The Rant Of The Week: Total Desperation

Greetings conversationalists all across the fruited plain, it is I your personal Harvester of Sorrow the one and only Phantom Lord and this is the all mighty Rant Of The Week. As always I am coming to you from my above ground bunker in the rotten apple that is Brooklyn, New York. I must say the heat seems to be getting worse this summer if that is all possible. To make things even more fun, Mother Nature is screwing with the New York City area. There have been many big thunderstorms over the last couple of weeks and 95% of them some how managed to miss the city all together. But I am making the most of what I have to keep cool. I do my part for the city’s way over burdened electrical grid and I keep my AC off during the day.

Now you might be asking yourself what the heck does any of this have to do with what’s going on in the WWE or TNA? Well nothing really. This is my column and I just like to blow off some steam in the opening tirade. Besides with the headache that is TNA it’s best I release my built up anger in small doses rather then go thermonuclear all at once. Though there is a good chance that might happen especially with this “ECW but we can’t call it ECW” invasion they are doing.

But before I get to that there is some other stuff of interest going on in the world of wrestling.

In an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, former wrestling champion Bill Goldberg said he wants one final wrestling match because he wants his family to see him wrestle live. "If the money was right, I'd go out there and do it in two seconds," Goldberg said. "I'd have to be totally prepared for it, because I wouldn't want to tarnish my image, but I'd like to be in the ring one more time so that my wife and my son can see me wrestle live." He also discussed his love/hate relationship with the wrestling industry in the interview. "I don't ever want to say that I miss anything about the wrestling business," Goldberg said. "I miss the ability to put a smile on a kid's face, more than one at a time. That was a true charge for me."
Credit to NoDQ for posting this

I have to admit that I did laugh when I read, “I don’t want to tarnish my image”. What image would that exactly be Bill? The one where you were so sloppy in the ring that you destroyed the career of Bret Hart in an instant? Well at least he isn’t bullshitting anyone when he says he’d only do it for the money. To be honest I’d love to see Goldberg come back and spear some people but I doubt it will ever happen. McMahon probably wouldn’t give Goldberg the absurd amount of money he thinks he’s worth. And TNA couldn’t afford what Goldberg thinks he’s worth. Some Japanese promotion probably would shell out a close to seven figure deal for him though so if Goldberg ever wrestled again odds are it would be in Japan before anywhere else in the world.

Maybe Bill should finally try his hand at MMA. Who wouldn’t love to see Goldberg vs. Batista? He could easily get a shit load of money from Strikeforce for that train wreck. It would be way better then the possible Batista/Lashley match in the future if Batista takes the MMA plunge. Though part of me wants to see Goldberg vs. Cena at Wrestlemania. Say it happened next year in Atlanta. The old WCW faithful would boo Cena and his wannabe jarhead act right out of the Georgia Dome if he were facing Goldberg. While a Japanese promotion could easily give Goldberg the money he wants, Goldberg vs. Cena would do an insane buyrate. It would probably be worth the $54.95 to see Goldberg spear the fuck out of Cena and then Jackhammer him. That wouldn’t happen, but it would be fun to see.

Speaking of Cena, there are rumors on the Internet that the WWE might finally be willing to turn him heel. Only instead of him going heel in the way we want him to (i.e. ripping on everyone for turning on him when he went all corporate) it would be him being revealed to be the leader of The Nexus. Now Nexus is doing pretty well for it self right now so I don’t see how Cena being the mastermind behind it all would exactly work.

For Summerslam Cena has put together a team of guys to take on The Nexus. It’s going to be him, Jericho, Edge, Morrison, Truth, Khali, and Bret Hart as the final man on the team. Most people think Ricky Steamboat would have been the final man had he not suffered a burst capillary on his brain (the WWE still refuses to admit it was probably one of the moves he took in the Nexus beating that caused it). I think it’s fairly obvious that they are setting up for a huge swerve in this match where the real Nexus leader will be revealed. Bret Hart makes the most logical sense for him to be the one leading them. Bret held a grudge for all those years. You really didn’t think him beating the piss out of Vince would be the end of it. Of course a lot can happen between now and then. We all know how Vince has his mood swings and what was written in stone ends up getting torn up and they start over from scratch.

Congratulations go out to Bret Hart as he tied the knot for the third time over the weekend as he married a 27-year-old woman by the name of Stephanie Washington of San Francisco. Bret’s had a lot of up’s and down’s over the last decade and he’s come back from every last one of them. So as a life long fan of The Hitman I can only wish the happy couple all the best. What ever happens at Summerslam it should be interesting to see Bret’s involvement in the match since it’s now a 7 on 7 Elimination match. I’m going to guess it will come down to Bret and Cena vs. The Nexus since Cena will no doubt try to over come the odds. I’ll be the happiest person in the world if Bret kicks Cena in the balls and then locks on the Sharpshooter after The Nexus have beaten him silly.

