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Updated Thursday, April 3, 2008

Yes, it's another Ric Flair column. But I'll keep it short.

Flair, the Rembrandt of the Ring, the Matisse of the Mat, made his retirement official on Monday night, in a ceremony full of pomp and circumstance. Emotion flowed like Flair's golden mane in his heyday. For about 22 minutes, fans forgot all the negativity in wrestling - from steroids to the congressional inquiries to John Cena or Triple H's push, and gave thanks to a man who spent 35 years making sure we got every dollar's worth we spent on him.

It's funny - Flair would've preferred to go out as a heel, but there was no way that was going to happen. To boo Flair in his final match would've been tantamount to blasphemy. He's one of the last vestiges of several eras, which explains his broad appeal.

If you're 40, you may remember Flair from the Carolinas. If you're in your 30s, you saw him in the NWA. If you're 20 or thereabouts, his time in WCW and WWE are what you recall. Very few athletes in any other sport last 35 years and cross so many eras as Flair did, and if they do, not all years are usually as a player. That's what made Monday night extend beyond the norm.

As for Raw, WWE wisely kept it low-key, with few major storylines, so nothing overshadowed what could be Flair's final moment in the sun. And for once, it was an atmospheric advantage to be in Orlando with its hyper-smarky crowd. Some towns may have been burnt out on Flair after the Hall of Fame on Saturday and his WrestleMania match on Sunday. But the crowd was the catalyst for a lot of the emotion felt that night. Here's hoping the Impact Zone fans took notes on the proper time for "thank you" chants, and won't give them out so haphazardly anymore. But that's a minor point in the grand scheme of things.

We likely haven't seen the last of Ric Flair. He'll be back in some capacity, probably not full-time though. Hopefully, he takes a well-deserved long break before coming back. Flair worked hard and earned every bit of the legacy that was celebrated Monday night.

***

Updated Wednesday, March 26, 2008

As promised on this week's Raw audio, here is my preview/predictions for this year's WrestleMania (with a rough guess of match placement).

(1) JBL vs. Finlay in a Belfast Brawl is likely to start the show (unless they want to start off hot with the MITB match). The Hornswoggle deal took an odd turn with JBL's discovery that Finlay is the father. It seems Vince McMahon has washed his hands of the whole angle. I'm sure we'll see Horny pop up in this match. Not all of our questions have been answered yet, so JBL wins to continue the feud.

(2) The Money in the Bank match doesn't seem to have the same show-stealing buzz as in years past. With names like Jeff Hardy, Edge and Rob Van Dam absent, it's not hard to see why. Looking at the seven players, I'd say Carlito, Chris Jericho and Shelton Benjamin can be eliminated from serious contention immediately. Some may be surprised I have Jericho on the list, but I feel the MITB is a chance to award someone with a shot that they may not normally get; if Jericho won, it would be a feeling of "here we go again". John Morrison is a dark-horse, but I don't think it's his time yet. WWE isn't high on C.M. Punk right now, leaving Ken Kennedy and MVP. I'll go Kennedy, to make up for last year, though I'm intrigued by a possible MVP-Undertaker feud down the line. The wild card is if there's a surprise eighth entrant.

(3) The Battle for Brand Supremacy between Umaga and Batista will probably have low expectations from most people. And with the constant shifting of sports-entertainers from one brand to another without explanation, and without real competition between the two brands, what's really at stake here? The rumor going around has Umaga moving to Fridays, but I think he wins here. That way, he can settle his "feud" with Batista down the line on Smackdown.

(4) Big Show vs. Floyd Mayweather has a distinct "train wreck" possibility, especially considering we don't know what the match will be yet. With no one to cheer for, I'm wondering if the crowd may poo-poo the whole thing. I'm having a hard time reconciling either guy winning in my head. Either Floyd will be happy enough with his big pay-day to take a dive and possibly damage his boxing reputation, or Big Show will be happy enough with the mainstream exposure to job to a non-wrestler half his size. It's almost assured the finish won't be clean, but if there are enough distractions and if there's a really big "TV moment" that is worthy of mainstream TV the next day, would the crowd care if it simply ended in a no-contest?

