Wasted Opportunities

The only thing worse than having a 60-year-old challenge for the most important title in the industry is having the Chairman of the most important wrestling promotion in the world come out and make an announcement- an announcement that he’ll have a real announcement to make next week.

During the Monday night wars, Vince McMahon could get away with that; his visage on the TV could get millions of fans to switch from Nitro to Raw in a heartbeat. A decade later however, with no competition and the ebb and flow of the industry currently on uber ebb, McMahon’s appearances on his company’s signature show usually mean nothing. Tonight he proved it.

There wasn’t anything particularly fantastic on Raw this week. A few matches, with a heel commentator, used to push certain stars and belittle others, that’s all. Considering the way people who can actually wrestle are treated on the show, Natty Niedhart and Daniel Bryan especially, it’s hard to understand what the company is trying to push.

It doesn’t appear to be wrestling as an art.

An art? Yes, an art. It takes a special athlete to think you’re watching someone in a fight. However, great workers today couldn’t hold a candle to some of the workers from a decade ago, who worked hard in the ring and could cut a decent promo. A guy that has the ability to be one of them is Alberto Del Rio, who in spite of a repetitive promo (enough about your destiny) and a boring finisher, the guy has undeniable charisma. He just needs the right kind of push. It remains to be seen if having him appear on Raw every week is truly helping him do more than letting the fans see more of him.

The same thing goes for Dolph Ziggler and Vicki Guerrero. Sure, she can get heat, but nothing is ever done with her creative enough to warrant the waste of key minutes on Raw and Smackdown.

On another note, Mason Ryan may look like Batista, but he stole a page out of Brock Lesnar’s book on Monday, using a modified version of the Brock Lock. Although still green, this guy is too massive to not try and eventually put over.

The rest of his Nexus comrades didn’t fare too well though, as CM Punk apparently had his nose broken during the group’s spot early in the show with Randy Orton. Seeing them take him out like that, to only fail to do the same thing to John Cena is puzzling. Why leave the Nexus’ feud with Cena unfinished and have them simultaneously destroy Orton? It’s just too much at once.

But what would you expect creatively from a company that has an over-the-hill mid-carder like Mark Henry destroy a young lion like Sheamus, on free TV with nothing at stake?

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13819 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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