BUILDING THE PERFECT MOLLY
(*Note: The Official Theme Song of Mollyopoly # 7 ROCKS, and it is 'Shovel' from Hum)
I am going to switch gears for a week here. I am NOT going to do a recap of the last three weeks' worth of Raw for Mollyopoly sieben this week. Nope. There wasn't anything that occurred on Raw over the last 21 days that I want to discuss-outside of Mollys' lone appearance in that span of time. Raw can go STRAIGHT to HELL for giving Molly 5.5 minutes of airtime over a 21-day period. Maybe by the time I put out Mollyopoly # 8, Molly will get to work a match. Also, I know a LOT of people think the writing on SmackDown is horrible, and the writing on Raw is infinitely better. It is? I said it in Mollyopoly 6 and I will say it again: If you think the writing on Raw is GOOD, then you are fooling yourself...and everyone else around you. Watch the Memorial Day edition of Raw-and their lame main-event-and TRY to tell me Raw is a good show. Good compared to SD, MAYBE, but that is gilding the dingleberry. Watching Raw is like watching every Paulie Shore movie ever made...TWICE. The only good thing about the Memorial Day show was La Resistance winning the tag straps, and Trish Stratus' promo.
(One thing, however, I WILL bring up. Lita has 3 cool-looking finishers in her Litabomb, her version of the 'Twist of Fate', AND her 'style-points' DDT. Trish is a REALLY hard worker and deserves every accolade that she gets. She is also a tremendous athlete. So the only finish the WWE can come up with between these two is the 'dreaded' quick roll-up? I SINCERELY HOPE that EVERYONE watching the women's matches from this point are truly FED-UP with all of the LAME-ASS ROLL-UP FINISHES. This is toiling and trifling, WWE. Shape the hell up. And here is where I will discuss Raw 5/24/2004 for the sole reason of telling you what Molly did. I'm sure you already know. She put Victoria over cleanly-again, the match was five and a half minutes long, neither worker got to show anything even remotely resembling their full bag of tricks, and the heat for this match was moderate at best. The good? Well...Molly WAS on T.V. this week and Victoria got to use the Widows Peak on Molly and her tirailleur Gail Kim in this ho-hum affair. The bad? The crowd didn't really come alive until Victoria dropped theWidows Peak,which drew a nice pop. The Memorial Day Raw featured no Molly, no Gail, Victoria still has her LAME entrance, a lame main-event between Kane and Eugene...and I seriously wondered whether or not I should become a full-time NWA-TNA fan. We got to find out that Gail has her big shot at the Women's strap at the PPV.That's it. That's Raw, for the past 3 weeks. Want to know more? No.)
Instead, der siebte edition of Mollyopoly is going to focus on building the perfect Molly, just like the sub-title says. This will also include at least one of her female cohorts as well, because high tide has always raised all ships, and a stronger cast of characters in the Women's Division would be great for all participants in said division-including Molly herself. I do not plan on talking about anybody NOT NAMED VICTORIA OR MOLLY HOLLY in Mollyopoly Version 7.0. Let's see how long of a column I can write about my favorite female wrestler! First, I will start with that lovably vivacious rapscallion Victoria! Without any further ado:
THE QUEEN OF MADNESS
('There is no strong performance without a little fanaticism in the performer' Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals vol. ix)
First off, Victoria's heel character, the black-clad Princess of Pandemonium, the crazy and insane 'Flower', RULED. If you don't think so, then you AND your whole entire peer group are wrong. This ONE character was EASILY the most memorable and vivid of ALL of the characters in the Women's division...and I don't even recall any promos from her (of course, being the MOST VOCAL WWE WORKER not named A-Train in the ring, what with all her yelling, screaming,squealing and grunting, she hardly needed to get on the mic). Granted, I stopped watching WWE for a long while-almost a year-during the 'Age of Lame' that the WWE circa 2002 represented. Mollys' transformation into the prudish Molly and the antics of Victoria drew me back in. Why did I stop watching to begin with? The product was HORRIBLE and Y2J was descending down the card. How did Molly help draw me back in? Nothing TOO prosaic, I'm afraid. I already knew she was good...she had been-along with Madusa-training some of the women down in WCW (judging from the 'progress' of Stacy Keibler and Torrie Wilson as actual WORKERS, these two were either EXTREMELY reticent students, or the