I’M SORRY, I like Punk as much as the next guy, but dude, come on, DRAGON is the Best in the World right now, hands down. I can’t believe just a few weeks ago I was starting to think his act with Kane was getting stale. The act has since received a shot in the arm, and their work with The Shield has been top notch. Everyone involved in the angle is great, but Bryan is at the top of the heap, IMO. It’s to the point where I’m even watching (parts of) Smackdown again. Awesome.
AWHILE BACK–probably close to ten years ago looking at the dates involved–Ms. Sensational mentioned a book she’d heard promo-ed on the radio about a humanitarian-type doctor named Paul Farmer.
The radio spot was, I think, an interview with the book’s author, himself a Famous Person of Much Importance, so I kept getting confused as to whether she was telling me about the doctor or the writer, and it was this confusion that kept me remembering the conversation years later.
Eight or nine of those years later I found myself screwing around on our computer, avoiding housecleaning and looking up old WCW lore via Wikipedia. Yes, while some harness the wondrous information technology of our digital age to enact global humanitarian works or to chronicle these works via Pulitzer prize winning journalism, The Sensational One uses Google to remember old wrestling angles.
On that particular day my WCW reminisces got me thinking about the “Fake Sting” angle from 1996. I remembered it happening, but I couldn’t recall who the “Fake Sting” was or where he came from.
For background’s sake, in 1996 Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling was red hot. Their flagship television show Monday Nitro had overtaken the World Wrestling Federation’s Monday Night Raw in the ratings, all on the wave of an angle involving a stable of wrestlers known as the New World Order (nWo). The nWo started out as a group of outside invaders from the WWF, eventually claimed a newly villainous Hulk Hogan as a member, and then continued to grow. Since it was the EXTREME and EDGY 1990’s, these anti-establishment wrestlers soon became hugely popular anti-heroes, and by the end of 1996 it was nearly impossible to go anywhere without seeing some fool sporting an nWo t-shirt.
Elsewhere during the course of ’96, while the nWo ran wild over the majority of WCW’s roster, a formerly fun-loving, face-painted, surfer dude known as Sting began establishing himself as one of the faction’s main opponents. However just before a match where Sting and some other WCW good guys were supposed to take on members of the nWo, Sting appeared to attack one of his own teammates. But guess what? It wasn’t really Sting! It was a Fake Sting! IT WAS NWO STING!
This led to a chain reaction of shenanigans that eventually saw Sting trading in his beach-ready appearance for a more dour, 1990’s appropriate knockoff-of-The-Crow look. Meanwhile, nWo Sting did his thing for a bit in WCW before running wild in Japan as part of New Japan Pro Wrestling’s version of the nWo.
And what the hell does ANY of this have to do with renowned humanitarian Paul Farmer? Well, like I said, nWo Sting came to mind, and it was bugging me as to who played the character. In pro wrestling, fools with weird gimmicks like nWo Sting are usually someone else (gimmick/character-wise) before or after those weird gimmicks. For instance when Razor Ramon and Diesel left the WWF for WCW (where incidentally they started the nWo), the guy who played an ill-conceived replacement version of Diesel went on later to be a superstar in his own right as Kane.
So thanks to “this modern world in which we live,” I was able to hop onto Wikipedia and within seconds find the entry for nWo Sting. Kind of a sorry use of seconds, I know, but at the end of the day, The Sensational One makes no bones about the quality of his preoccupations.
According to the entry nWo Sting didn’t have much of a resume prior to his nWo gimmick. He’d wrestled under the names “Lightning” and “Cobra” in the early 90s before taking up the nWo Sting mantle, which he rode out until becoming “Super J” in 2000. He seems to have kicked around Japan as Super J until 2004 when he started doing the nWo Sting gimmick again on the American independent scene. Finally, as of late 2010 according to Wikipedia, nWo Sting had become “project manager of a research program known as GEAR (Genetics, Exercise, and Research) at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.” And that’s about all there was to Wiki regarding the man.
Except for one little detail. nWo Sting’s real name is Jeff Farmer. And in a small, miss-able sentence at the beginning of the Wikipedia entry there is a mention that he is “the brother of Dr. Paul Farmer.”
