The Rant Of The Week: Action Soap Opera

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 often imitated but not quite duplicated Rant Of The Week. As always I am coming to you from my bunker in the urban slum that is Brooklyn, New York and I have to say I am going back and forth on this decision to retire from column writing. Writing these rants has provided a nice outlet for me to unleash years of built up anger that I’ve suppressed deep down within me. I just don’t know if I am ready to give that up yet. As a budding screen writer it also helps to just keep writing to keep the gears turning so to speak. I guess ultimately it will come down to my mood and energy levels. If college takes too much of a toll on me I will call it quits, but for now the light at the end of the tunnel is a far way’s off.

As I sit here and type this on a damp and stormy night I think about the news of the death of Larry Sweeney at the age of 29 a week ago. As someone who battles depression I know the feeling of the lows where you feel life is not worth living. Larry Sweeney by all accounts was probably the one guy on the Indy’s who could have been the next big thing if he got the chance. In a career that was only half a decade long, Sweeney became a hot young star that was a throw back to the good old days of wrestling. As an old school heel in the ring and as a swarmy asshole manager outside, Sweeney was tipped for stardom if he got the chance. Sadly this was not to be and Larry will be remembered for the wealth of material he left behind in his short career. Larry will have a legacy where he influences a whole new crop of managers on the Indy scene.



I can only hope whatever pain and suffering he was going through is now over and he is in a better place.

If you are looking for a great tribute to Larry, check out the tribute done by KAF Productions (www.kafproductions.org) by clicking on the link below

http://youtu.be/9JkDjUZEySo

I honestly don’t know how to move onto another topic in a proper way so…. yeah.

As you’ve probably heard by now the WWE is no longer a “wrestling” company. They have rebranded themselves as a Global Media Conglomerate. You see there are Universal, News Corp, Disney, and now WWE. The word wrestling is now gone from the title much like chicken is gone from KFC. Yeah wrestling is still part of the company, but it’s only a small portion of the overall brand.

I know I know this is all quite amusing. But Vince is dead serious about making himself the new Rupert Murdoch. You know I can see the similarities between the two. Vince is trying to start the WWE network. Rupert started Fox in the mid 80’s. Both are generally hated by everyone but still respected. Vince has quite the way to go if he wants to become Rupert Murdoch. Perhaps he sees himself more as a Michael Eisner then Rupert Murdoch. Either way I don’t think this rebranding is going to work for one small reason.



See that? It’s called a wrestling ring. Inside the ring they have grapping contests that are traditionally referred to as “wrestling”. Now I know wrestling is a dirty word in McMahon land, but no amount of rebranding will change the fact that the WWE is a WRESTLING company.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for the WWE trying to reach new limits and bounds for their product. It’s just you can’t proclaim to be the top promotion in the land and be embarrassed by being just a lowly wrestling company. The problem is no matter what the WWE does they will always be a wrestling company. Hell most non-wrestling fans still call all wrestling “WWF”. You have to work within your limits. I think the XFL could have actually succeeded had it not been seen as just an extension of the WWF. If McMahon were a silent partner then maybe it would have worked. But as we saw it was all about Vince and you damn well know if this network ever gets off the ground the first thing we’ll see is Vince in all his glory talking about how he’s created the next great evolution in entertainment.

Speaking of entertainment, apparently this memo to the WWE’s foreign broadcasters was leaked earlier this weak and published by www.f4wonline.com

If you listen to WWE broadcasts then you know how there are buzzwords that all the announcers have to use while calling matches. If you live in France or Germany and here the following over and over, now you know why.

BANNED: Catch, Wrestling
APPROVED: WWE

BANNED: Catchers, Wrestlers
APPROVED: WWE Superstars

BANNED: Sports
APPROVED: Entertainment or Action Soap Opera

BANNED: Athletes, Sportsmen
APPROVED: "Entertainers with tremendous athletic prowess"

BANNED: Fight
APPROVED: Match, Bout

BANNED: Fighting
APPROVED: Action

Also, the memo has three "key soundbites" for voiceovers to communicate:

1) WWE is pure entertainment.
2) WWE is an action soap opera.
3) WWE Superstars are entertainers with tremendous athletic prowess

With the last three I can just see Vince yelling and screaming at some meeting for everyone to emphasize all of that.

ITS ENTERTAINMENT DAMN IT.

If the WWE is a soap opera then they have a hell of a lot of work to do. This week as you know, the schmuck who runs ABC Daytime made the decision to cancel All My Children and One Life To Live. Now I will admit I am an avid viewer of One Life To Live. I have it set on my DVR.

The WWE has had plenty of soap opera stories over the years, but none of them really matched up to a real soap opera storyline. Most of the good angles they have done usually get cut short because either it didn’t get over how they wanted or someone in a position of power sabotaged it for their own personal reasons. Vince apparently said that the WWE is looking to acquire other brands of entertainment. Well I have a freebie for you guys. If you want to get the WWE network up and running, buy One Life To Live and All My Children. If you have $70 million that you are willing to spend, why not spend it on something that will bring guaranteed viewers to the network.