then Mona was simply a much better worker than teacher. I'll go with my first thought...Stacy and Torrie didn't really want to learn). I saw enough to convince me during her babyface run and Hurricane-sidekick days that she may have been the best female worker on the roster not named Ivory. So I already knew she was good. But I have to admit, while Nora Greenwald would seemingly-if it were up to her-get by solely on her athletic prowess, workrate and technical expertise, the thing that drew me in was...her...backside. I admire Mollys' rump. You can probably guess which side I took in the whole 'Molly is a Fatass' nonsense. And it WAS nonsense. Leave the poor woman alone. No woman likes to be teased about the size of her ass, I don't care how much of a team player you are.So, there. And Victoria? I had always wanted to see a character like THAT done-in the Women's Division. And she had the ability to pull it off. She has a natural reservoir of charisma that runs DEEP, she is tremendously skilled, she has a nice moveset (as a heel), and a strong, strong look-her look is TREMENDOUS and it works for her. Let's also not forget that she spent the majority of her heel run turning Trish Stratus' smile upside-down and showing her the Bronx on a regular basis, as she treated everyones' favorite blonde in the same fashion that Queen Victoria treated William E. Gladstone-BADLY, to say the least.To say the VERY least. The Trish-Victoria Rivalry is STILL, to this DAY, the hottest rivalry in the Women's Division, and if you disagree with me on this matter-in any way-than the odds are VERY GOOD that you engage in McCarthyism, mazurka,ritualized blood-letting...and other such nonsense.
VICTORIA FALLS...HARD ('Common sense is not so common' Voltaire, A Philosophical Dictionary, 'Self-Love')
What do you get when you fall from grace..? Apparently, you undergo a 360-degree babyface turn that defies logic, you lose your ENTIRE MOVESET, you smile...a lot...at everybody, and you shake your ass a lot. You also get lame theme music THAT NO-ONE ON THE RAW ROSTER LIKES. I heard Victoria's entrance theme on the 5/24/2004 Raw and...man, did THAT HURT. That hurt my SOUL. The very fiber of my being is shattered, and I am now emotionally crippled. Apparently, the liscense for the WWE's usage of the song 'All the Things She Said' by T.A.T.U. has expired...but when your brand spankin' new entrance theme makes T.A.T.U. sound good, then you have PROBLEMS. That brings me to installment # 5 of:
'HEY, YOUR INTRO-THEME SUCKS'
Let me guess, Lisa Marie Varon. I bet you subscribe to the notion that if one doesn't have something nice to say, then he shouldn't say anything at all. And that works well in theory, but in reality..? Let's face it. If I did not point out that your current music falls somewhat short of being...well, good, then I would be negligent. I would be lying to you if I were to say any different...and from reports, THE WHOLE RAW LOCKER ROOM AGREES WITH THIS ASSESSMENT. With that said? 'Spit' from Kittie. Almost anything from Babes in Toyland. Almost anything from Drain STH off their first record, 'Horror Wrestling'. 'Shutterbug' from Veruca Salt. 'Milk It' from Nirvana. 'Everything I Touch' from Stabbing Westward. 'Sinatra' from Helmet. Have I proven to be the least bit helpful here? No? Then here's another: 'Peekaboo' from Siouxie and the Banshees. Corny? It's better than what you have right now. Is any of this helpful? I hope so, because your current hip-POP inspired them could kill a man. As a matter of fact, there are bodies of once perfectly healthy young men and women laying face-down in the street up and down my whole block...laying there because they heard your new music, and died an ignominious dogs' death. Before I move on to another relevant point:'My Own Summer (Shove It)' by The Deftones. Slamming. Victoria should try that sometime. So, in recap...The Bad? Victoria's music. The Good? Well...she does know how to shake it, so there you go.
To pick up on my previous point, Vickys' babyface character is one-dimensional and lame. If I was paying to see this live, I would be mad as hell that my favorite toreador went from being Rosemary's Baby to Mary Tyler Moore overnight. And her entrance? Dancing? I half expected to hear 'Rhythym Nation 1814' start playing when she started dancing. Seriously, I bet Victoria grew up worshipping Paula Abdul, Tina Landon and Janet Jackson. This is NO GOOD, and this is what I think the WWE should have done. If you disagree with me, you-and your mother-are wrong. What the WWE should have done:
TURN VICTORIA FACE...BUT LEAVE HER..AS INSANE...AS SHE WAS...AS A ...HEEL!
