The Fun House Mirror - Episode 3

Around the beginning of April a new war will begin as TUF season 11 will begin with coaches Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz.  Already, the Ultimate Fighter website is trumpeting "a new format" for their show.  Will UFC be reacting to the WWE NXT threat?  Will Tito or Chuck physically attack one of their protegees if they lose a match?  Will the rules for the show not be explained on the first episode?  Will the announcers talk about the fighter's work rate?

These questions and more will have to wait until April, but for now we have episode 3!

We start with our recaps and I think I heard a pillow being thrown at the TV at the London household as WWE shows Justin Gabriel's 450 splash from last week from every angle that they can.

Starting off, at first I thought they were going to have R-Truth vs David "A-List" Otunga, but it turns out to be a tag match with them versus The Miz and Daniel Bryan.  No pre-match promos?  R-Truth has done his rap every week so far, you could have had an insert.

But, instead, we get a recap showing that The Miz and R-Truth have a program going on outside that will explode at Wrestlemania.  So, I can't complain, EVERYTHING needs to be building towards some money making event.

So, it's rudo pro and technico rookie vs technico pro and rudo rookie.  My money is on the technico rookie taking a beating here.

I guess they were saving the promo for in the ring.  Do the pros have the ability to throw their rookies off the show?  Should Skip and Darren be worried?

Cole's "Say What #1" - "Miz has tremendous influence with the other pros in this competition."  I thought none of the other wrestlers liked the Miz?  Didn't the Miz say so in a promo?  Will he influence the other pros by asking them to vote for his rookie?

And, while we're on this topic, how DOES the "WWE universe" influence the outcome of the show?  Here, the WWE is acting like a bad professional wrestling promotion by making things up as they go along as opposed to having a set plan and tweaking it along the way based on the fan reaction.  The very least, at this stage of the game they should be HINTING to the fans that they will be able to influence the action in the future weeks.  But, we haven't even gotten a hint, just some vague insinuations that the fans will be able to do something.

Oh, WWE is a bad professional wrestling promotion?  cough cough, okay, putting that aside, back to the action.

Bryan doing the rear chin lock of doom?  Somehow I hear pillows hitting TV sets in basements of a thousand parents.

Cole's "Say What #2" "The Miz said that Daniel Bryan had the personality of an erasure."  Actually, he said "a personality as dry as a desert."

One of my biggest pet peeves in tag team wrestling is what I call the "powder puff save".  A person is being pinned (I say person because All Japan Women Wrestling was guilty of this a lot as well) and their partner comes in an breaks up the pin by barely touching the opponent.  So, if the referee did not see the person coming in they could have completed the three count since the downed person is still being pinned.

So, we have Otunga pinning the Miz and Bryan comes in and kicks Otunga in the ribs.  Otunga doesn't even REACT for a couple of seconds, forcing the referee to ignore the still valid pin.  Gee, Otunga, thanks for making this look like a professional wrestling match rather than a fight.

They are not booking Bryan to look that good if you look at things from a logical point of view.  Bryan, after showing some good technico fire in his comeback, locks Otunga in a heel hook.  The Miz tags himself in as payback for Bryan tagging himself in earlier.  A true baby face would have given the Miz a disgusted look, but would have shrugged and held Otunga so they could get a double team move in before the five count.

(And, as it was pointed out on "tha O-show", Otunga shows his worth as a professional wrestler by completely no selling the damage the heel hook did to his leg as soon as he got out of it, even going so far as jumping off the middle turn buckle after the match.)

At least Heath Slater admitted that he was unprepared for Carlito spitting chewed apple in his face.  But, even with a week to think about it, he doesn't bring up their previous match.  Come on Heath, get your head in the game.  May I recommend Raven's interview DVD on how to be a baby face?  (Available from Ring of Honor Straight Shooting series.)

Again, it's time for Matt D.W. Striker to point out something logical to one of the participants (something the real D.W. has a hard time doing, truth be told).  But, the ridiculously bad booking continues as Bryan comes out and tells The Miz that all of his previous tag team partners had carried him.