It’s just a thought.

I brought up the soap opera thing because the WWE have hired an actual writer who is actually successful.

Emmy winning TV writer Tom Cassielo confirmed on his Twitter that he has been hired WWE to work on their creative team. Cassielo has worked on various soap operas in the past including Days of Our Lives and The Young & The Restless.

I’m not sure what he exactly wrote on Days Of Our Lives, but if you have an Emmy that brings instant credibility to your body of work. Now I don’t expect there to be pregnancy angles with multiple fathers. But the WWE could stand to have a super villain in the realm of Stefano Dimera. Hell Mr. McMahon was the WWE’s version of Victor Newman.

Of course how long Mr. Cassielo lasts in the WWE is a whole other issue. If you’ve heard the horror stories of what it’s like to work for Vince McMahon then you’ll understand why.

The WWE just isn’t a place where creativity is embraced. I mean if it were I would have a lot less to write about. Sure creative things do happen, but for the most part the far more interesting things always get stifled before they can even begin. Basically the way it’s been described by former WWE writers like Paul Heyman, Dave Lagana, Court Bauer, and others is writing for the WWE is like negotiating a mine field. You never know what’s going to happen next thanks to Vince’s mood swings.

While writers for sitcoms, drama’s, soap’s, ect might last on a successful show for years…a WWE writer is considered lucky if they last weeks or months. They are probably considered blessed if they make it to years. The WWE is a machine that grinds people down and spits them out. You have to tip toe around the minefields to make sure not to upset the wrong people.

Matthew Randazzo V in the July 2008 issue of Powerslam Magazine wrote the following.

New writers learn that a creative team survivor is a writer who understands that the McMahon family's faith in their employees is fickle, and impossible to restore when lost. The key to survival is simple: caution, caution, caution. Always agree with the McMahon’s and their favorites, relentlessly curry their approval, never draw attention to yourself, never complain and never take a bold or risky step because a single stumble can be fatal.

Say a prayer for Tom Cassielo. He’s going to need it.

Earlier I was listening to The Honky Tonk Man’s Internet radio show and he was scoffing at the notion of a soap writer being hired. He said, “If he’s a soap writer he should go write soaps”. Normally I am inclined to agree with Honky, but the guy has an Emmy so automatically that makes him better then a lot of the “Hollywood” types the WWE has hired in the past. Besides we all know that in the end you could have a dream team of wrestling writers in the WWE but the buck stops with Vince McMahon. He decides the direction so if Vince wants to make the WWE an “Action Soap Opera” then you might as well have an actual soap writer who was successful as part of the machine.

Honky’s show on HTMRadio.com is pretty good to listen to and Honky is great with all the pot shots he was taking at Hulk Hogan and TNA. Honky claims to have a “high ranking TNA official” feeding him some scoops that have been pretty great to listen to so far. TNA really is the gift that keeps on giving and as long as Panda Energy keeps on funding them, there will be a wealth of material for the IWC.

Of course the only downside to TNA continuing to be in business is that watching TNA tends to suck the life right out of you. I should know. I mean why else is it taking me a month now to do a follow up to an f’n column.

TNA continues to suck the life out of me as I watch it. I see glimmers of hope every now and then but they almost always find a way to make me want to throw my remote at the television.

Apparently Janice Carter is now in control of TNA since Dixie couldn’t handle things and everything is on the table to try and salvage the sinking ship. They might be changing the name of TNA at some point because of a rebranding to emphasize that they are a wrestling company. Janice also doesn’t like all these old guys and has specifically ordered Ric Flair to not take his shirt off on television because “its disgusting”. So of course at the ppv the other night Flair was stripped out of his shirt and pants and looked like a bloody and battered leathery corpse.

Oddly enough Flair was way more over then anyone else on the card. God bless him but people just love Nat’ch and we can never hate him. We can feel sorry for him as he continues to destroy his legacy (but three alimony’s at 62 will do that to you). After seeing him in the Lockdown match, there is money to be made off a Ric Flair/James Storm feud. Now I know making money is a foreign concept to TNA. But the little interaction they had with Flair begging not to be hit with the bottle was one of the funniest things I’ve seen Flair do in ages. Crazy Ric Flair and Drunken James Storm would write it self. There’s so much wacky sports entertainment one could do with them just by putting them in a bar.

As much as people love Robert Roode, for me personally I’ve always thought Storm could easily be a main eventer. If there is a TNA original that deserves a singles run it’s Storm. Now whether he wants it or not is a whole other issue. I believe I read somewhere that Storm is happy as a tag wrestler. Of course this is TNA so it’s not like they would even use him right anyway.

TNA has had so many good things just land in their laps and they always screw it up. Remember Jay Lethal? Remember when he beat Ric Flair and finally looked like he would be moving up in the world? Yeah that didn’t last too long did it. Still pisses me off how they completely dropped the ball with Jay Lethal.

