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" The Gravel Pit "
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Wrestling
Size Does Matter
Posted by Dr. Tom on Dec 8, 2002, 23:12
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SIZE DOES MATTER
�To follow up what I wrote yesterday, Matt Hardy was indeed initially scheduled to be in the spot that Albert was in on Smackdown on Thursday. We heard from a few readers who were at the show that in the program, Matt was listed as taking on Rey Jr. Of course, Albert, due to the fact that he is big and Vince McMahon likes the guys big, instead got the spot and a lot of the momentum that Matt Hardy had going was pushed aside. Matt then got Albert's Velocity match. Matt talked about wanting to work against Rey and Edge in his WWE.com column yesterday and from what I heard he was not happy about the change being made.�
(The above is � Dave Scherer and 1wrestling.com)
Everyone read that? Good. Now let�s take a brief quiz.
Question: One of your better, more popular workers has been toughing it out with a knee injury for a while, and it�s time for him to go under the knife. You need a storyline �injury� to explain his absence. Who do you use to accomplish this? (Please select only one answer)
A. His tag team partner, who turns on him.
B. The heel World Champion.
C. A young talent on the way up, thus ensuring he gets a good push as a heel.
D. A large man with no gimmick and no character that the fans don�t give two pins about.
If you answered �D,� please submit your resume to WWE at once. Just fake some soap opera experience (shouldn�t be that hard, since anyone can write trite melodrama) and you�ll be in like Flynn. If you answered any of the first three choices, then you�re obviously smarter as a wrestling fan than anyone who authorized the decision you see in italics at the beginning of this rant.
How difficult would it be for Matt Hardy to have injured Rey Mysterio? Matt got a tainted win in a tag match on the Thansgiving Smackdown, which could have easily set up a singles match for the most recent show. Following the egalitarian booking style of WWE, Rey would have to win. Following the win, Matt Hardy could then get his revenge, even using the steel chair like Albert did. Obviously, being a HOSS gives Albert superhuman strength when it comes to swinging chairs at small luchadores, but I think Matt could have worked Rey over with the chair just fine.
Edge can still run out to make the save. This sets up a Matt Hardy-Edge program, which is one the fans would want to see. Both men are over, and both can carry themselves in the ring. There�s no reason a two-month feud between them wouldn�t do well. Instead, we�ll be �treated� to Edge against Albert, which will require Edge to borrow a few pages from Flair�s book of broomsticks.
Before we go further, let me clarify something: I�m not saying Albert shouldn�t be on TV and that he shouldn�t get some kind of push. He�s not great in the ring, but he does have a decent � if somewhat limited � power move arsenal. He had a couple good matches against Kane last year, and teamed with Test to be a pair of solid midcard heels. He could probably be a credible midcard heel again. But putting him on Smackdown out of the blue and having him injure Rey right away doesn�t do anyone any good. It shunts Matt Hardy to Velocity, it takes Edge down a peg, and it doesn�t make the fans care about Albert at all. All they know about him is that he has too much back hair and that he�s a HOSS BAH GAWD~! The guy has no gimmick and no character; he�s just a big man called �Albert� whom we�re supposed to boo because the canned heat machine spits out negative reactions for him.
And Matt Hardy got bumped aside for that!?
This is just more evidence that size matters in WWE because they say size matters. It�s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Jim Ross pays lip service to the cruiserweight division on a regular basis, but Jamie Noble has a losing streak in his gimmick now, Billy Kidman isn�t over, Rey gets taken out by someone who squashes jobbers on Velocity, and Hurricane gets killed by Batista in under a minute. Obviously, there�s a bias toward larger workers, and there always has been. For some reason, the WWE braintrust believes that the fans want to see big guys wailing away on each other. However, it�s becoming obvious that the fans prefer the smaller, more skilled heavyweights (like Benoit, Angle, RVD, and Edge) and the cruiserweights. How much money did Hogan-Undertaker bring in? Exactly.
Now that the business is in a downward trend, the big men are being pushed even more. The biggest man in the company took the belt from the most promising young talent in the company. People who have spent months on a gimmick are cast aside so the latest injury angle can be carried out by someone over 300 pounds. I guess WWE doesn�t watch their own shows very often; on Tough Enough, Al Snow said, �This business is about more than just freakish size� when he cut the untalented 6�10� guy.
Listen to Al Snow. Listen to the fans. Albert�s �heat� consists of �Shave your back!� chants, which means he�s drawing X-Pac heat. Matt Hardy, however, has managed to win the fans over with the Version One character, as well as great skits about the power of MATTITUDE~! Basically, WWE flushed all of Hardy�s work down the commode by giving Albert his spot, and an apparent push that Hardy deserved.
When the ratings are down, the voice of the fans needs to be heard. Their reactions will tell anyone who�s listening which wrestlers they want to see in what roles. Unfortunately, no one in WWE is listening right now. The fans are screaming for certain guys to get pushed to the top, yet HHH still beats everyone-uh, and guys like Albert come out of the blue and steal the spot of someone who worked hard to get himself there.
But remember, this isn�t WCW all over again. Nope, no siree.
Dr. Tom
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Get into the spirit of giving this Xmas!
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