(5) Well, so much for the Battle Royale at the PPV. If you missed it, it was announced on ECW that the match will take place at 6:30pm on WWE.com. I predicted in the VIP Forum that Khali would win the Rumble, only to reveal that Hulk Hogan was in fact the 24th participant. He would slam Khali, then throw him out. His match with Chavo would be very short, as Hogan would win by DQ when Khali interfered. However, Hogan would come out on top and do his posing routine. I guess that is out the window though. So instead, I'll go with Kane in the Battle Royal and Chavo to retain. Can't have all the titles changing hands.

(6) Ric Flair vs. Shawn Michaels. There had been some question leading up to this week whether Ric Flair would actually lose at WrestleMania. After this week's TV, I think we got the answer. Expect the classic Flair spots and both men to have their working boots on. The question is if this is really Flair's last match. With his age, I wouldn't be surprised if it was (Terry Funk notwithstanding). I liked how the original angle had it end with Flair leaving his boots and robe in the ring and just walking away, but that would seem more likely if this match was to go on last. I think it would be appropriate for the locker room to come out onto the stage during a tense part of the match and stay 'til the end, giving Flair the props he deserves.

(7) In the BunnyMania match, I think Snoop bops Santino Marella on an interference attempt, allowing the face divas a victory. And hopefully, it'll begin the re-building of Beth Phoenix. With no one on the face team to carry the in-ring part of the match (which is where having Mickie James replacing Candice would have come in handy), over/under is for this match to go 3:00.

(8) Undertaker vs. Edge doesn't have much intrigue for to the result (Taker is reportedly quite protective of The Streak), but how we get there could be fun. Edge is a great character and an equally able in-ring performer. The Vickie Guerrero program could've been really bad, but they've managed to make the angle not only tolerable, but entertaining at times. A lot of that credit goes to Edge. Taker can still go in the ring, and with Ryder & Hawkins & Vickie, this should provide some fun moments. My best-case scenario is to have Teddy Long, who has been neutered by Vickie and Edge, prevent the Edgeheads from interfering, allowing Taker to win.

(9) Raw three-way title match. So, is it going to be Triple H or John Cena winning the WWE Title? Oh yeah, or does Randy Orton retain? Let's eliminate that possibility right off the bat. WWE held out on giving the title to Cena in February at No Way Out. Is there more money in Trips chasing Cena, or Cena chasing The Game? Either way, I think Cena wins here, but the ride obviously isn't over for Triple H.

Top to bottom, this card doesn't excite me as much as in years past. But with it being WrestleMania, you know WWE will find a way to spice things up.

***

Updated Friday, March 21, 2008

As I said in my Impact report last night, TNA is not a show I watch every week. I'm usually knee-deep in "Lost" on Thursday nights and if I do see any of Impact, it's usually the replay Saturday nights. I do, however, read the recaps and keep up on the news.

That said, I went into last night with relatively low expectations. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the show. The over-booking was kept to a minimum and there were no outright stupid or pointless segments. Everything, for the most part, had a purpose.

One of the problems with Impact has been that there are hundreds of things happening on the show every week, and hardly anything resonates with the viewer. They seem to stuff as much as possible into the two hours. As proof of that, recapping two hours of Smackdown usually takes me just onto the fourth page of Microsoft Word. Last night's Impact report went six full pages. My fingers were sore trying to keep up. Even so, there were a lot of good things on last night's show.

For the most part, the Christian vs. Rhino angle played out well. I thought they fast-forwarded through a part of it, though. In one segment, Rhino doubted Christian and was not happy with him in the sit-down interview, but ended up shaking his hand after his match. They could've milked that handshake for weeks, with Christian doing small things here and there to gain Rhino's trust. Still, that angle was interspersed throughout the show to make sure viewers didn't forget about it.

The Booker vs. Bobby Roode angle has been praised by a lot of people, and I can see why. Booker and Bobby (and Sharmell, for the most part) play their parts well. I would rather the angle focus more on Booker and Roode rather than Peyton Banks and Sharmell, but we'll see where they go with it.

I was actually expecting some better matches than I saw. That was one small downside of the show. TNA has such different in-ring talent than WWE; they should take advantage of that by exposing them to the world on Impact. Instead, the one match that I thought could've done just that went just 2:20 (Dutt vs. Homicide).

The announcers were okay, but there were two spots I thought exposed the "rush-everything" philosophy of the booking team. Mike Tenay was plugging the TNA website to find out what happened with Steiner & Petey almost as soon as Scotty was putting the handcuffs on him. Why not just wait until later in the show to announce that, rather than seemingly having ESP? The other point was at the very end of the show. Somehow, Tenay and West knew that Sting's music and video meant that he'd be on the show next week. How exactly did they figure that out?

