Dr. Darin Davis

I rarely talk about movies here (in fact the only other time I can think of was when I recommended Lipstick & Dynamite), but I watched a film last weekend that I thought would be of interest of the readers of this site.

The movie is a documentary called Bigger Stronger Faster* (2008). It deals with the use, abuse, and propaganda of steroids, while examining the root problem of why someone would want to take them. You can read the review from Roger Ebert (3.5 out of 4 stars) or IMDB (7.7 / 10) for a synopsis– I’ll just touch on a few more points below.

The film’s main characters are three brothers: Chris, Mark, and Mike Bell. Chris is the director, interviewer, and narrator. All three brothers had tried anabolic steroids, and two  (Mark & Mike) were still on them at the time of the documentary. One of the motivations for them to give steroids a try were there heroes, including Hulk Hogan, Schwarzenegger, and Sylvester Stalone. All of whom would either admit to using steroids (Hogan and Schwarzenegger), or be caught with them in later life (Stallone with growth hormone).

All of the bodybuilders and professional athletes shown in interviews (like Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds,  Olympian Ben Johnson) said they took performance enhancing substances because they had to– everyone else was doing them. That was one of the central themes of the movie. They didn’t do it to get ahead… they did it to keep up. To keep up with the idea that America has to be the biggest, strongest, and fastest country in the world.

On one hand we spend an extraordinary about of political and media attention on: steroids in the WWE, steroids in baseball, “roid rage” in the media (Chris Benoit), but at the same time we reward and admire those that are faster or larger than life and we look the other way. The U.S. Olympic Committee spends most of its time looking for loopholes for U.S. athletes to exploit (or they work with the officials to change the rules), according to one of the interviewees.

While everyone is focused on steroids, the supplement industry is pulling in over $27 billion dollars a year (PDF), and is virtually unregulated thanks to tons of legislation from Utah senator Orrin Hatch. Not coincidentally, about 10% of the supplement business resides in Utah.Which leads to shenanigans like the photographer who admitted that many of the “before and after” shots he has done for supplement companies were taken the same day, thanks to the use of lighting, makeup, and a bit of Photoshop. No rules against it, and everyone else is doing it so why can’t I?

The picture below was a set of shots the photographer took the same day to show how it is done. The six pack was airbrushed on. Not airbrushed on the image, but on the guy (Chris Bell).

For those of you that recognize the name Mike Bell, you may remember his work as a jobber for WWE and ECW. During the time of the documentary, he was still working the independents and sending tapes into the WWE. They kept telling him that he was “too old”.

Toward the end of the film there were very candid discussions of Mike Bell’s problems with drugs, and his inability to cope with not being a “success” in pro wrestling and life. His father said he was worried Mike was going to end up dead. Up until that point in the movie I had a feeling that there was something about the name Mike Bell that I couldn’t quite remember. After that line, I thought of it– Didn’t this guy end up dying?

After I watched the end of the film and didn’t see any mention in the credits, a minute with Google confirmed it. Mike Bell died a few months after the film came out (but possibly years after those scenes were filmed). The coroner eventually concluded it was from the “accidental” inhalation of a chemical used in a “household maintenance product”.

This documentary is definitely worth a rental (it’s also available on Instant Watch from Netflix). You don’t have to be a wrestling fan or a sports fan to enjoy it. The director does a great job of presenting the facts without taking sides. I would be surprised if you can watch this and not have your perspective change, regardless of what side of the discussion you started out on. It is definitely not black and white.

Photos: imdb

I wrote a couple of months ago (TNA Towel: 2, Believability: 0) about the TNA Bloody Towel ™ making another appearance on the Thursday night TNA Impact! program. Well, good ole’ “BT” was seen again on the broadcast last week after Mr. Anderson got Black Hole Slammed on a big pile of (candy) glass.

See the TNA Bloody Towel ™ in all its glory at about the 2:08 mark:

Since the towel has now gotten more air time than TNA president Dixie Carter, I figure TNA should just add the thing to their official roster.

