Hall of Shame – WWE 2005

WWE 2005 – A Year of Shame:
To follow up 2002 & 2003 & 2004 WWE Year of Shame, we will follow the year 2005 as it goes and add to the Shame as it happens.. The crap tends to come through and a quick pace so keep checking back for updates..

How To Kill A Great Wrestler 101: I was conflicted about putting Simon Dean in the Hall of Shame. Especially the first one of 2005, because everyone would see it when they first hit the page. Well Simon Dean does belong in the Hall of Shame, just because they have botched the gimmick so badly up to this point (Mid-February). Nova is a fantastic wrestler and incredible performer; he is one of those guys that does not really need a gimmick. He remained under WWE developmental contract for over a year dominating OVW. So when he gets the call-up, they saddle him with this ridiculous gimmick. Usually a good wrestler can take a goofy gimmick and make it work, but the writers have to get behind it, and they haven’t. As a result, Simon Dean has floundered in repetitive segments that haven’t gotten anywhere past Rosey. Simon Dean needs to rebel, and drop the gimmick and be NOVA again!

Downsizing The Divas:
Last year’s WWE Hall of Shame was dominated by items involving Divas. The non-wrestling Divas at least. For whatever reason, Vince McMahon discovered that sex sells, okay okay, he’s not the first, and he realized that a long time ago. Well the WWE Women’s division began focusing more on Boobs and Bums than actual wrestling. WWE Women’s champion Trish Stratus even got to take three vacations during the first half of 2005. Lita was taken out as a full time wrestler and starting “screwing” everybody in sight. Gail Kim, Jacqueline, Jazz and Nidia were ALL released. Leaving the working women’s division very thin, leading to a shameful Trish vs Christy Hemme match at Wrestlemania 21. To Christy’s credit, she IS working her ass off to train and be more physical. But that is not justification to keep Molly and Victoria at home. This led to one of the remaining workers, Victoria, to snap and turn heel and demolish all the T&A on RAW.

Double “A” (Airhead Announcer):
As adorable as she is, Maria Kanellis is the biggest airhead I’ve ever seen! The funny thing, though, is that it suits her. People are going to get on my case for saying this, but she could very well be the next Miss Elizabeth. That quiet personality, the overpowering cuteness, with an underlying aura of power. If she could just make it through a show without messing up her lines she may have a future in the business!

The Masterlock Challenge (Stay Awake):
There are times when I see these “weekly challenge” gimmicks on TV and I think, “who actually thinks this is making money”. The highlight, for me, is seeing some of my favorite Indy wrestlers on TV. Even though they get demolished. I think everyone in the world has already realized that this gimmick is going nowhere, and The Masterpiece will be back in OVW by the end of the Summer. Everybody, except of course, the WWE writers and management.

You Screwed Matt:
This is truly shameful. Even by WWE standards. Matt Hardy was a veteran of the WWE ring when he went down to a serious knee injury. He sat at home and watched as his girlfriend, Lita, was put into a storyline where she was married to Kane. While this was going on, in the real world it was revealed that Lita was sleeping around with Edge (Matt’s “best friend”). This was obviously a torturous piece of news for Hardy, who decided to air his thoughts about Edge and Lita on his website. He was later released by the WWE. Wow, a double-whammy! He loses his girlfriend and employment at the same time! If Matt Hardy wasn’t such a positive-minded person, I’d be worried for him, but I know he will bounce back better than ever. Look for a Hardy reunion in TNA this summer.

The Walking Kiss of Death:
Back in the scripted world of professional wrestling. Lita was growing fond of her husband, who she originally despised and publicly wished he would “burn in hell”. Kane became a gentler human being and paid more attention to his wife and treated her better. Lita was quickly becoming known as the “Walking Kiss of Death” with everyone coming into contact with her, eventually disappearing. Eventually though, Lita became just as sadistic, if not more sadistic, as her husband. She manipulated him into doing her dirty work. Fueling him with her very own affection.

