At WWE Night of Champions Pay-Per-View last night, against all odds Mark Henry cleanly pinned Randy Orton to win the World Heavyweight Championship. Shocking I know, as even the greatest gamblers weren't crazy enough to put money on Mark Henry beating Orton for the title. Mark Henry has spent the 15 years in the WWE, and the vast majority of his career he's always been either a jobber or just very mid-card wrestler. At his best, he's only shown mere flashes of dominance... a tease if you will. They would build him up on Smackdown just to feed him to the Undertaker or Batista since Smackdown routinely suffers from a lack of main event heels, but Henry stuck with it. He's been fed to nearly every main eventer that's come down the pike from Cena to Triple H to Orton to Edge and many more.
So, given Mark Henry's history of mid-card purgatory I was one who had just chalked Night of Champions up as a Randy Orton win and didn't even give it a second thought. Mark Henry, I apologize for discounting you. I am proud to say Mark Henry won the World Title. After 15 years, maybe people will finally start taking Mark Henry seriously. Kudos to WWE for finally doing something new and different. It might actually give me a reason to tune into Smackdown this week. The Hall of Pain begins. Congratulations to Mark Henry for finally pulling the sword from the stone.
Maybe it's just me, but am I the only one that notices that TNA always has to have a Triple Threat match on every PPV card? I've noticed this as long as I have been watching TNA. Every single PPV there is some sort of Triple Threat Match. Bound For Glory 2010 it was Kurt Angle vs Jeff Hardy vs Mr. Anderson. The current upcoming TNA PPV, No Surrender has a Kurt Angle vs Sting vs Mr.Anderson Triple Threat for the World Title. If it's not a triple threat match, then it's a Fatal 4-way match. In other words, TNA has killed specialty matches. They book specialty matches at every single PPV to the point of booking specialty matches into the ground. You just want to see one TNA PPV with absolutely NO specialty matches. I don't want to see a Triple Threat, a Fatal 4-Way, or any other crazy match. What happened to the average PPV that just had a bunch of singles and one or two tag matches? In TNA, there is no such thing as a specialty match because they have them ALL the time. Sometimes, less is more.
Earlier this year, WWE finally signed Mistico after years of speculation about when he would wrestle in the United States. Mistico, the international sensation, immediately went to WWE Developmental for about 2 weeks before being thrown in the bright lights of Monday Night RAW. Going under the name Sin Cara, he was given a rare WWE red carpet treatment. He was given great music, and an amazing entrance where he runs down the entrance ramp and leaps over the ropes and does a front flip into the ring. During his first few attempts however, Sin Cara botched his epic entrance, usually getting slightly caught in the ropes during his front flip. Then during many of his matches, he has been called out and taken to task for consistently "botching" attempted moves. While younger fans are more in awe of what Sin Cara can do, many older fans and those in the IWC have been extremely hard on him, claiming that Sin Cara sucks because he botches all his moves. Also, other fans go as far as to say that he isn't worth the time and should be fired for botching moves.
However, I think everyone is missing the big elephant in the room. Sin Cara is not a screw up, nor is it his fault when he botches moves. Now, before all of you say "Yeah, right!" or "You don't know what you're talking about" allow me to explain. You all say Sin Cara sucks when he botches his moves, but what you don't realize is that most of the time it isn't even his fault. What you all haven't realized is that the entire WWE roster doesn't wrestle the Lucha Libre style (with the exception of Rey Mysterio, and to a lesser degree... Primo). When you put a Lucha Libre wrestler like Sin Cara against a guy that's nothing but a brawling big man like Sheamus who doesn't have any experience wrestling the lucha libre style... what do you expect? Sheamus can't anticipate Sin Cara's offensive moves because he's never wrestled the Lucha Libre wrestling style. When you put Sin Cara in a match against a big technical wrestler like Jack Swagger who also has no experience wrestling Lucha Libre than of course moves will be botched because Swagger can't anticipate lucha libre moves the same way he could John Cena's moves because he knows Cena's moves will just be basic slams.
So, when Sin Cara is booked in matches against guys (big guys at that) that can't wrestle Lucha, then it is much more likely that Jack Swagger, Sheamus, and Christian can't anticipate these unique moves and are more likely to be out of position. Then when Sin Cara lands in an awkward spot, or misses his move then it looks like Sin Cara just doesn't know what he's doing.