Think of the marketing potential for this. Since they just signed with Jakks Pacific to have a line of action figures made, now is the perfect time to add it. And I don’t mean as just a wrestler accessory, I mean as a thing a kid could play around with.

I’d stand in a fairly short line to buy one.

If the action figure route doesn’t pan out, they could always hire the ShamWow guy hawk it on late night TV.

“Look’it the way this thing soaks up the fake blood.“

“Are you gettin’ this camera guy?“

Interesting ending to the 3-hour June 7th Monday Night Raw episode. The NXT rookies wreaked havoc on John Cena, the commentary crew, the announce table (including the announcer), and the ring itself. Not sure where they’re going with this,other than an nWo angle. Probably the best and most unexpected thing I’ve seen happen in the last couple of years. At least as far as storylines go, which I don’t care too much for to begin with.

Also interesting to see that the WWE ring is built the same way most of the wrestling rings are on the independents. Sheets of foam board insulation with their edges duct taped together, on top of 2″ x 12″ planks, on top of a steel frame (one of our earlier rings used 4 x 8 foot sheets of plywood instead of the planks).

On the same program, however, was one of the most embarrassingly awful series of skits the WWE has put on with the actors from the new A-Team movie. For all the flack TNA gets, they haven’t put on anything rivaling the WCW appearance of RoboCop.

Okay, I’ll admit I watched the A-Team as a kid. But if I saw Mr. T break out of handcuffs on the Tonight Show, I’d call B.S. (not B.A.)

If the A-Team movie is really “the biggest blockbuster of the summer” as they kept boasting, Hollywood has a lot worse problems than piracy. In fact, they may have just created the perfect pirate-proof product. Actually, most pirates just download stuff because they can, not because they actually intend to watch it, so I take that back.

Please, please WWE, get rid of the Raw guest host crap. You’ve got a general manager now. You don’t need to turn every show into a two hour product placement.

I pity the fool that keeps milking the guest host gimmick.

I surrender!

TNA IMPACT! is moving back to their previous Thursday night time slot after trying to directly compete with the WWE on Monday nights for the past two months.

I haven’t followed the whole ratings game for quite awhile, but I’m assuming this means that the ratings dropped. If the ratings didn’t increase at all, or didn’t increase as much as they had hoped, it doesn’t seem like reason alone to move. I don’t think there is added cost for airing a taped show on Mondays instead of Thursdays (I think they would normally tape on Mondays anyway). When they were live it was probably a bigger deal. Probably more of an issue for SpikeTV, since they’re the ones that had to shuffle the rest of their schedule around.

Some would say that TNA is “waving the white flag” and surrendering. Others would say… okay, everyone is saying that. Including me.

I didn’t think it was a good idea to begin with, so it’s pretty easy for me to say, “Told ya so“. But to be honest, I didn’t really know that it wouldn’t increase ratings. I was probably not on board when Bischoff decided to go head-to-head against the WWE on Monday back in the mid ’90s (although I was at the first WCW Monday Nitro at the Mall of America). That turned out to be a huge success, with WCW beating the WWE in the ratings for 84 consecutive weeks.

But that was a different time, and a different set of rules. WCW was able to beat WWE by taking away part of their viewership. People had to choose between one program or another. There weren’t many options to watch both, except for putting a tape in your VCR or flipping between channels.

Fast forward to today, where we can watch TNA at any time of day (delayed by a week) using Hulu or TNA’s own web site. Or using their DVR (TiVo, DirectTV, etc.). People no longer have to choose between watching one over the other. They don’t have to worry about missing something, because they can always watch it later. There is no scarcity here (manufactured or otherwise).

Hopefully for TNA, they won’t lose more viewership due to people not knowing when the hell they’re on.

