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.