Does anyone else notice that his matches against Chavo Guerrero were top notch. He had good matches with Primo. His matches against Evan Bourne and Daniel Bryan were awe inspiring. These matches were great because he was put against guys his size who are more experienced with high flyers and lucha libre style wrestling. When you put him in matches against Jack Swagger, Sheamus, or Christian... it doesn't take rocket science to understand why he was botching moves. If WWE would quit booking him against wrestlers that have no background in Mexican wrestling then he wouldn't be screwing up moves.
As for botching his entrance, that was only the first month he was on TV and that was partially because WWE put him on TV way too soon. He should've spent a couple of months in developmental, but Vince jumped the gun and put him on TV after a couple of weeks. Also, look at his entrance. I've never seen a wrestler before him have to do such a difficult ring entrance. That's a really high jump (even with spring help). You have to jump over the entire ring and do a front flip roll. Ask Rey Mysterio to do that and he would always botch it. It's a lot more difficult then it looks, and that's WWE's fault for demanding entirely too much out of a wrestler's entrance.
Now, I already know that some of you will argue that Rey Mysterio puts on great matches and he wrestles Lucha Libre. Well... yes and no. If you watch Rey Mysterio in WCW from 1996-1999, and you watch a modern Rey Mysterio match... you will see a complete difference in how he wrestles. Rey Mysterio does a fraction of the moves he used to do in WCW. He wrestles a more WWE Style now, which is fewer big risk maneuvers in order to maximize the shock value response from the crowd. Also, you'll notice that the majority of Rey Mysterio's aerial maneuvers nowadays are straight on landings. You'll never see Rey Mysterio do a cork screw moon sault or anything with a real twisted landing like you would when he was in WCW 10-12 years ago. Part of that is the WWE Wrestling style and the other part is that he's had a lot of surgeries on his left knee and he's a lot older now then he was back then. He just can't do what he used to, and he can't do what Sin Cara does.
Rey Mysterio has always had it easy because when he was in WCW they were littered with Lucha Libre Legends like the Guerrero's, Juventud Guerrera, Konnan, Psychosis, Ciclope, Silver King, the Villano's and countless others. He's also had the benefit of wrestling American wrestlers who have wrestled a variety of styles internationally such as Dean Malenko, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit etc who really showed Rey how to wrestle the American TV style of wrestling. If Sin Cara had debuted in WCW, he would be fine because half their roster could wrestle Lucha. WWE has never had great success with the Lucha Libre style outside of Mysterio and the Guerrero's. I mean seriously does anyone really remember Essa Rios?
Sin Cara's problem is not Sin Cara. Sin Cara's problem is that he's wrestling on a roster with very few people who can work with a Lucha Libre only style wrestler and have a great match. Outside of Evan Bourne and Rey Mysterio, it's slim pickings trying to find someone who knows his style. There is Primo and Tyson Kidd, but Vince won't give them any TV time. Chavo left WWE. So, who is there really? When Sin Cara has a match against someone who can wrestle Lucha, he does great. When they expect him to put on Lucha against Sheamus... it's bad. It's not rocket science. This is WWE's fault. If they wanted a purely Lucha Libre style wrestler who knows little English to wrestle WWE style American wrestling then they should have given him more then two weeks to learn it in developmental. They probably spent the whole two weeks just putting together his entrance. WWE jumped the gun, and unfortunately Sin Cara (Mistico) has been made the fall guy when he has a bad match when it really isn't his fault. He's been made to be the fall guy when WWE just expected too much too soon from him.
WWE should've put him in a feud with Chavo Guerrero, Trent Baretta, Evan Bourne, and Daniel Bryan from the start... instead of making him look bad by initially putting him with guys like Sheamus and Jack Swagger who are completely clueless when it comes to pure Lucha Libre style wrestling. The IWC is entirely too hard on Sin Cara because if the anti-Sin Cara contingent had considered these things... then they would already know that it's not Sin Cara's fault.
Let's be real. Sin Cara (Mistico) is a legend in Mexico and a superstar in Japan already, and he is only 27. The man has been labeled a superstar all over the world outside of the United States. He's not an idiot. He obviously doesn't suck. If you youtube some of his matches from Mexico and Japan, you'll clearly see that he doesn't just go around botching moves. Have some of the people that hate on Sin Cara even took the time to pay attention to these things, they would see that there is more to it then "he just sucks". He's been wrestling for years, and this isn't his first rodeo. It's obviously Vince's fault for not taking the time to adjust him to the WWE style in developmental for at least 6 months. He jumped the gun because he was hoping the money train would take off immediately instead of preparing him properly for American wrestling and I thought it was just messed up of WWE to make Mistico the fall guy in the whole thing.