At the same time, chants of “We Want Matt” & “You Screwed Matt” filled arenas every time Lita was performing, causing some uncomfortable moments for Amy Dumas the human being.

The Screwing Spree: It was bound to happen. And it happened during the finals of the Gold Rush Tournament between Kane and Edge. Seeing Lita and Edge on TV together caused for some interesting moments for fans who knew what had happened in the real world with Matt Hardy.
Lita turned on her husband, and helped Edge score the victory and win the Tournament. Edge & Lita then climbed the stage and exchanged a sloppy kiss right in front of camera and you just had that sinking feeling that the heartless writers had Hardy in mind when they scripted that segment.
Suddenly, the smarky chants of “You Screwed Matt!” turned to marky chants of “You Screwed Kane!”. Lita came out the following week and cut a promo on Kane, and again, you felt sick to your stomach, thinking, is she really talking to Matt here? I know Lita must have felt extremely uncomfortable cutting that promo, but she went on record saying she would do whatever she was told. Shame on the WWE writers for taking advantage of a willing employee just to make smark naughty parts tingle.

This S-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-sucks!: I always find it humorous when WWE drives so desperately to prove that they can “make a star” out of anybody. Some guys have a lot of talent, but they just don’t have star qualities. Matt Morgan is a great big man and a talented by, but he does not have star qualities. Usually what happens with wrestlers like that is that they’re saddled with some sort of gimmick. A gimmick that usually ends up in Hall of Shames across the internet. Matt Morgan was briefly on TV back in late 2003, wrestling under the same name, with a slightly different hairstyle. Yet, WWE decided to bring Morgan back up to the roster with a stuttering gimmick, despite the fact that we saw him less than two years ago talking fine. Talk about not even trying to maintain continuity. After a few weeks of squashing jobbers who he claimed laughed at him, he was saddled with Carlito Cool, acting as his bodyguard. Cause we know bodyguards always get over great. If I were writing for WWE, I’d pair up Morgan with the Dudley Boyz, so that Bubba can teach Morgan how HE got rid of the stutter a few years back. Then I’d run to my computer and see if I made the Hall of Shame :)

The World’s Largest Love Machine: Once again I find myself conflicted, because I, like many people, found this angle to be highly entertaining. However it does fall into the Hall of Shame simply because it has nothing to do with wrestling! It is a mystery to many as to why Viscera was brought back to the WWE in late 2004 anyway, but nobody thought he’d actually be pushed into a featured storyline. It all started when Viscera was shot down by Trish Stratus, and then he turned his sights towards spicy ring announcer Lilian Garcia. While Big Vis has the hots for Lillian, it quickly becomes apparent that the true object of his affection was FOOD. This concept was born when Viscera admitted to Trish Stratus that food turned him on, and Trish’s response was “You must be the horniest man on the planet!”

Do You Wanna Be My Friend?: Okay, I will admit it, this Heidenreich gimmick has its funny moments. The “Heidenreich March” is so damn retarded that it’s cool, don’t be surprised if that catches on. Sometimes the items that land in the Hall of Shame or in “Wrestlecrap” territory doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily BAD. Just utterly memorable. After a feud with Booker T, Heidenreich had a revelation, and decided to give up his destructive ways and just make a whole lot of friends. He would pull a little fan out of the crowd and recite one of his “Disasterpieces” for them. By the way, a Disasterpiece is Heidenreich’s word for the poem’s he writes. Heidenreich, however, doesn’t like it when his heel opponents don’t wanna be his friend. The gimmick is decent, if only his wrestling skills were.

Hunting for Guttersluts: There are often controversial storylines in the WWE that can be considered borderline shameful. Personally, as long as a storyline has to do with WRESTLING, or the WRESTLERS, then I’m okay with it. This storyline pushed the envelope, but at least led to some intense matches in the ring. For whatever reason, Kurt Angle began portraying himself as a ‘dirty pervert’ who enjoyed the company of “Guttersluts”. The Gutterslut that happened to catch his eye was the wife of Booker T, the beautiful Sharmell, who had a stint in WCW as a Nitro Girl before moving on as a RAW interviewer. Sharmell played the part, and screamed in terror while standing behind her man, who gallantly defended her honor. Way to go Book. You da man!

