Some of you are wondering where I’ve been lately. I’ve not posted a Penguins blog post/editorial in a couple of months now, and the last post that I did probably felt more like a confessional than what you’re used to. Today I’m going to throw you for another loop, because I’m going to talk about Professional Wrestling. It’s alright, I see you in the back raising your eyebrows in disbelief.
Not long ago, I sat down to talk with my friend Brian after catching a movie, and the topic of wrestling came up, as it usually does with us. Brian and I, you see, have known each other for years and we have the shared background of being life-long wrestling fans. These days, I don’t make that claim anymore, but Brian still gets to hold the card of life-long fan. I turned in my full time card a few years ago, though I still come back from time to time for no other reason than to see what’s going on.
During this conversation, I joked about what a mess wrestling had become lately, and told him I should start a column called “Who books this shit?” which not so coincidentally, happens to be the name of the column today. The reason why I don’t ever see myself doing a regular wrestling column is I’m far too jaded and cynical anymore where wrestling is concerned to be effective. Unless you look at what professional wrestling has become like I do, and I know far too many who don’t, most of you wouldn’t like the picture I’d paint.
I became a wrestling fan at the age of 4. I had a family member gave me a couple of cartoon books that featured Hulk Hogan and the Rock ‘n’ Wrestling gang, which was also a cartoon show that I watched around that time, and I loosely followed wrestling until the age of 7, when it became one of the first “adult” things I watched regularly on television. By 8, I watched religiously, and remember that Wrestlemania 6 was my first big pay-per-view. For the next decade and a little beyond, I was hooked. Baseball might have been the first sport I played, and hockey was my first and greatest sports love, and the Steelers usually have the area wrapped around their finger from the day they report in Latrobe until the last down is played, but before any of that, Pro Wrestling claimed the mantle as my favorite.
I watched before wrestling was cool, but I was a bit naïve back then. Sometime a few months later, I remember being upset because of an angle that Hulk Hogan was attacked by the Earthquake and they had to stretcher him off the set of the Brother Love show. How was he going to come back from that?! In reality, Hogan was going to film a movie, but you try telling that to an 8 year old without much concept of the ways of the world at that point. You might as well have killed Superman. I was a fan, and at that age, a suspension of belief is required a lot. But as the years went on, I got wiser about how things were done.
It wasn’t just the WWF, but I also followed WCW. By the time that the Monday Night Wars between WWF Monday Night Raw and WCW Monday Nitro, I was what is not always affectionately called a “smark” or a smart mark. Without going into great detail, that’s a wrestling fan who knows that wrestling is choreographed and that there are other elements in play and has more knowledge than the average wrestling fan on things, usually with some assistance from the internet, yet still appreciates it on a deep level.
The WWF Attitude movement was my favorite time in professional wrestling. In many ways, it was also what would eventually play a role in my parting from this thing that I loved for years and years. Everything was new and edgy back then.
Wrestling gimmicks pushed boundaries. Val Venis was a porn star and The Godfather was a pimp. The late Brian Pillman acted so certifiable with his gimmick that WCW fired him and he eventually wound up in the WWF before his unfortunate passing. D-Generation X played the role of jerks, getting over on low grade humor and antics that made you cringe, but that you just couldn’t bring yourself to completely condemn at any point, and even cheered for most of the time. Stone Cold Steve Austin was a loud mouthed, foul tempered, beer drinking, middle finger waving, tough SOB of a figure head that hated his boss and made the WWF the best thing going at that time. Language was no longer rated G and the introduction to extreme wrestling (thank you Paul Heyman and ECW for always being the thing that pushed my love of wrestling into zealotry) made it more popular than ever.
A few years down the line, WCW had declared bankruptcy. The WWE (formerly the WWF) and Vince McMahon purchased it. Many fans, myself included worried that without having somebody to push him, that Vince McMahon, the owner of the WWE, would rest on his laurels and go back to promoting the wrestling show that he wanted to do, the more fan friendly one. And he did. And the golden era of professional wrestling died because of it.
I always point to that as being the moment the nails started going into the coffin that was my love of professional wrestling. Watching the product that I loved slowly die on a vine, I started getting bored with the on air product. When my father passed away, I walked away from it and didn’t give it a second thought. As many people say in times like that, it’s when you take stock of your life that you find out what’s really important. There were so many more important things in life that I was ready to do, and I couldn’t stand watching this thing that I loved go from being this amazing product to being a proverbial polished turd that I was forced to accept. So I didn’t accept it anymore, and I stopped watching and walked away, and above all, I didn’t regret it.
