AS I SEE IT 1/16: Kurt Angle, Boogeyman, and indies doing business

AS I SEE IT
Bob Magee
Pro Wrestling: Between the Sheets
PWBTS.com

Thanks go out to new PWBTS.com sponsor, Maryland Championship Wrestling, with promoter Daniel McDevitt. Maryland Championship Wrestling has announced their return after a three year hiatus with "The Resurrection" on Sunday, February 26th, 2006, at the new MCW Arena at Northpoint in Dundalk, MD.

The show features old MCW standouts such as The Ghetto Mafia, The Holy Rollers, The Slackers,
Derek Frazier, Andrew Ryker, Ruckus, Qeenan Creed, Crowbar, The Bruiser, and MCW Divas Candie and Tara; as well as Samoa Joe, Kip James, and B.G. James.

For information on the show, go to Maryland Championship Wrestling.

To this week's Smackdown....

It's no secret that Philadelphia fans are widely known as the hardest to please in the wrestling world.

Yet Philadelphia fans were actually given a Smackdown that came close to meeting their standards this past Tuesday night, when WWE taped Smackdown at the Wachovia Center. We got one helluva surprise in the unannounced appearance of Kurt Angle as the final man in the battle royal that filled the "World" Heavyweight Title that Batista was forced to vacate, due to his tricep injury in a house show match with Mark Henry on January 8.

Being there live last Tuesday night, if Rey Misterio, Jr. had gone over Mark Henry for the belt...the Wachovia Center would have come absolutely unglued. They were SO ready for that David-Goliath moment...which would have followed Batista having to give up the belt and their mutual connection to Eddie Guerrero.

Even though the crowd popped for Kurt Angle...I'm going to LOVE seeing how Angle's move to Smackdown is explained in terms of storyline. Obviously, in terms of starpower, they needed to move a big name over to Smackdown for however many months Batista is going to be out. That isn't very hard to figure out.

But I do wish Rey Misterio, Jr. had been given the belt, even if only for awhile, since this is the big man WWE, and guys perceived as being small holding championships long term are to put it mildly, a rarity. The roar when it appeared that it was down to Rey and Henry was tremendous live (Angle had taken a bump through a table outside the ring and played dead for awhile).

Further, Angle's appearance on Smackdown will undoubtedly have an effect on the Kurt Angle-Shawn Michaels match scheduled for tonight on RAW, if only in storyline. We'll all find out together how this changes things with the storyline that was starting with these two on RAW and where Michaels goes from here.

With all the good on Smackdown, there was, as there are seemingly every week, the adventures of the Boogeyman. who...by the way... won second place for the Wrestling Observer Newsletter 2005 Year-End Awards...as BEST Gimmick.

Vince...Stephanie... do we REALLY have to watch Boogeyman playing cannibal with the face of Jillian Hall? I'm picturing someone getting home late Friday night and eating dinner, or at the local bar after a hard week at work...looking at a character essentially eating something off of someone's face. For those who didn't see Smackdown on Thursday (Canada) or Friday (United States), Boogeyman essentially licked, then BIT the "mole" off of the face of Jillian Hall, then took it out of his mouth, played with it, then ate it. This, after dumping worms down the back of Hall's dress the previous week.

Note to Vince: this isn't "The Devil's Rejects", "Saw" (or even "Saw II"), or "Hostel"...it's a Friday night wrestling show in prime time. Ease off the cannibal routine, OK? You've already done attempted suicide on your show, so ease off on attempts to re-enact the Donner party.

Since I'm complaining about it... let me ask readers: can someone PLEASE explain to me the attraction people have for this character? When I listed the Boogeyman as Worst Wrestler of the Year for this column's Year-End Awards...I actually got hate mail. I've seen other fans who would be described as "smart", who are into Ring of Honor and other promotions that feature more wrestling than cartoon characters... who tell me that I don't get it.

So please feel free to write and tell what it is that I'm missing with the Boogeyman at bobmagee1@hotmail.com.

Speaking of Philadelphia, fans got to see what happens when promotions cooperate as opposed to screwing around with each other. CZW drew 700, Pro Wrestling Unplugged drew 600 plus (both in the afternoon) and Ring of Honor's evening show drew 800 or more. All this took place, while competing against the NFL playoffs, plus iffy weather in Philadelphia (especially in the evening) that turned into white-out conditions on the drive home, which was an awful mess.

I'll never understand why independent promotions spend so much time going on websites and message boards trashing each other's shows and talent; as well as employing the good old traditional ways of trying to sabotage competing shows such as ripping down posters and calling/e-mailing venues. Saturday was proof that promotions that if promotions just leave each other alone and concentrate on what will bring in fans...even if that involves cooperation...they can make money.

In the case of Philadelphia, it's well known that CZW and PWU don't get along, yet the market was big enough for them to both draw in their head-to-head competition Saturday. It's now been reported that the two will, for at least a while, share the ECW Arena. CZW and ROH also compete within Philadelphia, even if ROH doesn't run monthly in Philadelphia as it once did...yet they managed to work an angle with each other that helped both companies draw.

Until next time...

_________________________________________________________

If you have comments/questions, or if you'd like to add the AS I SEE IT column to your website, I can be reached by e-mail at bobmagee1@hotmail.com)