Rewriting Wrestling’s History (and making things up on the fly): It was May 23, 2005 and RAW was visiting Wisconsin; something was in the air, but the fans didn’t realize it until a few minutes into Eric Bischoff’s “Funeral” for ECW. Vince McMahon showed up and bullied Eric Bischoff, just because he can, and took the opportunity to bury WCW just a little bit more. Vince McMahon claimed that he financially supported ECW and Bischoff did everything he couple to “rape and pillage” the small promotion. McMahon admitted that he wasn’t qualified to talk about ECW, and introduced Paul Heyman into the mix. Heyman eloquently pointed out that it was the first time the masterminds behind WWF, WCW, and ECW were together in the same ring. Made for an entertaining heavily scripted segment….

The Blue Meanie meets The Big Meanie:
In the final minutes of the highly successful ECW One Night Stand pay per view, which was an “extremely” fun and entertaining evening for the fans and wrestlers who participated, there was an incident perpetrated by one of the “outsiders”. John Bradshaw Layfield, who is obviously jealous that fans cared more about ECW than JBL, took liberties by hunting down The Blue Meanie during the final brawl of the night. Once JBL got his hands on The Blue Meanie (from behind, I might add), he proceeded to punch away at Meanie’s already bandaged head and bust him open. This incredibly unprofessional act of cowardous by a bully was witnessed by numerous wrestlers but went unpunished by WWE officials…. business as usual!

The Perverbial Ball & Chain:
The ECW One Night Stand was amazing. The Feedback Forum had a near 100% approval rating. The success was entirely due to one thing – ECW! NOTHING ELSE. You see when they didn’t sell out the Hammerstein Ballroom as fast as they expected, WWE officials paniced and decided they needed to inject the show with a little WWE Bullshit. So they started an anti-ECW storyline on RAW & Smackdown! during the weeks leading up to the PPV. It didn’t turn out so bad in the end, but the whole idea that they thought ECW couldn’t stand alone is utterly ridiculous and shameful! Luckily ECW was allowed to look strong and dominant in the end. WWE involvement just made the PPV drag.

Another Wrestling Wedding, Guaranteed Ratings: WHY DO WE DO THIS? Weddings have consistently been the most wrestlecrappy things to ever happen in wrestling. Everything to the sets, to the characters involved (minister, priest etc) to the predictable mayhem right after the words “Does anyone have any objections?” are uttered. But the truly shameful thing about this is that WWE wedding segments have been the highest rated segments on the shows! Why are we attracted to the train wreck of wrestler matrimony! It’s garbage!!!

The Myth of the Mutant Mole.: When I first saw Jillian Hall in Ohio Valley Wrestling she was a chronically cute hyper-active babyface who could mat-wrestle just about as good as any woman I’ve ever seen. Jump forward two years when she made her debut in the WWF she was completely made-over into a WWE-bimbo, saddled with one of the most ridiculous gimmicks since the stuttering Matt Morgan. She joined Smackdown! as the publicist for MNM. Her whole gimmick is that she’s hot, but she has some weird deformation on the side of her face that makes other people uncomfortable. Sounds like a winner!
UPDATE: In early 2006, The Boogeyman bite the moll off of Jillian’s face and chewed it up!

Kerwin White – First Ballot Hall of Shamer: The Guerrero name goes back many decades with a very rich history in professional wrestling. So creative decided to take a 3rd Generation member of the Guerrero family and repackage him into something beyond stupid. When Chavo Guerrero was traded to RAW, he was taken away from the Cruiserweight division, which he had dominated for quite some time. Over on RAW, Chavo was transformed into “Kerwin White” after denouncing his latin heritage and proclaiming “If it’s not white, it’s not right!” Kerwin Whit would travel to the ring on a golf cart and dressed and acted like the stereotypical white person. When Eddie Guerrero tragically passed away, the Kerwin White disaster was thankfully dropped.

