I didn't expact that to happen

I didn’t expect that to happen. 

This title could be misleading. You could be led to believe that I consider something the WWE has done recently to be surprising. You would be wrong. Albeit, exciting and promising, The WWE is predictable as ever. D Bry will probably fight Sheamus, Jericho will face Orton and HHH will battle against The Undertaker. 

The last one probably is as unsurprising as going round to Ultimate Warrior’s house to find him wearing a clown outfit and punching a Gorilla in the face. The WWE love booking The Undertaker in rematches now and no matter how much they’re trying to double bluff, Trips will fight the Deadman at Wrestlemania 28. 

What is surprising is that they have actually made me care about it already. Last night on Raw, HHH came down and explained why he declined The Undertaker’s challenge. He said that instead of being scared of Taker, all he felt was sorry for him. He went on to say that he didn’t want to have a rematch with Taker because he knows how far he would have to go to end it and he doesn’t want to be that guy. 

After HHH had finished an Undertaker video package aired. In this video package, The Phenom (man he has a lot of nicknames), claimed that the victory over HHH last year mean nothing, because of how it happened. He offered Trips one more shot at immortality to face him again this year. You know what. These two promos made me want to see the match again. 

Before this, I didn’t want to see Triple H and Undertaker again. Yes, it would be a good match, but I just didn’t care about it. Know I do. Because it makes sense. I agree with HHH’s reason for not wanting to fight The Undertaker. If you admired (no homo) someone so much and you knew that you could beat them, but you’d have to end his career. I imagine you would be pretty hesitant to except. 

However, what makes more sense is The Undertakers urge to have another match. The man prides himself on his WM record. Having that record tarnished by a victory that could have so easily not been, must hurt like hell. Something he needs to redeem. 

These emotional back stories make complete sense. Too many times has The WWE tried to explain something and not really quite done it. For example, I still quite don’t get why Kane is wanting Cena to embrace the hate? Does he want to start an evil Justice League? I’m not sure. Maybe he just wants a new chess partner. 

But what I do get is why both Triple H and The Undertaker want and don’t want a match at Wrestlemania. This has made me immediately care about something I could have previously given two rats about. Proof that good storytelling makes good TV. You should take note WWE, you can do it occasionally. 

Until next time, enjoy the show.

Daniel Morris.

Feel free to comment below.

Follow @glamgrunge, or email at cinemascreenandspandex@gmail.com

Being Sociable: Twitter can be good for the WWE

Being Sociable: Twitter can be good for the WWE. 

We live in an ever evolving world. More and more uses of internet crop up each day.  I’m pretty sure that if I really wanted to, I could stay in my room with a month supply of cheetos and a potty and not need a reason to leave. 

There was a time where being an ‘internet whore’ would turn one into a social recluse. Not in the magical year of 2011, where you can still remain popular(ish) and contact with other real humans through social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

However, it’s not just us ‘normies’ that are using social media, celebrities also use social media as a way to connect with there fans. It is arguable that no one is plugging social media more than the WWE at the moment. It seems that we can’t go an episode of Raw or Smackdown without having Twitter thrust in our faces, telling us who to follow and what’s trending. 

This has received some criticism by a lot of wrestling fans, who have took offense to this social pandering. However, I’m for the WWE using Twitter like they do. Well OK maybe not like they do, because the constant Twitter bombardment does make me want to type Google into Google and blow up the internet. But, I am for  the Twitter initiative. 

They may have not have their Twitter initiative defined at the moment and  are just going at it like an obese child does a tray of biscuits, but the use of social media can be effective. Social media can help tease rivalries, build feuds and showcase new angles, not to mention help fans interact with their favourite superstar. 

This will give another dimension to Raw and Smackdown and will enable the WWE to think of a creative way of how to promote their product more than just the usual mediums. Also, I believe that it will attract another kind of audience. If fans can follow their favourite superstars and see rivalries continued virally, this could potentially attract people who might not have the time to watch a full episode, you’re more casual wrestling fan. This is especially the case when the superstar that they are following is entertaining as Twitter kings such as CM Punk, Zack Ryder and Dolph Ziggler.

