[quote name='GuilewasNK']Your can literally see his thought process in real time when he tries to think of what he is trying to say next. Plus, he slurs and runs words together a lot. It's minor stuff, but I am surprised he gets as much mic time as he does.[/QUOTE]
There is a car wreck quality to them, certainly. I do think he does effectively convey his superiority complex and disdain for the crowd. Regrettably, he also conveys that he is a complete buffoon that has a penchant for talking like a pirate. I think they're better than most people think they are, however.
SNME was fun. I got to FF through the Mark Henry segment, as well as the HBK/Shane match, so I got to watch what I wanted to see. I still don't care for the women's division, but Mickie James' character turn is awesome. "DO YOU LOVE ME NOW!!!?!?!?!" C'mon, it's the best they could do with it. Now they can do away with that bullshit Tony Basil theme music she has, and give her a devastating finisher. If there's something WWE knows very well, it's that an awesome finisher can erase the memory of the shitty match preceding it.
Impact was fun as well. I thought Simon Diamond showed himself to be a great character on the mic, the segment w/ the White Sox was funny (though I don't believe that AJ wears TNA shirts nor sports the X-title 'round Spring Training). Most importantly, Diamond seems to get the old wrestling adage that in professional wrestling, heels, in order to be heels, need to have an implicit character flaw or weakness. It's also important for them to show us that flaw often. In Diamond's case, it's the willful deception of showing him only hitting batting practice, while the good and truthful TNA knew better, and he felt embarrassed for himself at first (scrambling in a way that, dare I say it, reminded me of Heenan), then just making shit up ("any 10 year old with an iPod can do that on their computer"). Thumbs down of the night to computer nerd Mike Tenay, who shot back "I don't think you mean iPod, YOU MEAN PHOTOSHOP!" NYEH!
The reason that I bring up Diamond is because the two major bad guys in wrestling right now, Doubles and Triples J and H (respectively), have no idea how to convey weakness. The thing about pitting a good guy and a bad guy in a main event match is to convey the idea to the viewer that, in a completely fair match, with no runins or interference, the good guy would win everytime. That's a crucial part of a bad guy being a bad guy - he has to, out of necessity, or else he'd rarely win main event matches. The other half of that is to show the crowd what your weakness is: whether it's dependence on a manager, dependence on opportunities to cheat, playing a tough guy until confronted (the coward approach, most recently abandoned by JBL), and generally being beatable under most circumstances. The top two guys for both companies lack a great deal of that; as a matter of fact, them losing a match (*especially* a title match) is the exception, and no longer the rule. You and I, and many others, would be amazed to see HHH lose at 'Mania, and we'll be surprised to see JJJ lose the title (which recently happened, but that, I'd argue, doesn't invalidate my claim). It's interesting that I feel Triple H and Double J would learn a great deal by watching *Simon
ing Diamond*, but hey, it's what I feel.
The wrestling was wrestling. TNA can only do so much in an hour, and much of it was good, but at the same time, nothing to talk about. Samoa Joe kicking down the door, and the wall art falling down? +10 points.
At any rate, the night was short on quality wrestling (and shaddup, I don't care about Shane) and long on new storylines and some predictable, but nonetheless fresh twists.
BTW, you can hate the "canned promos" from the beginning of SNME, but it's (1) an homage to old SNME, and (2) a fast way of introducing characters to the audience who may have not watched before. As to why Cena and HHH didn't destroy each other? You can ask that about a lot of circumstances, both on and off camera, so I don't think that's a fair criticism.
