Survivor Series Preview: Promoting Positivity for a card few are looking forward to...

Much like pimping, limping or shrimping (if you haven’t read the story behind that from one of Mick Foley’s books, you should), promoting positivity isn’t always easy.  Especially in today’s WWE.  When I’m trying to find the bright side in Grumpy Cat, you know its going to be a long week.  

(For the record, I thought The Miz did an excellent job acting alongside a cat.  He made it seem like a bad movie, which is what that was.  Plus, the stunt cat?  Priceless.   #SandowPower)

Looking at this Sunday’s Survivor Series card is also a tricky one to be uber-optimistic about - in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if many casual fans didn’t even realize that one of WWE’s “Big 4” PPV’s was right around the corner.  I’ll save my thoughts on Survivor Series’ place in history for a later date, but suffice to say, WWE hasn’t done an amazing job building the card.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t without its excitement.  I’m rather looking forward to Sunday night, and in my efforts to Promote Positivity until your stomach hurts, I’ll share my reasons why.

Musing on Survivor Series (Why we won't see any title matches and then card predictions)

wwe.com

This month’s Survivor Series is shaping up to be historic for a variety of ways;  the most important of which has absolutely nothing to do with the potential disappearance of The Authority or any supposed heel or face turns that may or may not occur.

For the first time in almost 10 years, we are likely to have a Pay Per View with absolutely zero title matches.

Using the wonder of ProFightDB, I went back through the last 128 PPV events, searching for the last one that didn’t feature one championship contest.  I had to go back all the way to One Night Stand from 2005 until I found one, and that’s even debatable to use since, as an ECW reunion show, there wouldn’t be any title matches anyway.  I could go back further. . . but that sounds like hard work to me.

How odd is this phenomenon?  There have only been 2 PPV’s in that same time period to only feature a single title defense.  Now, to be fair, the majority of these last 10 years have featured at least 2 (and sometimes 3) brands, so title matches are an expected occurrence for culmination events, as most PPV’s are.  But still, 128 events is a loooooong time.

“Now, DC,” you might be saying to yourselves, “we don’t know for sure that Survivor Series won’t feature a title match.  What makes you think it’s going to happen?”  And as always, dear reader, I’m glad you asked.  I humbly submit my two (yes, only two) reasons for believing we will see no title matches at Survivor Series.

The Teacher's Book: 9 New Tag Teams to save the Division

Let’s face it, folks. . . Tag team wrestling, at least in the WWE, stinks.  As I blogged about in my HIAC recap, there have been 3 sets of tag champs in the last 12 months… Two of those teams are the ones we saw on Sunday (Dust Brothers and Usos) and the other is Mr. Ass and Road Dogg, the New Age Outlaws, who were 50 and 44 years old during their reign.

Let that sink in for a second; Billy Gunn is 50 years old.

We’ve seen a lot of Rhodes and Usos in 2014, mainly because they are really the only teams going.  You can’t (and I won’t) count Slater-Gator and Los Matadores, at least not until they show me they are more than comedy duos, and that’s it.

It’s a shame - tag team wrestling can be some of the most entertaining - the psychology involved with cutting the ring off, isolating a single opponent; the struggle leading up to the hot tag, then the fresh man coming in like a house of fire - just the fact that 4 wrestlers allows for more combinations and ideally more intrigue.

So this is a problem in today’s WWE.  You know what another problem is?  A seemingly non-existent direction for many superstars, particularly the ones on the lower tier, though many established talents are suffering as well.

Putting on my fantasy booker hat, I am setting out to fix both problems at the same time.  I submit to you, dear reader, 9 tag-team possibilities that would revitalize a barren division and flailing gimmicks.  I’ll even go as far as to recommend a tag finisher, since I seem to have match-ending moves on the brain lately.

Raw Response (10/28) - A Standing RKO-vation

The best part of Monday Night RAW took place in the unlikeliest of settings - the opening segment.  Usually reserved for booking main events or “Weekly Authority Parade”, last night’s opener was about as unexpectedly un-WWE as possible, and the cause came from the most unbelievable of sources. . .  One Randall Keith Orton.

