This Week in DVR: Superstars, the Recap Show (ugh)

Love seeing Sheamus beat the crap outta small guys, fella
Photo Credit: WWE.com

I watched what I couldn't watch live on my DVR or the Internet this week. Here's what stood out:

Matches

Ray Rosas vs. Ryan Taylor on NWA Hollywood - As Todd Kenely said, it was a game of counters, and the last one won. I really liked all the counter wrestling in this match, as both guys brought it. My favorite sequence was probably when Rosas went for the roll-up, but Taylor countered it not into another pin, but into a single-leg crab. The finish was nice too. It was a great play on the ref bump without the ref actually getting bumped, and it was a great sell on the low blow. The rolling clutch is one of my favorite pin attempts as well, so I was glad to see it get the duke for Taylor.

Santino Marella vs. Zack Ryder on Superstars - I felt this match was a bit too short, but it was still pretty entertaining. Then again, Ryder and Santino have really good chemistry together, and there'd have to be some heavy duty aggravating circumstances that would make a match between the two be not good. I liked Santino's schtick going to the top rope, but being unsure about it and then going to the second. I also liked that it led into the finish, with Ryder moving and going right into his Rough Ryder.

Samoa Joe vs. Bobby Roode vs. D'Angelo Dinero, Bound for Glory Series, on Impact - A well-done match with a good story. This was more a traditional three-way, with two guys going it at it with one guy being incapacitated at any given time, but they played it up well. I'm not sure if we've seen this finish done before to completion, or if it has been done that it's not been done in a while.

Cody Rhodes vs. Daniel Bryan on Smackdown - Solid Money in the Bank build-up match between the two. Then again, it's not surprising this match is here. Very well done, a lot of good spots on the ropes and in the corners. I liked the finish a lot, with the Beautiful Disaster kick with Bryan straddling the top rope was putting the cherry on the sundae.

Sheamus vs. Sin Cara on Smackdown - Honestly, anyone who says Sin Cara doesn't sell doesn't really watch his matches. He doesn't do long term selling, but then again, neither does Rey Mysterio. He spent a lot of this match bumping and selling for Sheamus, who had most of the offensive advantage in the match. I just love seeing the Celtic Warrior roughing up small guys. The upset finish worked to put some doubt into the Smackdown MITB match Sunday.

Shows

NWA Hollywood - I was a bit nonplussed when the show cut off before the finish of the main event happened. I assume Disco Machine tapped out, but it's still bad when you're left with an unintentional cliffhanger there. Oh well. Still a decent show. The wrestling was a bit sloppier than usual outside Rosas/Taylor and the main event, but it was still watchable. Adam Pearce's promo had volume issues, but it was still really fuckin' good. Looking forward to see what he can do on his farewell tour.

Superstars - Again, I hate it when the main event of the show is a replay of a promo segment from RAW. I don't care that it was a replay of an excellent segment. I want to see wrestling. Then again, I did get that with four matches compressed into about 30 minutes of run-time, but that's better than nothing. Even though only one match made my honor roll, it all wasn't bad. I mean, the Barretta/Barrett squash was fun for what it was. Whether you're a fan of the Tag Champs losing a non-title match or the fact the Champs are who they are, you can't deny that at least Otunga and McGillicutty are trying to be a cohesive tag team rather than just two guys slapped together out of convenience. Same for the Usos, although I feel that they're far improved as workers since they entered WWE. The Maryse/Phoenix match had some good antics in it too. Solid show that felt too short because of what was tacked onto the end.

Impact - Another decent show this week if you take out the Immortal stuff. I don't know, I just can't get into the "insane icon" or Sting fighting for Dixie Carter to come back. I rag on them for rebooting every couple of months, but I'm not sure I'd complain if next week, they did a hard reboot to the main angle (leaving the other stuff alone like the Shelley/Aries feud, the BFG series, Eric Young's TV title crusade etc.) and just stopped with the power struggle between Bischoff/Hogan and Dixie and her followers. That being said, the wrestling was cool this week. Sting winning the title doesn't faze me, nor does Anderson having yet another short reign.

Smackdown - A fine if unspectacular go-home show for Money in the Bank. The wrestling was good, which is all you can ask for. The main angle with Christian committing various felonies on camera was weak though. I mean, he blatantly stole $1000 off Orton on camera and the pit bosses let him gamble with it? C'mon, son. C'mon.

Whatever Happened to the Athletic Fat Guy?

