The War Report: Where's The Magic?

Welcome, one and all, to a new edition of the War Report.  I’m your host The General, and this article is going to be about WWE.  I know some people want more TNA articles... but I can’t say I know enough about it to be able to write knowledgably, particularly on the topic I want to cover today.  TNA is a wrestling show, WWE is a wrestling-entertainment show.  That’s what I want to talk about, entertainment within the WWE, and a certain level of hypocrisy that comes from it.

The reason I say hypocrisy is that the WWE, despite being more entertainment-focused than ever, has lost every superstar that had a bit of magic about them, barring of course The Undertaker.  If at some point in your wrestling-watching life you haven’t cheered (at the very least on the inside) when The Undertaker sits up after a move that would keep a normal man down for at least a long 2-count, then I’d have to accuse you of having no soul.  It’s those moments of magic that make things entertaining, and although some people who are reading this will disagree I’m sure, the WWE shouldn’t be expected to be all about REAL wrestling.  The WWE certainly agrees with me.  Entertainment is more important to the WWE than wrestling, and rightly so!  If you’re watching a great wrestling match then you’re going to be entertained, if you watched the likes of Angle – Styles for the TNA fans, or Jericho – Mysterio from their feud last year, then you’ll agree that regardless of who you were cheering for, those matches were entertaining.  And therein lies the problem for the WWE.  Not every superstar they have on the roster is capable of putting on the standard of match that will keep you at the edge of your seat, but there’s an obvious solution!

Now, before I give you that solution, I’m going to give a quick list of the wrestlers that really need something to get them going, just because they’re not main event quality and probably never will be.  It’s guys like Yoshi Tatsu (who’s completely disappeared since being pretty popular on ECW and is now a RAW dark-match wrestler), Shad, JTG (should never have split as a tag team), Archer, Hawkins, Ryder, Chavo... even Kane and MVP could do with a spark.

That brings me to the solution... the gimmick.  A hook.  Kane just isn’t the monster he used to be, ever since he lost his mask following his loss to Triple H in 2003 (that’s right, it’s been 7 years since he’s been scary).  When I say a gimmick, I of course mean something that turns him from just being a big wrestler, like Archer or Eli Cottonwood, into a machine, a monster.  Not something cheap and tacky, like Kizarny (if you don’t remember him... I don’t blame you, but he beat MVP once) but something that heightens what he already has at his disposal.  Sure, Kane still looks like he could do some damage, particularly in this current storyline, but no more damage than a mere mortal.  After all, this is a man who ran from The Great Khali not so long ago.

Chavo is another man who could EASILY fit into a gimmick, channelling Eddie Guerrero’s ‘lie, cheat, steal’ type actions.  If he’s willing to job to Hornswoggle, he’s clearly lost most of his respect for the family name, much like Vickie, who seems to be more hated by the second.  Those boos for her aren’t because she’s getting heat from the crowd, it’s because nobody wants to see her on screen or hear her voice.  There’s a difference between someone who will make you turn off the TV and an effective heel presence... surely they know that by now?  But back to Chavo... taking his uncle’s gimmick I don’t think would be doing a disservice to his memory, provided he still believes he has the ability to back it up.  Who wouldn’t want to see him crack someone over the head with a chair while the referee’s back is turned, then play dead?  Not only would this keep Eddie’s memory alive for us all... but it’s very, very entertaining.

Yoshi Tatsu – the PG era’s Tajiri.  I’d love to see him use the green mist, particularly since it’s not a Tajiri-specific signature.  The mist I believe was first made popular by Japanese legend The Great Muta... and I see no reason why Tatsu couldn’t take over this as part of his move set.  Tajiri was able to use this illegal move and remain a face, after all.  Tatsu needs air time more than anything, as his popularity has plummeted since ECW.

Those three are just a few ideas I wanted to throw out there as easy solutions to bring back what the WWE has been missing.  The releases of The Boogeyman and The Hurricane have removed any sense of the surreal from the WWE, and if they’re looking for an easy, PG-friendly way to ENTERTAIN people, then surely that’s the type of thing they should want?  Clearly not those characters... it’s difficult to have a superhero who’s been behind bars, and The Boogeyman clearly had a lot of things going on in the background – I’m still not sure whether he’s been seen since his disappearance, but good luck to him.  Those were the characters that made things more interesting to me, in the matches that I didn’t care about.  I’d be much more interested in watching a JTG match if I thought at any time a version of The Boogeyman could come out and make things interesting.