Last Monday night on TNA Impact, we got to see the TNA BloodyTowel ™ used again on a broadcast. Nearly two years ago was the first time I remember TNA using the towel. Christian was powerbombed through a “glass” table. While laying on his back, the medical team came into the ring with a couple of white towels. Well, they were white on one side at least. The handheld camera happened to catch the fact that at least one of the towels was already bloody (or had some kind of pouch of blood) before they even made contact with Christian. Maybe they need to hire an out-of-work magician’s assistant next time to pull that off.

You can see it in this video from 2008, around the 2:20 mark.

On last Monday’s show, the towel got used again in a match where RVD got hit over the head with a beer bottle. This time one of the towels was firmly planted to RVD’s forehead, but I was watching closely to see if it would accidentally fall off and reveal that there was no cut.

Come on TNA, either do it all the way or don’t do it at all. I get why you (thought you) had to do in in Christian’s case with it being his back, but why with RVD? Does he have a “no blood” clause in his contract? If you would have reordered the matches to have Rob Terry go first, you could have soaked that towel with some of the real stuff from the gusher on the top of his head. I’d feel a little better about that.

The worst part is that now I have to add another clause to the footnote of my answer of one of the most often asked question by casual or non-wrestling fans: Is the blood real?

I got asked this a month ago by the daughter of a friend of mine. I told her it was real. She said her dad told her it wasn’t real. I said, “Your dad told you that so that you wouldn’t get upset. ”

So is the blood in wrestling real? Yes*

*Except for the cases where the wrestler is bleeding from the mouth AND it’s part of the storyline, OR when it happens before the cameras are rolling like a backstage interview segment where the guy is already face down, OR if they are using the TNA BloodyTowel ™.

I usually don’t go for the stuff that requires a huge “suspension of disbelief“, but once in a while something comes along that I just have to share.

Growing up I remember watching a lot of invisible man movies. There was also a TV show starring David McCallum.

Just like most people, I used to think about how cool it would be if I was invisible (you can use your imagination to come up with your own reasons why). But eventually, you would figure out that it really sucks, because people would keep bumping into you all the time. On top of that, you would spend your days either freezing or sunburned depending on your chosen climate (they hadn’t yet perfected invisible clothing in my fantasy).

The good news is that despite all the problems, you would still be able to find work in Japan.

In addition to covering the “salted nut of the day” and their web exclusive section of “What’s Up in the Hubs“, Continental Airlines Magazine has an article about the female executives at World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in their January 2010 issue. How I even came across this, I’m not sure.

One of the biggest problems with the wrestling in the WWE can be summed up with one quote (the emphasis is mine):

There are two things WWE wants you to know. First, the operative word is “entertainment,” not “wrestling.” Second, watch how you refer to the talent. They’re not wrestlers; the men are “superstars” and the women “divas.”

The WWE has spent at least the last several years, maybe the last decade, telling anyone who would listen that they are an entertainment company and not a wrasslin‘ company. Wrestling is apparently a dirty word.

Here are a couple more choice quotes from the same article:

As Wilson points out, there’s a certain logic inherent in having women at the top of WWE. “We’re an entertainment company,” she notes.

and this

Goldsmith, who moonlights as an extra in TV soap operas, says her biggest challenge is dispelling misconceptions about WWE. “One of those,” she states, “is us constantly being called professional wrestling. That term just doesn’t give us the credibility we deserve.”

Nice. What is that supposed to mean? You have wrestling in the name of your company! Other than putting out some crappy movies using their WWE roster as “talent” (See No Evil, The Marine, 12 Rounds, The Condemned), what do they do besides wrestling? The article talks about TV, Pay-Per-View, and merchandise, but it’s all wrestling related.

I’m not sure when all this distancing started, but it may have been around the time they went public with some of their stock. Or when they started putting out crappy movies (although No Holds Barred came out way back in 1989). There was definitely a shift when they decided to enter the talk show circuit and go with the weekly guest hosts on WWE Monday Night Raw.

I doubt they would ever drop the second ‘W’ from their name (so as not to be confused with that women’s channel on cable), but how long before they change what the acronym stands for?

