Friday 4 February 2011

The Wrestling Channel and the Internet

I was thinking of a subject to write a blog about and while I couldn't come up with a list or anything but 2 things came to mind. And I think they're connected in a way.

So a little history for you. After ECW and WCW closed they was only WWE to watch here in the UK. After they ran the awful Invasion angle I was falling out of love with wrestling a little bit. I thought the product was a mess and nothing was sticking out to me. I still watched as there was nothing else to watch but I was falling out of love with wrestling a bit. But things would change. While skipping from channel to channel I found something called 'The Wrestling Channel Preview' and it showed off some TNA, ROH and more indy companies. I loved what I saw and couldn't wait for the channel to start. And when it did I loved it, I literally had that channel on whenever I had the TV remote the channel was on and how could it not be? Every week they would put on the TNA weekly PPV's, highlights from ROH shows, MLW shows, 3PW shows and so much more. The channel introduced me to the indy scene in America, so got to watch CZW and IWA Mid South which introduced me to Chikara and so many more. The biggest reason why I loved the channels would be Sunday nights, from 8 till midnight they would put on a Supershow. This would be a full show from ROH, CZW, MLW and more, these even included some shoot interviews which were great. I loved to see these full shows and it got me more hooked on wrestling. Later on the channel put on many British companies which I fell in love with and it helped me learn more about the wrestling that is available to me. They even put on the classic World of Sport shows but I never really got into the shows that much, it was a bit slow for my likely but you got to love the amount of chain wrestling that went on.
Now sadly the channel isn't on any more. It changes to TWC then TWC Fight, which included many MMA shows and then the Fight Network which was nearly all MMA shows. I talk about this channel a fair bit with a buddy of mine and the idea of this returning would be amazing but it wouldn't really happen anytime soon which is sad to say.

Now with the idea of that returning leads me to my next topic. With this week being full of surprises with 'THEY' being revealed as Fortune, the return of Booker & Nash at the Rumble and the recent '2/21/11' promo it has been a week of surprises. So I actually watched the Rumble it's one of those shows I never miss and always enjoy and I marked out huge for both Booker's return and Nash's but I just couldn't help but think how much more of an impact that could of been if the Internet didn't ruin it. We all knew they were returning it was just a case of when during the match. Image if you had watched the rumble and you didn't know that was gonna happen? The explosions would of been so much bigger in my view. 
So the 'THEY' angle only officially happened last night and it turned out that the guys who were meant to be the return of the Main Event Mafia ended up being the Fortune. In fairness to TNA they had no choice since 2 of the main guys returned to WWE the Sunday before so what could they do. With that being said they got a great reaction from the turn and it was the right choice. Now this was spoilt by the fact they record the shows days before and there were spoilers out which I probably shouldn't of read but they were there and with me knowing so many wrestling fans it was gonna be spoilt.
The biggest talk at the moment is the promo that appeared on Raw. Is it Sting? Is it Taker? Or is it something else? Now I got into a little debate with a guy in my 'Can We Find 1 Million Wrestling Fans?' group who had posted his views about it in the discussion section. He claimed that it couldn't be Sting and gave his reasons, it had to be Taker in his views. Now I did counter with my view that it could very well be Sting. I'm not gonna get into this whole thing as there's been loads of rumours and crazy things about that promo which lasted less then a minute. In my view we just have to wait until the date which isn't too far away but it's almost guaranteed that it will be spoilt by then.

As much as I love the Internet and all it gives me but in my view it can ruin a lot of things that could happen in wrestling. It also forces companies to change on the night because they know the fans will be expecting it. Just look at the Rumble, rumours had both Awesome Kong debuting and Triple H returning in the Rumble match and looked what happened. When they changed the Divas title match into a 4 way the fans chanted 'Kong' and they got Eve just because WWE knew they expected Kong. 
I think as fans we just want to know more and more about the business we love but I think it takes away a great deal from the matches. Where's the surprise when you know it's gonna happen? That's the problem with the Money in the Bank, it's pretty much a for gone conclusion that the guy who cashes in is winning the belt the only surprise is when he's gonna cash it in which is getting shorted and shorter with each winner. One of the last times I was truly surprised when watching wrestling was Swagger winning Money in the Bank because he was the last guy I expected to win that match. To be honest I think WWE know how to trick the audience, I keep going on about the Rumble but seriously it was well done. I mean would you think that Alberto would win it by lastly eliminating Santino? Del Rio winning we knew but not Santino being the last eliminated. 

Anyways I can complain and praise the ability to surprise us fans these days but nothing will change. We'll continue to read spoilers and they'll continue to make quick changes just so we don't get what we expect.

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