This is, if memory serves, the first time I’ll speak about Randy Orton for more than just a few sentences, mainly because over the last decade no single talent has irritated me more, both on a personal and professional level, than The Viper.  Be it the uber-frat boy looks or the seemingly pointless tattoos, the completely juvenile backstage antics or the reportedly disdainful ways he treats fans and the media, Orton has never done anything for me as a wrestler.  In fact, up until a few weeks ago, I never even gave him the credit he may have deserved for being such a naturally gifted in-ring talent - I couldn’t see past the person to appreciate the persona, as it were.

What changed, you may ask?  The introduction of Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose into the main event picture.  While I would normally fast-forward through any Authority promo or Orton match (for instance, I chose to ignore his entire mini-feud with Roman Reigns), with Seth and Dean in the mix, I suddenly had a reason to pay attention.  And I liked what I saw.

This Orton was different from the one I remembered.  This one seemed. . . grown up, even if he was involved in a “sibling rivalry” type feud with Rollins over who was the Authority’s golden boy.  Instead of being the young kid punting legends in order to make a name for himself, Randy now stood as the grizzled veteran, irritated at the new stud taking his spotlight.  But that wasn’t all that was different.   I couldn’t really put my finger on it until recently.  Somebody said something on Twitter that struck me.

Orton cared.

The Teacher Tells About Hell in a Cell.

wwe.com

Hell in a Cell has come and gone, my friends, and while I did not get to see the live Twitter-verse reactions, I can tell that the overall impressions are positive.  As they should be, it was a quality show, which as many who don’t #PromotePositivity as much as I do would say, is a rare thing.  

I had a fractured viewing of it (watched the first hour last night and the remainder between 3:45 and 5:15 this morning), so I’m probably not the best person to judge the overall product.  However, while I did enjoy the vast majority of what I saw, I can’t help but feel like I am wanting more.  In some cases, that’s a positive, but in others, not so much.

Maybe its that I have more questions than answers right now, so for today’s review, here’s what’s in store:

• General impressions on each match
• My favorite moment of each match (for some, this will require a re-viewing)
• A lingering question, which will most likely transition into
• What’s next, both for the talents and the feud itself

We start with the pre-show, where besides Paul Heyman’s deliciously disdainful commentary, the best part was

Mizdow TV

Hell in a Cell Predictions

WWE.com

One of the premiere baseball writers of my generation and fellow New Englander Buster Olney always mocks the fact that, every spring, he is asked to make his predictions for the playoff and World Series teams for the following October.   Being asked to project 6+ months ahead when there are so many variables that can change the fate of a franchise is ludicrous.  For proof, go back and look at how many “experts” accurately predicted a Giants / Royals World Series.  I imagine it’s zero, and that includes those writers who live in either San Francisco or Kansas City.

While we have similar problems in the sport of wrestling (Come on WWE and Kurt Angle, I still believe you can make my ‘Mania 31 main event dreams come true!), we have a much easier time when it comes to making PPV predictions.  To that end, it’s time to gaze 50 or so hours into the future and make my guesses as to the winners and losers for Sunday’s Hell in a Cell extravaganza.  Just for fun, I’ll also add who I believe SHOULD win (which often is different from who I predict WILL), and throw in my assumed match order for good measure.

In fact, let’s go even further, and start with the…

Pre-Show

The Teacher's Lounge: Why the best match of Sunday's PPV WON'T be in a Cell.

Quickly, without thinking, who is the best wrestler in WWE?

Right off the top of your head, who you got?

Time is ticking away, hurry up!  Who is it?

. . .

You picked Ziggler or Cesaro, didn’t you?  I’m willing to bet most of you did.  Oh sure, some of you MAY have said Seth Rollins. . . I bet even a small few of you picked Randy Orton.  And we all know that one guy who said “John Cena”, just to be a jackass…

But if we picked a random sampling of 100 fans and asked them who the best wrestler was - not their favorite, per se, but just the most talented between the ropes, Dolph Ziggler or Antonio Cesaro would be the top names mentioned.

Now, while I could spend quite a few lines bemoaning the lack of solid direction or push that Cesaro, Ziggler or the IC belt itself has received over the last 12 months, this is not what this column is about.  Being The Teacher, I’m all about #PromotingPositivity, so if you don’t mind, I’m about to make a very bold statement of optimism.