Remember The Nashville Network (TNN)? When they started to change their format from redneck to a “the first network for men” (which is what I thought ESPN was), they kept the logo and abbreviation but put out a press release that they now wanted to be called “The National Network“. Prince and P-Diddy would be proud. Eventually they would change to “SpikeTV” and get sued by Spike Lee, but that’s a whole other story. Now I guess they’re just called “Spike”

How about World Wide Entertainment? After all it used to be the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) until they dropped the ‘W’ in 1979.

My advice for the WWE– don’t forget what brung ya to the dance. The more you distance yourself from the wrestling, the more you will distance your fans.

I’ve already gone on about how some of us “want our wrestling back“, so I won’t go into detail again. If they think they can generate their $530 million in annual revenue off of producing direct-to-DVD action movies (The Marine 2), they haven’t looked at DVD sales charts lately.

Say what you want about TNA (and most people do), they go out of their way to proudly state they are a wrestling company.

Unfortunately, it’s right before they bring out Lacey Von Eric, the worst third generation wrestler of all time.

TNA Wrestling had a live 3 hour broadcast on Monday Jan 4th, in direct competition with the WWE‘s live Monday Night Raw program. Of course, the big reason to watch Raw this week was the return of Bret “The Hitman” Hart after 12 years out of the limelight. For TNA, the reason  to watch was supposed to be the appearance of the immortal immoral Hulk Hogan.

The TNA announce team (and I’m assuming also the boneheads in charge) apparently thought that they would have a lot more new viewers to the program because it was on a Monday, and people are only allowed to watch wrestling on Monday nights. The normal Thursday time slot is probably what was keeping most people from watching TNA. Yeah… right.

Let’s get right into how this program faired, and what kind of impression the broadcast would make on someone watching for the first time (you know, the ones who bowl on Thursdays).

The Good

I thought the TNA Knockouts (a.k.a. female wrestlers) were given some decent air time to showcase their talents. The ODB vs. Tara match was good, and the Hamada/Awesome Kong vs. Taylor Wilde/Sarita tag match was very good. Both matches resulted in title changes, but I’m not sure if that really matters much anymore. Gone are the days when a champion would hold a title for over a year [I held the MIW TV Title for 15 months, but don't ask me how many times I defended it ].

The D’Angelo Dinero vs. Desmond Wolfe match was also very good. I think Desmond Wolfe is becoming one of my favorites, mostly because he seems to bring his opponents up to his level and focuses on ring psychology and actual wrestling during the match.

The main event of A.J. Styles vs. Kurt Angle was awesome. This sentiment was echoed by the fans as they alternated chants of “This is awesome!” and “This is wrestling!“.

I thought it was also good that Hogan came out afterword and publicly said that “these two are the greatest wrestlers in the world today”, to at least give us the impression that his ego may not take over the entire company.

One problem is that a lot of viewers probably didn’t stick around through all the other crap that went on to make it to this, or were switching over to Raw to see Bret Hart’s confrontation with Vince McMahon, so they may not have seen the best TNA has to offer. I saw a few comments around the net about the TNA and WWE Monday shows that bashed TNA and didn’t mention the Styles/Angle match at all.

The Bad

Now the bad [...deep breath...]. The hardest part here is limiting this to less than 10,000 words. There is so much I can say, but I’ll try to just touch on a few things. A lot of what was bad about it had to do with setting us up to think it was going to be good.

Here was the setup… The lip service from Hogan and Bischoff has been that they were going to “shake things up”, and they would “change wrestling forever”, and that it “won’t be like what you’ve seen before”. Sounded like they were trying to say it wouldn’t be another WCW. They also made the point that there is a lot of young talent in TNA that deserves the spotlight.

Right on!

They interviewed fans outside of the building who said that they “want to see wrestling” and didn’t want to see some cartoonish “kiddie” wrestling or sports entertainment (meaning WWE). Basically, they want their wrestling back.

I’m with ya!

