You are here /wrestling
/guests
/Squire
Guest Columns

The Squire

Main

BLAH

DOING THE JOB
At the Core...

Welcome to the Inaugural column of "Doing The Job" by The Squire. It's been on my agenda to get around to writing this badboy up, but the time just never presented itself. Well, in truth, it still really hasn't, but I'm running on no sleep whatsoever right now at work and I just can't seem to concentrate on what I should be doing. And talking wrestling is always a whole helluvalot more interesting than work.

FYI, my column is kind of an extension of my wrestling site that I was previously the proprietor of. Unfortunately, running a site is a lot of damn work and I just don't have the time to put forth to do it well. Besides CRZ's site gets a substantial amount of hits greater than what my two-dollar site could hope to get. And that's the whole point, to get my opinions [which are just so damn important] read by the online fans and develop myself into some sort of worshipped net personality. Eh. As if anyone is still reading this. Anyways, there's some good columns in there anyway and if I get enough requests I'll have CRZ throw up a link to it here in my future columns. Otherwise, I don't want waste the time [yours or mine] since I'm sure everyone is just perusing this while in wait to chalk up the hits for Dan Doomsday's latest rave on the most recent Kid Rock composition or for CyanIndigo to talk AT LENGTH about her Canadian Critters. You think I could get [slash] a stronger female fanbase if I spend half the column describing what a fine tool I've been endowed with? Well, after that comment I've probably lost most, if not all, of the prospective male readers. Ah, I have a feeling that most women would probably rather read about breasts anyway. If it's any consolation I have a pretty well-developed chest from working out, maybe I can increase my readers on the basis of that! Ugh, wonderful stuff this sleep depravation. Hey, speaking of readers...why don't I segue into what I should be writing about here...

Stone Cold Steve Austin. OH SHIT! Not another column about THAT GUY! Well, I've got a slightly different tact going into this, and it's something that's been nagging me quite a bit. And that being that the WWF is in serious jeopardy without Austin, no matter how many pavlovian Rocky chants you may hear.

Now why is this? The WWF has some other 'top' stars that they can build their promotion around, right? Everyone seems to be hailing The Rock as the most popular star they have going right now, so much so that his pops have surpassed Austin's. Everyone is clamoring over how The Rock is the chosen one to be carrying off the title at Wrestlemania. Austin has worn out his welcome. I disagree.

While I will not dispute the Rock's popularity, his character, like most of the other top stars in the WWF (and WCW as well, I'm not taking sides here) is not fleshed out to carry a whole promotion. While I find Austin's promos to be a little repetitive at times, it is in no way the cache of catchphrases that the Rock's mic time is. Austin has been the center of the promotion for over 2 years. There is a strong backstory that is developed there. His character is possibly the most 3-dimensional in all of wrestling today (take that for what it's worth), and of course the fact that he has been the epicenter of the WWF is a strong argument for that. Austin has become predictable because we know how his character acts, and just like in any other television program, while it may have a regularity to it, that's the image that's expected and provides a sense of completion to the product.

While I'm sure many of the WWF marks will want to string me up for saying this, but the centering of the promotion around Austin will be it's undoing. And I only feel that way since none of the other performer's are as fleshed out to carry the promotion. They have made a lot of strides as of late developing Test, Jericho and especially Triple H, but the villain needs a foil. If that's to be the case, we know that the Rock is the obvious choice, but Vince has to make the fans care more about the Rock and not about how Rocky is going to work the word poontang into his promo tonight.

Now, to clear things up, I'm not a mark for the WWF. I would have considered myself more of a WCW mark until recently, until they stopped, y'know WRESTLING and became Monday Night Nitraw. And there's nothing wrong with what WWF was doing, but instead of Russo and Ferrara incorporating a bit of their style into the WCW product they decided to completely change it to what they were doing before (kind of like when Dave Navarro joined the Red Hot Chili Peppers and it became Jane's Red Hot Chili Pepper). That being said, I like both promotions as much as anyone who friggin' wrestling today does, so don't bombard me with letters that say "fuck you WCW mark". I think that I'm one of the few who don't think that the WWF's product has been going downhill since the departure of Russo and Ferrara. In some ways there are some nice improvements; a lot of new talent being brought in, some longer matches, and good workers like The Hardys, The Hollies, and Edge/Christian who have been given a chance to showcase their talent in the ring and not have to rely on the stick. Unfortunately, Russo and Ferrara's sea change over on TNT is doing more damage to both feds. Nitro may have been SUCKING big time for awhile there, but at least it was it's own entity. Now both shows are bordering a little too close to one another and that just becomes overkill. I don't think that RAW has become that bad, but we're in sensory overload. It may have not been that bad if we'd already seen something like that before on RAW, but now we've just seen it on Nitro as well. Too much sometimes is TOO GOD DAMN MUCH.

Now, I'm not suggesting that RAW switch up the formula for no reason, because they're still dominating in the ratings. But I just feel that they need to really get into some interesting storylines for The Rock as well as whomever else they really want to develop as their next top stars. The Rock's been treading water since the face turn in April. He needs to get some major development in an angle. Not Rock Bottoming the Bulldog into crap, not putzing around in the ring for 20 minutes with Mick, and not just useless stare downs with Austin. This just all smacks of the 80's to me when Hogan was champ and it appeared as if no one else could be a credible champ for the WWF because everything was centered around his worthless ass. (I'm discounting Savage here because he had to turn heel in order to put Hogan over.) When the time came to pass it on to The Warrior, his reign was designated a flop because there wasn't anything that had been developed to make the fans care. Oh, and The Warrior was irritating as hell and his wrestling skills were on a par with La Parka's English, as if anyone forgot.

Anyway that's my take on it.

Your Resident Heel.
The Squire
URL to come

Mail the Author

BLAH

Main

Design copyright (C) 1999 Christopher Robin Zimmerman & KZiM Communications
Guest column text copyright (C) 1999 by the individual author and used with permission