This is the point I’m trying to make, in an era in the WWE where doing anything hardcore is off-limits (Bryan Danielson was fired for either spitting or choking someone with a tie) then you need to go the other way to be able to make feuds.  There are only so many times when you can have the ‘my partner’s holding me back’ or the ‘I just don’t like you’ or the ‘we’re doing this to get noticed’ feuds before people get bored of them.  I know I am.  Nexus is holding my interest because they’re unknown quantities for the most part, Sheffield and Tarver were the first to leave and I’m interested to see how they’ll develop.  So that means the WWE should be delving into the ridiculous, the sublime, the surreal, to keep things fresh and interesting.  I’ve already pointed out that Kizarny was doomed from the start.  I mean seriously, they thought a carny gimmick would get over with the fans?  The number of packages the guy had at the time... and not one of them would have been well received.

This is the problem the WWE has had in marketing their upcoming superstars.  Someone like Eric Escobar, someone who performed well as FCW champion by all accounts for a long time, was released because creative had nothing for them.  They gave Tyler Reks a surfer gimmick... the guy looked like he had something going for him, he’s a big, athletic guy who can pull off a springboard dropkick despite being 6’ 3”.  As a surfer he’s a nobody.  Who enters a feud with a surfer?

What’s popular these days?  Vampires.  Werewolves.  Wizards.  Unlikely superheroes.  Actual superheroes.  Alright, so they’re not ALL to people’s tastes, but I can see a way to fit every one of those into the WWE.  Kevin Thorn and Gangrel have already done the vampire thing, it works just fine, particularly if you want to throw someone in there with a Van Helsing type gimmick.  Werewolves... you don’t have to be dressed up as a wolf, but give someone with chest/back hair the appearance of slightly yellowed teeth and long nails, along with a series of hints backstage around full moon, and you have yourself a werewolf character.  Feud with a vampire?  Stick Kate Beckinsale in and you’ve got Underworld (or Twilight if you’re a girl).

Admittedly, wizards is one that’s tough to get away with, but not impossible.  Superheroes, particularly unlikely ones, would be one branch of things they could really expand on.  Imagine Santino as the sidekick and you’re onto something entertaining already.  Once again, please allow for tastes... On the off chance Eli Cottonwood performs brilliantly in NXT, I could see him being a great villain for a superhero to have to fight.  We’ve seen Spiderman compete in a ring in the film, it’s not impossible...  I think my favourite idea, of the ones I’ve come up with in the past few minutes, has been that of the fallen hero.  The Hancock type.  A superhero fallen from grace.  Someone who would legitimately start at the bottom of the organisation, and have to work his way up, and as he progresses his powers return.  In essence all you’d have is a normal superstar, with a normal body, just give him a change of clothes and give him the Cena effect, allow him to suddenly get a burst of energy, perform five moves of doom (or similar, if they fancy giving the job to someone who can actually wrestle) or Hulk up.

The point about the superhero gimmick is that there are SO many storylines that can possibly come from it.  Whether it’s the ‘damsel in distress’, finding a partner, having a kryptonite, having a heel turn when the hero gets too full of himself, everything you see in the movies... you can put that in the wrestling ring with someone capable of pulling off the look and having a few moves, preferably someone who’s stronger than they look.  So the internet might not like something like that... but I think the WWE Universe as a whole would respond well.  I’d like a bit of magic, rather than see Zack Ryder vs. MVP end with a clean win for MVP because he’s the one getting a push right now.  It’s got to the stage where even someone like me, who’s not looking for the politics in who’s getting a win and who’s taking a loss, can see every bit of the machine turning in each match.  I hate being able to see when someone’s going to win a match by an interference DQ because it’s two faces who are receiving a push in the ring at the same time.  I hate being able to tell that Cena’s going to be worn down for the entire match and then stand up and deliver his moves of doom... simply because he is just a man! 

When the Undertaker does it, I can believe it, because he has that magic about him.  When The Hurricane chokeslammed much bigger opponents, I didn’t think much of it, beyond it being entertaining, because I wasn’t looking to be anything other than entertained.  So I implore the WWE... bring back the magic.  Bring back the masks that add that little bit of extra menace, or darkness to a character.  Bring back the surreal.  Bring back the impossible.  Bring all of these things back, because they’re entertaining!

In the non-PG days, it was possible for a non-gimmick roster to entertain, because they had more scope to act like real people.  In this era, you couldn’t have Batista telling people they’d have to kill him to get the title off him.  You couldn’t have Stone Cold giving Vince the finger before he Stunnered him.  You couldn’t have The Rock talking about The People’s Strudel to Lillian Garcia.  Don’t get me started on what the Divas aren’t allowed to do...

All of those things could happen, because they were acting like they would in a real situation.  Now they have to be repressed beyond the point of being anything like a real person, so why not take it that extra step to inject the entertainment in World Wrestling Entertainment?

I’ve been The General, over and out.

Discuss it on the wrestling forum

Comments

1. Comment #1

   You make a good point...

   Posted by Mike, the man with no name... on Wednesday, July 07, 2010

2. Comment #2

   i agree a lil but some of the gimmicks u said are a lil cheesy or tacky

   Posted by austin on Saturday, July 10, 2010

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