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

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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.

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

Number Two Contenders Summer Slam Preview!

Summer Slam is less than 24 hours away, and the Number Two Contenders have you covered.  Doc Manson and The Teacher are here to discuss matches, angles, predictions and more!

The Teacher:  Doc, does it feel to you like this PPV has taken forever to get here?  It seems like these feuds have been building (or in some cases, not building) for months!

Doc Manson: Yeah, the build has been pretty slow for almost the entire card. I’m starting to feel like a broken record, always talking about the same stories and wrestlers. Although, a few of those wrestlers I talk about aren’t even on the SummerSlam card.

T:  I assume you are referring to one of our favorites, Mr. Cesaro, who will be kicking off the card by not wrestling on it.  He and RVD are scheduled to face off in the Pre-Show.  I’d like to say that having two of the better wrestlers in the company going at it before the PPV means that Summer Slam will be stacked with epic encounters top to bottom, but I just think this is more indicative of some of the lack of quality booking for certain talents.

Cesaro has to win, right?  Even if he’s going nowhere.

DM: They can pull the trigger on Cesaro at any time and he will deliver. I don’t think a win or a loss against RVD on the SummerSlam pre-show is going to make much difference in Cesaro’s career.

Guesses on the first match of the night?

Class is in Session: Ambrose's Roadblock to Superstardom

Over the last twenty years, no single archetype has been more beloved in wrestling than the anti-hero.  Whether it be an individual (CM Punk or Stone Cold) or a group (the early nWo or DX), anti-heroes are the living embodiment of what the vast majority of wrestling fans would like to be, if it wasn’t for those pesky laws, rules and regulations keeping us in line.  While we desperately want to give our boss the finger, crotch-chop the rude barista at Starbucks or knee the idiot yelling into his cell phone right in the head, we know we can’t, so we live vicariously through the anti-hero.

Dean Ambrose is poised to be the next great anti-hero in wrestling; in fact, one could argue that he’s already there.  Over the last few weeks, Ambrose has gone to whatever lengths necessary to exact his revenge on Seth Rollins for betraying The Shield and joining The Authority.  He’s attacked him before a match, during a match and after a match. No amount of security is seemingly enough to stop Ambrose; kick him out of the building and he’ll find his way back in.  If not, he’ll lie in wait for you in the trunk of your car, a moment that will likely been one of the more memorable of 2014.

When you listen to Dean Ambrose speak, you are drawn in by his charisma.  You can feel the vitriolic hate emanating from his every pore.  You can see, as my partner Doc Manson so eloquently calls it, the Portrait of Malice.  But you don’t always understand or remember exactly what he said, which is a problem, one that can be solved with today's lesson.

Lesson:  The biggest superstars always have a catch-phrase fans can latch onto.

Lab Works: Portrait of Malice, Ambrose v. Rollins

Dean Ambrose has the potential to be a very dangerous man, an observation of which his former Shield-brother, Seth Rollins, is aware. If Seth Rollins is "the Architect" of the Shield, and Roman Reigns was the heavy-lifter, then perhaps Dean Ambrose might be best described as the rabid dog.

Dogs can be dangerous creatures, particularly when provoked. In my mind, the Shield placated Dean Ambrose. He suppressed his more dangerous, unpredictable urges for the greater good. In believing in the Shield, Dean Ambrose was a part of a pack, a communal entity larger than himself into which he could invest his more chaotic and destructive tendencies. With the chair shots that ultimately disbanded the Shield, Seth Rollins awakened a sleeping dog and, as Seth is discovering, that dog is both hungry and angry.