Welp. 2020. It sure was a...year.
I'm not going to spend too much time on the obvious. For some it might have been a good year. For others it might have been a bad year. For others it might be in-between. Whatever the case, if you're reading this you've managed to outlast it into another year that may also be similarly good, bad, or in-between. Whatever the situation, the only way is forward.
So too did professional wrestling. The show must go on; it has to in order to survive. Even in a time with no, limited, or digital audiences, a show can still be put on, talent can still be developed, feuds and challenges can still be written, and TNA can still continue to be TNA (they're probably the only promotion to see an increase in physical audiences). Of course not everything can be good, and there will always be some stinkers or two. And none stunk as much as the following ten nominees of -
Wait a moment.
What do you mean, it's already halfway through January? I could swear it was New Year's just a couple of days ago -
They voted already?
Huh. How about that.
Well, there's only one thing to do. Pretend voting is still ongoing and go over the nominees like it hasn't been called for yet.
[Make your own election joke here.]
Anyway, in alphabetical order:
1. Seth Rollins' vs. Rey Mysterio's Googly Eye for a Googly Eye
 |
| Still less goofy than the actual card. |
Now I understand that having fights over yet another title or belt can get boring after the 10,000th time. There is nothing wrong with shaking things up by changing the stakes as applicable. (Except if it's over shampoo.) But it has to be something feasible and logical and not (too) goofy to fight over. And if you still decide to just because, it has to be executed properly.
Seth Rollins is no stranger to gimmick fights if his participation in last year's winner is any indication, but at least that was (originally) a proper match. And I know lucha libre has its own goofiness sometimes, but the traditional ways and establishments of it mean that they have become things that can actually work because or in spite of it. And even despite that, if the promotion still wanted to stick to the course, they should do so in a way that pays off deservedly.
But this is Vince McMahon we're talking about. He still thinks the kids of today watch (admittedly still good) Looney Tunes of his childhood.
And thus we get Rey Rey wearing that high concept technology of a googly eye.
When even the inevitable Headlie makes more sense than what WWE is producing, you know things have gone very wrong.
2. Rob Gronkowski's fumble
There's not much to say on this one because he didn't do much to warrant it. I don't mean any disrespect to him (and not because I don't think I ever drafted him in the WC Fantasy Football League), but the bookers didn't give him much to do for fear of harm and/or underestimating his skill.
Unless he tried his hand for a bit, found things were more absurd than he liked, and escaped back to football, in which case I applaud his acumen. It's not like he was Pacman Jones or anything. (Whatever happened to him, I wonder?)
3. Jeff Hardy, drunk Brother Nero
Because angles involving battling personal demons of intoxication are always fun right? It's not like he once main evented a PPV inebriated or anything. NEXT!
4. Tables, Lana & Cringe
With Rusev escaping through redundancy future endeavors, Lana finally had space of her own to do...something else equally as random as her romantic escapades. Unless they thought they could also try to get rid of her too by having her crash through a table every single week just because. When they called it the Divas' Revolution I didn't realize it meant they would fight against props and objects instead of each other and/or over a man.
5. Matt Hardy vs. Sammy Guevara vs. Gravity
Speaking of the competition and speaking of Hardys. The feud between the two became extremely physical, as if the writers wanted to make Matt literally Broken. (But at least he's not drunk right? Right?) Their Last Man Standing match where Matt fell into a concussion was the gory pinnacle (and without Gronk or Vince to show him how it's done either!) I'm not a squeamish Co-Librarian by any means (I watch un/intentional contact sports as one hobby after all), but this was just emotionally painful to watch.
6. Money In The Titan Towers
Speaking of heights and changing stakes. (Changing heights?) I can understand them wanting to do some more cinematic matches, and even try their hand at humor like they did here.
Unfortunately anyone who's suffered through a WWE Films "comedy" knows how well they do filmed humor.
This includes when they thought knocking people off the "roof" would be a good idea. I'm saddened they didn't say they fell into a body of water and have them appear on Raw still soaking wet.
7. Raw Underground/ratings
Speaking of heights and changing stakes. (Changing heights?) The concept of raw (no pun intended) mixed martial arts fighting and brawling is a novel one. Why, you could make a championship out of such. An ultimate fighting championship if you will. And if you wanted that, why would you not be watching that instead of wrestling?
I'm saddened that Shane McMahon didn't attempt to involve himself in the fights as "best in the world" by the power of his air punches. The BITWFC if you will. That's a license to print money if ever there was one.
8. Retribution (Ride To Hell)
Oh boy.
Vince McMahon, that youthful liberal radical and totally not a rich white man who is friends with a "Hall of Fame" "president" and married to someone who worked with them after two failed Senate attempts, tries to draw on the racial tensions and movements of the year by:
- using current NXT folk
- having them do random heel stuff in the ring
- have said heel stuff be extremely limited and small-scale and as-if organized
- reveal RIDICULOUS names for them
- bring them onto Raw despite their anarchic intentions
- job them out almost every single time.
And people wonder why this won this year's Gooker I MEAN why this is the Gooker frontrunner.
9. The Swamp Fight from the Black Lagoon
Oh look, more cinematic matches. Again, WWE Films does as well with horror as they do comedy (or just about any film genre for that matter). And with Bray Wyatt involved too! Poor guy always seems to get involved in some of the unintentionally worse stuff. Perhaps this year will make up for it. It just has to.
10. The Viking Raiders and Street Profits fuck around and find out
With all the stalling and messing around these two tag teams did I could have sworn they were attempting their own version of WCR including Co-Hosss Contest lengths of wasted time, culminating in yet more cinematic "komedy". Again, see the aforementioned WWE Films track record.
So there you have it; some of the worst of the worst of the worst of what may consider one of the worst years. Get to (retroactively) voting before the 15th!
 |
| "Bren Blaihr, after I cut off your hair ya jabroni, I'm going to break ya back, and then fuck ya ass, make ya humble old country way! Punjab Michigan, Numba One!" |
No comments:
Post a Comment