Two-Night King of the Ring 2021 instead of WrestleMania? And Hellboy 2019

 *Blog post started on January 14, 2020.

The Disgruntled's Real Championship Wrestling blog needs a wrestling related post. I could say that "Sucker Punch" was pretty much a wrestling project, but "MMA is for those who cannot spell Pro Wrestling". That is still the favorite AAW Pro shirt that I own.

The timing for this need could not be worst. We are essentially in a holding pattern because WrestleMania season is about to begin. Raymond James Stadium in Tampa is supposed to be the location so that they may allow fans, and after Wrestle Kingdom 15 getting to host 12,000, I think WWE will successfully push this through.

I guess the Thunder Dome could work out fine. Does WWE really want a loud crowd to hijack the showcase of the immortals when they could just continue to pipe the crowd noise in? Still, for the biggest show of the year, you need life for it to work. We cannot have another two-day spectacle at the Performance Center. That synthetic arena vibe at WrestleMania 36 killed everything except the cinematic matches. It would have been better off at the empty Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino. Was Linda McMahon's cabinet position the only repayment Vince McMahon received for keeping that property operating in the late 80's?

Since we are still in the pandemic, I imagine that WrestleMania will again be two nights. There will not be any indie shows to ride off its coat tails. My question is: Is it special enough for two nights?

Wrestle Kingdom has built up two main event stories that require both nights. Last year's Mania was two nights just to make it seem important. Night One did not effect Night Two. Unless there is going to be a title unification, what story worth two nights is there?

I wonder if the WWE fans are over the disappointment of "WrestleMania 4". The sloppy tournament is not appreciated by most. Even with four hours to run, 18 matches was too many to expect half of them to get the time to be classics. But with nine (knowing WWE, possibly 10 hours), is there a better time to reintroduce The King of the Ring?

It is good to just type "out loud". This was originally going to be a blog about tertiary titles that sound unique enough to bring to major promotions. For some reason, I thought that would be how to make WrestleMania special.

I think what AEW wishes they could have are tournaments like NJPW's G1 Climax. That is not practical for them since they are a long way from being a touring company even in non-corona virus times, but I think the idea of making the product feel more like a sport is the charm of the tournament that made the likes of Kenny Omega, Kota Ibushi, and Tetsuya Naito.

This hardcore American wrestling audience wants more spectacular matches for the sake of spectacular matches instead of blood feuds. We do not need a story to have Cesaro and Daniel Bryan go 25 minutes. If this was not the case AAW Pro would still be a place for trainers in the Midwest to showcase their students instead of serving as a preview for what will be seen on NXT and AEW in the next three years.

*Blog post returned to on January 20, 2021.

When I have not been editing, lining up new guests, and binging Jeff Goldblum movies for "NinetyForChill.com: The Podcast", I have tried to get my mind back on wrestling. A part of my brain is always on wrestling since I used my podcasts to take digs at Hulk Hogan and CM Punk, but it has been burned out quite a bit. Yesterday may have been the most important edition of Impact on AXS TV, but I was too exhausted to make it through Private Party versus Chris Sabin and James Storm for the Impact World Tag Team Championship's number one contendership.

This could be because of watching and reviewing "Hellboy (2019)" as a midnight movie (I just had to reference it on "Episode 2: Jurassic Jeff Jezebel Owes Me Eight Bucks", but I will say, the piped crowd noise is not helping the audience to stay involved with. To make canned noise work, you have to be able to shoot around the lack of live people interacting with the product. Stadiums benefit from the advertisements that cover the empty seats. Who is to say there are not live fans in the upper decks? According to NBC, Ralph Wilson Stadium's 6,700 fans sounded like 67,000.

If a crowd of 6,700 did sound like 67,000-person gathering, this country is never getting over the pandemic. Wrestle Kingdom had 12,000 people who followed social distancing and mask practices. They were committed to clapping to give the noise the boys required to excel with no spit spread. They are doing well at Daily's Place, but not so much when it comes to the Dawg Pound or the Bills Mafia. Did we win our independence to abandon Anglo/European discipline?

