I Hope This Is Newsworthy: The Result Of A Lack Of Wrestling News
By John Pitroff
The wrestling world is always full of news. But, the problem is that most of it is not newsworthy. Do you read the dirt shirts? I do. The little tidbits are cool, but I feel as though I am reading Star Magazine for wrestling. I always feel dirty when reading those magazines because I know most of it is nonsense. I also feel the same way when reading the dirt shirts. Perhaps that is why they call them dirt sheets. No one cares about Karen Angle…unless she is naked. Well, except Kurt Angle and Jeff Jarrett! Did you hear she might be returning to TNA? See, you still don‘t care and nor do I!
I find humor in these “news” stories, but they are never big enough to actually warrant knowing about unless you are an avid wrestling fan. As a wrestling fan, you are lucky if once a week you get something worthy of reading online that is big enough to the world of wrestling to end up mattering in a few weeks. Everything else isn’t even of note. Rikishi’s son wrestling, Jeremy Borash off of TV, WWE releases another developmental wrestler nobody knew anyway? Don’t care, don’t care, don’t care!
I find it hard to attempt to write two columns a week about wrestling when wrestling doesn’t provide me with enough to write two solid columns a week. I never want to write about things that aren’t worthy of writing about. I never want a reader to have to sit through stupid news stories that don’t really matter to the world of wrestling. Does the average reader really need to know about the fact that Awesome Kong fought Bubba the Love Sponge backstage at the Impact tapings? See, it is interesting, but I always wanted to write about things that are of a more important ideology.
Wrestling needs to step up its game and make some things happen so that I can get some columns. A message to WWE & TNA: make something happen and make it quick, because not only do I need the entertainment, I need something to write about! C’mon, I almost turned to writing about Hornswoggle…oh wait, I already did that. One knows they are scraping the barrel for something to write about when a green midget comes to mind. I think WWE feels the same way as I do, because they keep writing him into their show scripts as well.
If this gets any worse, I am going to have to start acting liking a 14 year old, doing crotch chops, wearing back & green, and saying, “suck it” every five minutes. I feel as though I am Shawn Michaels. I know I am worthy of better than this, but wrestling can’t seem to find anything worthy for me to do right now. I guess within the next few weeks I might have to turn to trusty old Undertaker for some inspiration to do better, just like Michaels.
I feel like one of those newspaper writers who are just waiting for someone to bomb a building so they have something to cover. Don’t get any ideas. Wrestling needs nothing even remotely resembling that Muhammad Hassan storyline with piano wire. I mean, that almost got Smackdown cancelled! And, that is saying something, since they were on UPN…and we all know how high of standards they set for their television line up. Plus, you’ll be sent to jail like Nailz in that storyline, or like when he attacked Vince backstage.
I never want to write about something that isn’t relevant. Sure, for a joke here or there like in the last paragraph, but I never want to bring you, the reader, two to four pages informing you of things that you need no informing of. You can find all that on the dirt sheet sites. Or, call “Mean” Gene Okerlund on the WCW hotline. I did that once, after begging my dad for hours. Finally, he let me, and it took 3 minutes with no news to finally realize my dad was right about wasting money. Thank god for the internet! At least this is free, as long as you don’t count the pop ups on PWTorch and the viruses from the slew of crappy wrestling news sites out there.
My main point here is that you can get wrestling news at any random site, what I am trying to bring are well thought out essays about the world of wrestling. But, without anything worthy of writing about in the current product, wrestling has driven me to write about the fact that there is nothing to write about!
It shouldn’t be like this, especially now. This should be one of the biggest times in recent wrestling history for a writer, but not as much is happening as should be. Don’t get me wrong, a lot happened…within one week. Then, once all that was covered, no one in either WWE or TNA kept up. There was a big push for wrestling the last few weeks, but it seemed to die quicker than Kane’s WWF Championship run.
I don’t feel the buzz anymore. Why didn’t wrestling keep up and stay on the top of people’s minds? Coming from such a big week, there should have been interesting story layered upon interesting story to write about, but the biggest thing that happened, Jeff Hardy debuting for TNA, was seen as a nothing more than an afterthought.
Perhaps it is the fault of TNA for not getting Impact live the Monday following their debut. I know many people who expected to tune in and see Impact vs. Raw once again. Little did they know, TNA was off their game and didn’t have the smarts to put Impact on the next week and the week after to really solidify themselves. I would have loved to write about the follow up head to head Raw vs. Impact, but instead I sat here wondering what was a good enough topic to write about.
Why wasn’t there another live Impact ready to go if the ratings were good? I am sure that a lot of the fans that were gained on Monday for Impact were lost when they tuned in next week to whatever show Spike normally puts in that time slot. Plus, I can’t say for sure, but I don’t remember TNA even mentioning Impact’s normal time slot during the broadcast. Even if they did, it wasn’t enough. Fans tuning in for the first time need to know when to watch the show! Unlike the people reading this, other people are not totally obsessed with wrestling and have other things to do than go online and research when TNA is going to be back on television again. TNA, it is your job to let your viewers know when they can watch you.
And, what about WWE? Sadly, they have done just as bad. Bret Hart was guest host for a week, and seemed to solidify some future storylines, but then he was off TV the last two weeks. I realize that he was just a “guest host” but if WWE didn’t plan on having him part of the future shows, they shouldn’t have written him into the show so deeply.
The Bret Hart story had me interested more than I expected, but then that interest was quickly lost when he didn’t show up the next week. I started caring about him as much as I originally had, not at all. Shame on WWE for not following up. Imagine a fan tuning in to see Hart, and at the end of the show seeing the cliff hanger ending of having Hart getting kicked by Vince. Then, they tune in next week, and there is no Vince or Hart interaction. Great writing WWE; leaving your main storyline off for no apparent reason.
Any new viewer that came back must have been wondering, “Where is Hart for his revenge?” If wrestling fans were smart and followed the way that WWE booked this storyline, they might boo him when he comes back for being such a coward. Wrestling is great for having good hook endings to their shows, but when it isn’t followed up with anything, why should the viewer care? “Wow, that was a great ending, I wonder what is going to happen next week.” “What happened to that whole Bret Hart thing? Is he still around? Why didn’t he do something?” It is important to leave the viewers guessing, but not guessing over who would be stupid enough to forget to write the main event storyline into the next week’s show.
What has been happening in wrestling, I have been covering. I have already written about Hulk Hogan’s comeback, Jeff Hardy being the most important part of the Monday Night War, Sheamus (who is that, oh yeah, the WWE Champion), dead wrestlers (yes, another one), wrestling not being fake, and even The Ultimate Warrior. I am stretching for something to write about more than WWE writers are at this point. Now, there are always various bigger topics to write about wrestling in general, but I also like to keep things up to date with current news as well. I enjoy writing on big topics that involve wrestling as a whole, but I also feel as though it is important to stay up to date with the big news that has happened the previous week. Problem is, there haven’t been enough interesting things to make one care. And, this is all coming from someone who just wrote an entire column about how I was finally interested in the current wrestling product again.
Within the next few weeks, I will be forced to cover only wrestling in a larger aspect. I will be forced to leave all the petty little new stories to you. Just watch out for viruses on those sites. I am just begging WWE or TNA to do something of note so that I don’t have to write a column next week about having to write a second column about not having anything to write about. Either that, or you got a solid four pages about Hornswoggle.