Kevin Steen Is Out for Blood

I don't think you'll like him when he's angry...

Via ROH World and his own website

Looks like WWE isn't the only fed right now looking to blur the lines. Kevin Steen, who was infamously tossed out of Best in the World after turning on his former mentor Steve Corino, has posted an open letter to ROH fans and management concerning his actions. I think it's really well-done and wrought with emotion and passion. Much in the same way as his promo and wrestling style was soaked in blood, this letter seems to have the vitriolic hatred behind it that made Mr. Wrestling a must-watch wrestler in 2010.

Steen focuses his rage on Jim Cornette for forcing him out of the company because he wanted to impress Sinclair and for dumping guys like Adam Pearce, Austin Aries, Necro Butcher, Jimmy Rave and Gabe Sapolsky (which elicited a couple of groan-inducing Tweets asking Steen not to use his name and then pandering for an EVOLVE booking... I like Gabe, but he should have DMed Steen and not used the opportunity to be so cheap). Obviously, he also raged against Corino for "castrating himself" after Steen left the company. He promised to take the whole company down as well, which should make for some entertaining television. Granted, I doubt he'll be able to spew blood, either his own or other guys', if this angle is made a focal point of television once it starts back up, but I don't think Steen needs blood to show his sadistic side.

Either way, this is an interesting turn in the story, and it's something that really has my attention, which I can't say for a lot of other angles in ROH right now.

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

CM Punk: Making You Wish You Had Never Stopped Watching Wrestling Since 2006

Neener neener
Photo Credit: WWE.com

Hey, you. Yeah, you, the guy over there complaining that wrestling hasn't been cool since Stone Cold and The Rock and that fat guy with the mask, y'know, Mike Foley or whatever his name was were around, pay attention. You keep saying you want a reason to watch, yet you've had a reason staring you right in the face, well, more than one reason in my estimation, but one really huge one, since at least the summer of 2009, maybe even earlier depending on how early you picked up on a guy with long black hair and a shitload of tattoos would be a major star. Then again, if you think that there hasn't been any good wrestlers since Rocky, then of course you weren't noticing CM Punk.

Well, in case your still-wrestling-fan friends haven't gushed about you about last night's epic promo to close the show, here's the 411. CM Punk has always been that good. He's always been that interesting, always been a great worker and a rousing promo with the rollicking wit and a keen sense of what to say, when to say it, and when to ignore what's been written for him by the failed TV writers.

And there's a decent chance that after July 17th, you'll have totally missed out on him altogether.

Then again, I can't totally blame you people (you people? WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU PEOPLE?) for not picking up on Punk. I mean, one of the reasons why he's rumored to be possibly leaving (that's the beauty of this whole angle... we don't know what the real situation is, and anyone who purports to know is at worst a liar and at best a possessor of a vivid imagination) is that he wasn't happy with the time that he's been featured on the air. So while most WWE programming has featured guys that feed your negative stereotype of what wrestlers are now that the "cool" guys left or are old, maybe you missed out on Punk showing you what he could do. That's a shame. But there's still a chance.

See, from now until about July 17th, even if this is all totally legit and he is leaving for an indefinite amount of time, you still have a little less than a month to bask in the aura of the man who could save professional wrestling from itself if he's given just one chance. Yes, you still have two RAWs, maybe some appearances on three more Smackdowns and the obvious swan song at Money in the Bank. I'd say stick around for all that and see what you've been missing for the last five years on the WWE stage and even the last 10 years if you count his time in the indies. Better late than never, right?

And hell, during that time, pay attention to some of the other guys too. Sure, you may have been put off by Randy Orton, John Cena or whatever, but since you've been gone, there are a whole other cast of characters who might bid you to stay. Evan Bourne, Sheamus, Daniel Bryan, Alberto del Rio, Sin Cara, Cody Rhodes, Wade Barrett, Alex Riley and especially that mouthy kid from the Real World, y'know, the one who wanted to be a wrestler so bad... yeah, The Miz, especially him... they're all worth a fresh look in my estimation. If you like them, then hey, wrestling's fun again. If not? Well, you only have to keep paying attention until Punk presumably leaves.

But then again, he might not leave. He might be yanking all our chains and sticking around, which means you'll luck out. The more morose among us, y'know, the kind of fans who are analogous to the die hard sports fans who get pissed off because their team does well and attracts all these bandwagon phonies aboard, may not think you "deserve" to (as if you need to be deserving to watch grown men pretend fight in their underwear... don't mind them), but hey, I say the more the merrier, especially if you read my blog (CHEAP PLUG). You'll have been witness to a truly historic moment in pro wrestling, one that you can say you were there for.

Yeah, Punk might have made you kick yourself that you weren't watching all this time, and honestly, you should be kicking yourself. You deprived yourself of watching a master at work. Then again, if he leaves, it's not all bad. WWE is slowly but surely getting its DVD library on Netflix, so you'll have ample opportunity to catch up.

