Tag Teams, Factions, and Vince Russo... Oh My!!!

As promised today I'll be discussing a little bit of what I think could help out Pro Wrestling. Let's dive right in!

Alright, well first off I want to talk about tag teams. They used to be such a HUGE part of the wrestling scene, but now they're kind of just on the back burner. There were great teams back in the day, and I think that both promotions (WWE and TNA) are trying to fix the tag divisions. Over on Raw the WWE has several tag teams on the show. Cody Rhodes and Bob Holly are the champs on there. Santino, and Carlito are the new number one contenders. Also you have great teams such as London and Kendrick, Cade and Murdock (who I think are breaking up as a team), and of course the returning Cryme Tyme. They need teams, who are TEAMS. There is no shame in being a wrestler who doesn't compete in singles matches. I think that mey be the problem. WWE thinks that tag teams aren't marketable. Which isn't true. Remember the Dudleys (Now Team 3-D in TNA), or The Hardy Boys (when they were a team)??? I mean they sold tons of merch.

Team 3-D, now that I brought them up, are one of the best teams in the world. I think that they are the only team to EVER win titles in every major promotion. They won them in ECW, WWE, WCW, and TNA (when it was still the NWA). They still have in the ring. Yeah, they're a little bit bigger than they used to be, but hey, the guys can still work well. TNA uses them alright, they had an interesting angel with the Motor City Machine Guns (a great team as well). TNA, also has some great teams going for them other then the two mentioned. They have LAX (The Latin American Exchange), The Rock N' Rave Infection, and they were teaming Jay Lethal “The Black Machismo” with Sanjay Dutt, but they haven't used them for a while.

They had AMW (America's Most Wanted), which as I understand were a really good team. THe team was split up so both men could pursue singles. This hapens a lot, but what happens 85% of the time is that one of the team member sky-rockets to the top and the other flounders and vanishes. Thats how it went with AMW. James Storm is doing great. I think that he could be a world champ with in two years. He's a great worker and has lots of charisma. Way back when, when they split up The Rockers, Shawn Michaels went to the top and Marty Janetty kind of dropped out. Thats how it goes. Every once and while both men do well. Matt and Jeff Hardy both do very good. (Matt should be a the world champion on Smackdown, but thats whole different blog entry.)

The point is, BOTH promotions need to keep teams as teams. Tag Team wrestling can be great. The way the matches are worked can be so different, the psychology is totaly different.

Ok, so next in line is the topic of Factions. I want to make this clear, a faction is a team of 3 or more wrestlers of the same sex. Three dudes, or three chicks. NOT a tag team with a manager. There aren't ANY now. Factions are great. Hey remember the NWO? Or how about the Ministry Of Darkness? Or D-X when the were a team? The late 90's were full of them. I think that was part of why Pro Wrestling was sooooooooooooooooooooo popular then. What was the big faction? The friggin' Spirit Squad? TNA has had a few in the last few years. LAX was three people, they used to have XXX, the had Three Live Crew among others. WWE hasn't had many as of late. The did the New Breed vs the ECW Originals, which was great. Frankly it was one of the best things the new ECW has done. A few years back WWE had Evolution (Randy Orton, Dave Batista, HHH, and Ric Flair). That group MADE Randy Orton the main eventer that he is. Also the spliting of the group helped to make Batista as big as he is too. (I mean big as in main event, not size 'roids made him big in size) Factions help people. Now, I can not talk about factions with out throwing out some props to the Four Horsemen. They were the first big one. Ric Flair, Tully Blanchard, Arn Anderson, Ole Anderson, and J.J. Dillon (as manager).

The last thing I think they could do to help wrestling a lot... Three words. FIRE. VINCE. RUSSO.

Alrighty, now on to the Raw report for this week. This week the were in England. Now last year at the Raw from England Shawn Michaels and John Cena had a rematch (non-title). They wrestled for over 50 minutes. The match was voted match of the year in PWI (Pro Wrestling Illustrated). So, would Raw be as good this year??? Sadly, no. It was a great show, with many solid matches and segments, but no Match of the year.

HBK and Y2J Chris Jericho had a wonderful opening segment. He accused Shawn of loving himslef more than anything, that he was a phony, and that Shawn has the idea to make Flair retire. For those statements, HBK hit Chirs with Sweet Chin Music.

The first match was for the right to be number one contender for the tag titles.
Santino & Carlito vs London and Kendrick.
This was a great match. Both teams did very well, but Carlito hit London with the Back Stabber for the finsih. Look for Santino and Carlito to win the tag titles soon.

Women's Championship Match
Mickie James vs "The Glamazon" Beth Pheonix
WWE hasn't had a great womens match in a while. Monday, they did. Mickie and Beth are two of the best female workers around today. They aren't just pretty faces in tights, these two chicks can go. They worked a very physical match. And Mickie pulled out a win via Victory Roll to become the new WWE Women's Champ. YEA MICKIE!!!