So TNA had a full hour head start on WWE Monday Night Raw. They had a lot of time to showcase how they are not just the same old guys, and how this will be different, and how the young talent should be getting a push.

Here’s how they blew it:

Reason #1: Dumping on the Cruiserweight Division

Instead of having several matches during the night featuring X-Division wrestlers (TNA’s cruiserweight “division”), they throw eight of the most talented ones in the ring for a single match. In a steel cage. One that looked like a bird cage. A bird cage made out of steel. WTF?

They put them in a match that can’t possibly showcase their skills because it’s total chaos, you can’t really go off of the top rope or outside the ring, and nobody can even figure out how to get out of the damn thing. The company has bragged for weeks about the skills of their young talent. Well, here they are folks.

On top of that, you end the match quickly calling it a “no contest”. This was during the opening of the show. Your new viewers get to hear the entire arena chant, “This is bullsh*t!” while the sound guy fumbles for the mute button. Good first impression.

And then, what about all of the guys they’ve talked up for weeks (Motor City Machine Guns, Beer Money, Rhyno)? At some point during the night they end up layed out in the back from some unknown attacker.

In the first hour and 16 minutes there were exactly two matches.

Two.

Did you forget we said we want our wrestling back?

Reason #2: Hogan’s Cronies

They start out the show with their new “broadcast partner” Bubba The Love Sponge to do fan interviews. Then throughout the night more of Hogan’s cronies appear. Brian Knobbs and Jerry Sags (The Nasty Boys). Val Venis. Sean Waltman, the bloated tick that is Scott Hall. And of course Eric Bischoff.

Unfortunately I also have to include my favorite of all time, Ric Flair, in this list, who also showed up to collect a pay day without speaking or having any involvement.

After telling us for weeks that it isn’t going to be like it was before, they bring all of these old guys in. Like before.

Even if it was just for one night, it was one night too many.

Reason #3: WCW All Over Again

We’re going to do something new and exciting! We will spend 20 mins or so teasing Hogan’s arrival by showing you his limo driving through the streets of Orlando. If you were to put in a crawl at the bottom of the screen, it would be the same thing they did in 1994 on WCW. Too bad he wasn’t in a white Ford Bronco if they were going for nostalgia.

Hogan comes out with pseudo nWo music playing, with the dark beard and the black clothes. Later he’s got Hall, Waltman, and Kevin Nash in the ring. Just like back in the ’90s in WCW.

Oh, look. It’s Sting. He’s dressed in black and up in the rafters. Just like we all remember from WCW. And he’s also a mute again too.

Someone dressed in black wearing a hood attacks Styles again. Looks like the Black Scorpion angle from WCW (please, don’t let it be Flair under the hood again!)

And a Few On the Fence

I’m still on the fence about a few things. Jeff Hardy showing up on TNA was surprising to me (I don’t read the spoilers). I couldn’t tell if he was actually going to work for the company, or just showed up for an appearance like the rest of the riff-raff. He would definitely fit in, but I have a hard time seeing him anywhere but the WWE right now (if circumstances didn’t prevent him from working there).

Ric Flair (I know I already had him listed under the “bad”, so what) is another wildcard. With his great “retirement” sendoff in the WWE after Wrestlemania 24 in 2008, I hate to see him take the chance of ruining that moment by being involved with TNA. But it’s clear that even at the age of 61 he can’t stay out of the business.

What’s in Store for 2010?

The reason I get so ticked off about TNA is that they have such great talent that constantly gets misused by “creative”. I keep reading about how everyone says TNA sucks and I just don’t get it. Their storylines suck, but if you look at their roster, 80% of them are as good or better than any of the wrestlers in the WWE. WWE programming is slightly better because of their production quality and storylines, not because their talent is better. But if you’re like me and fast forward through the WWE storylines every week and just watch the matches, it’s like getting a crap sandwich- hold the bread.