Even if that means you only get to watch what we all enjoyed firsthand after the fact.

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!

Please Call a Cease Fire: My Plea to Impact Wrestling to Stop with the Shootiness

Pictured, Hogan, Sting and Bischoff doing something I hate
Photo Credit: ImpactWrestling.com

Dear Impact Wrestling,

As you prepare to air another episode on Spike TV tonight, I am coming to you with this plea. Granted, it'll do no good for this week or the week after, given that you've already taped the episodes, but hear me out anyway. There's a reason why I pan the shit out of your program each week. It's not because I'm a hater. Lord knows I want to like your product, and I want to praise it and I want to give your company all the credit in the world. I don't dislike Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo because of some arbitrary reason.

No, over the last 15 years (15 years), I've seen them systematically destroy the art of professional wrestling in ways that outside forces can only dream of doing. Under their watch, one company became so undesirable for the people running it that they sold it to their biggest competitor even though it was still pulling strong ratings₁ on its weekly television program. A big reason for that was because under the tenure of Russo and sometimes Bischoff, the magic of professional wrestling, a magic known to carny folk and to smarky wrestling fans alike as kayfabe, was dealt a critical blow. It was cute when Russo had to answer to Vince McMahon, and it helped draw huge numbers (even though I still maintain that it was more the on-screen charisma of Bret Hart, Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, The Rock, Mick Foley, Triple H and even McMahon himself that had more to do with that than anything Russo ever did or said outside of maybe "Hey, why don't we let these mooks be themselves!"). However, when left to his own devices in WCW, his continual drawing back of the curtain, making everything a "shoot" and continual scatterbrained direction caused WCW to die a grisly death. Add in Bischoff from time to time, a man who never met a legal storyline between two NPCs that he didn't like, and you had someone who helped piss away WCW's lead on the then-WWF when he was on top and then helped accelerate Russo's best unintentional Dr. Kevorkian impersonation when he came back in.

So, it should come as no surprise that your numbers aren't as good as you think they should be. Of course, I'm not interested in your analysis of the numbers or even what numbers you hold important. Ratings can eat my left buttock for all I care. However, if you look at the meaning behind why your ratings suck, that's where you'll find my wheelhouse. Your ratings are terrible because people who think like me, but who don't really feel obligated to watch for purposes of writing a blog, aren't enticed to watch. These people you're not getting to watch your show really want to believe your slogan, but are turned off by every promo Jeff Jarrett cuts on Kurt Angle mentioning that Jarrett, the administrator, signed Angle for ratings, by every time Bully Ray references "the boys in the back" or out-of-character respect when talking on the mic and every time Sting says he needs to keep his title because it gives him "stroke".

While reality TV is still all the rage, the wrestling fan - and believe me, there are still a ton of them left, whether active or in remission - doesn't really subscribe to the theory that wrestling is the original reality programming. Either they're super young and still subscribe to the theory of kayfabe, sweet, lovable kayfabe, or they're our age and watch for the theater, to forget about real life problems and just watch two (or more) guys pretend to wail on each other and then talk about wailing on each other in between wailing on each other. Dragging in legit, real life problems into the fray counteracts that. I mean, you don't go to a Broadway play to see the star talk shit about her costar for stuff that happens off-script. I'm sure if that happened, you'd have a big stink. But hey, it worked in wrestling in the '90s. Okay. Traditional kayfabe? It's worked in wrestling for almost, if not over, a century. I'll take that track record over the track record of something that fizzled out within 5 years of beginning.

Again, you guys have talent on the roster. They're either bogged down by having to put Bischoff over or they're shunted to once-a-month status because God forbid we don't give Hulk Hogan 4 segments to lumber around and say "brother" like it hasn't already gone out of style. The emphasis is all wrong. If your wrestlers weren't forced to act like ZOMG SHOOTZ all the time, maybe some stories would organically get over. Maybe if the emphasis was taken off authority figures and onto real wrestlers, then wrestling might matter. The formula doesn't work.

I don't have high hopes for Impact the next two weeks. Excepting Austin Aries wrestling tonight, I'm not sure there's going to be a whole lot of must see TV for me. Quite frankly, I'm not really excited for the future after next week either, because the same people are still going to be in charge. But if you wake up, smell the coffee and realize that a change will do you good, maybe the future won't be so bleak. Maybe there'll come a time when I look forward to watching Impact, either first-run or on my DVR.

But that'll only happen if you at least pretend you give a shit about restoring the magic. Please, for my sake, for the sake of fans who want you to succeed... give a shit about restoring the magic.

1 - Strong relative to everything else on TNT at that point, not strong compared to WCW's peak or the numbers the WWF was pulling.

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!