The Gorilla Press: Road to Wrestlemania Currently Under Construction
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Monday, March 1, 2010
THE SHEET
GORILLA CLIP OF THE WEEK
With Wrestlemania 26 just 4 weeks away, each week in March The Gorilla Press will feature a different Wrestlemania-themed Gorilla Clip of the Week. This week, we take a look at one of many entertaining movie spoofs done by the WWE as part of their buildup to Wrestlemania 21 when “Wrestlemania Went Hollywood”. This particular spoof took aim at Robert Dinero’s career-making scene in the movie Taxi Driver.
SHOWSTOPPER
FROM RAW
Taker ShawnV II. Sure they’ve met four previous time, but for the sake of the epic build up, The Wrestlemania 26 encounter between The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels (which was announced this past week on RAW) is virtually Taker/Shawn II in a rematch of perhaps the greatest Wrestlemania match ever. The music video styled promo of Shawn Michaels Failures leading up to the present moment was one of the greatest video packages ever put together by The WWE. Career vs. Streak makes this match that much more compelling and at least gets people talking about whether or not this could be the year that The Undertaker’s streak comes to an end (even though it isn’t). The segment between The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels was definitely the high spot of RAW this past week, and is expected to be one of the high spots if not the high spot of Wrestlemania 26.
Cena/Batista III. With all the buzz around Taker/Shawn and Bret/Vince, the feud between John Cena and Batista, the WWE’s two biggest stars, does not feel like a Heavyweight championship-caliber feud. On paper, this matchup has all the makings of headlining any Wrestlemania. The two even had a great match at Summerslam just a few years ago. However, I still feel like I need to see more out of these two in order to buy into the fact that this match could potentially be headlining the biggest event of the year.
FROM iMPACT!
TNA Welcomes back The X-Division. With the shotgun booking of The X-Divsion this past week on iMPACT! designed to get the consumers talking about the upcoming Destination X pay-per-view, TNA still has a lot of work ahead of them as to how their upcoming pay-per-view will take form. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the fact that Destination X would absolutely tank if it were an all X-Division pay-per-view. TNA hasn’d done enough with that division in recent years, outside of mixing and matching X-Division talent to fill time on TV and pay-per-views, to get fans to want to pay to see their talent. If that overlying problem wasn’t hazardous enough to TNA, the X-Division is filled with ‘shades of gray’ characters and ‘wrestlers’ who don’t create conflict through brilliant promos and angles. Even the X-Division talent that one may consider the heel is so good in the ring that it becomes difficult to boo them especially if they haven’t done anything dastardly enough to earn permanent disapproval for the fans. Long story short, Destination X may need a few detours to ‘breathe some life’ into the event.
The Immortal Abyss, Act I. Abyss is a curious choice for a guy that the Hogan Administration wants to get behind to make one of the top stars. The character of Abyss is reminiscent of Kane. Not only is this Abyss character a blatant ripoff of Kane, but he is currently in the same position of his career as Kane where he’s pigeonholed himself through years of one-track booking to the point where we may have seen it all with Abyss.
But if Hogan and co. disagree and want to make him a superstar, the last thing they want to do is use create an over-the-top angle where the monster has ‘magical powers’ that inspire him to channel his inner Hulk Hogan. Talk about pigeonholed.
When The WWE wanted to make Cena a star, did they put The Rock’s elbowpad on him and have him come out to The People’s Theme song? Did they put a Triple H crown on Randy Orton and have him channel his inner assassin? Well then why is A.J. Styles transforming into Ric Flair? Why are we being conditioned to believing that Abyss is the next Hulk Hogan? It’s one thing to associate talent with legends in order for them to get the rub, but creating a star involves more work than blatantly ripping off said legendary talent in hopes of quickly propelling young stars to the top.
FROM SMACKDOWN!
Upset Friday. Friday’s Smackdown! featured some surprising finishes, namely to The Money in the Bank qualifying matches. While Shelton Benjamin going over CM Punk can easily be considered an upset, Shelton has carved a nice little spot for himself every year in Wrestlemania by being an active participant of The Money in the Bank match.
The main surprises came when Dolph Ziggler (who we feared may have been a Spring Cleaning Casualty by now) went over John Morrison, and Drew McIntyre ‘lost’ his first match to Kane who earned a spot in The Money in the Bank match. Kane in The Money in the Bank match does not bother us as much as it may some people. He is basically a lifer in the company and one of the guys The WWE will feature at the Wrestlemania card every year regardless of what type of momentum he has going into the card. Ziggler has a handful of unique maneuvers outside of his Billy Gunn Preset, and should have some pretty cool high spots in the match. Shelton Benjamin has become Mr. Money in the Bank (without actually winning the event) and always has something for ya in the match.
Miz vs…Edge? The first encounter between ubiquitous rising star The Miz and Edge was likely a reaction to Smackdown’s! ratings disappointment last week. The match came out of nowhere and was not used to further the feud between Edge and Jericho. And while we’re on the subject of The Miz, it will be interesting to see what The WWE has planned for their young superstar when it comes to Wrestlemania. If he remains with The Big Show, which is highly likely, who will they defend the tag team titles against with such little depth in The WWE tag team division?
TIP THE HOST
The bull riding contest was actually a good way to integrate Jewel and her bull riding husband Ty Murray into the product. The segment didn’t run too long and this tandem was by no means the focus of a RAW that kicked off the Wrestlemania buildup season. We leave them each with a $5 tip.
THE SHOOT
Thoughts on WWE NXT. It was exciting to watch The WWE NXT show as it was finally revealed just what this show was and how it would work. Or was it? The WWE did a great job highlighting five-star talent Daniel Bryan, and heel Michael Cole was one of the most refreshing things to come from behind a WWE announcer’s booth in quite some time. But WWE NXT still has some questions to answer as to how they will choose an NXT ‘champion’ who will be awarded a WWE contract and how many winners there will be.
The NXT show, while it did feel fresh and new, did not feel like the ‘hybrid reality show’ it was built up to be. Everybody was in character, and aside from the introductory cutaway interviews that gave you a reason to care about the talent, the show’s format did not stray from the typical live show. If this is the case, and NXT is your typical live show highlighting younger talent, the show will not continue to be a ratings success and will erode quickly as no-name talent does not score with the mainstream public.
There still needs to be more of a reality show aspect to WWE NXT, and perhaps The WWE needs to pull the curtain back just a little bit to better market their stars as well as provide a unique product that people can get behind.
WWE NXT is still a fresh idea with potential to be very good, however it still needs some fine-tuning and I am interested in seeing how the show eventually pans out.
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Tags: Gorilla Press Pro Wrestling Blog, Wrestlemania 26, WWE Money in the Bank, WWE NXT
