Time for another one. These are my thoughts on what would be cool to see now or in the future. Check the column archives for the other three, if you’re interested, though keep in mind that these columns aren’t timeless, so some of what I listed in the past may have in fact happened since then.

Mercedes Steele Heel Turn
As we all saw, indy wrestler Lexxus debuted on iMPACT! recently as Mercedes Steele. Though it was a total squash, Steele has in fact signed a contract with TNA and will be back. Those of you who follow the indies already know this, but for those of you who don’t, Lexxus and Nikki Roxx, aka Roxxi, feuded heavily in Chaotic Wrestling. It was Nikki who in fact recommended Lexxus to TNA. So basically, bring that feud to the iMPACT! Zone. When Steele debuts as an actual Knockout and not a random jobber, make her a heel. God knows we need more of them in the Knockouts anyway, and this way those of you who don’t watch Chaotic Wrestling will see the awesome matches that Nikki and Lexxus can put on.

Roxxi as Knockouts Champion
Self explanatory. She’s busted her ass for months, and now that she’s being pushed and the crowds go electric for her again, it’s time for her to win that title at Bound for Glory IV. TNA, you wasted the massive push from shaving her head, don’t waste this one.

For the love of God, don’t bring Suicide in
Promoting a game is one thing, but don’t emphasize the worst part of the game and burn up air time on yet another masked gimmick. All Suicide is going to do is take away pushes of the actual wrestlers on TNA’s roster. If they bring Suicide in and seriously expect it to work, then I know why they stopped using “We Are Wrestling.” They couldn’t say it with a straight face.

And End to Gimmick Moves
How often do we see one wrestler hitting brutal shot after brutal shot, giving us real strikes like kicks to the face, jabs to the throat, etc, only to have all his momentum taken away because the opponent suddenly hits that magic unstoppable gimmick move? I’m looking at you, Triple H’s “Double A Spinebuster”, AJ Style’s “Pelé”, Jeff Hardy’s “Whisper in the Wind”, etc. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to turn professional wrestling into the UFC. Spinebusters, hurricanranas, finishing moves, and all those other fancy things that’d never work in real life are fun to watch and are the foundation of professional wrestling. But what irks me is that entire matches stop dead and do a complete 180 over a single move. I realize that when you watch a match you have to suspend disbelief, but every time an opponent’s 8 minutes of nonstop offense is turned completely around because Triple H hits his magical spinebuster, I just cringe. And you know, if the move in question seriously looks like it hurts like hell, fine. But that spinebuster? Half the time Triple H pretty much lays the opponent down like he’s putting his kid to bed. The Pelé? A tap. The Whisper in the Wind? Assuming Jeff even hits it correctly, which he never does, it still looks weak. Have matches do a 180 over a single move all you want, but at least have the move in question be something that looks like it could hurt a fly.

And this goes for finishers too. The Pedigree is the most overrated, unrealistic piece of crap ever to be called a finisher. I realize that the CONCEPT of the move is a lot more lethal than what we actually see on screen, thank you Marty Garner, but if you have to water down a move to the point of laughability to make it safe, don’t use it at all. This goes for any other overgimmicked finishers that don’t actually hurt. Suspension of disbelief has a limit. Make your finishers something that make first-time viewers of the move cringe or gawk in awe. A finisher is supposed to be something that knocks your opponent the hell down and doesn’t let him back up, not a weird set of movements given a fancy name and passed off as something that could actually hurt someone. Use your Pedigrees and the like all you want, after all this is professional wrestling and not UFC, but don’t try to pass it off as something lethal. All it does is make me ashamed to be a wrestling fan.

Bring Mr. McMahon Back
How I miss “No chance!” playing and Vince coming down to play the evil CEO character. You hated his guts, yet at the same time, he was funny and entertaining. How can someone make you laugh and anger you at the same time? I don’t know, but somehow he manages to do it in every Mr. McMahon promo. He’s been off screen for long enough. I say it’s time for Mr. McMahon to strut down the ramp and start screwing over someone at every opportunity once again.

Sting to learn how to do a heel promo
I don’t know what Sting thinks he’s doing out there, but you don’t cut a heel promo by high fiving everyone as you go down and go back up the ramp. You don’t cut a heel promo by saying you respect Ric Flair like a father. You don’t cut a heel promo by saying “come on, let’s have a round table and talk this out.” In all honesty, I think Sting should be replaced by Brother Ray in this whole mess. He’s got accomplishments left and right and he can spout off about respect all day, but at least he knows what a heel is, and cuts arguably the best heel promos in the business today. But that’ll never happen and I don’t expect it to, so at the very least, Sting, go hang out with Ray for a while and take lessons on cutting heel promos. It was reported that he tried to at first but people wouldn’t boo him, but why would they? He never gives them any reason to! For example, this past week, when everyone was mocking Hogan as he was on that screen, Sting should have screamed at the audience over it. But no, he just said something to the effect of “even though it’s not popular to say” and changed the slide. It’s like he’s TRYING to suck at cutting heel promos. He gets up early. And he doesn’t get off camera until he’s made some very poor decisions.

That’s my view from the Great White North. I’m hopefully-upcoming-Knockouts-Champion Roxxi Laveaux Fanboy, may the voodoo be with you.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 27th, 2008 at 4:50 pm and is filed under Editorial Columns, Wrestling News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.