The next match was pretty much a sleeper. It featured JTG from Cryme Tyme taking on Trevor Murdock of Cade & Murdock.
It was alright. JTG got the win. The only thing this match really did was further the angel that will split Cade and Murdock up.

At some point in the night Y2J went to Raw GM William Regal and asked to be put in HBK and Batista's match at Backlash. Willy made him the special guest ref. Jericho said no, that he wanted to wrestle. Willy said that he could wreslte Umaga that night and defend his I.C. title.

Ok, now its time for the 10:00 main evnt.
Raw GM William Regal vs WWE Champion Randy Orton.
It was very cool to see William be cheered in his home country. He came out to his face music, the crowd was very hot during the entire match. They were chanting Regal's name for much of the match. William was on offense for probably 80% of the match, but in the end Orton was able to hit the RKO for the win.

Umaga vs I.C. Champion Chris Jericho
Good god this match was great. Umaga can really work if he has a good ring general in there with him. It was intense, it was physical, and it told a good story. There were lots of near finishes, but in the end Y2J was able to win via a roll up with his feet on the ropes! That's right kids, Jericho was wrestling the match like a heel would. He was also getting great heel heat during his words with Shawn. I think Jericho will be a full heel very soon.

Paul B vs Jim Duggan. Paul won in like 45 seconds.

The main event was HHH vs JBL.

Nice match between two power housed. HHH won via DQ when Orton jumped him. After the match HHH got hit with The Close Line From Hell, and the RKO. The set up to punt HHH but as Orton ran in to punt him JBL hit Randy with The Close Line From Hell. Then with JBL holding the WWE Title above his head Raw went off the air.

I haven't watched ECW yet, no report on it yet. This is TTP saying: Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat.

Terms

For my second post I wanted to post a short list of terms that will get used in this blog alot.

Face/Babyface: Good Guy
Heel: Bad Guy
Worker: A wrestler
Pop: Good Crowd reaction
Heat: A good crowd reaction for a heel I.E. booing
Over: A wrestler who is popular as a heel or face
Finish: The End of a match
Stick: A microphone
Rat: The Wrestling verison of a groupie
Booker: The man/woman/people that decide how that match will go
Smart Fan: Someone who knows the inner working of Pro Wrestling
Mark: Someone who thinks wrestling is real
Marking Out: Giving the reation that it is real, even smart fans tend to do this.

Thats all I have for now on that, I'll add more as they come up.
My next big post will have the the content about Tag Teams and what I think can help pro wrestling.

My First Post

Hello all,

This is my first post here on my first blog. Let me give you all a little information about this blog as well as myself. First off, this blog is going to be about Pro Wrestling. I've been a fan of the sport since I was a little kid. (Yes I understand that the outcomes are all predetermined, but I still love it. Hey The Ice Capade aren't competition but they are still athletic right?) On this blog I will discuss all the WWE brands of wrestling (Raw, Smackdown, and ECW) and I will also try to keep up on my thoughts about TNA. And I'm sure that I'll have some rants now and then about the indies, as well as ROH (Ring Of Honor).

Now, I have to make it known that my favorite wrestler of all time is the Heart Break Kid Shawn Michaels. I've idolized him as a wrestler since I was 12 years old. (I'll be 23 next month so over 10 years to be a fan of a guy is a long time) He has never ceased to amaze me as a fan and is one of the greatest workers in the busssines.

So, some quick thoughts of Raw from this past Monday. We're two weeks past WrestleMania, and the post Mania story lines are coming into full swing now. I think it is kind of silly that the RAW main event for Backlash is going to be a fatal four-way between Randy Orton (Champ), HHH, Cena, and JBL. We just came out of a multi-man match for the WWE Title at Mania and I think that it is a little too soon for this. But hey, all four of them are great in the ring so I'm sure that they'll all put on a great show.
Also now they have the HBK/ Batista angle. Its not bad so far. I'm not a big fan of "Big Dave" but as long as he has a good ring general in there with him he does all right. Not to mention that Shawn can make ANYONE look good in the ring. As far as the story goes, Batista is pissed off at Shawn for retiring Ric Flair at WrestleMania. He was saying that Shawn should have laid down for Ric, but he let his ego get in the way. Its not a bad angle, I'm not sure who the heel is suposed to be however. I think its Dave, because of the way he's speaking to Shawn. The whole thinkg between HBK and Ric was that Ric wanted him to bring his A game to Mania. It could well, and could work as a catylist to turn Batista heel. Or it could turn Shawn heel, but I doubt that will hapen as Shawn is very religious and probably wouldn't want to work as a heel.
As far as the matches from Monday, average things mostly. Nothing bad, nothing that made jump up from my seat. The Highlight Reel segment with Chris Jericho, Shawn, and Batista was great. The finishes for the main event as well as the match that put HHH in the main event for Backlash were good as well.

That's all for this moment, I'll make another entry soon. Next time, I'll discuss what I think can help Pro Wrestling a bit as well as Tag Teams. Until next time, this is TTP saying: Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat.