The Squared Circle

[Sarge 2.0]

- Don't believe the CM Punk doghouse rumors. The person that disliked Punk the most has recently been fired -- that person being writer Dave Lagana, who was responsible for Chavo Guerrero's push to the ECW title. Lagana was also the one person pushing for John Morrison to go over on Punk. Dusty Rhodes is a big fan of Punk and Michael Hayes has been trying toget him on Smackdown.

- Michael Hayes has taken on a lot more responsibility as of late andhas become one of the most powerful agents in the WWE. He can always befound at the local hotel's bar or at HQ. Hayes is now on-call 24/7 and has a lot of influence over plans & pushes. In addition, with Lagana out, Ed Koskey is doing the writing on the ECW side, with Rhodes continuing to offer ideas. However, with ECW and Smackdown working together, Hayes will be deciding the main direction of both shows.


(credits: The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, http://ElitePW.cjb.net, and Mike Informer)

Heh, as if Punk picking up wins, kneeing Shawn Michaels and then eliminating a big man in the Rumble, and ending both shows on top weren't enough indication, it's nice to have some "confirmation".

 

[Donnie Darko]

I'm really worried about the ECW title scene once they remove CM Punk from it to other (bigger) things. I mean, there is really only one other true ECW face that I can think of, and that's Dreamer. My guess is that the next face to hold the title will be Kane, and that sucks.

 

[The Sage]

Another look at Cena, interesting article: http://wrestling.insidepulse.com/articles/73382/2008/02/04/a-modest-response.html


So, is seems I really need to address John Cena. He's back, in case you missed the Royal Rumble and the replay… and Raw, Smackdown and ECW… and the entire internet freaking out. Well, he was #30 in the Rumble and won. It was a great surprise and he'll reclaim his belt shortly. That isn't the issue.

The issue is that since he returned, he's torn the internet wrestling community in two with divisive opinions about him. Some fans really, truly and vehemently agree he is the worst wrestler around, barely a step above Khali. Others seem to believe, just as violently, that he is the best, most complete wrestler in the world. Quite why the internet won't consider these sorts of debates reasonably and agree that each side has a point before deciding he's very good, but limited, is a debate for another time. For now though, I'm going to set about proving that he is in fact good, but also has his limits.

John Cena is not a terrible wrestler. He does not know many moves, but what he does know is storytelling and drama in the wrestling ring. There have been many absolutely amazing matches throughout the years that use mostly basic punches and kicks, along with excellent timing, selling and storytelling to make the match work. If you don't believe me check the 1980s classics of Magnum TA, Stan Hansen, and even Terry Funk. For more recent examples, check Steve Austin (around about 1999), Mick Foley and Triple H circa 2000. If you truly believe these weren't great workers, feel free to stop reading now. A terrible worker couldn't have gotten a very good match out of Khali, regardless of how simple it was, nor could they have had a match reach the heights of the two Cena vs. HBK matches. Cena had, simply put, a great year, from memorable matches with Edge, Michaels and Umaga, to better than they had a right to be matches with Khali, Orton and Lashley. The argument that Cena is terrible in the ring simply has no basis in reality.

Cena is alternately, not God's gift to wrestling. He can absolutely work, but he is, as far as we know, entirely limited to the WWE style of main eventing. Everyone from Lance Storm to Kurt Angle has already confirmed that. We know he can do one type of match, but that match type is run literally nowhere else in the world save for TNA, so his versatility is greatly lacking. Within this style he can have good matches with varied opponents, but even there he falls short of true greatness. Yes, he carried Khali to a watchable match, but Kevin Nash, not as green but certainly nothing approaching good was carried to a near five star match by both Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart. His matches with Michaels were great, but the Wrestlemania match suffered from some bad no selling, while the second match was held together by the fact that Cena was allowed to kill massive amounts of time with very simple moves. Is it good story telling? Certainly, but to say it has the depth of a Joe vs. Punk or Nigel vs. Danielson is entirely different. Cena in his great matches, keeps the stories simple and the drama high. That doesn't lessen their quality, but makes the difficulty in pulling them off properly stand out all the more. Let's use literature as an example of this.

John Steinbeck was a prolific author, one of my favorites. He has received massive amounts of praise for his novel Of Mice and Men. It's got a great plot, characters that have become iconic, and a perfect build to drama. The novel does everything it attempts to absolutely perfectly. It's beloved, but not one of the best novels ever written.

Fyodor Dostoevsky was also a prolific author. He wrote one of the best novels ever, in any language, with The Brothers Karamazov. This novel is structurally complex, following four brothers after their father's death, while thematically it covers everything from faith and free will to betrayal and doubt. There is the entirely clear plot, with the discourse of the spiritual drama running clearly beneath. There's also a societal parody and discussion of several different psychologies and philosophies. It's long, complex and incredible in scope. It's also absolutely perfect in what it attempts to do, however what it attempts to do is far more complex than Steinbeck attempts in Of Mice and Men, therefore when comparing the two, Karamazov gets the critical praise and is the better book. It doesn't make Steinbeck's work worse, just less ambitious in quality. That's Cena. He's nearly perfect at what he does, just so are others, they just do significantly more.

Why also do his opponents get no credit? Umaga is considerred a bad worker for literally no readily apparent reason. He has unmatched intensity and brawling skill. He's fairly regularly (along with Jeff Hardy and Shawn Michaels) in the best match on Raw. Is it any wonder an intense brawler with puro experience would work well with Cena? Michaels is one of the best and most versatile of all time, terrible personality aside. He has had great matches with guys far less than Cena. Not passable to good like Cena's with Lashley and Khali, but great matches with a green Nash and clumsy Sid. The best other matches were with Edge, easily the best heel of his generation, a heat generation machine against a major face, which always works, and against Orton who has stepped up to have the same kind of very good, but simple matches that Cena specializes in. I am NOT saying Cena is carried or doesn't do his part. I'm saying his opponents are being entirely overlooked without cause.

To end this, I've created a methodology of rating wrestlers in the ring. It is as follows:

Consistency: This rates how often the wrestler in question delivers on a good to great match as expected depending on spot on the card.

Best Showings: Best Showings is fairly self-explanatory: When said wrestler has a great match, how good is it?

Versatility: Can the wrestler work different styles? Can the wrestler work with other guys of different styles? Can they be either face or heel effectively? Not just what they can do, but how much they can do and to what level.

Top Skill: Some guys aren't very versatile, but the one thing they're good at, they are great at. This rates one best skill of a wrestler and how good they are at matches of that type and at that skill as compared to others.

Crowd Psychology: Crowd psychology is keeping the audience involved in the match and keeping the character work consistent and on point.

Ring Psychology: Does what they do in the ring have a reason? Are they consistently telling a story on offense and defense? Does their selling add to the match or detract?

These are the categories we'll be rating John Cena in this week.

Consistency - 8
Best showings - 8
Versatility - 3
Top Skill - 9
Crowd Psychology - 10
Ring Psychology - 8
Total - 46

John is amazingly consistent in big matches. In every single big match of 2007 he brought it, never turning in a disappointing performance. When Cena is in the main event, the match delivers. That might be his best quality, but it's far from a given. The problem is, Cena, in less structured and/or far shorter Raw matches, works like a midcarder at best. Some will say, "Well no one cares, so long as he delivers in big matches." That's not the point. Many people will not order a PPV unless the weekly shows hook them in. With Cena coming off as average on those, many less than should get to see or get excited for his big matches. There is then less going into the big matches than their should, and while he is a great draw, this is the biggest reason he has fallen short of the Rock and Austin's scope.

His best showings are great, but really, see above. They are, despite different opponents, largely similar in scope. There are exceptions, almost entirely Shawn Michaels, but they are rare.

Cena's versatility is bad. He can no longer work heel as the hero to children, and really he isn't good enough to carry a match as a heel anyway. He can work different opponents, but it's just a more complex Hogan formula. His opponent has something on him, in the case of Umaga or Khali, strength, or Edge sneakiness, so although Cena is firey, they control him. His crowd psychology in timing and making his comebacks play to his strength is his second major attribute. His comebacks are fiery and his strong ring psychology score comes from his (and the road agents) ability in figuring out hot finishing sequences to his matches. These nearly always work and elevate the match to another level. As superman comebacks, the selling isn't especially important, but even with the relatively minor hope spots, Cena will often cease selling. His selling on defense though is great and builds wonderful sympathy, pulling that score up. He also has no adequate reason to use the STF-U, as he sets it up not even slightly in most matches.

His best skill in the ring is his brawling. He is a great brawler, effectively using that as his only offense (besides against Michaels), in normal matches and no DQ alike. The only reason he isn't getting a 10 here is he isn't quite up to the lofty standard of 10 brawlers like Stan Hansen and Stone Cold.

That pretty much covers Cena, then. He isn't terrible; he is great at what he does, but is still a step below the greats like Austin, Hansen, Hart and Michaels. Thanks for joining me for A Modest Response.


Just to mention a point about Cena as a heel: I don't think we can say Cena can't work effectively as he hasn't done in years and could probably do it if given the chance.

 

[Dr. Evil]

Raw is also being taped for next week tonight because Raw will be in Japan next week.

 

[The Professor]

I'm really worried about the ECW title scene once they remove CM Punk from it to other (bigger) things. I mean, there is really only one other true ECW face that I can think of, and that's Dreamer. My guess is that the next face to hold the title will be Kane, and that sucks.

True, ECW is just crawing with heels. There hasn't seemed like there's much hope for ECW for quite some time. They had a good program going with the New Breed but that all dissolved.

 

[The Sage]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/wrestling/heyman/article762131.ece

Paul Heyman: Why I left WWE

HE’S the man who revolutionised the wrestling business.

The outspoken leader of a hardcore cult that will never die.

The creative genius forever synonymous with the letters E-C-W.

But for more than a year no one has heard a peep out of Paul Heyman.

Where was he? Why did he walk out of the WWE in December 2006? And most importantly what does he really think of Vince McMahon’s ‘new’ ECW?

Now, for the first time Paul answers those questions and more as only Paul can.

He also reveals the first details and advert for his exciting new project, the Heyman Hustle, which starts right here on The Sun Online on Monday February 18.

Enjoy!

Paul, let’s cut right to the chase. What happened with you and Vince McMahon?

I think what it boils down to is Vince McMahon and I have totally separate and distinct visions for what a wrestling or sports entertainment product should be.

There’s nothing wrong with having those different visions, the problem was that Vince started to take the difference of opinion personally.

And once that personality conflict comes into play, when you’re trying to steer the direction of a product, it becomes a bad work environment.

So Vince didn’t like working with me anymore and I didn’t like working with Vince anymore.

And it’s his company, so obviously he has to stay!

What do you think went wrong and why?

The brand should never have been brought back after the very first One Night Stand in 2005.

The follow-up show in 2006 made money, but only because it served as the platform for Rob Van Dam to beat John Cena.

Then Sci-Fi Channel was willing to give a test run for the brand ECW and they currently pay a lot of money for that TV show.

So the theory of bringing ECW back and making it profitable worked as a business move.

But the expectation from the audience that ECW was being brought back only served to be a monumental letdown.

By comparison, if someone were to resurrect The Beatles and say: “You know what, we want to make them more globally accepted, so we’re going to have a white guy, an Asian female, a Hispanic Bisexual and an African-American with a Scottish accent.”

In the land of WWE that actually makes sense.

But no matter how you look at it, it’s just not the Beatles.

So in the same light, it’s just not ECW.

‘Extreme’ doesn’t mean blood, or tables, or barbed wire. ECW was always about progression, moving forward, giving more bang for the buck.

For example, a finish in most every match. Simple thought. A winner and a loser. And a story with it that makes sense.

But if you voiced that opinion, Vince would take it personally.

If you look at the attempts to recreate the nWo, to re-create Goldberg and, even now, trying to recreate Ric Flair’s career on the line, Vince’s magic only happens when he creates it from the get-go.

If Vince doesn’t create it from the get-go, he can’t embrace the formula.

But why didn’t Vince just say: “Paul, I know you’re good at ECW, it’s on Sci-Fi, do your stuff, work your magic, make me some money?”

Because that goes against everything that is Vince McMahon.

Vince is such a control freak that if he sneezes, the next 10 minutes of any meeting are ruined because he is so p***ed at himself for not being able to control the sneeze.

And it’s worked very well for him in life.

He is a billionaire. He has his own luxury private plane and, by the way, it’s a really nice plane. He has things and property and cash that every other wrestling promoter in the world doesn’t have.

He has achieved these goals HIS WAY and so Vince is not about to let anyone have free reign over anything in his kingdom. That’s just not going to happen.

How was it for you to see ECW - your baby, the thing you created - almost destroyed in front of your eyes?

It was a very rough road because, make no mistake about it, Vince McMahon has every right to do anything that he wants with ECW.

He bought the right to exploit the intellectual property of the brand. It’s his, he owns it, and nobody can question whether or not he is entitled to do whatever he damn well pleases with it.

Rob Van Dam has articulated on this brilliantly in some recent interviews and it kind of brought back the memories of that time in 2006.

I tried to resign, and in front of other people because I wanted witnesses, several times in last two months of my tenure in WWE/ECW.

I offered my resignation to Stephanie on several occasions. I told her the tensions between me and Vince were getting in the way of the brand, that Vince was taking everything personally, and that it was neither fun, creative, or productive any more.

I thought if I left, Vince would give the brand the TLC - um, that’s Tender Loving Care, not Tables Ladders and Chairs - it needed. Stephanie kept trying to get involved, but Vince was on a tear.

I dare suggest that Vince was craving for someone to compete with him on any level, in anything in life, and also at the same time, hating to lose, said: “I have the original owner of ECW, I have the original creative mind of ECW, and you know what, we’re gonna battle over the creative direction of this product.”

And, at the same time, it’s like the WrestleMania main event - because it’s a predetermined finish.

At the end of the day, Vince has to determine what the direction is.

I’m not there to compete with him. I’m there to help him. I’m on his side, I’m his tag team partner.

It just became misery to work there which is why, as Van Dam has pointed out, I just wanted out so badly I finally couldn’t take it any more.

When did that happen, what was the actual date, because no one has known where you’ve been for a long time?

The final straw was the December to Dismember Pay Per View. That show was just a wreck.

I knew it going in. I kept trying to pitch different things for the show that week, that weekend, and even the day of the show. All day long on the day of the show, I kept coming to Vince saying: “The people are going to throw this back in our face.”

Can you give us some examples of the things that you wanted to do that Vince said “no” to?

I thought the undercard was horrible.

I thought that the design of the show itself made no sense.

I just felt that the entire layout of the show, the entire complexion of the event was a downer.

I also thought that we were doing Bobby Lashley no favours the way he was going to win the title. Lashley winning the title, especially if you eliminate Rob Van Dam and CM Punk early, would be leapfrogging over RVD and Punk.

Van Dam was the sentimental favourite, Punk was the kid that all the crowd was getting behind and they wanted to see the upset.

If you don’t appease the need for the audience to see that new hero get crowned like Punk did the week before at Survivor Series when DX let him say ‘Are you ready?’ then the audience will feel ripped off.

If you don’t put that spotlight on Van Dam, with whom the paying customers have just taken this long ride back into the title chase, then the paying customer will feel ripped off.

My opinion was to start the chamber off with the Big Show saying: “I’m a seven foot tall, 500lb giant, I’m gonna mow through every one of you.”

And the first to take him on would be Punk. Playing to the fact that UFC is so hot and in the public consciousness, Punk chokes out Big Show in the first round of the Elimination Chamber, four-and-a-half minutes in, and now the champion is out.

You know for a fact, before any two contenders lock up, I’m getting a new champion at the end of this match.

Then, the first guy to come out after Big Show v Punk, would be Van Dam. You let Van Dam and Punk fight it out, and then you start feeding in the heels.

Vince hated this. He especially hated the fact that Big Show liked it.

Even though he was being choked out within five minutes, Big Show liked it?

Of course, because he was making a new guy!

Big Show is so underappreciated in terms of how smart he is to the business, and how willing he is to make new stars.

Vince wanted all babyfaces out of the way and for all the spotlight on Lashley and for Lashley to do a Goldberg-style two minute squash of The Big Show.

At that point, not only did I realise that this is going to suck, not only is everyone going to throw this back at us, but this show is going to run short.

And during the show, I pointed all this out to Vince, which just angered him even more, and he didn’t care.

His attitude was: “When this broadcast is over, people will see a new champion, they’ll have a new hero and they’ll all be happy.”

When I went to Vince right before I went out to introduce the Chamber, I pointed out again to him “Vince this show is horribly short.”

I had this idea of getting 15 minutes out of the crowd, but Vince said: “No, no, no. Just go out there, make your point, and introduce the Chamber.”

Which is why, when I was in the ring, I made the statement: “ECW will live long after I am gone.”

Because I knew, either when I went back into the dressing room, or within the next day or two, it was time for me to leave.

Was there a part of you that thought about breaking character and actually quitting in the ring live on PPV?

No, because that would be unprofessional.

All that is doing is, in an emotional state, thinking that I am f***ing Vince McMahon over, and it’s a very dramatic thought but I have to say this on the record - I don’t think Vince McMahon f***ed me over.

I don’t think Vince, in his mind, did anything malicious towards me. I think Vince did what he either persuaded or convinced himself was the best for business.

The biggest shoot that I could do in that ring was not to say “I quit”. The biggest shoot that I could do was to make the statement “this brand goes on without me”.

That’s what I said, and that’s what ended up happening.

Do you think that Vince was trying to prove that Extreme didn’t work, as he didn’t invent it. That he was trying to destroy the legacy of ECW?

Like most people who make grand achievements in life – Bill Gates, Ted Turner, Richard Branson, Bill Clinton – Vince McMahon is a most complex individual.

It would take Freud himself to accurate describe, and probably 900 pages to do so, how Vince’s mind works.

There’s a lot of self-justification that goes on.

Vince could never accept that another brand could be successful.

Look at the success of The Rise and Fall of ECW, the DVD, which has sold close to 400,000 copies worldwide and at any point is the No1 or No2 bestselling DVD in sports entertainment history. The World Class DVD is just breaking out of 10,000 units sold right now. The Rey Mysterio DVD, the John Cena My Life DVD, sold approximately 30,000 units each.

You look at the staggeringly successful numbers that ECW DVD did, Vince’s answer to you will be: ‘Well, of course it sold that many, we’ve educated the audience that ECW is something special by the fact that every time a table broke, every time a high spot happened, every time an extreme style was showcased, we’ve encouraged the audience to chant E-C-W and we’ve allowed it on our broadcast.”

Now if you think about that logic, it’s so ass-backwards, that you’re going to think this man is a f***ing idiot or he’s insane, but he’s neither.

He has convinced, or persuaded, himself the statement is true.

And he wholeheartedly believes that the success of the first ECW PPV was because the $400,000+ gate that was in the Hammerstein Ballroom were the last vestiges of the ECW audience and all those people that bought it on PPV were WWE fans who were educated that ECW would be something special.

Vince McMahon would swear on his grandchildren that is an accurate statement.

He won’t be lying, he’ll mean it when he says it, unfortunately it’s the furthest thing from the truth.

So after December to Dismember, you literally left that night and never came back?

No, we clashed that night after the show, and the next day too. By then, that was fait accompli.

We were clashing on the plane going to North Charleston, South Carolina. It was ridiculous.

So by the time we got to North Charleston, I had already called home and said: “Just so you know, I’m coming home tonight.” I’d already made up my mind.

After the producers’ meeting, Vince, Stephanie and I sat in that room trying to determine what the future held¿ and I just wanted to go home.

We sat there for a while, there’s a lot of history with me and Vince, and there was a lot I wanted to say to him, to his face, and there was a lot that he wanted to say to my face.

I think we both had merits in our argument.

At the end of the day, I shook his hand and went home and I’ve never looked back.

Have you spoken to Vince or Stephanie since?

Oh, Stephanie called me the next day several times, and tried to repair it. I don’t think there was anything to repair.

I had a run in the wrestling industry that in my wildest dreams as a kid I could never have imagined.

As a performer I accomplished everything I could possibly have wanted. As I writer/booker, I had a run that all but the most uber-successful people in the history of this business could have ever fantasised about.

I owned a company that is the only company in history to be resurrected. Ted Turner lost hundreds of millions of dollars on WCW, no-one’s calling for the resurrection of that promotion.

My tiny little creative vision called ECW not only was resurrected but still stands today without me.

What more is there left for me to do?

Stephanie made me an offer in 2007 to come back and run developmental, because of the success we had in OVW.