I do have a worry though. I only hope that the WWE doesn’t go completely Kayfabe with social media, especially Twitter. Yes, setting up rivalries can be key with Twitter and can defiantly aid the product. But, what I don’t want to see Tweets from The Undertaker claiming that he’s sitting in a grave somewhere. The key thing about Twitter is it lets fans get a glimpse into the wrestlers’ life. This glimpse would be ruined if the E forced all their talent to Tweet and post 100% in character. 

So I’m all for the WWE using Twitter and if done right I can really seeing it becoming the WWE’s thing. But, if they mess it up, then they’re just a bunch of Twits. 

Until next time, enjoy the show. 

Daniel Morris

What do you think? Feel free to comment below.

@glamgrunge

Raw Reaction

Raw Reaction

Hello to all. Last night Raw hit the famous city of Liverpool for the very first time. The super show was pegged as a big deal. Me and my brother were lucky enough to go. Our tickets weren’t great. But they were decent enough. I was going to do a review of the whole show, but instead I’m going to do a reaction of the show as a whole, there were some bits I liked, some I wasn’t too keen on. So the big question now is, are you ready for The Raw Reaction?

As always the atmosphere was tremendous, probably not the best wrestling crowd I’ve seen in England, but still pretty great. I love being an English sports fan, as we can be a loud and rowdy bunch. This transcends well into Wrestling and last night was no different as we were pretty electric throughout. My favourite chant of the night was the ‘who are ya’ chant to R- Truth during the main event. Fun stuff. 

All this being said, it was interesting to note that this was a smark heavy crowd tonight. Maybe, it’s because we were in Liverpool. Normally in Manchester, it’s quite a Mark heavy crowd with the Babyfaces getting all the pops. This was not the case last night as it seemed like people were adverse to booing people like Ziggler and Del Rio. The only superstars, people seemed happy to boo, were Nash and Cena, but we’ll get to that later. 

Unsurprisingly, Punk got the hottest reaction of the night. It was evident that this was going to be the case even before we walked into the arena, as there was a sea of Punk shirts throughout. When I bought my Punk T shirt they had already sold out of the Punk Ice Cream bar T shirt. I asked the lady selling merch what was selling the most and she told me that the Punk shirts and the Zack Ryder ‘Broski’ T shirts were outselling everything else. 

Which leads me on to how over Ryder was tonight. He got the second biggest pop of the night, only behind Punk. I think it helps that the WWE had him in the main event, but he was definitely well received hear in Liverpool. The most surprising thing about that was, he was over with the kids as well. The WWE should really capitalize on this and it looks like they might be doing, if tonight’s main event was anything to go by. 

The show itself was good, but not great. I thought the ZIggler/ Morrison match was pretty fun, if not just a tad too slow. I don’t know whether they’ve decided to give Morrison his momentum back, but beating Ziggler just struck me as odd. ZIggler needs to look strong if they want to move him up the card. 

Apart from the opening match and the main event, all the other matches were squashes or soething similar, with not much going on in them. In all honesty, I hope people in the back listened to Nash’s reaction, because it was bad. The sad thing was he wasn’t getting heel heat. He was getting ‘we’re sick of this guy’ heat. 

I liked the main event, but again I thought the match was a tad too slow, with the babyface beatdowns taking up too much time in the match. However, the finish was booked well, with The Miz going over relatively clean. The funniest thing about that, was watching the kids in front of us nearly burst into tears when Cena took the pin. Yes, I’m a bad man.

Post show, Dolph and Punk came out and a Fracas ensued, with everyone hitting their finishers on Mr Ziggles. I’m not sure why Dolph came down, but it seems to me that the WWE are starting to trust him fourfold. And I have to admit, when Punk set up Dolph for the GTS, all I could think about was a feud between the two. 

All in all, it was an average show, made ten times better by actually being there. 

Thanks for reading.

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Until next time, enjoy the show

Daniel Morris.