The only other interesting match at the moment that has been announced for Summerslam is Sheamus vs. Randy Orton. Orton has been on FIRE lately as the crowds are going apeshit for him. The RKO was always a cool move, but now it’s really the new Stone Cold Stunner. It can come out of nowhere and when he hits it everyone goes insane. I’m really torn on whom to support in this match because on the one hand Orton is great. But on the other so is Sheamus. I just love it when he calls people FELLA. The X factor in this match is how The Miz will be involved as for the last two weeks he’s been itching to cash in his MITB briefcase only for it to be foiled each time.

If you said a few years ago that The Miz would be a potential WWE Champion I think everyone would have said you are crazy. Now he’s a cashing in moment away from that happening. There was a report that The Miz is in the good graces of those who matter in the WWE because he has been doing everything John Cena did to get where he is now. Basically The Miz makes every corporate appearance he can for the WWE, does a lot of publicity, and kisses the ass of the right people. Hey I’m not going to complain about that because The Miz really is a Goldmine waiting to be tapped so I am glad he is getting this chance to shine. It would be awesome if The Miz cashed at Summerslam but I think it depends on who wins the match. If Sheamus some how beats Orton it’s got to be almost a lock that The Miz will finally cash in and win the title. If he cashes in on Orton he’ll be the first person to lose when cashing in. Either way it should be fun to see what happens.

Over on Smackdown Kane is finally having a long over due run as World Champion. While the whole “who attacked the Undertaker” story is getting a bit silly since it’s obvious Kane is going to say “IT WAS ME” at some point, I’m glad Kane shocked the world and won MITB. Honestly with Kane in that match I figured he would come close but end up losing to Drew McIntyre. It was fun to see him cash in on Rey Mysterio later that night. Kane has been around for so long and he’s always been one of the most reliable guys in the WWE. So to see him finally get a real run as champion is great. Plus Kane is a fighting Libertarian. He was on Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano on Fox Business over the weekend. I think it honestly shocks people how intelligent he is. Outside of wrestling, Kane has been blogging under the name of Citizen X for a while. Kane really has come a long way from being that guy with the stupid voice box. I just hope he gets a lengthy title run.

Check out http://www.adventuresofcitizenx.com

Of course Kane’s title run hinges on how long The Undertaker is out of action. When I said the whole who attacked The Undertaker story was silly, I was really referring to the whole “vegetative state” part of it. In the real world the longer one is in a vegetative state the less hope there is for that person to come out of it. It will be amusing if it does come out that Kane did it all along. I’d love to see Matt Striker explain how Kane was the Claus Von Bulow of the WWE. It’s going to be dumb when it happens but it should be at least amusing to watch. Personally I’m holding out hope for The Biker Taker coming back but I doubt he will.

Moving along to TNA, right now they are doing an ECW invasion because apparently the corpse of ECW still had a little bit of blood to be sucked out of it. As a fan watching TNA do an ECW invasion is really maddening to watch. TNA first off is dancing a fine legal line because the WWE owns all the trademarks and copyrights for ECW so TNA can’t even use the name ECW. I’m sure Vince if he wanted he could file a cease and desist the week before the PPV but right now I don’t think they really care enough to do so. TNA really is that person who exists just in the hope they can get the cool persons attention but they never do. So here they are being a full blown nostalgia promotion and don’t get me wrong, I love nostalgia as much as the next person. But like so many classic rock bands who still record great new music I would rather see Tommy Dreamer, Raven, and the others do something new then just take an easy paycheck and rehash something that’s been rehashed all ready.

Apparently Tommy Dreamer is booking this whole thing and I’ll give Tommy some credit. Despite all the bullshit he still cuts some of the best baby face promos. After watching Tommy break down on Impact and do a really good Glenn Beck impersonation, despite all my reservations for why this is such a horrible idea the fan in me was like GO GET EM TOMMY. I can’t explain it but for probably many others and me Tommy has this ability to connect on a personal level with the fans. If you are a fan of his you want to see him overcome the odds. Tommy can take a beating better then anyone else and he can just draw you into the match as you root for him. That’s what wrestling needs. It needs people you can get behind to root for. But this whole ECW thing is just such a bad sign of desperation on TNA’s part. I hope it’s somewhat of a success for TNA because if it is then maybe Tommy can do some more booking on the show. Some people shit on Tommy’s booking abilities based on his stint in OVW. I never saw that stuff but you know what…what TNA is doing now is not working. It hasn’t been working for a long time now. A desperate change is needed and I’d rather see Tommy get a shot then them just stay with what they are doing now.

I know it will never happen and Dixie is as stubborn as Vince McMahon. But one can hope and dream. TNA landing Paul Heyman will probably not happen because Dixie refuses to give Heyman the power to fire people from the last reports on the situation. Now maybe something has changed between then and now, but at the moment it looks like the messiah of extreme won’t be crossing the line.

Hey that was a nice one liner. I do surprise myself sometimes.

Heyman was right in his criticism of TNA in that their biggest problem is not creative but the fact no one knows whom the hell they are. Look at TNA’s buyrates. Allegedly the last few ppv’s have been doing UNDER 10,000 buys. Apparently things are so bad that there isn’t even that many people bothering to stream them for free. I think that should be huge alarm bells that if people can’t even be bothered to basically steal the broadcast that it tells you what the interest level in the product really is.

