Silk Purses and Pig's Ears
Originally Posted 8-6-03

Hello, my intended...

Once again, your old buddy Bobo has decided to enrich your gray little lives with some of his trademark lunatic rambling. Besides, the boss would've had an aneurism if I didn't cough up something new after he paid money to advertise us and get some new people showing up to 'discover' us. Put the shotgun down, Dave... I'm producing.

(Ahem)

There's a few things in wrestling right now that are - for lack of a better term - actually GOOD. Of course, the ratio for those to the reprehensible crap is consistently skewed to the latter, but you could read just about anyone for a breakdown of what's wrong. First off, let's look at the title picture...

Most of the Champions in the WWe are 'worthy'. Kurt Angle, Eddy Guerrerro, Molly Holly, and the World's Greatest Tag Team (hereafter referred to as 'the Burgundy Menace') are all hard-working competitors that consistently put on a hell of a good match, regardless of their opponent. I might get some flak for mentioning the Burgundy Menace since most people think they were 'hotshotted' the titles and are too new/green, but there's really no decent tag teams on Smackdown anymore EXCEPT for them. Say what you want, but tossing together a couple guys into a team for no reason and then giving them a title shot is boring me to death. Much as I loved Eddy and Tajiri, the pairing was haphazard at best (Get well soon, Chavo!). Much as I enjoyed Benoit and Rhyno, their styles just didn't 'mesh' well. And that's about it for the tag scene on Smackdown, unless you want to count the APA or the Bashams...? Didn't think so. Anyone else think Bradshaw had to beg Simmons to 'unretire' so people might start giving a Texas crap about him? Like it's ever worked.

Molly Holly may yet be the most deserving person to get the Women's Title, but I don't think she'll hang onto it long since she got her start in wCw with the Macho Man - and in Vinnie's Circus that pretty much guarantees you get NO play, unless it's just to take it away again as fast as possible. Molly's soaked up more crud that anyone on the roster except maybe Kane. She was brought in as a goddamn HOLLY, for crying out loud. Talk about starting at the bottom, eh? From there, she had a 'star-crossed romance' Capulet and Montague style (as the Hollys and Dudleys didst feud, verily) with Spike Dudley who went so far as to quote Keith Partridge lyrics in his likably clumsy style of pitching the ol' woo. From there she got a bump on the head and left Spike for 'The Hurricane' (wCw SuperHeel at the time) and became 'Mighty Molly'. That was great, actually, but of course once they saw she was having fun with it - and getting over - it had to stop. From there she got into 'Ass Wars', wherein her motivation for feuding with Stratus was that Trish said Molly had a big butt - and they actually started adding a comical level of padding to her tights to get the point across to the guys in the cheap seats. From there, she went all 'Miss Prissy', and started chastising the other Divas for being 'slutty' - Ivory in the RTC was nowhere NEAR as harshly prim as Molly. Of course, that was purely so they could yank up her long skirt to show 'granny panties' and et cetera, but Molly sold it like she was absolutely mortified every time, and THAT started to work... So they pulled her off the shows for like three months, and once she returned she was more along the lines of the old 'ruthless aggression' Vince was talking about last year. I guess they finally realized she was, y'know, talented and such, and after only three years. So after she worked a decent few spots with the 'chick version of Mysterio' (You've gotta be kidding me. Kim couldn't carry Rey's bags in the ring from what I've seen) they finally give her the strap - and there is much celebration in the IWC. Too bad making the IWC happy is the kiss of death at WWe, though... Just ask Benoit... Or RVD... Or Jericho... But I digress.

Eddy Guerrerro with the US Title, straight from the cold storage of the leftover wCw stuff... Eddy makes that belt, folks. As much as we all love Benoit, I was absolutely CRINGING when he came out on Vengeance with 'Toothless Aggression' on his tights. Yeah, that'll get you over Chris... Now all you need to do is pump your arms every time you take a step and lick somebody's skullo in the front row - then it'll be 'the total package', to mix a metaphor. I love the little Canadian son of a gun, but he's got a TINY bit more charisma than Lincoln Logs from Lincoln's outhouse. 'Prove me wrong, Chris... Prove me wrong.' Heh. Conversely, Eddy is the Latino answer to Ric Flair. Aside from Angle, there's nobody on the roster that comes close to connecting with the crowd like Eddy can - and does. Add in that the guy has conquered his share of personal demons as he went, as you got a bonafide role-model there... Except for the Lie, Cheat and Steal thing; but hey, I heard some guys in the NBA can put forth a 'squeaky clean' image in between adulterous rapes, so I guess Eddy can be on the other end of the work/shoot spectrum. Don't you?