Steen: Not svelte, but definitely the goods

Earthquake. Vader. Big Boss Man. Bam Bam Bigelow. The mainstream feds used to be full of athletic big men who had beer bellies to go with their technical prowess and in some cases, high flying moves. Commenter Lucius lamented on Twitter that the athletic fat guy has gone to the wayside. True, if you scour the WWE's roster right now, you'll find one guy who fits the "athletic" mold, rather than the monster role. That guy is Brodus Clay, who's also totally not on TV right now. Mark Henry is a fat guy, but he's also very much a monster-type. He fits a stereotype more than anything else. There's nothing wrong with that at all, as Henry is among the best things going right now in my opinion, but again, variety is a spice of life that WWE doesn't use a whole lot of.

Impact is slightly better. Samoa Joe and Bully Ray are both beer-gutted wrestlers who move around quite well for guys their size. The indies have two other really good examples, one being Kevin Steen, obviously, and the other being Eddie Kingston. Kingston is a borderline example, as he's not really that fat. Steen is a better example in terms of body type. Both men are tremendous wrestlers. Then again, enumerating all those guys, plus adding in maybe Husky Harris, and it's six guys tops who fit the mold. In terms of how many sheer wrestlers are out there, that might be a small number, but then again, what fat people in America today are athletic as well?

Body types have changed over the years too. Be it steroids, better conditioning, better diet, more discipline, more pressure from management to have a better body type or whatever, you don't see nearly as many barrel chests or doughy stomachs anymore. Like it or not, WWE's neuroses over body type have ruled the day to the point where if you want to be a wrestler, you have to acquiesce to WWE's idea of what a wrestler looks like.

Be that as it may, how many truly great athletic fat guys have there been? I wonder if the number of guys with beer guts who can fly around the ring with ease now is just the same as it's been historically. However, the difference is, Boss Man, Earthquake, Vader and Bam Bam all were near the top of the card in WWF, WCW or both. Bam Bam main evented WrestleMania. Boss Man teamed with Hogan and Quake and Vader both feuded with him. Meanwhile, Clay and Harris aren't on TV, Joe and Bully are in a company with no direction, and Steen and Kingston both are kings of the indies.

So maybe Lucius has a point here. It's the number of athletic fat guys, but how they're presented. As a fan of guys like the four historic guys and as boosters of Steen, Kingston, Brodus and Joe, I love seeing this wrestler archetype get its due. So I say yes, let Clay back on WWE TV. Yes, sign Steen, War King and even Joe (if he's available) to WWE and push them to the moon. All body types are welcome, actually. Homogeny is never a good thing. Variety is a spice best applied liberally.

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 Bound for Glory Series: A Good Idea Towards Establishing an Identity

The first match in the series was a good one
Photo Credit: ImpactWrestling.com

Last week on Impact, the Bound for Glory Series started with Rob Van Dam defeating Samoa Joe. For those who don't watch, the series is a 12-person round robin tournament aiming to decide who will face the Impact World Champion at the titular PPV event. My protestations at calling it "groundbreaking" aside, I really like this idea. I don't know if I've written this or not a lot here, but I love tournaments of all shapes and sizes. You get the potential for different match ups and have several different opportunities to make new stories.

In this instance though, the most important thing is that it provides an opportunity for Impact to establish an identity. Right now, they really don't have anything to make their big PPV event pop. Having the main event spot being something you fight for goes a long way in establishing that, especially in an event that takes four months to conduct. It helps add to the mystique of the event, which is something Impact desperately needs. Right now, the slogan "Wrestling Matters" feels empty. They went a good long way to rectify that this past week with the focus on the X-Division (Austin Aries being the biggest star in that) and launching the tournament.

Now, I know that there's skepticism out there as to whether they'll be able to pull this off. I'm a bit wary myself. Remember last year, when they were going to install a ranking system? Eric Bischoff, the biggest proponent of it in character, sure doesn't. It was dropped faster than a tray of hot soup by an epileptic waiter. The players remain the same here, so it's reasonable to suspect whether this idea will be carried out to fruition, and if it is, whether it'll be executed satisfactorily. Impact doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt right now; that's the stark truth.

However, that doesn't mean that you can't root for them. I really hope that this thing works out, because it's a killer concept. If they were going to port anything that Chikara or any other indie fed was doing this year, I'm glad it was the round-robin tournament. We already got one really good match out of it. If it produces more good tilts and has a modestly satisfying endgame, then it's a success. And for the former TNA? That's a win.

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!