Ziggler and Cesaro are going to steal the show this Sunday.

Rapid Reflections (a working title) - Thoughts on the week in wrestling.

Ahhh. . .  Nothing like a random stomach virus mixed with a head cold, resulting in a 13 hour sleep session Friday night to totally screw up your grand blogging plans for the weekend.  However, we here at Number Two Contenders are not long swayed.  Fresh off our “restful” few days away from long-form wrestling writing, let’s ease back in with a new segment, in which we take a look at some of the major stories from this world we love so much and break them down in short, poorly thought out paragraphs.

But before we start, a “quick” aside. . .  As previously mentioned, I’m not just called The Teacher; I play one in real life.  In my class last week I was doing an activity with the youngsters I have been charged with educating.  In said activity, I wrote a paragraph with no capital letters or end punctuation on the board and they had to tell me where to put said grammatical notations.

So I wrote, I displayed, I read it to them, and yet they were finding it difficult to do as I had asked.  As I pondered why, a thought overtook me.

“I write ridiculously long sentences.”

Seriously, go look at that first paragraph I just wrote.  Three sentences, but two of them are mighty lengthy.  In fact, one might easily find a home inside a Faulkner novel.  (Note: I have no idea what Faulkner is credited with penning, except that he wrote very long sentences.)

Anyway, the next day I retaught the lesson with shorter sentences and lo, the children had a much easier time with their task.

Why do I mention this, dear readers?  Well, I’m curious if you have the same troubles or frustrations that my 7 year olds do.  Dost my sentences of depth dismay ye?  Let me know.

Alright, on to the rapid reflections. . . Hey, that’s a good title. . . I might stick with that.

Math Lesson: When it comes to RAW, it's all about Time. . .

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

Photo from wwe.com

That famous literary phrase does a good job of describing the last two weeks of RAW, doesn’t it? While the October 6th edition of the longest running episodic . . . whatever Michael Cole keeps calling it. . . will likely be remembered for the time Kathie Lee and Hoda made a mockery of our beloved sport, last night’s RAW seemed to make up for it in spades.

In fact, it was easily one of the most popular RAW’s in recent memory . . . If not THE best. . .

So why is that?  What made last night’s show so good?  What, besides the obvious, made the week before’s so bad?  Well, I think I know the answer, and its as simple as 1, 2. . . a 1, 2, 3 ,4!

Last night’s RAW was special for 4 basic and mathematically driven reasons.

I did a little research thanks to the good folks at profightdb.com. I looked at the match times for RAWs for the past 3 months. (before that, some match times are missing. . . Plus, I got tired.)  Here’s what I found...

The Teacher plays a game. "Heel or Not Heel?"

 www.barbershopwindow.com

Gather ‘round, children.  I want to tell you a story.

You see, back in my day, which was called “the early 90’s” by us crazy chilluns, things were different.  I’m not saying they were better. . . I’m just saying they were different.  It was a time before you had all these new-fangled “smart phones”, back when a “tweet” was only a sound that a bird made, you see?   

This was a time where you could buy a gallon of gas for less than two dollars and could go to the movies for $4 or $5, and I’m talking about an evening show!  These were the days when Family Matters, you walked Step by Step to a Full House, and other random 90’s television show references as well!

This was a time when you knew the difference between a face and a heel.

And here you thought we weren’t going to be talking about wrestling.

When I began watching the then-WWF in 1993, you could draw a definite line between the good guys and the bad guys.  It was plain as day.  Bret Hart? The ultimate good guy, always battling the odds and fighting for what was right.  Jerry Lawler?  Totally a villain, what with his insults to the crowd and his demeaning looks.   Now, maybe it was because I was a kid and believe what my elders told me (even if my elders were Bobby Heenan and Randy Savage), but I never had a question in my mind as to who the faces and the heels were.

Flash forward to today.  Look around the WWE - can you really tell the difference anymore?

The Teacher's Lounge: Why WWE really needs Brock Lesnar.

Brock Lesnar is most likely not going to wrestle again until January’s Royal Rumble. In fact, from all reports, he and his advocate Paul Heyman might not even appear on WWE programming until around the holiday season.  Now, depending on who you ask and what time you ask them, this is viewed as both a positive and a negative for the company.  I can see both sides of the argument here, but I lean more towards the Barrett side (Bad News, get it?), though it’s not for the same reason everyone else does.

