ktc

Dueling Chair Shots
by Kurt La Mont
column date 08/07/2000

The ECW All Overrated Team

Since I gave you the all underrated team last week it is only logical that I come back this week with the all overrated team. While everyone on this list has talent, the perception of that talent among the typical wrestling fans is far greater than it should be in my mind.

With that here are the 5 big “winners”:

5. Justin Credible - When you’re the World Champ expectations are high. The effort is definitely there, there’s no question about it. But he doesn’t draw heat from the fans like a great heel champion should. I’m not even sure that he’s getting more heat now than he did before. In fact it might even be less. On top of that his 2 PPV matches since becoming the champ have both been rather flat and not lived up to expectations.

4. Joel Gertner - I know I’m in the minority here but I don’t like Gertner in his color commentary role. He was so much better as the manager of the Dudleys. His commentary just doesn’t seem to flow well with Joey Styles. Everything seems forced to me. And I think the whole middle name gimmick has run its course. Hopefully when ECW shows up on USA the whole Network angle will be dropped, Gertner can manage and Cyrus can do the color full time.

3. Rob Van Dam - Don’t get me wrong, RVD is a great wrestler. However, he could easily be the best wrestler in the world and he isn’t. Part of this is poor booking. When you only get pinned once in a little over 2 years there isn’t much suspense in a match. A match can only be so good when you already know the outcome. But besides booking there are two other things about RVD that I think would help him. The first is amount of time he spends mugging to the crowd. Stop that! Every match he’ll do a nice sequence and then stop for a good minute to tell the crowd he’s the whole f’n show. And he does this at least 3 times every match, usually more. The second thing is every promo he does is the same... “I’m Rob Van Dam, I’m your favorite wrestler, I’m worth the price of admission alone, I’m the whole f’n show”. We get the point, change it up once in awhile.

2. Paul Heyman - The genius moniker has been placed around his neck for some time but he hasn’t produced a great stretch of TV and/or PPVs in a long time. Any memorable moments in ECW lately have been a result of great wrestling as opposed to great booking. It’s obvious that he is distracted lately by trying to secure a new TV deal so maybe things will pick up after that is done. However, we thought that same thing a year ago.

1. Scotty Anton - I don’t think Anton is rated highly by anyone but I feel that he contributes next to nothing. His match with Tommy Dreamer on TNN last week made me sick. Tommy can hardly walk and is taking huge bumps on his back. And then you see Anton in that same match not taking any kind of bumps. And don’t tell me the weak Jazz chairshot qualifies either. He may be the only heel who I really dislike. Maybe he’s a great heel and I don’t realize it. I know Corino has a high regard for him, but I just don’t see it. He’s a heel that makes me more likely to change the channel rather than a heel who keeps my interest. It must be nice to have a job because your RVD’s best friend. How he made it to the top half of the card with his talent and charisma (or lack thereof) is beyond me.

Spoilers: Spoilers are something that I’ve never really understood. I like to be surprised the first time I see something so I always try to avoid reading them (and as such this is always a “spoiler free” column). I think reading spoilers does nothing but spoil what you will watch. Spending any amount of time on the internet will cause you to run into a spoiler once in awhile. That’s a chance you have to take if you’re on the internet but this past weekend I ran into the same item from this weekend’s show in at least 4 different places and I didn’t even read the spoilers.

So this has peaked my curiousity. To me it seems as if a majority of the people on the internet read spoilers. For those of you that read spoilers e-mail me and let me know why. I can’t come up with a good reason of why you would read the spoilers.

More good stuff next week. E-Mail me at [email protected].