Wrestling Six Packs: Characters in Need of a Reboot

Goofy is good with Drew
Photo Credit: WWE.com

In honor of the features reboot this week, here are six wrestlers whose characters could use reboots. These are otherwise upstanding wrestlers who may feel stale, lost in the shuffle or at the natural end of the current character they have, and they range across the spectrum of feds. Here goes:

1. Drew McIntyre

Ah yes, Drew McIntyre, he's the man who won our hearts over this past year with his amazing in-ring acumen, yes. However, his character still remains as dull as dishwater. He needs a jolt, but what can he do? If only there was some video footage of him showing off some kind of natural charisma... oh wait, there totally is! Talk about a total miscast. I would keep the name "The Chosen One", only instead of making it as some pompous, hand-picked scion of Vince McMahon, he's the "The Chosen One... for Hire". Yep, as an eccentric hitman type, McIntyre takes on jobs for really anyone who has a problem, which obviously will be mostly for heels, but with really quirky demands and an outrageous personality. Think of him as a goofy badass, like Kurt Angle before he decided he was going to be ZOMG SERIOUS MMA AMATEUR WRESTLER WITH HIP HOP THEME SONG AND SUCH. I think if anyone pulls that archetype off, it could be McIntyre.

2. STIGMA

His partnership with Vin Gerard is over, and there's really no way he can continue on as STIGMA. The logical stepping point would be a retread back to the days of Shayne Storm, but I think it's clear that Mike Quackenbush won't be so forgiving. I'd play him off as some sort of ronin-type character, a tecnico-by-design, but a guy who doesn't really align himself with anyone. Kinda like Eddie Kingston for that short period between when he ditched the Roughnecks and joined the Chikara resistance against the BDK. He goes around atoning for his betrayal of the tecnicos by doing good deeds and random acts of penance but without really asking for or receiving any benefits. It would eventually lead to his reunion with Quack, but I'd like to see the story unfold that way.

3. Ted DiBiase

The obvious call would be him going face, whether as just a "regular" character or as a self-made man, a totally opposite to what his father was all about, much like Cody Rhodes is almost nothing like his blue-collar father was like now. I say there's still heel ground for him to stomp on. I say keep using his "richness" as a character point, but instead of a whiny trust-fund baby, he'd now be a "facilitator". Think of him as a weapons-dealer, or a crime boss. If a guy needs a sneak attack without being culpable, DiBiase's his man. If someone needs a tag partner, DiBiase gets him that tag partner. Good quality, high-grade weapons? The ability to frame someone for an attack? The possibilities are endless here. He could even work with McIntyre as his personal "independent contractor" for some hits, which would lead into a feud or angle between the two later on down the line.

4. Jack Swagger

I feel like the All-American American stuff has run its course. I love seeing him do the push-ups, and I think that'd remain an awesome part of his in-ring repertoire as a taunt, but I think Swagger's character needs to "grow up" a bit. I always liked how fearsome and stoic he looks in a suit, just towering over people and giving that steely gaze that says "I'm gonna fuck you up" without actually saying it. Therefore, I'd propose he becomes the anonymous RAW GM's hired muscle. We're already seeing the GM lose a bit of control over his program, so I think he should start enforcing his law with Swagger acting as his consigliere, or his enforcer if you will. It would be great as a sort of allegory for a totalitarian police state, and it could actually be a spark for heat between Cole and the GM, as of course, Cole doesn't like Swagger anymore.

5. Samoa Joe
6. Alex Shelley

I'm bunching these guys together because they tie into a similar, conjoined idea. Comic books have proven to be a great trove of source material for pro wrestling angles. Chikara has proven that time and time again. I propose the idea of making both these guys guerrilla warriors, Joe because fuck, his character needs it, and Shelley because his partner's hurt and it fits the narrative in Impact Wrestling. They'd be two differing guerrillas though. Joe would become Impact's Joker, a guy who causes chaos just to, as Alfred so eloquently described in The Dark Knight, "watch the world burn". Shelley, conversely, would be a freedom fighter, like V in V for Vendetta. His attacks would be strategic against Bischoff, Immortal, Hogan.

The attacks would start out anonymously by both, with one person being blamed for all of them. Then, over the next weeks, there'd be anonymous claimings of responsibility, investigations and what not. Joe as an agent of chaos could spawn a story of "who would stop him?", while Shelley would then be positioned as one of the top stars in Impact in his quest to topple the corrupt regime. They could intersect, with Shelley getting pissed that Joe's chaos is just that, and it's ruining his purpose. There is so much potential with this dynamic it's not even funny...

...then again, it's still TNA at heart, so this would be the pipeyest of pipe dreams. Still, I think it would work.

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!