Raw Memories: #5 May God Have Mercy on Our WWF Souls!

Raw Memory #5:
Shane & Stephanie take over

By Kevin Hunsperger
@kevinhunsperger & @my123cents on Twitter

I know it's easy to criticize the way Vince McMahon and company booked the WCW and ECW "invasion" angles.  I've talked about it before.  But one of the most memorable nights during that time period came in July 2001.

Shane McMahon was the "owner" of WCW at the time.  During the course of the show, Kane and Chris Jericho were in a match against Lance Storm and Mike Awesome when the WWF stars were attacked by ECW notables Rob Van Dam and Tommy Dreamer.  WWF guys like Taz, the Dudleys, and Raven came down to make the save, but it was a set up. Paul Heyman left the commentary desk to announce that ECW was back and several former members of the roster hit the ring.

Now through the night, fans were lead to believe that ECW was there to fight both WCW and WWF.  Even though the WWF guys didn't get along with WCW stars, the two teams attempted to put their differences aside and unit.  It worked briefly.  But eventually things came to a head again and when Shane explained to Vince that ECW had a new owner, Vince nearly lost it.  You see, more of his flesh and blood was out to get him.  Stephanie McMahon sauntered past daddy and joined the WCW and ECW guys and gals in the ring forming the Alliance.

Jim Ross was solo on commentary for the match and most of the night.  His colleague, Heyman, was busy with the storyline in the ring.  This was the time when Jerry Lawler was away from the WWE.  So the emotion that JR puts into the announcing comes through and helps illustrate the dire straights that the WWF was facing.  The show ends with him uttering the famous phrase "May God have mercy on our WWF souls!"  I don't know why but that quote has stuck with me and really punctuated the helplessness JR and the other WWF stars were feeling at the time.  For a period of time it felt like WCW and ECW might actually get one up on Vince and company.  Unfortunately that quote and JR's telling of the story is one of the few highlights of the whole "invasion" angle in my view.

Honorable Mention:
Edge says goodbye

Honorable Mention: The end to one of the greatest careers in the history of the WWE came on April 11, 2011 when the Rated R Superstar said goodbye to wrestling.  Edge's retirement wasn't a total surprise to me, as I figured he'd start winding down his career.  I think what shocked me was how quickly it was over.  Literally, eight days prior he was defending the world heavyweight title (successfully too) against Alberto Del Rio.  As far as I can remember I think Edge is the first reigning World heavyweight champion to retire.

Edge gave an emotional and honest account of why he was hanging up the boots.  It's something that I respect.  I enjoyed the Edge character, especially when he was a heel and teaming with Christian.  But he was one of those guys who fans really got to see grow and evolve into one of the company's all time greats.

It was bitter sweet seeing him go.  He's a great performer on one hand, but on the other Edge's retirement opened the door for others waiting for a chance in the spotlight.  I think it's fair to say that in 2011 CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, and Mark Henry climbed up the food chain in the WWE hierarchy.  Plus Christian finally got (a brief) run as the world champion.

Tweet, Tweet. Enough with Twitter

What's trending?

By Chad Smart
@chadsmart on Twitter

I sat down to watch the Impact Wrestling/TNA pay per view, “Victory Road” last night. I haven’t regularly watched TNA since “Bound for Glory” but I have tried to keep up with results and have a general idea of what’s going on with company. I knew James Storm had a title shot at next month’s “Lockdown” so Robert Roode was taking on Sting in a non-title match and AJ Styles was still feuding with ex-stable mates Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian. Other than that, I didn’t know what to expect other than online reviews of recent Impacts have been mostly positive and TNA was allegedly on an upswing. I went into the show with an open mind ready to be entertained. After 3 minutes I was ready to turn off the show.

Within seconds of the show, Mike Tenay and Taz started hitting the Twitter promotion hard and heavy. The Twitter pimping has taken the wrestling world by storm in the last six months. WWE announcers have been promoting Twitter and spending more time talking about what’s trending than actual matches for several months. As I wrote about in the Ring of Honor Ippv blog, Kevin Kelly kept asking for fans to tweet, then would read the tweets during the matches. TNA took it to the next step during the pay per view when Austin Aries actually stepped out of the ring during his match, grabbed a phone and tweeted before returning to the match. Yes, for some reason, 140 characters on a webpage are more important than the product actually being sold to customers.

What’s even more frustrating is these are the same companies (WWE and TNA) who, whenever online fans criticize the shows or wrestlers, continually say the online fans are a small portion of fans and thus their opinions should be ignored. So when critical of the product, fans are meaningless. When fans can help show the slightest bit of popularity, they are important. Another reason why this annoys me is because have you ever looked at the list of trending topics? Usually it’s lame phrases or borderline racist topics. How often do you look at the trending now list and actually click on one of the items? I know some people get paid to send endorsement tweets but do companies make money from having trending topics related to their brand? I don’t know. All I know is when I’m watching wrestling I want the focus to be on the wrestling.

If you take out the Twitter mentions, (which in a 45-50 minute span I counted 21 references) the wrestling at Victory Road was entertaining. My only complaint with the show was the tag team champions are a thrown together team. They faced another makeshift team who haven’t really gotten along since becoming a team yet was still together. I say were, because during the match Crimson walked out on his partner, Matt Morgan. Two matches later the Knockout title was defended in a match between former partners. Add to that the Lockdown main event of Robert Roode vs. James Storm is yet another match between former tag team partners. Dear TNA writers/bookers/whatever you call yourselves, can you please come up with a new way to build a feud?

The ending of the show was also baffling. Robert Roode has Sting down, and drags Dixie Carter into the ring as well. Then he proceeds to threaten to beat Sting with the chair while Dixie covers Sting to protect him. And then,… that’s it. Where was James Storm? Why didn’t he come down to stop Roode and start the build to their title match next month? Did the rest of the TNA roster leave the building before the end of the match? Was no one watching the events backstage? Does no one care about the owner or authority figure of the company? And why is Eric Bischoff still on camera? Didn’t he lose power at Bound for Glory?

I know I’m focusing more on the negatives of the show while there were several positives. I think I’ve reached by breaking point when it comes to the little things in the wrestling world. If you watched Victory Road with the mute button activated, it was a solid pay per view outing.

Now with all that said, be sure to follow @my123cents on Twitter.