TNA’s biggest problem to combat with any potential rebranding is they have to work on the fact no one outside the loyal fan base knows they exist. If TNA is going to somehow pull off a major miracle and rebrand itself as a “wrestling company” they need to seriously get some people know how to market before they do anything else.

While I’m on the subject of TNA I feel I must speak as a fan after seeing Kurt Angle almost kill himself on a PPV that almost no one saw.

For those of you who didn’t see the ULTRA MALE RULES (what ever the fuck that is) match with Jeff Jarrett, in the third fall they decided to go all out and at one point Kurt was on the top rope with Jeff and he decided why not go for a Super Frankensteiner. A move that under of the best of circumstances is difficult to pull off. Somewhere in mid flight it was either supposed to be countered into a Superbomb or Kurt just didn’t get the right rotation. Either way he practically landed on his head. Of course TNA’s crack production team had a horrible shot to begin with so I thought I saw Kurt Angle die upon impact. Replays showed it was not as horrifying as I thought I saw, but never the less it was highly insane. Then no more then a minute or two later Kurt is up on the top of the cage trying to escape and since his escape is being thwarted by Gunner, Kurt decides to say a prayer and then go for his Hail Mar Moonsalt and he completely misses Jarrett on the bottom.

Basically he did a giant belly flop into the proverbial empty pool.

Kurt I’ve been a fan of yours since you debuted in the WWF in 1999. I know your neck is held together by bubble gum and chicken wire. Why in God’s name do you continue to wrestle such a high-risk style for a company that is not deserving of it? Look at Rob Van Dam. He’s capable of putting on show stealing matches every single night. Does he? Hell no. He does the bare minimum and phones it in. Look at Sting. Sting despite what people say can still wrestle at a very high level. But he realizes he’s at a point in his career where he doesn’t have to bust his ass.

Kurt I think I speak for most fans when I say please slow down. We want to see Kurt Angle in twenty years being able to walk. Just phone it in like everyone else does. Until TNA starts acting like a real wrestling company it is not worth killing yourself in the hopes of a couple hundred extra buys on PPV or DVD.

Edge just had to retire because of his neck being all FUBAR. I can only imagine what your neck must be like. I do not want to see you end up like Mitsuharu Misawa where that wrong suplex ends up killing you. Yes what happened to him was by all accounts a fluke accident, but it’s a risk we as fans would rather not see you take.

You are an Olympic Gold medal winner. As a wrestling fan I’d rather see you stick to the ground and submission game then doing the insane shit. So please Kurt no more super frankensteiners and moonsalts into the empty pool.

On that note I am done for this week. I believe I have come to a decision about the future of this column. Due to the fact I don’t do this on a weekly or even bi-weekly basis I am going to retire the name The Rant Of The Week. I’m not going to go anywhere, but in its place will be The Phantom Rant.

What can I say other then I suck at titles. But I’m still using the pen name Phantom Lord and I rant better then everyone else so The Phantom Rant seems like a nice fit. Plus I signed up for a Blip.tv account and if I ever get around to doing it I’m going to have a vlog of sorts on there called The Phantom Rant so I’m covering my basis across the Interwebs.

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

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

The Rant Of The Week: Same Ol' Situation

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 Rant Of The Week. Maybe it’s high time I renamed this column because it’s officially bi-weekly at this point. Hell it’s been a month since my last column so maybe I should just drop the “Of The Week” part all together. I’m really at a crossroads as a column writer because much like the newspaper industry I see the writing on the wall for the future.

Now I started this column probably a week and a half ago but things just kept getting in the way. So I’ve come to the decision that I should retire from column writing. In the span that I had been trying to work on this column more then a few big stories came and went and it just doesn’t work when you have to keep editing and editing to make sure your column is as up to date as possible. Now I’m not going to announce my retirement and then keep coming back like Terry Funk. I also have no intentions of pulling a page out of the playbooks of KISS, The Rolling Stones, and numerous other bands. When I’m done I will be done with writing. I might move on to the aforementioned web cam stuff. I dabbled in podcasts a few years ago so I know how to do those. Like I said it’s just easier from a content standpoint to use a medium to put it up quickly rather then let it sit around and be outdated.

You might be asking yourself “what exactly has gotten Phantom to throw in the towel”.

Oh it was a lot of things, but one thing in particular made me realize I just can’t keep doing this anymore.



It was after I saw this I came to the conclusion that if I continued to write columns I would be writing the same thing over and over and over and over AND OVER AND OVER AND BY GOD OVER.

I’m sure we’ve all heard this quote from Albert Einstein because I think it sums up TNA in a nutshell.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

All I can say is Fuck Hulk Hogan. Seriously, Fuck him. I feel sorry for him with his back problems because you know back problems do suck. He had to really be bad off to have a spinal fusion done. But just because I feel sorry for Hogan doesn’t mean that translates to me wanting to see his old crippled ass on television. For someone who was saying how he wanted to “give back to the business” last year and how he would take TNA to the next level all he has done is kept them in the same damn spot. Hogan is very much like Verne Gange in the late 70’s and early 80’s. It’s all about him. Matter of fact if Hogan could do a leg drop with out fear of his plastic hip shattering you know damn well he would be TNA World Champion right now.