While this detail may have been lost on some, the scattershot nature of Mr. Sensational’s thinking had kept the name Paul Farmer alive in his consciousness for years, and the connection was made! Here were two men, two brothers, one being a deified public figure credited with saving and improving untold lives, the other being…NWO STING.
I dunno, it struck me as a bit weird. Maybe they are totally cool with this situation. But maybe not? What happened at family gatherings back in 1996? “Oh, and what have you been up to Paul?” “Well, I’ve been receiving countless degrees and honors while bringing truckloads of medicine and surgical equipment to some of the world’s most impoverished regions.” “Really? You don’t say! That’s great. And what about you Jeff?” “Well, I pretended to be Sting and clotheslined Lex Luger last Monday.” “Oh, that’s nice, dear.”
Just seems like kind of a trip. A family with two sons doing stuff of international renown, but for reasons that could not be more different. I wonder if Jeff ever felt insecure that Paul was helping and saving fools while he was busting tights and an nWo t-shirt? I think the temptation would probably be there, but if I were him I wouldn’t sweat it. He got to be in the nWo, for god’s sake! HE TAGGED WITH MASA CHONO! I guess a lot of people would be more taken with the world saving stuff, but me, I’m backing nWo Sting TO THE FULLEST.
It’s kind of cool knowing that in a laboratory somewhere, there’s a project manager wearing a lab coat and glasses, looking at slides and test tubes, yet seething under the surface is an nWo member just waiting for the call. It may never come, but then again it could. One day, when everyone least expects it, Hollywood, Nash, and Hall might come storming into the place. The other scientists would all think Jeff had their back. But at the last minute he’d reveal an nWo tee beneath his coat and the beat down and spray painting would commence. God that would be awesome. OK, gotta go do some dishes. Until next time, thanks for stopping by.
SO AWHILE BACK–I can’t remember how far back, since the weeks and months tend to blur together, especially when it comes to pro wrestling programming–TNA put on a string of pretty good Thursday night Impact shows. Nothing earth shattering, but good, solid professional wrestling television: a decent mix of talk and action, a relatively compelling cast of characters, a focus on titles…well, on the World Title at least…effectively simple stories that followed internal pro wrestling logic. I was watching both Impact and Raw/Smackdown regularly at the time, and I often found myself enjoying Impact the most of the three, or at least Impact and Smackdown ahead of Raw.
Then the wheels slowly fell off. Among other things, Garrett Bischoff got his head-scratchingly nepotistic push, Hulk Hogan returned, storylines started to backpedal in convoluted ways, and it felt like Impact was returning to mediocre business as usual. Meanwhile, Wrestlemania season started in full force on the WWE side of things, making TNA seem less and less relevant in all ways possible.
Eventually, as the road to Wrestlemania XXVIII got closer to its destination, I stopped watching Impact all together, and soon I wasn’t even checking the results on pwtorch.com. But now, a few months removed from Wrestlemania, with WWE firmly back into its offseason slump mode and some TNA buzz following a reportedly decent Sacrifice PPV, I decided to check in on Impact after weeks away.
And my decision yielded a pleasant surprise. Last Thursday’s Impact Wrestling (5/17/12) was a thoroughly entertaining rasslin’ show.
After retaining the World Title at Sacrifice against Rob Van Dam, Bobby Roode–six months into his inaugural reign as champ–kicked off the show finding himself targeted by a mob of potential challengers. Hulk Hogan hit the stage in his current role as Impact GM (not a big fan of the Hulkster on my screen in 2012, but I can deal with him somewhat in this role), and announced a series of matches to determine four candidates for number one contendership, one of whom he would then select to have a title match with Roode the following week.
This is pretty basic, nothing exciting or earth shattering, but it works. Champ feuds with a contender up to a PPV, champ dispatches challenger, a rouge’s gallery of possible contenders crops up post-PPV, and a series of matches over the course of the night’s show determines the challenger for the next PPV. I like this because it makes it seem as if the undercard matters and that those wrestlers are actually working toward a goal (contendership for titles). It also helps create a sense that there’s some sort of ranking leading toward title shots. These are seemingly minor points, but they’re important fundamentals in allowing the viewer to suspend disbelief regarding wrestling’s predetermined nature.
