The Eagle's Ring

Across the Pond: What Changes?

I’ve been writing this column on and off for a quite some time now, and I’ve come to ask myself more and more, why does the wrestling industry change so much? We all remember Stone Cold and the Rock, and we all remember WCW, but we don’t have that today do we? No, today we have Randy Orton and John Cena and we may not have WCW, but now we have TNA… but, how is that different? It strikes me, and I know it’s a cliché, but the more things change the more they stay the same. There are still two main companies, Vince Russo is still churning out bad stories, and the WWE still has 4 or 5 main guys. So, what has changed?

We can claim the product has changed all we want, but the fact is, it hasn’t. It’s shifted onto the next generation, but the formula remains. So if the product hasn’t changes greatly, then the only thing that could have changed at all is us. We have changed from the excited kids who would talk about wrestling in school, to older jaded smart fans, who look for more than just the babyface to win. We now want the best wrestlers to go over. We don’t immerse ourselves in the storylines like we used to, rather we judge them based on how often they’ve been used in the wrestling world, or how interesting we think they might be.

 

Whether or not you want to admit it, if you’re reading this column, you’ve probably become one of the ‘smart marks’. You remember those guys right? Brian Pillman ranted against them once or twice on TV. We try to outsmart the business, we like to think we know it all; we grade wrestlers on their technique and moan when it’s not up to our standards. We look at guys like Batista, who in fairness to him has come on in leaps and bounds since debuting, and we see a ‘roided out’ monster, who doesn’t belong on TV, and that’s just the way we think.

Why do think like this now? We never used to, did we? Who among you reading this watched Kevin Nash back in the day or Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior or any of those ‘big men’ who got over because of their size, and loved every second of it? I know I did. There was something special about seeing a monster rampaging through the ring, while every single wrestler they came up against threw every single thing they had in their bag of tricks against them. I remember when the Big Show debuted in the WWF, I was more excited watching that show than I was watching the last Wrestlemania, because here was this massive man, promising to destroy the locker room, telling everyone he was unstoppable, and in fairness, who can argue with him?

I’ll go one step further, I used to watch all the Pay-Per-Views I could afford, not because I wanted to see the wrestling, but because I wanted to see how the stories played out, and if there were some cool spots in them, all the better. So I’ll ask again, what changed? Well… for one, a lot of my friends stopped watching altogether, and I was left looking for other reasons to keep watching. So I started looking at the quality of the matches, and I stopped ‘following’ the stories, yeah they were there, but they weren’t the main reason to watch anymore. Then I started training to be a wrestler, and I grew to appreciate the workers more and more. That’s when I stopped being a fan and started being a ‘mark’.

 

So when did it happen to you? When was watching an entertaining show not enough? When did everything Vince McMahon do, start pissing you off? More importantly, can we go back? Can we start appreciating it again, like we used to? I know I try, very hard, but I can’t.

I’ll admit it, this was a short column, but here’s what we’re going to do, I want you to think, really think about what I’ve said, and then I want you to answer the following question.

Did wrestling change, or did we?

 

Send your answers to:

pondsplash@hotmail.com

Across The Pond: Under the Hood 1

Scarecrow is a concept I’ve been mulling over for a while, it strikes me that, while I like the idea of ‘Suicide’, I think the character has been poorly managed in TNA. Now I realise he’s been given his push, and got over (frankly I put that down to Frankie ‘the Future’ and ‘The Fallen Angle’ being that good), so I’ve been proven wrong to a degree. With that being said, I do want to try and write a character that is broadly similar to Suicide, but different in many ways.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m Big Hugo, this is ‘Across the Pond’, and this is my latest project, ‘Under the Hood’. It’s been a while since I’ve put up a column, so you’ll have to excuse me if this is a little choppy. I’ve been swamped, but now I’m back… or at least as back as I’m going to be until I get my degree. Sorry I’ve been away for so long, but let’s look forward now, and check out who I’ve put under the hood.

 

The ‘Scarecrow’ idea is simple enough, a psychological enforcer, for a less ‘active’ wrestler. Ideally, I’d use Raven for this, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a ‘dark’ character, it could work as well for Eric Young or Kurt Angel as it would for Stevie Richards or Raven. It is also a mantle that could be passed down to future wrestlers depending on it’s success, or it could be used to launch a great singles run, by unmasking.

To begin, we need to pick a wrestler and a company. Let’s start with the company. ROH doesn’t need this gimmick and the WWE doesn’t like to put too much faith in new guys. With the current rosters, the perfect company to introduce ‘Scarecrow’ would be TNA. It has a nice mix of old and new players to test the character, and the man under the hood. The question is, who do we have play the part?

As much as I’d love to see Umaga in TNA, as soon as possible, he doesn’t fit the bill for the Scarecrow; his body-type is far too recognisable. A man who would work well, if he was willing to slow his style down a little and just be a power-man, is Lance Hoyt/ Lance Rock, the former tag team partner as Kid Kash in TNA. While he’s not ideal, he would fit the bill. None of this would even matter, however, if we could get the ideal man, Ken Anderson…. ANDERSON!

 

While by himself; Ken Anderson could be a huge draw in TNA, that novelty would run thin fairly quickly. What I would like to do is build it up. Have TNA sign several wrestlers of the same build, to wear the hood, while Anderson worked as ‘Ken Anderson’. This would spark the question amongst the fans ‘who is Scarecrow’? There would of course be very few occasions when ‘Scarecrow’ and Anderson were in the same place… just to plant the idea in the minds of the fans that he can’t be the Scarecrow.

 

So this leaves us with a company and a wrestler, now we need an angle. Let’s everything goes wrong, and Raven leaves TNA before Anderson gets there. That’s alright; the plans don’t go out the window. So we don’t go with the sociopath bringing in a ‘psycho’ angle, we’ll use the ‘former babyface, who has been pushed too far’ one. Eric Young, tired of his role in TNA, thinks it’s time to ‘mess everyone up’ or some equally mad tag-line. And for the next few weeks, he talks about bringing ‘him’ in.

The Scarecrow itself represents fear, and the closer it comes to his first appearance, the more paranoid Eric Young becomes (in the case of Raven, he would simply be getting more and more excited). Finally, after losing a match to, say, Matt Morgan (Kevin Nash, Abyss or a similar giant would do, but Morgan would be the best, as he’s high mid-card, and wouldn’t be damaged by getting taken out by a new comer) the lights go dead, but for a single red spot on the entrance ramp. Morgan wouldn’t be intimidated; he would scream for who ever it was to come down to the ring. The lights fade slowly back on, and a man in a disgusting, burlap mask and ragged clothes makes his way slowly to the ring. Morgan disposes of him, but then another comes down, and another. They keep coming, until Morgan can’t fight them off. Then a voice plays through the arena: “Are you scared? I’m here”. It’s Anderson, speaking slowly, but the fans won’t think it’s him, as Ken Anderson had a match earlier that night.

 

Morgan won’t be scared and he’ll challenge the ‘real’ Scarecrow to come and fight, at which time, EY will jump him from behind with some chloroform. With the big man out cold, one of the Scarecrow ‘dummies’ will remove his thick burlap mask, to reveal a secondary ‘phantom of the opera’ style mask, only covering his full face, and cracked or torn in places. This is how we’re introduced to Scarecrow.

 

I’ll expand on this at a later day, but that about wraps up this section of our first time under the hood.

 

Until next time, keep reading and writing!