She said; “Vince wants you to create new stars again, do what you were doing in OVW and also get Deep South Wrestling on track.”

They offered me that position, with the same pay, same stock options, same benefits.

It was a wonderful offer and anybody that has the opinion they wanted to drive Paul Heyman out of the business should understand that this offer was given to me and it was most flattering.

Of course, I’m sure that part of the deal would be “no contact with Vince” but Stephanie really wanted me to take the job, and was pushing me to take the job.

Stephanie was shocked that I wouldn’t jump all over this opportunity because on a money basis, it was an insanely lucrative deal.

A miniscule amount of the work I had to put in before, on a job that I truly enjoy which is developing characters, working with the next generation so every star of the next generation will have been moulded at least partially by me.

It was a very financially lucrative and creatively fulfilling job but by this point I just didn’t want it any more.

 

[Fading]

I think that's a very good article and well thought out. I do disagree a little bit with some of his scoring, but he hit most of the nails on the head. Which in turn brings up one of Cena's major problems. He's too consistant with little versatility. He can turn in good performances for what he does, but most of his matches go the same way, and with a move set less complex than most it makes a lot of his matches run together to me.

A lot of Cena matches give me the impression that if you've seen one you've seen them all. It helps that his matches are similar in the sense that a Rey Mysterio can control Cena with speed like Khali would with strength, it makes Cena's frequent come backs in a match stand out, however it makes a lot of his matches feel identical with earlier ones. When you tack on a Superman belt holding streak, you get the "Same old ****" pic posts, because you basically are watching the same match 12+ times a year and it makes PPV's less special if you know the outcome.

 

[Hunter Rider]

John Cena is not a terrible wrestler. He does not know many moves,.

The whole article is fairly sloppily written but this part was the silliest, how does this guy know how many moves Cena knows ? WWE limit the amount of moves guys do, hell Shawn does less moves than Cena.

Cena is alternately, not God's gift to wrestling. He can absolutely work, but he is, as far as we know, entirely limited to the WWE style of main eventing. Everyone from Lance Storm to Kurt Angle has already confirmed that. We know he can do one type of match, but that match type is run literally nowhere else in the world save for TNA, so his versatility is greatly lacking. Within this style he can have good matches with varied opponents, but even there he falls short of true greatness. Yes, he carried Khali to a watchable match, but Kevin Nash, not as green but certainly nothing approaching good was carried to a near five star match by both Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart.

I almost had to stop myself from laughing when Lance Storm is mentioned as some sort of aficionado on great working and Angle is a guy that has shown, without Taker, HBK, HHH and Benoit to structure matches for him he is a pretty average worker beyond his athletic talent, he has the exact same endless finishing move sequence match over and over in TNA b/c he is calling all his own matches.
The comparison of Nash and Khali is beyond ******ed, while Nash is no superworker, in 95/96 he was a competent big man that actually understood the business, Khali is the worst big man since Giant Gonzalez.

His matches with Michaels were great, but the Wrestlemania match suffered from some bad no selling, while the second match was held together by the fact that Cena was allowed to kill massive amounts of time with very simple moves. Is it good story telling? Certainly, but to say it has the depth of a Joe vs. Punk or Nigel vs. Danielson is entirely different. Cena in his great matches, keeps the stories simple and the drama high. That doesn't lessen their quality, but makes the difficulty in pulling them off properly stand out all the more. Let's use literature as an example of this.

Punk/Joe I was built around a never ending headlock sequence, how the hell does that have more depth ? Dragon/Nigel was built on being ridiculously stiff, Cena has told a number of stories with various opponents without the cheap aid of stiffing the crap out of his fellow worker to get reactions. This whole "varied" argument is dumb as hell, Hogan to most US fans knowledge is merely a one match worker but look at his Japan stuff and he could do other things. Austin worked the brawl from 98 onwards and most of them were pretty sloppy and it was the ONLY match he worked in that time, Rock was simply Cena with better execution and not as good ring psychology and selling,

 

[LastSunrise1981]

Very interesting article and interesting interview with Paul Heyman. What he stated is that Vince only wants to hear your idea if you agree with him, now in Shawn's book it's a different story, but I think Heyman is more interested in the wrestling aspect and that's why I liked Heyman's booking.

