The Wrestling Podcast, Episode 15: Trey Irby

1-2-3 Kid A

Trey Irby of Wrestling Theory joins the podcast this week to talk about SummerSlam, Vladimir Kozlov and the other future endeavorees, why preseason college football polls are useless, being the only guy in town who isn't indoctrinated into the blood cult that is college football fandom and his problem with Dave Lagana co-opting the Kevin Steen sign on RAW for himself. There are also a lot of weird segues and a lot of cheap plugs, which make for some comedy. Enjoy!

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John Cena, Imaginary Luchador: Why Bryan Alvarez Needs a Reality Check

Cena doing badly in CMLL wouldn't mean he's a bad worker
Photo Credit: WWE.com

As pointed out by my blogging peer Trey Irby on his Wrestling Theory blog, Bryan Alvarez has some pretty weird opinions about wrestling and what constitutes good wrestling. Here's the quote from Observer Radio, where he takes John Cena to task for being a bad worker, despite the fact that his colleague Dave Meltzer gave a match he was in five stars recently, an honor so rare that it's the first time it was given to a WWF/E match in almost 15 years:

Glad he did one thing well! It’s funny, because last night on this very show, we were talking about the idea of taking WWE main eventers and sending them to do a lucha style in CMLL and find out if they could ‘work.’ John Cena would be literally the worst luchadore of all time. And all those capos and whoever else who’s just horrendous workers down there, good god almighty, they’d work rings around Cena.

So, John Cena's not a good worker because if you put him in a lucha libre fed, he'd suck. There are so many fucking things wrong with that statement that it's not even funny. For one, of course Cena would falter if he went to CMLL or AAA, at least at first. It's a totally different style, based on things that are counter to what he is used to working for WWE. In case Alvarez didn't notice, the converse of that statement is being displayed right before his eyes, or at least it WAS until Sin Cara got suspended for a flunked drug test. The former Mistico was a standout down South of the Border until he came up here. His reckless style, a hit in a lucha libre promotion, made him stick out like a sore thumb in the highly American WWE, and not in a good way. The numerous botches and the sloppy execution of moves he did hit not only put him under a microscope from some of the more discerning wrestling fans, but from his bosses too. If Mistico can't get a handle on how to wrestle WWE style, which according to Alvarez is like totally not on the same level of sophistication as lucha libre, then why use Cena's theoretical lack of handling lucha libre against him, ESPECIALLY since it'd be hypothetical at best given that Cena ISN'T GOING ANYWHERE?

That would beg the issue of Alvarez's opinions that lucha libre is the superior style to the amalgam of styles that come together and meld to form the almost-as-nebulous-as-the-term-"The Internet" WWE style. I wouldn't begrudge him the opinion that lucha libre is the better style to watch. I mean, Chikara is my favorite fed of all-time, and they wrestle a hybrid puroresu-lucha libre style. I can attest to how fun lucha can be. That being said, if I were going to list my ten best matches from 2011 so far, it'd be a total mix of Chikara and WWE right about now, and not to be boastful or anything, but there would be a ton of people who would take that list and agree with it. Why? Because in my opinion, there's no real "style" that's better than another one. The only thing that is better is execution either way. There's bad lucha out there, and if you're going to tell me that the worst lucha is even better than the best John Cena has had to offer in his WWE career (a career that again, has garnered a five star match from Alvarez's colleague for Christ's sake), then I'm going to tell you that you're full of shit.

I expect this pedantic attitude from the smart-ass fans in New York or Chicago or even here in Philly who chant "You can't wrestle!" at Cena because he doesn't shove 2932374 moves into a 12 minute match, but I shouldn't expect it from one of the top two journalists reputedly in American wrestling, especially when both of them go off about psychology all the time. I mean, Cena has proven he can work a match where there's psych in play. Money in the Bank wasn't the first time, and I doubt it'll be the last either. Sure, there are times when he goes out, does the faux-Hulk Hogan take-a-beating-and-come-back-like-nothing-was-wrong routine, but how many times is that him making the call and not the agents in the back or the writers? It's how WWE operates at the main event when they've got a guy like Hogan or Cena or Undertaker (another five star match recipient) or Ultimate Warrior or even Shawn Michaels (the best worker ever according to some people) with his no-selling-tinged kip-ups.

The fact is if you take a guy from one environment and drop him in another, he'll do one of two things. He'll either change to adapt, or he'll force everyone to adapt around him. The former takes time in a lot of cases and the latter is fucking ignorant and ends up bringing the product down. Don't believe me? Ask any fan of WCW to compare the promotion before and after Hogan got there. If Cena went to CMLL or AAA and then started having bad matches right away? It doesn't make him a bad worker, it makes him human. It's the same with Sin Cara. The difference between the two is that in this magical fantasy world, where Cena leaves his godfather position in WWE to go to Mexico, where WWE is killing the crap out of traditional lucha feds, by the way, he would more than likely work on getting better, and within a couple of months, would be one of the best rudo bullies down there with maybe a high flying move or two to his repertoire. Sin Cara? Well, if the dirtsheets, like the one written by Meltzer and the other one written by Alvarez, are to be believed, he's on a fast track out of WWE not because of his working ability, but because of his bad attitude.

So in that regard, I think I'd love to see Cena go to Mexico for a year sabbatical or something. I mean, the WWE would be a bit fresher without him, even though I'd miss him in my own perverse way, but I think it'd be fucking hilarious to see him shut Alvarez up and prove to him that maybe, just maybe, he should stop being a pedantic smark and start doing his job, being a good wrestling journalist who sees things for what they are, not for what he wants them to be.

Wade Keller Misses the Point of Twitter

Oh teh noes, Rock wuz insensitive!
Photo Credit: WWE.com

Via the Torch

Wade Keller posted this news item on The Rock tweeting to CM Punk in response to his rant at the end of RAW. I think it's worth a FJM, hopefully, you will too.

"The Rock" Dwayne Johnson fired back at C.M. Punk's digs at him during Raw on Monday:

That would make sense, since Punk mentioned Rock in his promo and WWE wrestlers have used Twitter as a way of furthering angles.

"C.M. Punk: It's simple business - The Rock is in the main event at WrestleMania cause it draws more money in one night (than) you will in (a) lifetime."

It was a great tweet, although Rocky left himself wide open. At least that's what I thought when I read it. But not Wade...

Keller's Analysis: Whether Rock's ego was ruffled by Punk's harmless in-character heel comments or not, this doesn't make Rock look good.

Wait, what?

Why does a star of his level in movies and wrestling feel the need to fire back in a way that makes him seem thin-skinned?

Apparently, Keller missed the entire part of the Rock/Cena feud where they were sniping back and forth between accounts, and still are.

If he's just playing into a potential future storyline, it does make him sound a little petty to be saying he'll draw more in one night than Punk will in his entire lifetime.

Or he's just playing into a potential future storyline.

That's pretty harsh. If he's truly upset, get over it. Punk was a heel.

And Rock is a face replying to a heel.

Even though a certain portion of the fan base loved what Punk had to say, Rock shouldn't be cementing that he's one of the "ass-kissers."

Yeah, how dare he play into Punk's content!

A better Tweet from Rock, a more dignified response, would have been: "Punk showed me something Monday. He talks a big game. The Rock likes that. Maybe some day he'll be a big enough star to main event WrestleMania against The Great One. I think fans might like to see that. It's not about kissing ass backstage, it's about kicking ass inside the ring. The Rock is sure he can kick Punk's from one end of that ring to the other."

Did Wade Keller just fantasy book a Tweet? Yeah, he just fantasy booked Twitter.₁

Seriously, this if this is what passes for news reporting nowadays, I quit. Seriously, Twitter has been used to build angles, especially between Rocky and Cena. Keller doesn't get the point. Then again, I'm not all that surprised.

1 - Props to my blogging Brohei Baba, PizzaBodySlam, for that line from his Tumblr

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!

What They're Saying: CM Punk's Epic Promo

Punk's got people talkin', yo
Photo Credit: WWE.com

Here you go:

Razor (Fair to Flair)

Whether or not Punk is actually going to leave WWE is irrelevant; what’s important now is he managed to make people think that he really did just run down WWE, call Stephanie McMahon and Triple H “idiots,” say “Hi” to Colt Cabana and threaten to take the WWE Championship to Ring of Honor.

Again, the rules have changed, but the game is still the same.

Casual fans can sit back and watch the show like I wish I could, but it takes a different approach to get those jaded fans to feel something when watching wrestling. Am I suggesting that “worked shoots” should become the new norm? No, but it is an effective storytelling device in the right situation in the hands of the right actors.

I still use those terms, but I can see where Razor's coming from here. For me, I don't think enjoying the product and using those terms and analyzing in that light are mutually exclusive. That being said, I think I envy his outlook a smidge.

MVP

My verdict after watching the @CMPunk promo, he just had his Austin 3:16 moment. Don't fuck this one up @wwe .

Only if Punk isn't taking a break. The reason why 3:16 worked so well was because Austin went RIGHT into a feud with Bret Hart. Punk? If he leaves, then some of the impact (not all of it, but some of it) is lost over time.

Mark Madden

But the majority of the audience had little idea what Punk was talking about. Let Impact book for the IWC. WWE has prospered by booking for the casual fan. This was a rare departure from that. Let’s see how effective it is.

I'm all about giving equal time to all POVs, even if it's to a bozo. Anyway, Madden misses the point. Hardcore. But you know who got the point and articulates the shit out of it? The next guy...

