global infrastructure to capture more and more viewers in places they have never reached before. Couple that with human nature of wanting to identify with people who looked, spoke, acted and had the same culture as they do, and it's a no-brainer to try and tap into each lucrative market.

The WWE has been trying, and succeeding, at cultivating a truly international product, for longer than they've had Sheamus, Barrett and the like on their roster. Kelly denigrates Bret Hart's impact on the business in that blockquoted snippet. While it was true that Hart was on top during a downturn in American business, he was super popular to foreign audiences. You could argue that the international money that Hart brought in helped keep the then-WWF with the resources and revenue that kept them in the same ballpark as WCW was with their Turner-backing.

Hell, and if they get over with American audiences too, which if Kelly would take his head out of his xenophobic ass, he'd notice that they are, then it's gravy. Hell, look at the guys who get the loudest face reactions at any WWE show. John Cena is American, Rey Mysterio is a stylized Mexican and Santino Marella is billed from Calabria, Italy. Three superstars, three countries.

If Kevin Kelly has an axe to grind with WWE, he might as well go about doing so with a better argument, because this one is not rooted in fact or honesty. If he wants to spout that kind of jingoism, let him go on Fox News. It's not needed nor is it welcome in a place where we as wrestling fans not only embrace guys like Sheamus, Barrett, Mysterio and the like, but know full well that their place in the business side of things is very important as well, even if in a wholly hypothetical situation, my fellow Americans spend zero percent of their ticket to see anyone not billed as 100% American, something which has been proven to be patently false.

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!