Speaking of next week, they only plugged the live Impact a few times. I don't understand why they didn't mention it more, or at least have a wrestler talk about it in their promo. Of course, maybe they don't think being "live" matters all that much when it comes to ratings; Raw being the evidence of that.

I don't know why TNA keeps trying to re-package Kip and B.G. James. I'm thinking Vince Russo is a huge reason, since he had them as the New Age Outlaws when booking in WWE. It seems whenever they get away from the NAO stuff, they eventually get stale and go back to talking about the good ole' days.

I liked the Kurt Angle training session. It was wisely kept short, as these types of things can tend to lose a crowd quickly. Angle looked impressive and TNA seems to have more of a grasp on what MMA is than WWE. Angle seemed intimidating rather than a comedy figure.

The main event was fine, and I got some NWO vibes with the match not ending cleanly and Team Tomko laying everyone out, including those who came out of the back to try to help. Speaking of the NWO, they were also met in the end by - you guessed it - a Sting video. The more things change...

They also seem to be hyping the Lethal Lockdown cage match quite well, with Team Tomko vs. Team Christian. That angle was weaved throughout the show, and left people wondering if Christian could get his team together (and to work together) in time to face the well-oiled machine that seems to be Team Tomko.

TNA can survive on the ratings it's pulling in, but they need to use these shows to draw more PPV buys. Did this show work toward doing that? I think so. The Roode vs. Booker cage match and Lethal Lockdown matches are both intriguing, and they built up those matches well on Thursday, without giving away too much for free.

***

Updated Tuesday, March 18, 2008

There was nothing wrong with what WWE did with the mid-card last night on Raw.

There, I said it.

Pat McNeill, James Caldwell, and Sean Radican mentioned the main event burial in their roundtable reviews, but doesn't it seem like we're saying that all the time? At what point does it stop becoming a burial and just become "normal"?

It's been written, and is evident in simply watching the shows, that Vince McMahon only makes sure to look after the main event players. It makes sense; they're the ones who draw money for him. One could argue that the MITB Ladder Match at WrestleMania will draw, but that's more because of the match itself rather than who's in it.

Another argument for protecting the mid-card is the future - some of these guys will eventually be looked upon to draw money, and here they are getting pinned as soon as they enter the match. But WWE has an example of that being a fallacy right on the roster: Jeff Hardy. How many times did Umaga and Great Khali squash him, yet he was the hottest product in the company for the last few months. What about Triple H? He got the burial treatment back in the day for the Clique MSG incident, and he's an unstoppable force now. In his early days, John Cena was a mid-card white-rapper who wasn't protected all that much. He's the company's biggest draw right now.

The point is that wrestling fans have short enough memories that if someone is going to be pushed in the future, getting the jabroni treatment as a lower card wrestler earlier in their career will have little effect.

Furthermore, look at who was out there in the Raw main event match. Very few of the guys had credibility in the first place, and those who did (JBL and Umaga), were spared the embarrassment of getting pinned within seconds of tagging in.

People can complain about Cade & Murdoch and London & Kendrick being used last night in ways that didn't make them look good, and point to that as another example of tag team division disrespect. We can keep complaining about that (Lord knows I've done it enough), but the fact is, WWE doesn't put the same emphasis on tag teams as some fans do. Neither brand's tag titles will even be defended at WrestleMania. Could tag teams draw if WWE concentrated on it? Sure. But it's clear that's not where they're putting their efforts right now. We can shout and shout 'til our faces are blue, but pushing the tag division is not part of WWE's philosophy right now. That doesn't make it right, but harping on it every week is just getting tiresome.

The only mistake made was WWE thinking the viewers would imagine Cena and Orton losing. In fact, more was played up about the dissension between the two rather than the possibility of them losing, despite the odds. And you can look at it this way: Cena and Orton didn't win the match outright and completely destroy everyone. There were still about half of the wrestlers left when it turned into a giant brawl and the ref threw the match out.

Bottom line: Building the mid-card is not a priority of WWE right now. And if it means sacrificing all of them to hype an angle for an upcoming show, so be it. It may be frustrating for some of us, but it's time to realize that's just the way it is.

Torch specialist Greg Parks is a regular guest with James Caldwell on the Raw post-game show, found exclusively in the Torch VIP Audio section. Parks will be joining Caldwell after next week's Raw to preview WrestleMania.

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