Creativity Power Rankings

Week of 5/5/19

By Michael Klink

@michael_klink

The internet is awash with a myriad of Power Rankings, with Superstars ascending or descending depending on the outcome of their latest bout.  In wrestling, the outcomes are predetermined (unless a ref puts a “Fuck” on you), so what are we really gleaning from a predetermined metric (I’m looking at you wwe.com)?

The inspiration for this list stems from WWE’s recent, panicked decision to undo a “Superstar Shakeup” that’s barely aged a week with yet another superstar shakeup that they’ve named the “Wildcard Rule”.  

Basically, every week, 4 Superstars can leave their brand and do battle on the rival program. The move indicates that they are putting the blame on their talent’s ability to draw interest, rather than taking a look at the bigger picture.  

In no particular order, I’d blame the low Nielsen ratings on the natural ebb and flow of interest; the way we can stream television at our leisure; the fact that there’s tons of competition (seriously, who scheduled Money In The Bank to fall on the series finale of “Game of Thrones”?); the fact that the NBA and NHL are in the middle of their playoff seasons; and much more.

If week one of this experiment is any indication of what’s in store for WWE’s future, an idea that provides us with multiple opportunities to watch Daniel Bryan, AJ Styles, Roman Reigns, or Becky Lynch wrestle is a good one.  

But this also means we’re not giving credit to the folks who are stretching the legs of WWE’s creative team and trying to make something memorable, dropping Nielsen ratings be damned. Join me in celebrating a product that is not devoid of talent, but is in need of better marketing.

5) Firefly Fun House says RIP to Rambling Rabbit

Bray Wyatt’s nightmarish ode to PeeWee Herman and Blue’s Clues continued this week.  As usual, Bray was cheered and serenaded by sound effects of happy children, xylophone musical cues, and a host of puppets.

 The twist this week was the decapitation of bunny puppet Rambling Rabbit by the sinister looking Mercy The Buzzard. Au revoir to Rambling’s “bohemian worldview” and hello to a gimmick that makes me want to tune in every week.

4) The Iconics roast Cincinnati, OH

If you’re not on the Iconics band wagon yet, hop on, we’ll squeeze you in.  This week the ladies from down under warned of a permeating “buckeye fever” that the ladies hoped not to catch.  They also made light of Cincy’s dubious honor as the “least funny city in America” award.

They attempted to “have a think” on the situation, but no funny moments came to mind, save for this promo.  Bravo to these entertaining ladies, for when I “have a think” on WWE’s funniest performers, these two are usually at the forefront.

3) Sami Zayn’s worst day off ever

Sami deserves an entry on the list because he’s been having a string of outstanding promos.  He’s learned how to perfectly balance his high energy delivery with focused critiques of the WWE Universe and its critical ways.  

He didn’t get to have as long of a time on the stick as we’d like, but please enjoy his delivery of “Kentucky Fried Hillbillies” and attempt to seduce Kofi Kingston into his objectively reasonable way of reasoning.

2) Trent Seven knife edge chopped a thigh

It’s easy to find videos of capillary bursting knife edge chops to wrestlers’ chests (thank you Walter!) or even videos of superstars giving their superkick a little extra oomph by slapping their own thighs.

But after combing the internet for over 10 minutes (an eternity in internet time) I was unable to find another instance of a knife edge chop to an opponent's thigh.  So this week, cracking the list of the Creativity Power Rankings, Trent Seven gives us a first of its kind thigh slapping good time.

1)  New “We Are The World” NXT intro:

Wrestling show entrance themes vary in quality, with some great, like “The Beautiful People” by Marilyn Manson, to the not so great, like Nickelback’s “Burn it to the Ground”.  This week on NXT we formally said goodbye to one of my favorites, as Powerflo’s “Resistance” was replaced by Slipknot’s “All Out Life”.

Slipknot’s song is a fitting candidate to kick off a wrestling show, it’s got all the elements you look for: hard rock power chords, screaming, and nonsensical lyrics.  The reason this change made it on this week’s edition of the Rankings is because of the accompanying intro video which you can see below.

Instead of a traditional montage of wrestling highlights like you usually get, somebody decided it would be fun to have all the NXT talent gather in the ring and sing along to the song!  It definitely has a bit of a Netflix’s “GLOW” feel, since the video features heels and faces dropping kayfabe to sing along to their new favorite Slipknot song.

The move is a symbolic gesture that the quibbles between superstars is less important than promoting the “We Are NXT” slogan. It’s an interesting take to have, since the WWE creative team has also decided that “We Are Smackdown” and “We Are Raw” are bad ideas (hello again Wild Card!).