Will the WWE hollywood wannabe writers just SHUT UP!!  Why should Bryan care about that?  And, doesn't this beg the comeback, "Oh, yeah?  Well, if you're so great why couldn't you carry me?"

Why not say something like "Hey, you may have had tag team success before but we lost today because you wanted to hog the glory.  That was a ROOKIE mistake."  Then have a pull apart.  If you're going to repeat things from week to week, why not repeat something that worked?

How hard is it to stay on topic?  Cough cough, okay, I'm not one to talk.

Sweet package for Justin Gabriel.  He actually describes his sports and fighting background.

Wow, Wade Barrett's accent is tough to decipher.  Kudos to Matt for showing some Mattitude by doing a dead on parody of Wade's speaking style.

Next up, a rookie vs rookie match, cough cough, I mean rookie vs pro match, Heath Slater vs Carlito.  Heath needs to show some real anger and fire in this match after being punked the week before.  Does he have it in him?

Maybe if Heath had studied his WWE tapes he would have realized that it would have been even more cool if he let Carlito spit in his face and then no-sell it, like Mick Foley no-selling Randy Orton.

And, what would a WWE NXT match be without a reverse chin lock?

Whose spinning power slam will break someone's neck first: Carlito's or Otunga's?

So, Heath gets his heat back by pinning Carlito.  Hey, everyone else in WWE pins Carlito, why not Heath?

Finally, some long overdue promo package love for Christopher "Kid" Reid of Kid and Play, cough cough, I mean Michael Tarver.

C. M. Raven continues his string of fine performances as a useless tool, talking about Tarver like he wasn't even in the room.  Now, if Punk wasn't a heel, he could have cut the discussion of Tarver's partying short by bringing up the WWE wellness policy, but what would be the fun of that?  At least Chastity and Brian Lee get to speak this week.

And, speaking of breaking necks with badly executed power bombs, we get a recap of Batista vs Cena.

I'm not sure that showing a match where an evil GM makes John Cena fight the entire town of Outer Slobovia was such a good idea on a show where people are supposed to think that these eight rookies struggle is for real.  This show really needs to soft peddle the bad professional wrestling elements and emphasize the athletic struggle aspects.  Why not just have Cena and Batista cut promos?

Is Wade Barrett's inspiration for being a wrestler the Original "I like to hurt people" Sheik?

Okay, the rudo is from England and the technico is from South Africa and the crowd chants USA?  An actual good cover by Cole mentioning that Hardy was from the United States.

Justin Gabriel's father was The Pink Panther?  Does that make Justin "El Hijo de Panther"?

Justin wins out of nowhere with a 450 splash.  Matt joins him in the ring and is blind sided by Chris Jericho and we have yet ANOTHER rudo beat down.  Because, after all, we've only closed EVERY show so far with a rudo beat down.

Now, all this might just be a prelude for an Edge run in before Wrestlemania so Edge can get heat on Jericho, but is such an obvious pro wrestling angle appropriate for this show?

Points to ponder:

Has the WWE already ruined this show the same way that they ruin everything else that they touch?  We're only on the third episode of this show and there is already a "seen it already" feeling to nearly everything on the show.  WWE has NOT learned its lessons from the TUF show.  One thing that TUF does correctly is that they have something important going down on nearly every show.  Specifically, at the end of each episode someone's dream of being an ultimate fighter dies in a deluge of unanswered fists to their face.  (Okay, not really since a ton of guys get contracts with Ultimate Fighter even though they don't win the show and no one gets sent home from the house, but at least we can PRETEND that the fight matters.)  WWE, is there some REASON for me to watch this show?  Why don't I ignore your show for the first 14 weeks and catch up in the last two episodes?  It is becoming shockingly obvious that nothing on the show will have any consequence whatsoever.  Ten weeks from now no one will be eliminated.  All eight guys will still be there.  There will be no opportunity for audience interaction.  The winner will be chosen by the regular backstage agents, not the pros.

