Wronged Employee vs. Evil Owner on one show, the NWO hanging around like leather jackets are still cool while a pointless, fourth wall-breaking power struggle involving Hogan, Bischoff, Jarrett, and some mealy-mouthed gibberish about young guys getting over is booked as the most important thing on the other. The buzz on the internet would have it that these bullshit rehashes are exactly what we as fans want to see. In this first edition of A Fan’s Notes, I’ll explain just why I’m inclined to disagree, why the stars of the last two weeks are all guys who weren’t even wrestling in 1997, and why the creative minds on both shows are blowing chance after chance to build for the future.

I’ve really talked enough about TNA, so let’s just leave it at this: my honest opinion is that this whole experiment – in which the aim of Hogan and Bischoff is clearly to prove that everybody is wrong about WCW and that if it wasn’t for the suits at Time Warner they would have gone on to destroy Vince McMahon and take over the wrestling world – will end in disaster. When it does, the one left carrying the can will be Dixie Carter, who now finds herself in the unenviable position of being a reasonably competent businesswoman up against some of the most notorious swindlers and politicians this business has ever produced. I feel bad for her, just as I feel bad for the likes of AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, and Matt Morgan. Placing your career in the hands of these assholes is not a smart move, and you will end up paying for it.

Ah, fuck all of those people. Pro wrestling is a shark tank. You don’t realize and prepare for that, you probably deserve all you get. I don’t have a lot of time for the likes of Triple H or Nash, but they understand what a tawdry, bullshit profession they’re in, and they focus on what needs to happen for them to survive and succeed.

Unlike, say, Bret Hart, whose sudden re-emergence onto the scene would have been ironic in its timing if we didn’t accept that Vince McMahon, for all his faults, is still well capable of the occasional lapse into genius. After all, the same audience TNA was courting with the return of the Hulkster, its teases about ‘the band getting back together‘, and…uh…the Nasty Boys would likely tune Spike out pretty damn quickly if the other channel was broadcasting Wrestling’s Last Hero finally wreaking vengeance for Montreal.

Which was what we were anticipating but not exactly what we got on the January 4th Raw, which began with a pleasingly healthy-looking Bret addressing the crowd before he and Shawn Michaels shared the most awkward hug since the last time I saw my in-laws. Clearly this was designed both to achieve the closure Bret had spoken of and ensure that Bret’s WWE program would not be against The Heartbreak Kid but would instead focus on McMahon. I clearly missed the memo that changed wrestling as a spectacle so that awkward man-hugs and uncomfortable compromises became an acceptable way to blow-off perhaps the most epic feud of this generation.

To my mind, Bret’s feud isn’t with McMahon. There’s arguable justification on both sides for what happened back in 1997. It was a business thing, and while it was shocking, it didn’t exactly set any precedents. Ignoring for a second the events that occurred after Bret departed Planet McMahon, the man who so effectively sabotaged Bret’s career, who was the very antithesis of everything Bret strived to be for his fans and his family, was Shawn Michaels. Go back and watch Bret’s promos from that era, the genuine bitterness and hatred, the utter contempt with which he regards Michaels. Now tell me that Bret/McMahon is the real feud here.

The watershed moment of this return will be the application of a long-deserved Sharpshooter by Bret Hart on Vince McMahon. It should have been Shawn. That it isn’t should tell you all you need to know about how much Michaels has really changed, how big Vince’s ego really is, and how Bret has more in common with Dixie Carter than he probably realizes.

It’s not a coincidence that the same guys stay on top, kids.

But fuck 1997. I want to talk about some of the things I enjoyed these last few weeks, mostly because I’m already over Hogan and Hart and Michaels and McMahon and the NWO and Kurt Angle. I want to talk about how we don’t have to rehash the past because we already have the guys that could take us forward if they were ever actually given the opportunity. Performers like these…

Mike Mizanin: The Miz’s promo of this past week’s Raw was the best thing I’ve seen on any wrestling show so far in 2010. Whether Miz is kind of a prick in real life isn’t really the issue. The facts are that he’s gold on the microphone, he’s one of the most over guys on the roster, and his development as an in-ring worker over the last couple of years is nothing short of phenomenal. WWE’s all-purpose upper midcard/main event heel is right under its nose, waving the US title around and being a massive prick.

CM Punk: I’m an unashamed Punk fan, but since turning heel, he continues to be a highlight of the increasingly dull Smackdown. Punk’s latest incarnation as a kind of Straight Edge prophet complete with Christ-like appearance and Luke Gallows as his disciple is really pretty controversial for PG-rated programming in America in 2010. His “One nation under Punk,” promo from this past Friday’s show was borderline blasphemous as well as magnificently entertaining.

Dolph Ziggler: How you blow an angle is that you first make it a carbon copy of a storyline one of the participants was involved in less than a year ago (Ziggler/Khali) before teasing that the heel is going to put down the monster face by having them go to a no-contest in week one before the heel goes over via a clever count-out in week two. You then set up the rubber match by having the heel give a serious interview where he talks about what a roll he’s on before going out and being pinned cleanly  by the monster face’s finishing move. That Nick Nemeth has gotten ‘Dolph Ziggler’ over at all is commendable. That he’s running with the ‘modern day Mr. Perfect’ thing despite being the victim of some Russo-worthy booking is borderline masochistic. If they’d put the IC belt on him, he’d be a star.

D’Angelo Dinero: I’m not sure there’s anybody in professional wrestling trying as hard as Elijah Burke right now. Much like Nemeth, he’s taken a stupid character with a ridiculous name and gotten it over through little more than hard work. They turned The Pope face because he was too entertaining to boo. That’s a great sign. A program with Desmond Wolfe, the best all-rounder in the business right now, is another. Politics and the inevitable collapse of TNA may halt Dinero’s ascent, but he’s got a lot of momentum right now.

Generation Me: The former Young Bucks looked assured and confident on their Impact debut last week. As they should have. Though they were in the more-than-competent hands of Sabin and Shelley, their performance was flawless. The only surprise was that – given the name and the pretty boy appearance – they didn’t come out and work heel against the popular MCMG. Still, the other thing they resemble is The Hardy Boyz way back when. If we’re going to base our booking around rehashing old angles, why not turn the Guns into the obnoxious E&C-esque heels they‘re crying out to be, give Generation Me the Jeff Hardy seal of approval before he goes to jail, and then bust out some furniture? Just a thought.

Desmond Wolfe: Nigel McGuinness took a while to convince me back when he was the ROH champ. The fact that I wanted to like him so much (same age, same hometown) may have contributed to my following his career back then. Not so much now. Wolfe’s step up into the (slightly) big(ger) leagues has been stunning. He looked like a star in TNA less than a month after arriving, despite the unsurprising refusal of Kurt Angle to put him over in an actual wrestling match. His clash with Joe on last week’s Impact added to a growing list of great little TV matches I’m sure WWE are watching with interest.

I could go on and on, which says more about my view of the current wrestling scene than the first few paragraphs probably did. It’s worth pointing out that it’s not so long since we were talking about all the vanilla guys WWE was bringing in and how there’s nowhere for young performers to really learn their trade anymore. This terrible state of affairs appears to have given us an extremely promising generation of young stars already in either TNA or WWE, and many more who are out there plying their trade in the indies. The future of professional wrestling in terms of talent is assured. What’s holding it back is the kind of politicking that means TNA’s main event is Hogan and Jarrett shouting at each other, while guys like Punk and Miz are held back in WWE simply for wearing or saying something that violates some ancient set of rules that’s ultimately just code for keeping the same guys on top.

Just like in 1997.