He added a unique sense of storytelling and concentrated on wrestling, allowing the wrestlers to showcase their skills and have fans really get into the matches. Heyman, in my opinion, did exactly what the fans wanted to see and I think that's what Vince didn't like about him.

 

[Hunter Rider]

Very interesting article and interesting interview with Paul Heyman. What he stated is that Vince only wants to hear your idea if you agree with him, now in Shawn's book it's a different story, but I think Heyman is more interested in the wrestling aspect and that's why I liked Heyman's booking.

He added a unique sense of storytelling and concentrated on wrestling, allowing the wrestlers to showcase their skills and have fans really get into the matches. Heyman, in my opinion, did exactly what the fans wanted to see and I think that's what Vince didn't like about him.

Well Shawn has always been able to get around Vince better than most.

I don't think that is true, Raven said that Heyman was the master of working the smarks b/c they were so up their own ass that they were easier to play, all promoters give the fans of their product what they want, if they didn't they'd be out of business. Paul's greatest strength was taking mediocre to poor talent and showcasing their strengths, Vince major problem is that he wants to shoehorn guys into characters and styles that are not them.

 

[Hunter Rider]

Am i the only one getting commentary from last weeks show ?

 

[The Sage]

Kiss My Ass Club returning? Cena arm wrestling Mark Henry? Already RAW is looking weak.

 

[NDX]

Good thing AG is 90 minutes today.

 

[TNC9852002]

An arm wrestling match between Cena and Mark Henry would be fascinating to see in real life, but I dunno...seeing it here on RAW, I think will be entertaining and all, but I'd like to see them REALLY go at it without any "rules".

-TNC

 

[LastSunrise1981]

John Cena vs. Mark Henry in an Arm Wrestling contest? Where's the wrestling again? From what I can remember there hasn't been any storyline leaks as of late and we get a piece of crap Arm Wrestling match?

And Hornswaggle in the Kiss My Ass club? I bet Sabre is going to be doing some vicious sweating and naughty things when Vince shows his ass.

 

[TNC9852002]

Anyone else think that it's time for Cena to change his entrance music?

-TNC

 

[The Sage]

John Cena gets as loud as a reaction as Austin and the Rock did.

Again, why isn't this match happening at Wrestlemania?

 

[LastSunrise1981]

John Cena gets as loud as a reaction as Austin and the Rock did.

Not really. When The Rock showed up the place literally exploded and wouldn't stop cheering even when he was delivering a great promo.

 

[The Sage]

Not really. When The Rock showed up the place literally exploded and wouldn't stop cheering even when he was delivering a great promo.

Just the sight of Cena alone erupted the crowd. And last week, the crowd wouldn't shut up when Cena spoke.

 

[LastSunrise1981]

Nice RKO by Orton. I remember when he was always botching it every chance he got and now he hits it with beautiful ease.

 

[Hunter Rider]

John Cena gets as loud as a reaction as Austin and the Rock did.

Again, why isn't this match happening at Wrestlemania?

Very much so, that reaction was massive.

HHH.

 

[LastSunrise1981]

Just the sight of Cena alone erupted the crowd. And last week, the crowd wouldn't shut up when Cena spoke.

As I said, Cena doesn't have the same presence or promo electricity that say The Rock had. Austin was an excellent promo individual but his was more of the same day in and day out. The Rock gave absolute gold promos with his comedic timing and his harsh honesty obviously.

Cena, well, the crowd did cheer but to be fair the crowd really wasn't that loud at all. But then again the crowd should've erupted when Jericho returned and they didn't. I definitely feel fans today tend to be fickle and only go with what's cool, rather than actually going with the individual with the real talent and the ability to have great matches.

I would REALLY love it if Cena pulled a Rock like heel turn and just became a vicious badass who is also a smartass.

 

[TNC9852002]

I don't usually dig those WWE videos, but I might check out "Raise Hell" if I find it for a low price..

-TNC

 

[TNC9852002]

I would REALLY love it if Cena pulled a Rock like heel turn and just became a vicious badass who is also a smartass.

I think it'll happen eventually...Heck, it might even happen this year.

-TNC

 

[strikezone89]

ight guys i just got home from school... what have i missed so far?