I know there are some out there who feel this predetermination should be ironically celebrated or laughed at, but for me, a suspension of disbelief (and an internal logic that allows this suspension to take root), is–in addition to larger-than-life personalities and a history/tradition of viewing the sport–what makes wrestling worth watching.
We then saw Bully Ray defeat Rob Van Dam, AJ Styles defeat Austin Aries, Eric Young, ODB, Robbie E., Robbie T., Gunner, Garrett Bischoff, Magnus, and Devon in a battle royal, and Jeff Hardy defeat Mr. Anderson. All of these were qualifying matches for next week’s potential contendership.
Bully Ray is hands down the best heel in wrestling right now, so it’s nice to see him hovering around the title picture. RVD is pretty inconsequential to me these days, but I’d rather see RVD as an enhancement act than I would a Kofi Kingston or a Jack Swagger.
Which brings me to my point regarding the battle royal. While there are certainly the Robbie E.’s and Robbie T.’s on the TNA roster who I don’t give a crap about (though Robbie E. does a lot with what he’s been given gimmick wise), overall the TNA undercard is much more interesting to me than WWE.
In WWE, the drop off from CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Cena, Lesnar, and co. to Epico, Primo, Kingston, R-Truth, et. al. is so staggering that aside from the main event angles, I don’t really feel like watching the rest of their shows. We’ll see if this changes as new faces are being introduced on Smackdown currently, but in the meantime, I’m more interested in TNA’s undercard mix of WWE veterans with stories and histories that make them seem better than generic placeholders (RVD, Devon, Mr. Anderson, Jeff Hardy, Kurt Angle), and younger and/or homegrown wrestlers who, while still often in enhancement roles, are at least occasionally presented as being hungry for or in the mix for titles (Gunner, Magnus, Austin Aries, AJ Styles, Kazarian, Christopher Daniels) rather than depicted simply as unranked, wheel-spinning “superstars.”
With the vets, even when they’re jobbing, you can get into them as grizzled old-timers, picking themselves up off the mat and trying to get back into the mix. The WWE vets can also, at any time, easily be slid into the main event. In the case of the younger and/or homegrown talent, you can empathize with their fight to get to the top, a top that’s often been denied to them in favor of undeserving but better connected talent. All of this gives what could be boring filler a sense that it’s part of a larger drama–the quest for titles and positioning. I’m not saying this never happens in WWE, but TNA’s current roster seems better suited at creating this illusion for me right now.
The battle royal was followed by a 3-way women’s match for the TNA Knockouts Title. While women’s wrestling in TNA is a step above WWE (which is automatically unwatchable), it’s still a shadow of its former self, so until something changes, this got fast forwarded.
Samoa Joe then faced Kurt Angle in another qualifying match. This was nothing special, but good. It’s always kind of sad to see Joe in the ring and then think about how he could have been used all these years. Angle is disturbing as hell regarding his health and apparent mental state, but the guy is a freaking machine.
And that was that. It was a little confusing, because the show never clearly stated how Hogan was going to pick one of the four potential candidates for contendership next week, but that being my biggest gripe with this episode is a good sign. We’ll see if Impact keeps it real again next week. I sure hope so.
I didn’t watch the 5/18/12 episode of WWE Smackdown, because it was leading into a PPV (Over the Limit) that I didn’t give a crap about.
I didn’t watch the 5/19/12 episode of Ring of Honor, because I hate watching their weeks that are out of sync with their iPPV schedule.
I didn’t watch the 5/21/12 episode of WWE Raw, because it was coming out of a PPV (Over the Limit) that I didn’t give a crap about, with nothing much seemingly on the horizon. Also, the news of Raw becoming a three hour show in the near future has kind of knocked the wind out of my sails regarding WWE. I love me some wrestling, but geeze louise!
I’ll probably check in with Smackdown this week to see how the likes of Damien Sandow and Claudio “Antonio Cesaro” Castagnoli are shaping up.
I’ll probably check in with Ring of Honor TV whenever their weird schedule catches up to the aftermath of the Border Wars iPPV.