Now you know how I feel while writing these things. I’ve been saying the same things over and over for years about TNA and it’s always the same thing about TNA in the end. They take one step forward and a billion steps back. I just can’t take it anymore so I am done. I’ll do a proper farewell and then that will be that.

But until then there’s some of that wrestling stuff still going on so maybe for my own sanity I should focus on it.

Last week on RAW we saw the payoff to the 2-21-11 videos when The Undertaker was able to finally free himself from being entombed in the Buried Alive set and he made his grand return. I’m glad he was able to get out of that thing finally because no one helped him the night of the match. Poor guy would have been stuck in there until the next time they pulled that thing out of storage.

Oh I’m only kidding. Old Man Inc was in the repair shop for the last couple of months for his semi-annual tune up. Unfortunately for all of us the WWE couldn’t convince Sting to get off his lazy ass and do something worthwhile. So we all are going to be blessed with The Undertaker vs. Triple H at Wrestlemania 27. It’s no secret that Triple H is thinking about retiring so he can continue his ascension to the throne of the corporate side of the WWE (he is the son Vince never had after all). Not to say the match it self wouldn’t be good, it’s just the story behind it that is supposed to get lowly fans like me interested will suck. If they wanted to build interest for this then Triple H should have been the one to attack The Undertaker during the buried alive match a few months ago. Then you could have let it stew as to why Triple H would have done such a thing. This entire match means if it does happen is Wade Barrett who deserves a moment to shine is now S.O.L.

Speaking of Triple H wow did he ever bury not only the entire WWE roster but also Sheamus in one fell swoop. He’s not getting ready to retire. Hell he’s just getting warmed up. If he’s anything like Ric Flair we’re going to be seeing him still doing this shit leading into Wrestlemania 47 sometime in the year 2031. I’ll talk more about the WWE wanting to push new stars a little later, but when one of the top guys does something like this it’s a little hard for those new guys to get over. It’s a shame because Sheamus is so awesome and he deserves far better then this. I hope he gets sent to Smackdown where he can be far away from the glass ceiling with Cena and Triple H.

Wrestlemania 27 is at the moment looking like a rather weak card. As it is Vince is banking on the intrigue around The Rock and John Cena finally coming face to face. The main events for the card are The Miz defending against John Cena and Edge taking on Royal Rumble winner Alberto Del Rio for the World Heavyweight Championship. The only one of those matches I am interested in is Del Rio vs. Edge because the time is now for Del Rio.

I have been a fan of Edge’s since he came to the WWF back in 1998. But man if this is him winding down his career it’s going to be with a real whimper and thud. Since Edge can’t be Rated R and everything he was during his peak as a real sleazy asshole he has been so boring to watch character wise. Wrestling wise he’s still fine in the ring even if he’s just phoning it in. But Edge as a bland face is just boring as hell. This feud with Ziggler has been pretty meh to say the least. The matches have been fine; it’s just the story part of it that has sucked.

Don’t get me wrong I love Vickie Guerrero. People could take lessons from her on how to get hate from a crowd. But I just never could take Dolph Ziggler seriously because of well the name Dolph Ziggler. I get he’s supposed to be I guess the new Mr. Perfect (at least that’s what I get from the theme song). But as usual the WWE gives me no real reason to care about any of this stuff. I think the thing that killed Ziggler was when he kept coming up short for the Intercontinental title in 2009. That was really his time to shine and in typical WWE fashion they just didn’t have the balls to pull the trigger on him. Apparently Vince McMahon is all about pushing new stars now…at least according to the latest investor conference call. Of course to the WWE pushing new stars means putting them in high profile matches only to dick them around and make them look like shit for a year.

It’s really an odd thing. Basically the WWE figures if they take a young star and treat them like crap for long enough, by the time they are ready to give them the push they will know if they are loyal and will stay with the company thus worth the push to begin with. Personally if Ziggler stayed after being a member of The Spirit Squad where Triple H & SHAWN Michaels decimated them each and every week then odds are he will stick around for the long haul.

Personally I can’t figure out WWE booking when it comes to new stars. They have a bunch of guys who are ready for the next level and they refuse to do anything with them. Take John Morrison for example. There is no reason why this guy shouldn’t be at least a two-time former world champion by now. With the way the belt is thrown around sometimes you think he would have gotten at least a token run by now. There was the story about Vince basically not seeing John Morrison as a man because he let Batista get away with banging Melina with out fighting him. I’m sure there are a lot of pro wrestlers who pussies in real life…but what that has to do with their abilities in the ring and to draw money I have no idea. We’ve at least gotten something good with The Miz as WWE Champion. Miz is pretty much Rowdy Roddy Piper to John Cena’s Hulk Hogan. People do complain about Miz being booked weak and not actually winning matches on his own. People in my age bracket can remember that Roddy Piper during the height of his wars with Hogan never actually won a match. He almost always lost by countout or DQ. Only difference is back then feuds were stretched over the whole year and now they have to be condensed into a two-month cycle to fit into PPV schedules.