And that is an excellent transition to why the masses will not accept a revival of Ring of Honor's "Round Robin Challenge". After three of those event, ROH decided to abandon this concept which is sad. In principle, who would not want to see Drew Gulak, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Adam Cole face of against each other in three separate matches? The best concept deserves the best showcase.

Sadly, people do not have the attention span to accept drama where they must keep track of circumstances or accept draws. Win or go home is so much easier to understand. Since WrestleMania is officially two nights this year, it is time to make King of the Ring the best pay-per-view premise once again.

The first question is, how large should the field be? Well, Wrestle Kingdom's main cards this year each had six matches. Night two initially felt like it needed an extra match, but who was anticipating Jay White proving his quality by going 50 minutes with Kota Ibushi in the main event. Just to be safe, lets start with each night of WrestleMania's main card featuring seven matches. And then we have to keep in mind that WrestleMania will still have more than that, so lets make it eight matches (as it was in 2019).

I loved the story of Randy Savage defeating four opponents in one night to win the WWF World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania IV, but 16 men would be too many. A tournament of that size is suppose to leave the fan believing the tourney would have seven matches in the first night. This would knock the women off the show. This makes the ideal number eight.

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WrestleMania Night One Card:

*These cards are based on the belief that the Universal Champion will be challenged by the Royal Rumble winner. Card Subject To Change.

1. King of the Ring Quarter Finals Match 1
2. Women's Tag Team Championship
3. King of the Ring Quarter Finals Match 2
4. Smackdown Tag Team Championship
   
5. King of the Ring Quarter Finals Match 3
6. King of the Ring Quarter Finals Match 4
7. WWE Championship
   
8. Miz successfully cashes in the Money in the Bank Championship
9. Smackdown Women's Championship

This leaves us with whomever wins the King of the Ring needing to win two matches to then challenge the WWE Champion. With such a weaselly way of winning the championship, and in the interest of fairness, I think the rematch for the title should occur after the semi finals of the King of the Ring tournament.

 

WrestleMania Night Two Card:

1. King of the Ring Semi Finals Match 1
2. King of the Ring Semi Finals Match 2
3. Raw Tag Team Championship
   
4. WWE Championship
   
5. Raw Women's Championship
6. King of the Ring Finals
7. WWE Champion versus The King of the Ring
   
8. Universal Championship

 After laying this out, I could see moving the Raw Tag Team Championship to the pre-show of night two to insert the Intercontinental Championship to feature another Smackdown match. I think the United States title should then be contested on the night one pre-show.

The only real flaw of this concept is that the amount of performers receiving that big WrestleMania bonus would be fewer. I suppose you can just make the Intercontinental Championship a ladder match that was becoming a great tradition from WrestleMania 31 and 32. There is always one Women's Championship that is defended in a multi-person match. When has there not been at least one Tag Team Championship not defended in a multi-team bout? Are there that many tag teams to be concerned about.

If there is a let down to the tournament idea, it is that we do not get a proper coronation for the tourney's winner. Some would argue, how do we get the "new Edge versus Orton Three"? Just make that an opening round match. At least this way, you either have a reason why they are not going to win the tournament or you silence the cynical fan about a part-timer challenging for a championship with them going through three matches.

This looks like the only year this can be pulled off. To state it better, it is the only year that I can see reestablishing the prestige of King of the Ring. I can see WWE making the show of shows a two night affairs to further kill the indies. With the profits they made off the pandemic and the Saudi blood money (Newcastle United really needs new ownership, but there is a sense of relief that the Saudi buy out has yet to come through.), why would they not?

Curse WrestleMania season. They will get at least two months of subscription fees from me. Three if the WrestleMania card on paper is worthwhile. I know it is good to have multiple TV wrestling companies that are separate from each other, but I really wish Tony Khan would go on a tape library buying spree. Wrestling (AEW) needs another digital platform to make sure WWE will bust their asses all year round.