TNA’s Nielsen ratings are usually between 0.9 and 1.15 give or take. About one and a half million people watch Impact every week. For a network like Spike that’s actually a pretty respectable number. But the problem is TNA gives people no reason what so ever to want to fork over $34.95 for a PPV. They give everything away for free on television and when they do that they don’t even bother hyping it. If the numbers are correct then this means less the 1% of the TNA viewing audience bothers to order a TNA PPV.

Dixie and company must be certifiably insane or perhaps on drugs or both if they think their current business model is a good one. It really is like a broken record because a lot of us on the net have been saying this stuff over and over and over and over and over and BAH GAWD OVER. But the people in charge of TNA are content in continuing to drive the company right into the ground. Sure they do something’s right, but most of it is just so idiotic.

Take for example this “PPV Quality TV Special” planned for the Impact after the Hardcore Justice PPV on August 8th.

According to prowrestling.net, there are plans to tape a special edition of TNA Impact the night after the Hardcore Justice PPV. Essentially, the idea is that it will be a "free PPV" event. The working title is "The Whole Fn' Show" and all the matches will be PPV-quality with no storylines/skits.

You really can’t make this sort of stuff up when it comes to TNA.

WHAT IS THE FUCKING POINT OF DOING A PPV IF YOU ARE GOING TO ESSENTIALLY DO ONE FOR FREE A COUPLE OF NIGHTS LATER???

The best part about this mess is this show will be headlined by RVD vs. Abyss in a “Stairway To Janet” match. In case you’ve missed it, over the last month or so Abyss has been carrying around a 2x4 covered in nails that he calls Janet. So far Janet has lost to the ring canvas, the turnbuckles, and a side of beef. It’s basically the old Stairway to Hell match from ECW. I really hate Abyss right now. There was a time when it could be argued he was actually one of the best big men in wrestling. Now he’s a fucking parody of a joke. I really hope Abyss loses this match so he can just go far far FAR away. Abyss being this gigantic psycho retard is just horrible and the whole Janice think makes him look even more stupid if that is even possible.

I just still can’t believe they are doing this show a couple of days after the PPV. Granted it could be a test run for possible Clash Of The Champions shows in the future but like they say, timing is everything and this timing just sucks. The one thing that annoys me about this TNA ECW thing is it is doing NOTHING to build up people in TNA. The good thing about ECW was you would always get a couple of show case matches on the card. Where the hell is that for this show? Why isn’t Samoa Joe who is clearly the new Taz on this show? Why isn’t Homicide who clearly would be the new New Jack on it? If Sabu were on the show I’d love to see him take on Jeff Hardy. I’m glad some of the old ECW guys are getting a much-needed paycheck but Jesus you could easily do some ECW/TNA matches here.

See it’s stuff like this I’m sure they didn’t even think about. Well I’m sure they thought about it but someone probably said it wouldn’t work so they said the hell with it.

Dixie seriously. What ever Paul Heyman wants I can do it for half the price and I can do it a hell of a lot quicker. TNA has my contact information buried somewhere so I’m just putting it out there in case this doesn’t work.

There is a lot of stuff I am not covering simply because it hasn’t aired yet. I really wish TNA would move to doing shows live on Thursday nights. I know a lot of people probably base their decision to watch TNA solely on how the spoilers look.

Well the wrestling fan part of my brain is willing to give all of this a chance. But the cynical jilted part of it is realistic and odds are this might be a disaster. The only match announced at the moment for the PPV is RVD vs. Jerry Lynn in a non-title bout. That should at least be a good match because Jerry can still go and RVD always had some of his best matches against him. Apparently TNA will be announcing on the website after Impact some of the names that will be on the show. It’s not like that should be on television or anything.

I mean seriously could you imagine the WWE even for a weak PPV telling people “oh by the way go to WWE.com to find out who’s going to be on this thing…”. It would NEVER happen. The Internet is a good marketing tool but it’s nothing compared to the power of television. And they wonder why no one bothers to order the PPV’s. Paul if you do get an offer you cannot refuse you really have your work cut out for you to clean up this mess.

On that note I think I am done for this week. I’m a depressed enough person as it is and thinking about TNA honestly depresses me even more.

Before I go I want to share a link with you my loyal readers. My friend Trin has a page on the art site RedBubble. http://www.redbubble.com/people/rushingtide

She is an amazing writer and artist with photography and photo manipulation. She has some amazing art pieces for sale on this site, so maybe if you see something you think is really cool then place an order. I personally bought a copy of her piece called “Bleeding Me”. Metallica song titles are a recurring theme in her art pieces. You can’t go wrong with that.

So until next time remember someone has to give you this information and it DAMN well has got to be

You can click here to send me any and all feedback at phantomlordnyc@yahoo.com or leave me some feedback on my Facebook page under my given name http://www.facebook.com/josephrd