A lot of people breathed a sigh of relief when Jerry Lawler didn’t get a token WWE Championship win at the Elimination Chamber PPV. I am not one of them because I love The King and I would have liked to see him win the big one. In the world of the WWE, the King winning the AWA World Title in 1988 might doesn’t count as a big one. It’s just the company’s directive. If you ever played the last few Smackdown games you will notice things like only when they started in the WWE count as a debut. It was quite amusing to see Ric Flair and his debut listed as in 1991.

Despite all of that The King has been outstanding and Michael Cole really is a great tremendous asshole. Now we have a match heading into Wrestlemania 27 with Lawler vs. Cole. Cole is having Jack Swagger train him and he gets to pick a special guest referee. There are plenty of theories all over the Internet from the RAW GM to Stone Cold Steve Austin being the referee. Who ever the referee is really is an after thought. What people are missing is the fact they are totally redoing Lawler vs. Kaufman with this angle.

If the WWE had any guts, they would get Tony Clifton to be the special guest referee. I’m sure Andy would get a huge laugh out of that.

Of course getting Andy himself probably would be a much more logical choice to be the referee. Come on Andy it’s been 27 years. Wrestlemania 27…seems like a good time as any to finally make that comeback.

As for the match don’t expect anything spectacular. In fact I suggest everyone watch the original Lawler/Kaufman match. I have a feeling it will be exactly like that down to the stalling on the outside. Some people would prefer this match not to be on Wrestlemania. Perhaps they are right, but it’s not like the WWE has anything else of interest planned.

Just about one month to go and there are only four confirmed matches. Money In The Bank is probably off the show because it has it’s own shitty ppv. There probably will be a divas match of some sort. Cody Rhodes vs. Rey Mysterio is a strong possibility (I actually would like to see this match)…other then that nothing. If they are going to make the push for the show they should really start. If the show is being built around Cena and Rock coming face to face that is a hell of a gamble especially for a show that costs $54.95 in this economy.

You can see why I am becoming so disillusioned.

I’m sure it’s going to probably be a good show. Will it be worth $54.95? No way in hell. There was so much promise for things in the WWE after Summer Slam and into the months leading into The Survivor Series. But they never pulled the trigger on Nexus and now that group is dead in the water. Oh yeah I forgot Randy Orton vs. CM Punk would be a match at Wrestlemania. Too bad I don’t care about the build up for it. Though Punk continuing to call him Randal is very amusing. That should be a really good match that would be way better suited as a title match rather then a blow off to a horrible lower card feud.

Orton needs a change of venue as well. He is just so out of place on RAW. Plus next to John Cena he throws some of the worst punches in all of wrestling. Orton is one of the lucky ones though considering he was able to salvage his career after Triple H sabotaged it back in 2004. Hell being the conspiracy theorist that I am, part of me believes Triple H intentionally injured Randy Orton in that last man standing match when he chucked him over the top rope and right onto the floor. Randy is a survivor though which is good. Like I said, Punk/Orton should be a good match despite the dumb angle leading into it. It’s really amazing how bad Nexus is.

Speaking of Nexus, the latest edition to the group is Mason Ryan. Mason Ryan looks like the WWE’s version of the “I LIFT THINGS UP AND PUT THEM DOWN” body builder in these commercials for Planet Fitness here in the NYC area.



If you haven’t seen the commercial here’s a link to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-cpojkILO0

Mason Ryan is another example of a guy they just threw out there for no reason. If we don’t have a reason to care don’t be so surprised when we don’t.

Well I found that funny and if you’ve ever heard him chime in during a backstage segment with his random Welsh sayings the only thing missing from them is him saying I LIFT THINGS UP AND PUT THEM DOWN. Funny thing is a guy like that still is the WWE’s vision of the perfect sports entertainer.

In closing the WWE signed Mexican Lucha Libre star Mistico. He will be now known as Sin Cara and I hope to God they put him on Smackdown. Putting him on RAW will do nothing for him. To be honest I have not really seen enough of his ring work to have a proper opinion on him, but he is apparently supposed to be everything Rey Mysterio used to be if not more. Rey’s body is breaking down at an alarming rate so the WWE was smart in getting someone who could essentially be the new Rey Mysterio. His only downside is he doesn’t speak English too well. He probably shouldn’t have to cut promos, but this is the WWE so we can expect him to be in wacky backstage skits as he “learns the style”.

If he goes to RAW I’m sure many on the Internet would have an orgasm at the prospect of a Daniel Bryan match with him. Lucky for us the WWE wants to crack the Latin market so I don’t think he’ll be made a joke. But this is the WWE and Mistico is smaller then Rey Mysterio back in the mid 90’s. So I’m sure there are people in “the office” saying he doesn’t have the right look. Mexican box office receipts disagree and hopefully they realize that. We shall see what happens in the coming weeks and months. I hope my cynicism is wrong and Sin Cara takes off like a rocket and carry’s Smackdown into the new decade.