Angle... Rather than have this devolve into a pure fluff piece, let me state that it takes a complete IDIOT to put as much on the line as Angle did in that first Brock match. The guy has KIDS, and went in there and worked like a six-year old at the Nike factory with Brock, who had limited experience at best - and is a total savage beast. And he did it after pushing back much needed major surgery, to boot. Think about it: one little 'oopsie' from Lesnar and Angle's next big match would have been against Droz for parking. Personally, I wouldn't have held it against the guy if he bowed out of the match to get himself fixed up. Unfortunately, he thought everyone else WOULD so he risked everything for a company that is infamous for 'forgetting all that their stars did for them' whenever it's convenient. To do what Angle did was simply beyond stupid... However, there's always been a fine line between heroism and stupidity - and I thank God he landed on the right side of it. So should you.

This of course brings us to the Champion most of us do NOT think is worthy, but I've pretty much accepted that nothing this side of an assassination is going to get him out from under the boss's daughter, but since she's already run ONE necro-angle I don't think even THAT would do it. So I just ignore him. Whenever he comes on I change the channel. To anything else. ANTHING. Okay, usually it's the Cartoon Network, as I'm a mark for Samurai Jack. Happy? Too bad he's hanging with Flair, as Naitch was the MAN - but as they've long since made the NayChaBWAH the semi-silent partner I'm not really missing anything except having my memories of 'when it was good' spat upon with assistance from the guy that MADE most of those memories...

Now, with the champions out of the way, let's examine something else going 'right'. No, I don't mean Michaels finally dropping one to Jericho after a ton of run-ins and chairshots to make Y2J look W-A-H (Weak As Hell). No, I don't mean DDP doing a guest-star pop-up on the SlamBall commercial for a nice ham sandwich. No, I don't even mean Kane getting Taz's old ECW gimmick with a dishtowel from the Martha Stewart collection. I don't even mean the complete comedy gold that is Shane and Roosevelt - and how do I know it's comedy gold, you ask? Because I used the same joke five years ago.

Nope. I mean the fact that they're slowly beginning to understand that there's no downcycle. They're beginning to see the fact that this is not a 'slump' they are one hot gimmick from turning around. They've tried all the shock-value of a season of Springer on DVD, and it hasn't worked... Why? Because it's not entertaining. So, since they can't get the 'Entertainment' part right they've decided to go back to the roots and do the 'Wrestling' part right - or at least as well as they can with who they have. This pleases me. Sure, we get the whole crapstravaganza with the sloppy matches from the big slobs like Albert and Test, but overall there's been a marked improvement since this time last year. The brand specific PPV's have lent a bit of legitimacy to the brand-split, and while I boycotted the Raw one like nearly everyone else - the Smackdown one was the first PPV all year I didn't feel dirty and cheated after watching...

I've been beating the old school 'make it matter again' drum for a long time, folks. If you don't believe me, check out the fifty some articles you get when you search the archives for <a href="http://www.theringpost.com/cgi-bin/colsearch.cgi?category=1&keyword=Fiendish">'Fiendish'</a>... As I was saying, I've been all but begging these folks to give the product some semblance of respectability again... For crying out loud, if anyone's ever seen the return of the WMAC Masters on the Fox, you can get the whole 'the following performances are by highly trained professional athletes' bit, but you DON'T get that on the WWe... You get a bunch of highspots mixed in with the workers listing some of their booboos and then going 'Don't try this at home'... Yeah, okay. That'll talk little Elroy out of Rock Bottoming Judy. Sure.

It's not perfect, everyone knows that.

But it IS getting better.

Now if they'd only stop putting goddamn McMahons in the Main Events... Although I did find it kind of funny that Shane doesn't have a contract. Heh.

You're welcome. See you SOON.