Rey vs Eddie – From Fame to Shame: In this day and age, when a wrestling storyline has a life-span of over a year, you can be sure that it will have its own ups and downs. The first half of the year Rey & Eddie engaged in several healthy competitive contests. By summer time, Eddie’s jealous got to him and he turned heel and attacked his best friend. Then the angle was based on HEAT and emotion. Eventually it went downhill when Eddie Guerrero claimed Rey’s son Dominic was actually HIS son, which he gave to Rey when they couldn’t have a baby. Since Eddie couldn’t beat Rey in the ring, he wanted to beat him in life, and pursued custody of Rey’s son. Rey’s real life son took part in this horrible storyline that went from brilliance to flatuance very very quickly..

PMS: The Sequal: There’s so much wrong with the Diva Division. 3/4 of them are just pointless skin with legs and no wrestling ability OR ability to draw viewers. Case in point, Torrie Wilson & Candice Michelle. They formed a quasi-lesbo relationship on SD! and were later traded to RAW. Their big ‘thing’ was an entrance they they created where Torrie would stand inside the ring and Candice would crawl in between Torrie’s legs. I’m sure to the average horny wrestling teen fan this was a very prolific moment. Not to me.. This is not hot to me at all. These girls have no co-ordination, no wrestling skill, no mic skill, no acting skill, what exactly is there worth? Why are WWE waiting money on girls who can’t contribute anything.

America’s Least Wanted: WWE’s answer to TNA’s America’s Most Wanted. This irony was that this was actually a very good tag team. They almost immediately captured the World Tag Team titles. The tag team itself is not why they are in the Hall of Shame. The tag team had a huge amount of entertainment value as well as potential. The shame here belongs to the WWE for ending the partnership for no reason and buring both men in singles matches on HEAT. My guess is that since the team was meant to make fun of TNA’s AMW and it was actually getting over, then it had to be squashed. Is there any sign of intelligent life in the WWE creative department?

You Can’t Beat The Dicks!: Four years ago, when TNA launched its tag team division with a masked Tag Team known as “The Johnsons”, Richard & Rod, I’m pretty sure WWE’s people were saying “Man that is stupid, we would never do anything like that!” — When Smackdown! recruited Tank Toland & Chad Toland, who had a perfectly good gimmick going in Ohio Valley Wrestling as the “Blonde Bombers”, they saddled them with a lame gimmick calling them “The Dicks”. Why? All for the purpose of making 9th grade penis jokes. You can’t beat those Dicks! Well, the sad thing is that everybody beat the Dicks, because they quickly settled into jobber status.

Exploiting Eddie: When Eddie Guerrero tragically passed away in November, the wrestling world was shocked and numbed by the loss. They did two Eddie Guerrero Tribute shows for RAW & SD! and resumed business as usual. Never one to let anything slip by without the proper exploitation, Vince McMahon made Rey Mysterio drive Eddie’s low-rider down to the ring for a match. An unrelated storyline took place after the match between Randy Orton and The Undertaker — Orton put Taker in the backseat of the vehicle and backed it up into the SD! set and it exploded and burned in flames. This sent immediate shockwaves through the WWE as it was a blatant exploitation of Eddie Guerrero’s death. Shame on WWE.

I’m Matt Striker and I’m Your Hall of Shamer!: Matt Striker was a pretty accomplished independent wrestler who probably deserved a shot at the big time based soley on his talent. What fans didn’t know was that wrestling was actually Striker’s second job. He was a school teacher by day, and wrestler by night. One day his superiors found out Striker was using sick days to take time off to go wrestle, and he was promply fired. Suddenly Matt Striker was making national and international headlines for his unusual dismissal. Vince McMahon quickly picked up on it and signed Striker, looking to exploit yet another real life crisis. Matt Striker came in as a jobber. Matt Striker won a handful of matches on HEAT. Matt Striker was given a stupid teacher gimmick. I guess the novelty has worn off….

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