On that note I am done for this week. I’m going to be honest here and just say I don’t know when my next column will be. I would like to do one in the week before Wrestlemania so I can have a nice mop up one for the week after. Perhaps my decision to retire will change, but at the moment I don’t think so. Until then though remember someone has to give you this information and it DAMN well has got to be me.

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The Rant Of The Week: Lesnar, Punk, & Concussions

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 Rant Of The Week. As always I am coming to you from the greatest city on the face of the earth…Brooklyn, New York and winter is damn near upon us. The temperatures are dropping and the stiff winds are coming off the water. It really is winter in New York. A new year is upon us and we all ready have gotten more snow then we ever want to see for the rest of winter. The blizzard hit us here in Brooklyn last week pretty damn hard as the city somehow was caught off guard. On my Facebook page I posted some pics of the snow and those mountains of slush will be around for a while. As for me my first term back in college is finished and I’m on break for about a month. It’s amazing how going back to school has re-energized my brain. A year ago I was contemplating what I was going to do with the rest of my life and now here I am.

A lot can change in a year (well except for TNA, anything with them is a given). If you asked anyone odds are no one would have thought The Miz could break through the glass ceiling of Monday Night RAW and become WWE Champion. Then again a year ago I would have never guessed that Michael Cole of all people would become one of the best heels in all of wrestling. If this were the mid 80’s he would be Jimmy Hart. He’s getting that much heat right now. It’s a shame that Vince is convinced there is no money to be made in managers because a Michael Cole led stable with The Miz, Alex Riley, and a couple of other douche bag’s to round it out would be great stuff. Of course they would just probably end up doing what they did to Nexus and piss it all away within six months anyway. But like I said, a lot can happen in a year. For all I know this time next year I could be writing about how great the Coleminers faction has been.

So as the year came to a close I’m honestly surprised at how a lot of things haven’t really changed. Sure we got something great with The Miz winning the WWE Title and Kane finally getting the long World Title run he’s deserved for years, but other then that it’s still the same interchangeable stuff. The Nexus angle had so much promise and potential to be this generations n.w.o, but the WWE didn’t haven’t the balls to pull the trigger on Wade Barrett and the rest of the group. Even when things looked bad and it looked like they redeemed the Nexus by having John Cena forced to join them they still ended up screwing that up. God forbid John Cena have to look weak and subservient. Oh sure there were a few times when he was “humiliated”, but they never went full force to what could have been done to him. He continued wearing all that God-awful merchandise of his. Little kids love Cena so they’ll beg mommy & daddy to buy it (whether he’s wearing it or not). The Nexus angle had so much potential at this point but as I said the WWE just never did anything with it. I don’t know what Vince’s problem is when it comes to making money. Sure occasionally he does something right but most of the time it’s his decisions that screw everything up. All major corporations have an owner that an army of yes men and women suck up to so he’s not alone in this. But you would think even Vince McMahon who is usually about a decade behind in what is hip would have seen the potential for Nexus.

I will get to John Cena in a little bit because incase you didn’t hear the news, HE’S BACK. THE JOHN CENA OF OLD IS BACK. I swear the more they used that line during RAW and Smackdown the more I wanted to throw something at the television. When the WWE machine is in full tilt, it gets really annoying real quick what they are trying to shove down our collective throats. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have a bit of a sore throat right now (figuratively and literally).

Since I brought up the marketing geniuses at the WWE it boggled my mind to read last week that Kaval a.k.a. Low Ki had been released. There are a few versions of what exactly happened going around the Internet. Basically either he asked for his release because he felt they weren’t using him to his best abilities or they released him because the locker room snakes told management that he was a primadonna of sorts. For the longest time there were rumors that Kaval would feud with Rey Mysterio. Kaval would come in as a new highflying luchador to rival Mysterio. Mysterio would even be the heel depending on the reports. Either way it would have been an awesome feud and probably a license to print money. Well as we know most things that sound awesome in a news report don’t end up happening and Kaval was stuck in FCW. After breaking his ankle and coming back he ended up on NXT season 2 and won the WWE.com and pro’s polls to win the season 2 title of next break out star. I think it was clear the WWE wanted Alex Riley or Michael McGillicutty to win, but Kaval had the backing of the Internet who by far was the only part of the WWE fan base who actually bothered to watch the show.

Apparently the WWE is at a point where if someone says they want to walk away they just grant them their release. There’s no real competition so even if someone did leave the WWE to go to TNA or ROH, in the WWE’s mind it’s no big deal. Low Ki isn’t going to be hard up for work. He’ll get a ton of Indy dates and command top dollar now that he’s a former WWE superstar. Plus he also has Japan which is where he can be the wrestler he loves to be. Low Ki was the student of Homicide at the Dog House wrestling school here in Brooklyn and many of us in the North East are excited at the prospect of Homicide and Low Ki reuniting The Rottweiler’s or even The Strong Style Thugs. It had to be a shock to many in the WWE that they just let him walk. I mean despite his size (only being 5 foot 4 inches tall), Kaval had a very marketable look and persona in the ring. His voice alone was very marketable considering you don’t see many guys who look like him and sound like Barry White. But in the WWE, size is king and if Kaval were another six inches taller they would have at least given him a decent push. But as usual WWE Creative had nothing for him. It’s amazing how these people keep their jobs. There are so many budding writers out there (including me) who could probably come up with something for just about everyone on the roster and these guys just coast along. Yes I know that lower card guys are not a top priority, but anytime I hear creative has nothing for you I think bullshit.

