The Issue #16
By: Bryon Frazier
October 9, 2004
There's word going around that the Streak himself, the Master of the Homo Promo, Pat Patterson was sent to travel with the Raw people to figure out how to improve the quality of the show. In a stunning surprise, rather than suggest lots of gay innuendo and bared man-flesh - or at least more than usual - Patterson reported that one of the problems is HHH's super huge macho role on the program. As punishment for such blasphemy, Patterson was immediately fired out of a cannon directly into Lita's chin. He died upon impact.
In other news, this column was delayed by 3 days not because I'm lazy, but because I missed almost all of Raw this week. In fact, I can only recall seeing the Diva/Eugene segment off the top of my head, so I informed Chris F-B that I was calling an audible and waiting until Thursday night so that I could watch Smackdown! and actually write about things I saw instead of just reading recaps and passing my opinion. Such a move was made complete when I proceeded to only catch the main event on Thursday. C'est la vie I suppose.
Speaking of Smackdown!, some people were stunned when Justin Guarini defeated John Cena for the U.S. Title. Of course, we all knew that Cena couldn't hold the belt for too long since he's supposed to be leaving to tank his movie career soon, but no one expected him to drop his belt to the former American Idol runner-up. Guarini was quite impressive in his debut, as he had clearly put on enough weight to make Barry Bonds say "He needs to slow down on the juice." I personally think it's a good move for both parties involved, this way people forget that Guarini was in From Justin to Kelly while the WWE once again gets to show how important they are by rubbing elbows with a D-list celebrity. Everyone wins! Anyway, since that's all I saw of Smackdown!, I guess I'm obligated to go back to Raw and comment on that one segment that I saw there. As has been made clear over my tenure here, I'm generally a fan of women in wrestling, so it should come as no surprise that I do indeed enjoy the exploits of Christy and Carmella. In fact, I've told Chris on a few occasions how I believe that Carmella has "it," that je ne sais quoi, and just like that I've exhausted my French repertoire. Seriously though, considering that she's still only 22, I believe that Carmella has a ton of potential as in my view she exhibits legitimate charisma, even if she is embarrassingly bad from a material standpoint.
That's the key to cutting promos. It isn't all about charisma, nor is it all about material. A worker has to have a strong amount of both qualities. Just look at the Rock, no one can deny that the guy exudes what D&D players call CH, but when he was a goofy babyface his material was lacking and thus people hated him. Luckily, good writers can help with this problem, but the charisma is entirely up to the worker. Conversely, charisma never goes anywhere; if a person has it then they have it for life. Sometimes those writers can go on dry spells, or in the case of one Chris Jericho they can just be ill-equipped to give the guy what he needs to make himself beloved. I honestly believe that if the Jericho from WCW had actually made it to the WWE, rather than getting kidnapped and replaced shortly after his debut in the WWF, he'd be the current top draw in the company. I just don't think that the WWE's writers were either capable of even willing to let him do the same things that he'd been doing before. Yes, I said "willing."
You see kids, a while back I touched on this very subject when I expressed that the WWE prefers to get wrestlers over "their way," even if WCW had already made a star out of a given guy. The only guys who got to do the same schtick that they were doing down south is if they had already made names for themselves up north beforehand, as was the case with guys like Hogan, Nash, and Hall. Meanwhile, Jericho was suddenly walking Stephanie McMahon's dog and the Big Show was taking a dump in the bathroom. Sure, these kinds of scenes make for riveting TV (just look at the ratings for the "Show's taking a crap" segment!), but would it have killed them to use Turnerland's efforts as a guideline for how to keep these guys over?
I know that I'm disparaging SSP favorite Paul Wight, but damn it, he deserves it! I won't be satisfied until he goes back to smoking cigarettes and squashing Disco Inferno. Until then, I'll always feel like the WWE is cheating me. Then again, it's now too late for the WCW guys. They've all been WWEized to the point that they'll never be able to tap in to their old tricks and make them work. So really I'm not bitching about a change I'd like them to make, but rather I'm complaining about what I feel they've done wrong in the past. Considering the nature of the topic, I don't foresee this issue coming up again any time soon, since it requires another wrestling promotion on equal footing that is capable of making Superstars™ on their own.
This would be a good segue into a discussion about NWA-TNA, but then I realized that I had an original train of thought that was lost in that sea of bad jokes, so I guess I digress. Imagine a local commercial that you see on television from time to time, and take note at how horribly horrible it is. Now, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the person/people starring in that advertisement are either as wooden as an evergreen, or they're so over-the-top that you can't believe that they could ever show their faces in public again. What does this exemplify? A lack of charisma, of course. The dialogue in those ads could have been written by some of the most creative minds in the world and it still would've been ridiculous because the actors who've been given that dialogue simply don't have the capability to make it work.
And then there's the one known as Snitsky. This man is a mystery wrapped up in a riddle inside of an enigma. He seems to lack both charisma and material, but he's so bad on the mic that he becomes hilarious. In fact, word through the grapevine suggests that Steph McMahon herself had this same opinion about his first promo and suggested that his next one be just as bad. For those who are unsure, the rule in these matters is, "if they're doing it on purpose, then it's genius. If it's all by accident, then you can still laugh, but deep down you have to feel bad for them." Therefore, I am officially saying that Stephanie McMahon is capable of genius ideas, which in turn officially proves that I'm willing to compliment the women of wrestling for any reason that I can muster. Really though, who cares who's responsible? As long as Gene Snitsky goes over against Kane (Chris did once say that Kane never wins at PPVs) we'll all be happier.
Besides, with the Honky Tonk Man: News Reporter spreading the word that Kane is on the outs, you can pretty much bank on it that Snitsky is going over like Taker goes over Cena. The best parts will be when Snitsky pulls Kane up out of a sure pinfall, kicks out of Kane's chokeslam, and then finishes him for good. I doubt their will be a dry eye in the house, not because they're saddened by Kane's definite departure, but because everyone's hero will have made his mark. It'll be a glorious day for pro-choicers, baby!