Truth be told, I don’t think Brock Lesnar is as big of a sales pitch as many other people do.  I don’t think people are tuning into RAW or watching PPV’s to see Lesnar compete.  Right now there are only two reasons people are really watching WWE these days.

But that’s another column.

The #NXT Day: October 9

NXT is in the books for October 9th, and here on The #NXT Day, we have our usual 3 big topics to talk about, which for this week, we’ve made as memes, since let’s face it, memes are in right now, gang.  Let’s get to it.

Oh, Lance Storm, how little we appreciated you when you were on television each week, and how much we miss you now that you’re not.  You have, however, trained some quality wrestlers, and the biggest star of them all (so far) seems to be taking your favorite tag line to heart.

In fact, if last night’s show had a theme, it would be seriousness - we saw a number of top talents competing with a bit more intensity and a bit less frivolity.  

UnInformed Predictions: Looking Ahead at Possible Royal Rumble Participants

For my money, there is no better single PPV concept than the Royal Rumble.  It’s the perfect event for a culture with short attention spans.  Every 60-120 seconds (depending on the year) another superstar enters the mix, leaving a seemingly endless number of possibilities.  There’s always some surprise returns (at least there have been these last few years), some feuds continue while others begin and inevitably Kofi Kingston does something ridiculous, thereby leaving him free to languish in glorified jobber squalor for the next 364 days. . .

Sorry, was I really bitter just then?

Recently it was “officially” announced that this year’s Rumble would feature 40 participants, which I believe is only the second time in history that has happened.  This has only added to the Twit-splosion of predictions, conjectures and fantasy booking as to what’s going to happen, even though we have 3 more PPV’s to go before we get to the ‘start of Wrestlemania season’.

This decision, along with some other nuggets of info I’ve gleaned in the past 24 hours or so, has set my own creative juices flowing.  Therefore, let’s take a look into our collective Crystal Ballz Mahoney and see what the future may hold for our Rumble experience.

By my calculations and creations, there are about 75 possible wrestlers who could be a part of the Royal Rumble.  Let’s break them into groups for easier viewing.

Current WWE Superstars

Musing on the Guy we all Love to Hate. . .

I’m about to type the most polarizing sentence ever. . .

This sentence is going to cause a primal response in a lot of people, and that response is more than likely going to be a negative one.  Now, if you’ve been a follower of my work in the past, this is not necessarily a new thing.  I’ve defended The Miz and Bo Dallas before, and I might just be the biggest Bull Dempsey fan who isn’t a blood relative, so I’m used to people disagreeing with me.  Violently.

However, this sentence is about to take the proverbial cake.

I respect John Cena, and you should, too.

Guest blog: What You're Missing on Thursday Nights.

The Number Two Contenders called, and Josh Petrie answered.  Josh, the owner of a separate and arguably far superior blog in his own right (realworldchamp.com) engages in some cross-promotion, cluing you in on 15 of the most entertaining minutes of wrestling you're likely not watching each week. 

Thanks for joining us, Josh.  Everybody go check out his amazing work.

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Let me guess: RAW has you down. Cena nuff of this, Cena nuff of that. Seen enough of the

Bellas bickering. Heard enough CM Punk chants to just hit mute — if Michael Cole and JBL

weren’t the last straw already. Not to mention the fact that SmackDown’s even worse most of

the time.

Well, here with Number 2 Contenders, it’s all about #PromotingPositivity. So let’s eliminate the

negative and find a way to accentuate the positive. So how do we do that?

By encouraging you to watch WWE Superstars with me.

*crickets*

“You mean the show with all the RAW replays?”

Bloggers Wanted: Number Two Contenders (May) Want You!

If you’re a fan of Number Two Contenders, and I truly hope you are (otherwise, reading this is very peculiar), you’ve noticed that lately we’ve had a pair of “substitute” contenders join us to share their opinions.  Both Kyle (@RasslinWithLife) and Shannon (@Love2HulkSmash) did an outstanding job with their initial posts here at #2C and I expect that both will be returning to this space sooner rather than later.  In fact, their posts have been so popular and we had such fun having them on board that we’re hungry for more.