Now between the time I wrote that last paragraph and the one I am starting to type now, I would say at least a week has passed. When writers block hits me…it hits me hard. Last Monday on RAW we saw Nexus get a second chance as they once again beat the piss out of John Cena all to reveal they had a new leader…C.M. Punk. Earlier in the night Punk had read Cena the riot act for being a hypocrite and Cena to his credit did manage to keep up with him with his usual juvenile humor that only little kids and women find funny. Having Punk back as a pseudo David Koresh with the Nexus as his army to do his bidding is going to be some fun stuff. If John Cena is supposed to be Superman, then C.M. Punk is Lex Luthor. Cena is the Terminator…then Punk is John Connor…well that one wouldn’t work for the WWE’s marketing purposes but it works for me damn it. The WWE dodged a major bullet the other night, as it was feared that Cena suffered a major injury at a house show when he didn’t get back up after taking The Wasteland slam from Wade Barrett. Luckily for all involved, it appears to be just a hip pointer so he shouldn’t miss significant time.

As it is right now the WWE is in desperation mode trying to figure out what to do for Wrestlemania 27. The Undertaker might be ready for Wrestlemania if they are lucky. If they lost Cena odds are we would have seen Vince do something batshit insane to compensate for the loss. Wrestlemania’s used to be so much easier in the old days when it didn’t hinge on celebrity appearances. The WWE would love to get Brock Lesnar in some form for Wrestlemania, but the UFC is making it very clear he is under contract to them so that won’t be happening. There’s still a lot of time between now and then so maybe Vince and Dana can come to an agreement of some sort. Of course Vince might have a fit if the letters U F C are actually said on WWE programming. When Rampage Jackson was on RAW earlier this year, Vince ordered he be only referred to as an MMA Star. Brock is a very good businessman and he knows he can get an easy seven-figure payday from Vince for thirty minutes of work at Wrestlemania. There’s some reports being spread around that after his loss to Cain Velasquez, Brock is thinking of getting out of the fight game sooner rather then later. Brock is content with staying at home on his farm with his family and hunting with his friends. If he can milk some more money out of everyone before he retires from competition then he’s going to do it. I hope some sort of deal is worked out because I’d love to see Brock vs. Undertaker after the big confrontation moments after Brock’s loss to Velasquez. The Undertaker is one of those guys who were born a decade too early. He’s at the end of his career, but he loves MMA.

Mixing in submission moves breathed new life into his career during the last ten years or so. One of the best matches of The Undertaker’s that I love is his match with Ken Shamrock from Backlash 99. Seeing a match like that with Brock would be fun stuff. I don’t necessarily want to see Brock be the one to end the streak, but it would be nice to see The Undertaker have probably one last great Wrestlemania match. His matches against Lesnar earlier in the decade are classics…especially the Hell in a Cell where The Taker probably lost a legit pint of blood during the process of it. It’s a shame Brock left the WWE when he did. I mean I know why he did. The grind of being in the WWE got to him and from the mindset of an athlete, he wasn’t challenged. He tried his hand at football with the Vikings and I remember at Wrestlemania 20 the crowd at MSG calling him a sellout. In retrospect he should have tried out for the Jets or Giants to get on their good side. But just imagine if Brock didn’t leave in 2004 and he stuck around at least for a couple of more years even on a limited basis. There could have been some amazing matches to be had with Batista and Orton who were much better in the latter part of the decade then the earlier part. Brock vs. C.M. Punk would have been the ultimate contrast in styles that would have made for an awesome main event at the Royal Rumble or Summerslam.

I think had Brock still decided to leave the WWE but continue wrestling professionally, even if he somehow was able to go to TNA it would have made no difference. People who have no clue what they are doing ran TNA back then much they do right now. If Brock Lesnar went to TNA it would have been like a gift from God himself. Sure there probably would have been some amazing matches. But no one would have known about them or seen them except for the small-dedicated loyal and stubborn fan base TNA has. I really don’t like bashing TNA. Yes I’m sure you are laughing after reading that comment considering so many of my columns over the last few years have been about tearing apart TNA for every stupid thing they do. But for me personally I don’t like do it. There’s enough in TNA to obviously keep me watching. It’s just they could be so much bigger then what they are right now. It has nothing to do with the talent. If they want to book the company like a rehash of late 1990’s WCW then that’s fine by me. What kills me is they don’t know how to market anything to save their life. No one outside of the TNA fan base watches the shows. Sure the shows aren’t perfect, but there’s no reason Impact can’t be pulling closer to a 1.7 then the usual 1.0-1.2 it does.

