MAJOR
LEAGUE WRESTLING WORKRATE REPORT - Sept. 1, 2003
(by Raven Mack)
Maybe I'll do this more than once.
What
Worked

The Terry Funk promo
against Lawler in the beginning: He called Lawler a pervert and said he
had Bob Barker hair and a Bob Barker facelift and was a money whore.
It’s all so funny because it’s true. But more importantly, Funk made
mention of the empty arena match from years ago where Lawler caused,
according to Funk, 20% permanent damage to the Funker’s eyeball. Old
guys are good in wrestling for certain old school things, like the art
of the promo, and the slew of young guys so talented at the technical
aspects could certainly learn how to make their matches and feuds more
compelling through their own speaking ability. Look at CM Punk, getting
somewhat prominent programs in both MLW and TNA, mostly because he’s
above average for indy superstars (an oxymoron?) on the mic – which is
still sub-par compared to even mediocre mid-card guys back in the day
who used to be able to talk mad shit when every regional promotion had
weekly TV that people actually watched and wasn’t just pigeonholed on
public access between some crazy preacher with a Last Supper tapestry
hanging behind him and the new age lady’s call-in show that mostly gets
calls from drunk fratboys making fun of her, but she perseveres.

Sonjay Dutt vs. Jimmy
Yang: This was absolutely great on its own, and even better considering
this was the match they put on the air after announcing the Junior
tournament next month, which means this is establishing the style and
quality of match they’re conceivably gonna be going for. Dutt got over
with his high spots and charismatically goofy ring entrance. There was
a nice sequence of submissions led by Yang, and then Dutt busted up
Yang in all sorts of ways, but Yang kept kicking out, which also means,
ideally, in the Junior tournament we’ll get mad two-counts of
unbelievability. When Yang gets the win, you can hear the crowd
cheering, and Styles says, “much to the dismay of the crowd here.” Good
match for TV.

Sabu’s Arab-style
headdress with an American flag: Even though the Congressional
standards that established burning the flag as patriotic heresy also
establishes wearing the flag as clothing as just as heretic to apple
pie, smallpox blankets, and Wal-Mart Supercenter-sized freedom, in
these crazy times of car bombs and Haliburton contracts and people
hating me because of where I was born, it’s nice to see Sabu be the
only man on Earth trying to bring two disparate cultures closer
together. I’d love to see Sabu catch Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein,
George Dubya, and all the leading Democratic Presidential “candidates”
in a room together, where he could bust various classic Air Sabu moves
to eliminate the Dems, throw a couple of fireballs at Saddam and Osama,
causing them to blindly jump into a classic heel tag team homoerotic
embrace, and then Sabu could wrap himself in barbed wire and bust Dubya
through a table, which Dubya would no sell, of course. The video
montage setting up the Christopher Daniels/Sabu spike match next week
was nice as well, and has already entrapped me into ignoring the eleven
o’clock hour of next week’s Monday night football game.

Terry Funk vs. Jerry
Lawler: the old guys can still work a match, and Funk’s two piledrivers
on the hardwood floor were great, followed by Lawler getting an
anti-American object in the form of some barbed wire from Simon Diamond
to bloody Funk all up like wrestling should be at the main event. Funk,
after being a bloody mess, goes back to the neck with stunners and
reverse neckbreakers, but Lawler gets the quick three count with his
feet on the ropes. Good enough match for what it was.
What
Didn’t Work

Joey Styles on solo
commentating duties, yet again: Styles’ schtick is tired enough, but at
least you can sort of tolerate it when accompanied by a comedic heelish
foil to his uptight whiteboyness. But by himself in every match, plus
his goofy mug hyping shit in half the commercials – it makes me want to
stab people with rusty flathead screwdrivers. And for god’s fuckin’
sake, shouldn’t he have figured out a way to freshen up the “Oh my
god!” phrase by now. Styles commentary also made the otherwise Dutt vs.
Yang match confusing, as he seemed to mock Dutt, and compliment Yang,
then mock Yang and compliment Dutt, and…well, these things should be
worked long before a program goes to air. Tell me, the idiotic American
drunken viewer, who to love and who to hate, in case I’m not that
smart, which I’m not.

The shiny trunks of
Sonjay Dutt & Jimmy Yang: I don’t know why every indy wrestler
feels compelled to dress like the S&M extras from that gay biker
underground porn classic The Anal Birth of Bert, but goddamn, they all
do nowadays. I also find it amazing how, even with kayfabe broken to
pieces, the wrestling business still conceals how a wrestler’s outfit
can look sheen and pristine on a television program – even the worst
produced ones – yet, live in person, look ghetto as fuck, like dude’s
mom was sewing it together on the way to the show after a quick stop at
Jo-Ann Fabrics.

CM Punk’s promo
mocking Raven, yet again: Aren’t these guys pals in TNA? I don’t know,
you’d think they’d want to keep all the gimmicks unified in different
promotions, just so it didn’t seem stupid. I don’t really care as much
about a CM Punk/Raven feud as I probably should, considering how much
airtime they’ve put into it. And it seems MLW assumes all wrestling
fans are drunks and drug-friendly and that’s enough for us to hate the
straight edge Punk. Shouldn’t he be talking about how drugs and alcohol
lead to the consumption of kiddie porn and raping old ladies and how
all wrestling fans are degenerate perverts, numb to civilized morality
by their substance consumptions? If he’s gonna be a heel, he should be
more than a two-line heel.

The Funk vs. Lawler
pre-match festivities: I love hearing “Desperado” for Funk coming out,
as it’s one of those songs that’s become forever associated with
wrestling and Terry Funk in my mind, much how like when I hear “Sharp
Dressed Man”, I like to strut around in sequined pants and have my wife
spray me with perfume. One time at the Sears at the mall, walking
around with my kid while our car was getting some new tires or
something, muzak “Desperado” came on, and this old Sears guy was
following us around like my daughter was all part of my elaborate plan
to shoplift some crap from Sears, and it was hard not to moonsault the
old security asshole from off the top of a rack of clothes. Pre-match
talking shit on the mic should be well recorded, with the proper
levels, perhaps even do a production mic check, so that when it comes
on TV, I, the viewer, can actually hear what Funk and Lawler are saying.

The War Games challenge
brouhaha: Well, Lawler wants some money and doesn’t get it because he
didn’t kill Funk and the Extreme Horsemen are assholes, so they beat
him up, which causes Lawler and Funk to put 20 years of animosity
behind themselves for one night only. Yeah, whatever. I did like how
the masked guy who Styles said was obviously Steve Corino was
eventually saved by an exact double, meaning one of them wasn’t Corino,
or C.W. Anderson or Simon Diamond. I bet Corino knows that other guy is
cool, because he met him in jail recently, while making bail on charges
of forgery. But it was too much tomfoolery and unbelievable squashing
of lifelong differences and not enough masked Steve Corino claiming to
high heaven that he’s not Steve Corino promos for me.