To that end. . .

Are you a fan of professional wrestling?  Do you have strong opinions on the subject, both past and present, that you feel needs to be shared with a rather small but growing audience?  Have you ever considered starting a blog but, be it from fear, ignorance or just pure laziness, have never gotten started?  Are you able to throw a few sentences together without your spell-check going haywire?  

If so, The Number Two Contenders might want you!

The NXT Day: Championship Week Edition!

It was Championship Week on NXT, despite only 2 of their titles being up for grabs.  Still, a solid NXT from top to bottom, though as with WWE, I always seem to enjoy the undercard more than the main event.

On with the show!

Walk Away On Top: What has to happen with Charlotte

There is no question that Charlotte is the best women’s wrestler in NXT, and in my mind, very little question that she’s actually the best in the entire WWE.  Every week, I see something I’ve never seen before - this week it was the Figure 4 that she then bridged - I had a ‘mark out’ moments the likes of which I haven’t seen since I was 10 or 11.

In fact, every time I watch a match of hers, I can’t help thinking 2 things, the latter being much more scandalous than the former.

1. Charlotte could very well be the best women’s wrestler in history by the time she’s done.
2. Charlotte might be the best wrestler with the last name of Flair in history.

When It's Not Quite Hell in a Cell...

If you were to take 100 average WWE fans and ask them about Hell in a Cell, the vast majority of them would immediately talk about Foley’s brush with death during his seminal Cell match with Undertaker.  Some might also mention the bloodbath that was Michaels vs. HHH, back in the day.

Last year’s CM Punk vs. Ryback match is likely not going to be on the top of many wrestling fan’s minds when HIAC is brought up, and after watching it last night, I can totally understand why.  It was a boring, boring match.  No blood.  Very few high spots, save for Punk’s beatdown of Heyman after defeating Ryback and some quite creative suplexes Mr. “Feed Me More” gave to the future GFW World Champion...

See what I did there?  Got your attention, didn’t I?

The NXT Day: Thoughts on Last Night's Episode (9/25/14)

Welcome to the first installment of “The NXT Day”, where we take a look back at last night’s episode of NXT, aka the best wrestling show you can find on the WWE Network.  Here on The NXT Day, I’ll share some thoughts on what we all witnessed, both in longer and “quick quips” form as well as pose some ‘discussion questions’ that we can tackle over there on, as Y2J puts it, The Twit-ahh!  I won’t cover everything, since NXT seems to have found the secret to fitting a whole lot of action into a 60 minute show, but we’ll get to the good stuff, at least.

And Here. We. Go.

The Way It Should Have Been

On a recent major event, two wrestlers met in the middle of that very ring.  On paper, it seemed like these two were a fairly equal match, although one seemed to be much more vicious than the other.  Despite this, however, the match was, for all intents and purposes, and squash.  It was brutal.  Moves were repeated.  In the end, one person very simply conquered the other.

Why am I talking about Lesnar and Cena on an NXT blog, you ask? I’m not.  

I’m talking about Mojo Rawley and Bull Dempsey.

Time for a Lesson: Why Whining is No Good.

As a teacher of youngsters (yes, friends, I am trusted with the future leaders of the world - be very, very afraid), I have to deal with a lot of childish behavior.  An inability to share, peeking at neighbor’s papers, trying to fool me with seven-year-old stealth, all of it.

Yet there is no single behavior that boils my (and honestly, most people’s) blood than whining.

Every year, right around mid-September, I spend part of each and every work day discussing whining behaviors, and how people hardly ever get what they want from it.  “You need to express your opinions like grown-ups do,” I say, “because when you whine, people immediately stop listening to you.”

And they get it. . . Well, most of them do.  Over the school year, most of my students (who, I remind you, are 6 and 7 years old) will slowly begin expressing themselves in a more adult manner.  The tone of their voice changes, they use better descriptions to express their current emotional state, and best of all, they come up with (in some cases) compelling pieces of evidence to argue their case.

“I don’t want to do this” becomes “Can I please have a bit of a break before I finish my work?”  “This is sooo harddd” becomes “I’m not sure what to do here.  Can you help me?”