On Tough Enough, they had regular eliminations.  On The Ultimate Fighter they have regular eliminations.  On American Idol they have regular eliminations.  In the WWE they crap the bed when they try to be creative.  Whose idea was it to have a show where the first 14 weeks will be meaningless, and why are his initials V.K.M.?  Why is this show the only reality show in the past five years that doesn't have weekly or biweekly eliminations or clearly thought out rules and structure?

Here's a thought:  If you don't want to have weekly eliminations, why not have a system of green cards and red cards?  If a rookie gets three green cards then he can't be eliminated before the final.  If a rookie gets three red cards, then he is gone.  You could weekly have the red and green cards handed out by the backstage agents (or an impartial panel of WWE experts), and you could have the WWE universe vote to give out one red and one green card each.  (A rookie who got both a red and a green card would have the cards cancel each other.)  The coaches still have the final vote, but this way the fans get to have some investment in the outcome.

Now, let's switch gears and talk about that other show that this column wants to talk about, The Ultimate Fighter (TUF).

The Ultimate Fighter is a reality TV show where the contestants compete for a six figure contract with the UFC.  The winner is determined by an elimination tournament where the participants fight each other in a MMA fight in an Octagon.

There, see how easy it is to describe this show?  If it takes more than a minute to explain something, then it might be too complex for TV.  Cough, TNA's King of the Mountain Cough.

Now, TUF has it's own culture and traditions that have been built up over its last ten seasons.  Since we are still several weeks out from the start of season 11, let's spend this time reviewing some aspects of the culture of TUF so that we can better understand TUF, and maybe even get some insight into NXT.

While Daniel Bryan got singled out for being unexciting on NXT, the theme of being unexciting also plays a part in TUF.  Specifically, there is a perceived belief among many of the TUF contestants that winning all your matches is not the only or even the best way toward obtaining an UFC contract, and the better way is to put on an exciting fight.

But what is an "exciting" fight?  Since the show is shot for an American audience, and because D.W. (Dana White) is a former boxer, an exciting fight is thought to be one where the fighters spend their time throwing kicks and punches at each other non-stop without ducking and without using any strategy.

Now, I personally would compare a MMA match like that to a bad independent wrestling match where the two wrestlers do twenty choreographed looking spots in a row and no one sells the effect of anything.

In an MMA fight both fighters should be trying to win, the same way that in wrestling, both wrestlers should act like they are trying to win.  So, while MMA fighters who try to be "exciting" might temporarily "pop the crowd" with their showmanship, I don't think fights like that are great for repeat business or the fighters careers since they are not trying to win the fight in an intelligent way.

One of the terms that has become common on TUF is the term "boring ass wrestler" which was coined by Chris "the Crippler" Leban in the first season.  A boring ass wrestler is someone who tries to control his opponent on the ground and limit his opponent's offense while not trying to directly finish the fight.  One clear sign that someone is a "boring ass wrestler" is when the fighter has a dominant position such as a mount or side control and he deliberately gives it up to achieve half guard.  Fighters with wrestling backgrounds love the half guard because they have years of experience with it.  From there, they will drop short clubbing elbows on their opponent's head, hoping to score points with the judges rather than hoping to hurt their opponents.

Fighters on TUF who have backgrounds in Karate or Boxing hate wrestlers with a passion because a wrestler can not only beat them but also not let them get in any offense, and make them look like jobbers.

On the other hand, people with a background in Brazilian Jujitsu (BJJ) are not considered to be boring ass wrestlers because once they obtain a dominant position they look to finish the fight with a submission hold rather than merely limiting their opponent's offense.

So, not unlike professional wrestling, the fighters on TUF are often divided into separate factions based on their training background.  And, many times, fighters will perceive that their coach will favor a teammate over them based on these divisions.

Next week, I will continue to look at the culture of TUF.

Please look forward to it.