I’ll probably check in with Raw next time there’s some Brock buzz or something else along those lines.
Speaking of which, more, shortly, on the last spate of iPPVs I watched: Evolve 12 and 13, and ROH: Border Wars. Better late than never!
BEFORE GETTING INTO last night’s Raw, and Raw in general since the start of May, I need to mention that April’s Extreme Rules PPV ruled extremely. I can’t remember being that happy to throw money at a PPV in quite some time. Not that it was THE GREATEST PPV OF ALL THE TIMES or anything, but I can’t recall a recent WWE PPV that’s been so unexpectedly satisfying with such little expectations/fanfare. I’d say last year’s Punk/Cena Money in the Bank show probably qualifies, but unfortunately I didn’t order/watch that one live.
Among the highlights of Extreme Rules was, of course, the Brock/Cena dustup, as visceral an outing as anything you’re likely to see in contemporary, mainstream professional wrestling, a match I’d argue even came reasonably close to the still-fresh Ragnarok of Undertaker/Triple H II, though without the same amount of gravitas. And so, on the Monday following Extreme Rules, I tuned in to Raw knowing that I’d be disappointed by the follow up, but still eager to see what that follow up might be.
And now, two weeks later, Brock Lesnar’s gone (not a surprise seeing as he’s a part time attraction), Triple H has a broken arm (courtesy of a parting Brock), John Cena’s still here (despite the fact that the beating he took at Extreme Rules hinted at some much needed time away), the upcoming Over The Limit PPV will feature a headline match between Cena and a non-wrestler authority figure (John Laurinaitis), and everything else is an afterthought.
Oh, did I mention Paul Heyman’s back? You’ll get no complaints from me there. I enjoy Paul E. as an onscreen character, and I’m also a sucker for 90s nostalgia (I’m the guy that popped the last time Scott Steiner returned to TNA), but so far, without Brock actually standing by his side, he seems kind of lost in the mix.
Lost in the mix, like the build to a CM Punk/Daniel Bryan title matchup that in any alternate universe would be turning heads. Lost like Dolph Ziggler, tomorrow’s money making star today jobbing to the once promising, now stale intermission comedy character, Brodus Clay. Lost like poor Chris Jericho who really ought to have told us all who the little girl from his return vignettes was so that we might actually give a damn about what he’s doing now (though yes, that Punk feud was fun). And so on and so forth.
To be fair, I enjoyed Triple H’s rebuttal-to-Lesnar promo at the start of the show. Always a plus when Randy Savage, Bob Backlund, and Bruno Sammartino are mentioned on WWE programming in 2012. If WWE is going to exist in a vacuum when it comes to the world of pro wrestling on a whole, the least they can do is to keep their own history/continuity alive and tight. Sure you can pick nits pretty easily with Triple H, and it’s not like he’s my favorite wrestler of all time or anything, But I don’t mind seeing him on my screen in the limited and, mostly-effective way he’s been used of late. Then again, I’m the guy who popped when The Band got back together on Impact.
I also thought the CM Punk/Santino pairing was funny, in a semi-amusing way. Plus, it was nice to see Cody getting a chance to hang with the ‘big dawgs’ on Raw.
The Big Show firing/humiliation bit was memorable, if not borderline uncomfortable. Ok, fully over the line uncomfortable. Over The Limit, even. But hey, I guess we should be happy that what would normally remain between a man and his therapist got to play out on live cable television courtesy of Vince McMahon and/or his creative team? It was ok, though. Went on way too long, but Show was good in his role. And Laurinaitis has moved from wishy washy kinda-heel into Darth Vader territory now.
Everything else just blurred into the background for me this week, which isn’t that abnormal for Raw, but sort of abnormal considering I’d found the show more compelling than usual leading up to Wrestlemania and going all the way into Extreme Rules. I guess that’s over for now.
I’ve toyed with the idea of not bothering to watch the show again until Brock comes back or something else causes a buzz, but who am I kidding. Next Monday night I’ll be firing up the DVR and starting the ritual all over again. Remember, I’m the guy who popped when Dan Severn was revealed as Eddie Edwards’ trainer.
"Mr. Sensational" Gino Vega 