WWE debuted a new gimmick idea to pop a
rating, and because I'm easily tricked by them I decided to check in
and watch WWE Underground on RAW. There's a ring with no ropes inside
of a small warehouse looking place. It's got a smoky atmosphere and
there are a bunch of people standing ringside pounding on the ring
and Shane McMahon has the mic. There's also some not very good
dancers on a stage as well. It's a cool setting, minus the dancers,
so we're off to a decent start. In the ring there is a guy who
doesn't get introduced and then Shane introduces Dabba-Kato who is a
huge dude. He beats the shit out of the first guy and a second guy
challenges him and gets destroyed as well. An inauspicious start to
debut your new idea, but whatever still kind of gets the idea over.
Unfortunately after these fights we go
right back to normal RAW and a pair of singles matches between the
tag champs and challengers for Summerslam where Andrade and Garza
have drugged Montez Ford's drink and it barely ruins his match, until
the end. So after the debut of what's supposed to be a realistic
fighting club they cut back to some goofy WWE shit that really
undercuts that idea.
When we get back to the Underground we
have Erik from the Viking Raids with some MMA gloves on against some
no name guy. It's another squash match and afterword they go back to
regular RAW. We're told there's one more fight scheduled and we are
at regular RAW until there's 8 minutes left in the show. Hurt
Business hear about the Underground and make their way there in the
middle of Dolph Ziggler wrestling a no name guy again and gets a
submission with a rear naked choke. Lashley gets in the ring and a
challenger comes in and gets wrecked and then repeat that with MVP
and Benjamin as well.
So to debut the idea of their
underground fight club they had no real fights to showcase the rules
and how it's different they just had some guys beat up some no name
henchmen. And until the end the guys doing the squashing aren't big
deal names either, or guys with real shoot fighting experience. It
was a bizarre way to debut something, and after giving in to watching
WWE again, it turned me off watching it another time. Another issue,
as it often is with WWE, is that it is shot just like every other WWE
thing. It has no hard cam, but it has several handheld cams just
behind the people in the crowd and it cuts between camera angles
every few seconds so none of the strikes or slams have any impact.
It's also increasingly disorienting when trying to look at a new kind
of set.
I'm torn between which of these two
issues is the biggest problem I have with this idea. The fact that
there is no real concept of what these matches are beside no rules
fights, or that there were no real fights on it. You could probably
explain how the matches work with some commentary during a back and
forth fight. I know you can, because I am watching the Chikara
version of this and they explain it during a gauntlet match. Nothing
happened during these segments to sell the idea of Underground as
being worth watching, when it easily could have been established.
They already had a faction invade the Underground and beat up
everybody who was there. Granted putting Lashley in the Underground
makes sense as he has real MMA experience, and Benjamin makes some
sense as well with his collegiate wrestling experience. The
Underground is a concept with potential, but as wrestling knows a
debut can kill any potential a concept or wrestler has, Shockmaster.
So this is a reminder to myself and
anybody reading this. Don't let WWE sucker you in with their promise
of a new direction. Wait until they prove they are doing something
different before watching anything they do. And when you do watch
make sure not to give them any money when you do it.
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