David Bixenspan (Cageside Seats)

It was never implied that wrestling is a work, and the references catering to hardcore fans were structured in ways that could plausibly be understood by causal fans:

• Plenty of fans were watching when Paul Heyman was around and knew he was behind ECW. Everyone knows who Brock Lesnar is and plenty know why he left.
• Even if you aren't familiar with New Japan Pro Wrestling or Ring of Honor, you're immediately aware that they are other wrestling companies. Colt Cabana was clearly implied to be a wrestler in this strange "Ring of Honor" place.
• He laid out that John Laurinaitis was one of Vince's "douchebag yes men" before mentioning his name.
• Stephanie McMahon and Triple H are firmly established on TV as being a married couple.
• The ending implying that he was going to tell a story about the anti-bullying campaign being hypocritical in light of things Vince McMahon has said to him makes sense both with the hardcore fan interpretation of the real Vince McMahon and the on-screen character he portrays. It also works plausibly as the cut-off point, as sponsors, bad media exposure, etc. are more than just some references to other promotions existing and WWE higher ups being stupid/out of touch.

Take all that and wrap it up into a calmly furious, brilliantly delivered wrestling promo where he still positioned himself firmly as a heel (even using the infamous tales of fans that constantly harrass him and WWE wrestlers at airports in the process), and that's why it worked.

Not only are they awesome at investigative reporting, but they got opinion writing down pat too.

jerseyboy at A1-Wrestling

Oh, it was totally "teh shootz", but it wasn't as offensive here because the WWE doesn't do that all the time. The reason Russo's shoots suck is because TNA does them every fucking week.

Also, with Russo, his shoots are accepted as a part of Impact. WWE? They cut Punk's mic and abruptly ended the show. A promo like Punk's is only effective if people think that management is legitimately pissed at it.

Daniel Bryan

With revolution dripping off his lips with every word, @CMPunk was a god last night.

And you thought ol' AmDrag would be mad by Punk co-opting his "Best in the World" moniker... *emoticon*

Steve Austin

@CMPunk just melted my 52 inch TV with a scorching hot promo...delivery, content, and attitude...one of the best promos I've ever seen.

That's why a feud between Austin and Punk would rule. There's mutual respect there. You know they'd trust working with each other to make a story between the two be the most epic thing ever.

Justin Henry (Camel Clutch Blog)

Well, the final angle is what made it work, even if it’s as “worked” as anything else. But man, did Punk have that audience listening. Decent matches here and there, but that promo, oh man that promo.

Something else, man.

Co-sign.

Kurt Angle

CM Punk had classic promo last night. Good for Him. But if U ever say another word about Me again, Ur toast! If U don't believe Me, try Me!

More than likely referring to when Punk (rightfully) called him a drunk idiot after Angle went after Randy Orton... err, I'm sorry, when the "Twitter hacker" went after Orton. The last time I checked, threatening people for the things they say is generally frowned upon.

Bill Simmons

CM Punk's Monday Night Raw performance tonight was one for the ages.

By now, Simmons can be considered a "casual fan", I'd say. I'm telling you, this is watershed material here.

Brandon Stroud

What Traina isn’t considering is that Punk’s speech WAS real. It comes down to your definition of “real”. WWE is very concerned with making you think what they want you to think. If Kelly Kelly points at you and smiles as she’s trotting down to the ring, they want you to cheer for her. If someone says “each and every one of you” or “you people” into a microphone, you’re supposed to boo. This is supposed to translate into an emotional reaction that is hard to have if you aren’t five. That’s WWE’s reality.

What Punk did was smash a hole in that reality using OUR reality, the reality of the jaded fan on the Internet who wants what you’ve never seen to be the focus of television, and when that happens, wants something else. They didn’t support Scotty Goldman when he was doing picture-in-picture jokes on Smackdown, but they get excited when Colt Cabana is mentioned by name. They get excited when Matt Hardy shows up and blurts out “Ring of Honor”, but give up on him when they realize he’s still just in the WWE, and he’s still just Matt Hardy. That’s how we work, for better or worse. Most of us, anyway.

Punk took what we consider reality — held down wrestlers, pushes for guys who suck, “sports entertainment” replacing “wrestler” on TV, no promotion existing in the eyes of WWE except for WWE, Triple H, Stephanie, backstage WWE and basically everything Chavo Guerrero will be blogging about for the next six months — and used it as a tool to enhance WWE’s interpretation. That’s the genius of last night. Punk took a formula that doesn’t work (“everything else on the show is fake, but this part is real”), paired it with a few other things that don’t work (talking to the Internet on TV, mentioning backstage stuff 90% of your audience has no idea about), and willed them together into something that works by doing something nobody else who has tried has: being great.

Saving maybe the best take for last.

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!

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!