I mention this simply because these students of mine. . . Once more, 6 and 7 year old children. . . Seem to have a better grip on this fairly simple life lesson than the vast majority of wrestling fans I’ve seen on Twitter these last few weeks.

Substitute Contender: Try Some Positivity for a Change!

From time to time, The Teacher is absent, Doc Manson's lab is empty, and a substitute takes center stage.  Today, Shannon Scott (@Love2HulkSmash) discusses the Twitter-verse reaction to the Roman Reigns injury.

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I have been a wrestling fan as long as I can remember. Literally at least two-thirds of my life. It's the only thing I'm truly passionate about. Some of my earliest memories of life involve wrestling, watching it on Saturday nights on TBS with my mom. Yep, I started off as a WCW fan sometime in 1990. It took a few years before I finally found World Wrestling Entertainment, but I knew from the moment I saw Undertaker in 1994 where my heart was destined to stay. Now, 20-plus years later, I am a firm and unashamed WWE loyalist and WWE apologist. At the end of the day, I stand by this company, come what may happen. They have given me memories to last literally a lifetime. I’ve been to lots of house shows, Wrestlemania X-8 in Toronto, a couple Smackdown shows, and just this past summer, I went to my very first RAW broadcast. I’m kind of addicted to them.

NXT Top Ten: Edition 4

Welcome to the NXT Top Ten, edition 4.  It’s been a little while since our last rankings, and a whole lot has happened.  We had arguably the event of the year, Takeover: Fatal 4 Way.  We’ve had some debuts, both of new NXT talents and of some top tier developmental guys on RAW.  Actually, that has required some tweaking, since at the onset of this rankings, I said I wouldn’t include any NXT guys with WWE experience.  Since that would mean getting rid of three rankings stalwarts, we’ll now adjust that to say I won’t include any NXT talent who has had a significant WWE run.

Which brings us to Tyson Kidd.  I haven’t been including him in my rankings as of yet, and I haven’t had a big problem with that up until now.  He wasn’t getting anything resembling a decent push, I thought, so why bother?  Well, now he had arguably the strongest showing of the men involved in the Fatal 4 Way, and this whole “fact” thing seems like it is taking off.  Should I start ranking him?  Help me, #WWEFamily, you’re my only hope!  If you want him ranked, then rank him I shall.  

(Note: If you’re curious, he’d likely be in the top 5 somewhere this week.)

OK, let’s do some rankings.

Number 10: Hid. . . Nope, I won’t do it.   His name is Kenta!

NXT Takeover: Fatal 4 Way - Event of the Year!

I’ve always hated how wrestling announcers always seem to say “We are witnessing history in the making!”  Tony Schiavone was famous for this kind of thing.  Every WCW Monday Nitro (Now available on the WWE Network!) was the biggest one of all, or we just witnessed the most amazing match of our entire lives, and even as a 15-16 year old kid, I knew that was horse manure.

Plus (and this is me just being a pain), EVERYTHING is history.  I went out this morning to pick up breakfast for my family, which was, technically, history in the making.  It’s just not a history anyone would want to read.

So I usually get my Teacher’s knickers in a twist about that kind of thing. . .

However. . .

On Thursday night, we saw history in the making.

NXT Takeover: Fatal 4 Way was, in my opinion, the best WWE event of 2014, and I dare say we could go back even further.  On Thursday night, we saw a group of relatively unknown talents show Randy Orton, Roman Reigns, and yes, even Mr. #KidsAndTroops himself, John Cena, exactly how a wrestling card should be done.

From top to bottom, there wasn’t a weak link.  I know this because even the part I liked the least held my interest.  As evidenced by the bruising on my remote’s “fast forward” button, the same can not be said for the last few months’ of Monday Night RAW.

What does this mean, exactly, for the future of NXT and WWE? I’m not really sure.  All I know is I’m as excited to be a wrestling fan as I’ve been since WCW and ECW were actually on television.

As I sat and watched the event in the wee hours of Friday morning, I jotted down some notes.  As I sit here and re-watch it today (a phrase I have not uttered in quite some time), I’ll jot down some more.  I submit to you, dear students, some idle musings and comments on “history in the making”, NXT Takeover: Fatal 4 Way.

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