I honestly believe this year is going to be the make or break year for TNA. It’s time they either put up or shut up. They cannot continue to make a meek existence while professing to be the “alternative” to the WWE. I will give them a little credit. The angle they are doing with Mr. Anderson and his post concussion issues have been pretty good. We all know how serious the issue with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is becoming in the worlds of Wrestling, MMA, Boxing, Football, and just about any other sport where someone might get their brain sloshed around over and over. Ever since the Benoit murder/suicide the WWE has gone to great lengths to cover up and ignore the dangers of CTE. To them it simply does not exist. All the wrestlers who have died in the last couple of years include Andrew ‘Test’ Martin and Chris Kanyon who had severely damaged brains from years of wrestling, to the WWE they say “oh well it must have been something else. We take great care of our superstars”. TNA as bad as they are, at least they are shining some light on this issue (even though they continue to mock concussions with Eric Young who has now become retarded from one too many). I think it’s pretty obvious though that it will come out that Anderson faked the whole thing (story wise anyway). He used it to get into Matt Morgan’s head and he’s going to play possum at the right moment to steal a win.

He is an Asshole after all. I think that would be a pretty awesome douchebag move to pull if it were to happen. I’m not holding my breath for anything great to happen, but we shall see.

Now speaking of Assholes, as I mentioned earlier in case you missed it…JOHN CENA IS BACK EVERYONE. My God that might be the most annoying thing the WWE has created since coining the phrase WWE Universe (which just shut down btw). It’s Michael Cole’s announcing that drives me nuts mostly as he does his over selling on this. One minute Cole is riding The Miz’s dick and the next he’s all about John Cena. John Cena never left to begin with. It might have been fun if when he was fired that he was FIRED. I think we all could have lived with no Cena for a month as Wade Barrett gloated about running the great purple menace from the WWE. But noooo, the WWE had to build another shitty PPV with no purpose where Cena finally got his win back. I know it’s same damn formula they used with Hogan in the 80’s, but at least back then they spaced this stuff out a little bit. Now it’s rapid fire every single month.

There was this news bit from I believe the Observer that pointed out just how the WWE is doing with all these cookie cutter PPV’s

Through the first 11 months of 2010, World Wrestling Entertainment garnered 1,941,000 domestic pay-per-view buys from 12 events, an average of 161,750 purchases per event. By comparison, the company drew 2,594,000 domestic buys on 13 shows through the first 11 months of November; an average of 199,500 buys per show. Pay-per-view purchases are down 18.9% per show.
Credit to www.f4wonline.com or PWInsider.com

In the more detailed look at the numbers which saw UFC have eleven PPV’s garner over half a million PPV buys or more (three ppv’s were over the 1 Million mark), The WWE’s numbers just continue to drop. These PPV’s especially which I think we all can agree were pretty bad for the most part.

96,000 - WWE Money in the Bank John Cena vs. Sheamus cage match
96,000 - WWE Night of Champions John Cena vs. Randy Orton vs. Chris Jericho vs. Edge vs. Wade Barrett vs. Sheamus
87,000 - WWE Fatal Four Way John Cena vs. Sheamus vs. Edge vs. Randy Orton
73,000 - WWE Bragging Rights Randy Orton vs. Wade Barrett/Undertaker vs. Kane Buried Alive
Credit to www.f4wonline.com

The WWE probably is trying to figure out why these numbers are the way they are. To an extent it’s because there’s no Stone Cold Steve Austin or The Rock. I contend it’s simple economics. WWE PPV’s cost $44.95 a pop and considering most WWE ppv’s are thrown together at the last minute, it’s just not worth ordering them. Sure UFC are probably over saturating the market but they at least giving people bang for their buck. Even if they do two PPV’s a month they will make sure both of them are separate and important. Now when it comes to stars, according to the numbers Brock Lesnar is the biggest draw in all of sports and or entertainment. He has two 1 Million buy PPV’s in a single year. Only Mike Tyson did that back in 1996…but he had three. It goes back to my question imagine if Brock didn’t leave the WWE when he did. Sure he probably would have been phoning it in as he was uninspired, but the numbers don’t lie. Brock Lesnar probably would be single handedly carrying the entire Wrestling PPV industry on his large tattooed back.

I can only suspect that the numbers for the WWE will continue to go down while the numbers for the UFC continue to stay where they are. Aside from cutting the price of the PPV’s in half (which they will not do), I have no idea what the WWE could do to make all these PPV’s worth a damn.

I honestly do not know what kind of year 2011 is going to be. For me personally this column took way longer then it should have to write. I think when it comes down to it that’s just the general apathy people like me who are just common fans have towards the product of professional wrestling in general. Maybe with any luck ROH can get on a channel other then HD Net sometime in the future. At the very least HD Net could probably convert down to a non-HD feed or something. Just put everything in widescreen and it will look the same. That’s what FOX does for football and baseball now.

Here’s to hoping 2011 is an eventful year for everyone (me especially). On that note I am done for this week. With any luck I will be back much sooner since TNA has some sort of PPV next week…though I don’t know anyone who actually orders those things anymore.

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