Is this really impossible? Hell no. Not even close. It worked for Mick Foley and Kane a while back. Really want to get this over? Then,I don't think Molly is the right person to feud with her right now (blasphemy, I know). Really...Victoria and TRISH is the money-matchup. It should be fresh now, seeing as how BOTH WOMEN HAVE UNDERGONE A TURN. Come on. Trish has turned into a valet, and Victoria is busy laboring trying to get Gail Kim over. This is a waste of time. Molly and Gail could work just as well with Nidia and Lita (well, maybe not Nidia at first glance, but she won't improve if she doesn't work). If she wasn't co-hosting the floundering 'WWE Experience', you could throw Ivory into the mix as well. You also still have Jazz and Jacqueline (who is on the WRONG show and is in the WRONG role) to play with. This could help get the Women's Title itself a little more over-putting it in the hands of 2 of your 3 most over female workers...Trish and Victoria. Here is at least one proposed angle of how that could work:
Victoria in past programming has been portrayed as a little bit... craaaaazy. Why was she crazy? Give us an explanation. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? Is she bi-polar? Did she vote for Bush? What's her deal? Well, let's just say she suffered a bad head-injury as a child, and she is supposed to take drugs for that, but she stopped taking them when she got hooked on Steven Richards. So her insane spells became more severe, leading to the heel Victoria. But after she won the Women's strap, she-in her vanity-separated herself from Steven, started taking the drugs, so her insanity would be suppressed and she would be able to think coherently and be the babyface,so she could hear all that cool pop she gets when she makes her entrance. Steven is now jealous...he's been kicked to the curb. So he lets the now-heelish Trish in on Victoria's secret-hah!-and they could drug her or something, or expose that to the fans in an effort to humiliate Victoria...or they could have the WWE strip her of the title after she went on an insane rampage after being drugged by Steven and Trish. This is not unlike what the WWE was doing with Kane during the whole 'Corporate Ministry' angle. See, Victoria would still be nuts...she would just be hiding it behind some drugs she was taking, and Trish could make her feel really bad by exposing that. Come to think od it, you could do that with Molly taking Trish's role in an angle like this.
THE MOLLY PORTION OF MOLLYOPOLY
(The theme music for 'The Molly Portion of Mollyopoly' is a Nora Greenwald favorite from Phillips, Craig & Dean called 'When God Ran' )
STEP ONE IN BUILDING THE PERFECT MOLLY: THE FOUNDATION
('To be out of place is not necessarily to be out of power' Samuel Johnson, works 'Debates')
Okay. Let's tackle the task of rebuilding Molly from the ground up. She needs to be rebuilt right now, reformed and repackaged. That is why I say that she doesn't need to be working with Victoria right now. It's not because she doesn't DESERVE it, it is simply because she needs to be given a concrete character so she can be given a concrete role...as versus just being the girl that random babyfaces feud with becaue she is jealous of them for undisclosed reasons. In other words, in ability alone she is ready for the top spot in the Women's Division...but compare her character to that of Trish, Lita and Victoria. Hopefully, if you are objective, you see that THEY are the money right now, and Molly is not. Hurts me to say it, but I'm being honest. However, if the WWE were to invest real time in her, she could emerge as Number-One-and not just because she would have a title belt. Workers like Trish, Lita and Victoria actually do not NEED the belt to get over. Molly does at this point. None of this is her fault...she is just the victim of being poorly-booked in a throwaway division. Let's begin. You can keep her on Raw, but leave the Women's title to Victoria and Trish and maybe even Lita for a while. Use Molly to try and get THE OTHER LADIES OVER...and I don't mean by having her lose to every last single one of them...because the whole division needs a shot in BOTH arms. Start INVOLVING people. Don't tell me that some of the female workers are not ready, because the argument is bullshit. Not being 'ready' did NOT stop the WWE from throwing Jon Heidenreich, Matt Morgan, Nathan Jones, Zach Gowen AND-at one point, Gail Kim-at us, so I don't want to hear it.
(*Note: Hmmmm...the WWE couldn't find anything for Chris Kanyon to do, so they released him. The WWE couldn't find anything for Lance Storm OR Tommy Dreamer, so they have retired. The WWE can't find anything for The Dudley Boyz or Booker T. to do EXCEPT getting no-sold by The Undertaker. At one point, Vince and Co., told Rey Mysterio that they didn't have anything for him to do. SD can't find anything for RVD and Chavo Jr. to do that would actually ELEVATE them. But they CAN find a way to keep booking Tyson Tomko over Chris Jericho on Raw and JBL over Eddie Guerrero over on SD. Hmmmmm...)
|
|