Wrestling
Coach's Heel Turn: Turning Perfection to Poop
By Nik Johnson
Sep 7, 2003, 20:22

Intro

A load of e-mails about New Titles and Credibility, with a lot of people complaining that Triple H was awarded the World title for winning #1 contender's match the week before. I'll leave it to the words of Eric Bischoff:


"You know, it has come to my attention that some of the superstars on RAW were just a little unhappy with the way, no matter how much he may have deserved it, that Triple H was just given the title last week on RAW..."

So there.

Michael Brooks says:

Who was it that said that Raw is about storylines with the wrestling to fill
in time, whereas Smackdown is more the other way around (although not
completely as long as there's a McMahon onscreen)? The same applies to the
show's titles. Raw has storylines which the titles somehow get involved in,
Smackdown has titles which create storylines. Example: Raw Tag Titles - the
Dudleys hate La Resistance because they're French. They're challenging for
the tag titles because they want to beat up the French and figure they might
as well get the titles while they're about it. US Title - Sure, both Benoit
and Tajiri want to get Eddie, but it's because of titles, Benoit because he
was screwed out of a US Title victory, and Tajiri because Eddie turned on
him in a SD! Tag Title Match. Benoit wants to get Rhyno because the
Man-Beast cost him the US Title. World Heavyweight Title - Just too many
egos knocking around. WWE Title - Lesnar turned on Angle because he wants
the title and Angle is no longer of any use to him as a friend.

AOL is still blocking e-mails from thesmartmarks, so if you're on AOL and e-mailled, that's why you didn't get a response from me.

Caption

Drew says that "Nash manages to look like Steiner, Kane, and either Flair or Jeff Jarrett", which is a scary thought.

The winner this week is Jay Bower, with:

Damnit Hall, you told me you were sober when I handed you the scissors

Column

For years, Jonathan Coachman has been one of the most irritating people in WWE. His constant shilling of other storylines, at the expense of the match he was currently calling became pretty irritating, and he was a pretty bland guy. He had no personality or charisma, and had no ability to make me care about a match, wrestler or angle. In short: He sucked. WWE agreed, since there were a couple of occasions when Jim Ross was taken off TV in favour of The Coach, but never managed to sustain his role on the show.

But then... it happened.

August 24th 2003

SummerSlam



In what was one of the most shocking heel turns in years... actually, I'm serious about that. NOBODY saw it coming, and it was executed almost perfectly. The camera revealed that someone had hit Shane McMahon with a chair � but who?! It was then revealed that the Coach had turned on McMahon. Absolutely brilliant stuff, since it was so fucking bizarre and out of nowhere.

Anyway, as I was saying, in what was one of the most shocking heel turns in years, The Coach attacked Shane McMahon and joined up with Eric Bischoff.

Then mistake #1 was made.



Steve Austin came out, and basically beat the crap out of Coachman. Straight away. After Coachman failed to help Bischoff beat Shane. Straight away, Coach was lumped in with Eric "must be humiliated" Bischoff. Obviously, nobody expects Coachman to be a super powerful heel, but rather a sneaky, sly one. There's no need for him to be treated as a complete joke though. Surely it makes sense for the heels to use weapons and outnumber the face, who then gets retribution later?



His beating of Shane with a variety of weapons was perfect for his character. In this case, it would have made perfect sense for Bischoff to beat Shane, after Coach gives Shane a beating with a chair. Then the next night on Raw, Austin comes out and then we have the cute "Shane hits Austin with Coach's hand" bit, and Coach gets his ass whooped.

The next night was Coachman's explanation for his heel turn: He's bitter because JR wasn't thankful for the Coach looking after his announce spot while he was off burned.



This made perfect sense, and was well explained, and summarised and ENDED the angle.

And that should be IT. End of angle. Thank you for coming, we'll see you next time.

Coach can go back to HeAT as a heel announcer, get some practice in there, and then finally come back to Raw in a follow up angle in a few months.

But no, mistake #2 was made.

Coach got a pretty damn good reaction at SummerSlam. His mocking of JR was funny, and about the coolest thing he's done (apart from when he's with the Rock.) So the WWE can't leave it there. They decide to keep Coach on TV.



Okay � they want to strike while the iron is hot. Fair enough. He's over, so why not put him on TV? Well the problem is that he's not a wrestler. It's a pretty obvious thing to say, but his value inside the ring is 0. So what the flying fuck are you going to do with him?

Have him cost a commentator the Intercontinental title.

There's three things I can find wrong with that.

Firstly, the Intercontinental title has been pretty crap since it came back, and while Christian is a heel, he needs some clean wins to build the title up. If he's not the guy to do that, then he shouldn't be champion. But I digress.

Secondly, Jerry Lawler hasn't been credible for years. He's known to a lot of WWE's fans (especially those that tuned in for the first time in 1999) as a commentator, and not a wrestler. So he should not EVER be going 50/50 with Christian. I refer you back to point one: Christian not only needs clean wins, but credible wins. This achieved nothing.

Finally, well, it's the fucking Coach. What does this do for him? Sure, it puts some heat on him as a heel, but where do you go from there? A feud with Jerry Lawler? A tag team with Christian? Aren't there loads of wrestlers who would fit this position much better? Why so many questions?



Last week, things got worse, as Coach made his in-ring debut against Jerry Lawler. The match was fucking awful, save for Al Snow's heel turn. But then, Al Snow wasn't turned because he's a wrestler. He was turned because he's sometimes Coach's co-commentator on HeAT.

Then, to really make things stupid, Steve Austin books a match between Jim Ross and The Coach for Unforgiven. Yes folks - $35 to watch those two fight. This is a roster so big that they have to split it in two, yet Jim Ross is booked onto fucking Pay Per View. Recent reports say that the match will be changed to Ross / Lawler vs. Coach / Snow, but that's still an awful idea.

Unlike some people, I think there is a place for non-wrestlers in wrestling. There's just no place for them wrestling.

The whole heel turn should be about one thing: Getting Coach over and giving him a different commentary style, so that he's ready to take over from Ross properly.



The logical conclusion to the angle would be that after getting beaten down by Steve Austin, he returns to HeAT as a heel, and gets practice at heel commentary. Then in a week, a month, a year, whenever he is ready, he returns to Raw in a mini-angle to take over from Jim Ross.

Sure, there's no wrestling involved, but if they have to book an angle to change commentators, it's the best option.

Outro

Since the quality of this week's caption contests were pretty low (I mean - Jay freaking Bower won!), I'm going to try something a little bit different. What I want from you is a match review � any match at all � but it can only be a maximum of 10 words.

Drop me an e-mail, and I'll post the best next time.

Send any comments or feedback on my column to me too � it's always appreciated, and unless you're on AOL, I'll make every effort to reply.

And if anyone can hook me up with some links or places to download White Stripes concerts from, then that's always a good thing.

Nik
[email protected]


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