Steve Carrier on January 9, 2018
Taz talks about the debut of “Woken” Matt Hardy on last night’s episode of Monday Night RAW.
He couldn’t believe that during Hardy’s entrance, WWE still had the old Hardy Boyz logo all over the video wall. He points out that this looks like laziness from WWE, but that was never an issue when he worked there back in the day. He’s going to give WWE the benefit of the doubt in this case, because perhaps they had something planned that didn’t come through, or they’re waiting to debut something new next week.
Taz thinks this feud between Hardy and Bray Wyatt needs to get nasty. He believes that Wyatt is aggressive enough as a heel to get believable heat on Hardy, and Hardy is a strong enough babyface to sell that heat well. When this feud gets nastier, Taz thinks there’s potential for a better story.
He points out that WWE seems to be hesitant to go all in with this Hardy character right now. He has faith that WWE will eventually go all the way, and we’ll probably even see Reby Hardy and King Maxel involved at some point. He hopes that Vanguard 1 and all the other gimmicks from the original “Broken” character eventually show up in WWE’s presentation.
Taz goes on to say that he thought WWE missed the mark with Hardy’s new music as well. When the music began the audience didn’t really react, but when they saw Hardy they popped huge. He thinks there needs to be something more impactful at the beginning of Hardy’s music to grab the audience’s attention right away, like Austin’s breaking glass or The Rock’s “If You Smell…”.
He thought this was a good night for Finn Balor and the Balor Club. They appear to be over with the audience just a couple of weeks into their partnership, and that’s always a good sign. He does feel that a lot of WWE’s heels try too hard to be ‘cool heels’, and he’d like WWE to turn the Balor Club into nasty, cheating heels.
Taz talks about almost signing with WCW back in the day. He points out that there were contracts involved during that time and things had to be handled very carefully. WCW would often put out feelers through a 3rd party, and then they could understand if a certain talent had aspirations of working for them or not. If the talent did appear interested, WCW would take things to the next level.
Taz feels like he definitely could have gotten a strong offer from WCW during this time if he would have pushed harder for that. WCW seemed to have a lot of interest in him but he never really gave them a sign that the interest was mutual.
Speaking about the WWE Network, Taz says if you’re a wrestling fan at all you basically have to buy it given the great value that it provides. He thinks the Network is problematic from a wrestler’s perspective because there are a lot of wrestlers on that Network who busted their asses for years, and aren’t getting a cent for their matches being shown on their. A lot of guys who are in financial peril could use a royalty cheque from the Network right now.
He points out that everyone signed contracts when they were younger just to wrestle on television, and nobody knew what they were signing. There were no lawyers involved, and if the talent didn’t sign the contract they’d never wrestle on television, and their chance to work for WWE would vanish. Taz assumes that a lot of those signatures are protecting WWE from having to pay royalties today.
Taz mentions that Enzo Amore had a rough night on RAW last night. He was busted open and appeared to injure his ankle on Cedric Alexander’s dive to the outside. Taz is a fan of Amore and it’s nice to see him improving in the ring, but he’s lucky to be getting better at the highest level on RAW. In Taz’s opinion, performers should already be great by the time they get to RAW or Smackdown Live.
He goes on to say that Alexander’s dive was quiet scary, and both men could have really been hurt during that spot. He mentions that Amore’s job was to stand up straight and catch Alexander during that dive, but he bent over instead and that could have been catastrophic.
Taz thought the backstage segment featuring Braun Strowman was awesome. He points out that this was probably pre-recorded because he’d be surprised if Strowman threw that hook and managed to hit the rope on his first try. He says that Strowman is a tremendous athlete and it’s great to watch his development each week.
That sums up today’s episode of The Taz Show. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya tomorrow for another recap!
January 9, 2018 2:21 pm
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