I saw this quoted somewhere else, but I can’t remember where:

It took Jeff Jarrett over 6 years to build up TNA to what it is today. It will take Hogan and Bischoff 6 months to run it into the ground.

I don’t have a good feeling about this based on the first show with Hogan in control. I’ve already said that I would be monitoring the quality of wrestling programming through the end of June of 2010. If the Hogan/Bischoff clock started on January 4th, that should be all the time I need to see it hit rock bottom.

If I told you I had just watched a classic wrestling match where the only two moves used in the first five minutes were a side headlock and a cravat, you would probably ask me what 1950′s-era bout I had seen. Actually, your first question might be “what’s a cravat?“, depending on how familiar you are with the terminology of wrestling holds. But it wasn’t the 1950′s, or the ’60′s, or even the ’70′s. No, it was less than a week ago, right here in good old 2009.

In a match on the 12/17/09 episode of TNA Wrestling, Christopher Daniels and Desmond Wolfe (video) managed to build things up “old school” using basic wrestling moves. Not only that, but at the same time they were able to keep the attention of the crowd. By the time they worked up to a simple shoulder tackle, the crowd popped. Later in the match when they went into their various high spots and false finishes, the moves had a lot more impact because of where the match started, and it resulted in one of the best matches of the year, IMHO (the only negative was the finish).

With professional wrestling’s constant attempt to outdo themselves with more “extreme” matches and storylines, seeing things go back to basics last week was refreshing. It put some energy and variety back into a match in a way that got me more engaged than I have in quite awhile.

When the business can no longer top itself, what do you do? One thing you could do is start over. You could drop kick “sports entertainment” and bring the wrestling back.

At a time when Hollywood seems to be “rebooting” previous properties for better or worse (Spiderman, Batman, Superman, Transformers, GI-Joe, Star Trek, Land of the Frickin’ Lost), is it possible for professional wrestling to reboot itself? Could it start over again?

I doubt that WWE would be able to do it, as the short term ratings drop while they find their new audience would probably be too much for the shareholders to take (WWE is a publicly traded company). TNA may have been able to do it at one time, but since they’ve decided to bring Hogan in so that they can become “the biggest wrestling company in the world”, I think it’s too late.

Maybe a smaller promotion like Ring of Honor (ROH)? I haven’t seen any of their product, but Jim Cornette‘s Contract With the Wrestling Fans makes me think they are listening to people who “want their wrestling back”.

Back in July of 2008, I decided to keep track of my viewing time of WWE Monday Night Raw, ECW, TNA, and WWE Smackdown to see if I would be able to tell anything about the direction of the quality of the programming. This was assuming that if the quality (in my opinion) was better, I would watch more, and if the quality dropped (again based on my tastes), I would watch less.

I ended that tracking last summer. You can find the results of the that year-long experiment, including the charts, data, and a summary on the TV Viewership Stats page.

The New Method

In July of 2009, I started collecting some different data about the same wrestling programming. After a few months of dragging my feet I finally decided on how I want to show the data, so I’ve added the information to the website.

What I am measuring this time is the number of matches per hour, and the quality of those matches as judged by a simple rating system (1 Thumb Up, 2 Thumbs Up, 1 Thumb Down).

You can find out all the details on the new TV Match Ratings page. There is a new tab at the top of the main page for this.

I won’t be posting too much about it on the main page, other than the occasional reminder that it is happening, and maybe a summary every few months. Those that are interested can check out the details on the ratings page, and those that aren’t don’t have to look at it at all.

To finish out this announcement, I’m including one of the charts from that page that shows the total “Thumb” ratings for each of the four brands from 7/7/09 through 11/20/09. The idea is that the higher the number, the better the overall quality of the wrestling matches of that brand (click on the image for a larger view).

Total Thumbs Up Ratings Thru 11/20/09

As of this writing, TNA is ahead, followed by Smackdown and ECW, with Monday Night Raw trailing pretty far behind. If I remember right, the change in format where Raw has a guest host every week started sometime in July. Coincidence? I don’t think so.