I suppose it’s good that my inbox wasn’t flooded with hate after the last column. Puroesu is a sacred cow on the Internet these days, and a surprising amount of people disagree with my opinion that sacred cows make the best hamburger. So the lack of response could mean that readers took what I said to heart and, yay or nay, accepted it as one man’s opinion in a sea of them. More likely, it means no one actually read the damn thing.
In retrospect, I suppose I was a little harsh in my critique of Japanese wrestlers’ promo skills. They can’t help being handicapped by that crazy moon language of theirs, and most of the top guys in America aren’t much better at it. I’m referring to the WWE here—since promos are kind of meaningless in TNA where angles drop like empty sacks after about a week or so—and find myself wondering why the company that used to pride itself on having the best stick men in the business suddenly doesn’t.
In their boom period, there were tons of WWE guys who could talk. It was a prerequisite for the top tier of the company. They had Foley, Rock, Jericho, Kurt Angle when he was sane, Undertaker, of course Austin and Vince, and even in the midcard you had the New Age Outlaws (who brought that, and nothing else, to the table), the ECW contingent (the Dudleys, Tazz, Raven, etc.) and William Regal. Some of those names are still around, but the overall promo quality hasn’t just dropped, it’s plummeted.
Today, virtually every promo sounds like a celebrity public service announcement. Carlito and Randy Orton are particularly bad; the former…talkslikethis…allthetime…and the latter reminds me of an eighth grader trying to deepen his voice because he’s standing next to a girl. Bobby Lashley has the most ineffectual voice in wrestling (albeit a tremendously expressive face), and HHH is only good when he’s speaking off the cuff. Once he gets into Serious Interview Mode, it takes him twenty minutes to clear his throat, to say nothing of his thoroughly mocked vocal mannerisms-ah.
Normally, you’d correct this by bringing in a few managers. ROH has Julius Smokes and Larry Sweeney for that, TNA has James Mitchell around, and the WWE had a decent crop of mouthpieces back in the 80s and 90s. But they haven’t done much with managers lately, and don’t seem to care one way or the other about them, as evidenced by Armando disappearing from Umaga’s side the minute Umaga got over and Daivari being replaced by some bland office temp as Khali’s spokesman.
And those two only got managers, for lack of a better word, because their characters are supposed to be inarticulate brutes. A guy like Chris Masters needs a Bobby Heenan figure by his side just to draw the poor bastard some heat. Of course, one could argue there’s enough heat on Masters as it is, and that he should spend less time stepping up his game and more time driving a very fast car down whichever roads lead him away from Titan Towers. A guy his size could find farm work out West with no trouble, and his steroid bloat would harden into real muscle under the steady, dry Idaho heat that starts early and ends late.
…that was kind of a low blow, wasn’t it? The poor man has a problem. Granted, it’s one born largely of conceit, but it’s still too far. His numerous addictions have little to do with promos, anyway. Back on track.
Even the WWE’s champions are subpar. Batista sounds as bored as he generally looks, and John Cena’s formidable skills on the stick are hampered by the dumb shit they have him say. Fart juice? Jesus Christ, fart juice? He’s the world heavyweight champion. Guys in the midcard or lower should say fart juice. Not the champion. At least Flair could be silly and sound like he wanted to draw money at the same time. That Cena is a homing beacon for money and crowd reaction says more about his own personal magnetism than it does about the writers’ ability. And now he’s injured, so the point is moot.
In any case, all this brings up a question; why the hell aren’t Michael Hayes and Arn Anderson writing the promos? They’ve drawn money in wrestling and they certainly know more about establishing a character through interviews than Dave Lagana and Brian Gerwirtz, who can’t write for anyone now that Christian and the Rock are gone and Edge is sitting out a pectoral tear and a Wellness Policy suspension.
But the WWE doesn’t see a problem with scripting its workers to death, and letting failed sitcom writers pen the scripts, while giving the many promo geniuses in their employ little to no creative input. It’s really a symptom of the WWE’s attachment to committee thinking more than anything else, but it’s basically killed my interest in their programming.
Hell, even the topic itself is dull. Where is this going? It feels like I had a perfectly good idea that ran off to join the circus somewhere in the fifth paragraph. I guess I’ll end with my wish that Vince McMahon hits his head on a kitchen cabinet and the impact jostles his brain long enough for him to remember that sports entertainment should be, among other things, entertaining. See you next week.
By: Dave K