One of the biggest things I hated about the way that the WWE carried itself after that period was the way that Vince McMahon booked himself in the middle of his biggest feuds. During the height of the McMahon vs. Austin era, it was alright. Vince was young enough to pull off the concept that his product was being ruined by Austin. He could take a bump, and you didn’t worry about him polluting the product because he had to stay innovative. But once the angle had run its course, Vince didn’t get off television. He kept booking it in cycles, and he kept adding family to the mix. New ideas weren’t being presented; it just kept recycling old ones with a slight retune here or there. Vince booked himself as the villain and somebody else as the hero, and sometimes, for a change up, he would feud or align himself with another family member. It was an ego trip in my eyes. He always fashioned himself as the biggest draw on the card, and stopped promoting the rest of the card.
I look at the UFC model. Dana White is awesome as a promoter. He’s had issues over the years with some of the talent in the UFC. I remember prior to the Tito Ortiz vs. Chuck Liddell feud, White had been feuding with Ortiz. One of most memorable things White ever said about Ortiz during their feud was something along the lines of he hoped “In a fight, Liddell would beat Tito without a doubt” and that he “hoped Liddell kicked Tito’s ass and shut him up for good.” He was biased, he didn’t like Tito and he loved Chuck. In spite of all that, White stayed out of the way for the matches that he promotes. That’s what smart promoters do. They promote the hell out of something, and then they get out of the way and let everything else take over. Dana White can never be accused of something like the Montreal Screw-Job where Vince made sure Bret Hart left the WWF without the World Title when he went to WCW. Vince McMahon never learned that lesson, and when I walked away from pro wrestling, he was a large reason why.
I didn’t want to see Vince McMahon. I didn’t buy pay-per-views to see him, unless it was to see him get beat. I didn’t buy tickets to WWE events to see him, either, just like I didn’t buy tickets to see Stephanie, who loves the camera almost as much as ‘daddy’ does. I didn’t buy tickets to see her husband Paul Levesque, otherwise known as Triple H, no matter if he was a face (good guy) or a heel (bad guy), because for years he booked himself over talent that the WWE could have used to grow the promotion back up to a better level. In my eyes, the WWE operates at its best when those three are off television. They might do a great job behind the camera, but in my opinion, the on camera product suffers when they’re in the middle of everything.
For the last few weeks, I’ve been watching again on a pretty regular basis. I almost ordered Summerslam because I wanted to see John Cena vs. Daniel Bryan, and I wanted to see Brock Lesnar vs. CM Punk, because I’m a fan of all things Paul Heyman. But I knew in the pit of my soul how Summerslam would end. Randy Orton would be the WWE Champion. I couldn’t condone spending 1 cent on something I so violently disagree with – because I knew it wouldn’t – no – couldn’t be handled right. I know that backstage Paul Levesque, Stephanie McMahon and Vince McMahon aren’t fans of Daniel Bryan. He’s not their guy. It has to infuriate them that in spite of their best efforts, this guy is the most over man in the company, and they’re going to have to promote him.
And so, it came to pass. Last night, I watched WWE Monday Night Raw, and essentially puked for the first segment. John Cena came out and does what he does best, he put somebody else over. He did it well, though I loathe that John Cena is the very embodiment of what’s wrong in Vince McMahon’s world. He’s Hulk Hogan 2.0, he hasn’t changed his gimmick in over 10 years, and in spite of being a very marketable person who’s a PR dream, will never be loved by the masses. Do you know why? Because the fans he has to deal with aren’t the fans of yesteryear. They don’t buy the same gimmick for over a decade anymore, and that has to bother Vince McMahon.
How dare the fans not understand his genius! He’s doing what’s best for them! Hey Vince, here’s a newsflash; nobody thinks you’re that smart. The Monday Night Wars proved that. You were forced to change, or WCW would have annihilated the then WWF. You did a lot for professional wrestling, and I won’t take that away from you. However, the fact that you still think you’re that smart is a sign that you’re ego has long since run away from any reason. What’s worse is he has his “family” passing on that legacy.
Stephanie and Triple H are doing “what’s best for business?” I get that it’s an angle, but I can’t help but laugh at the absurdity. Anybody with a modicum of past history where those two are involved can’t help but laugh at that. How’s this for a novel approach – Cena and Bryan wrestle at Summerslam until both men are exhausted. Bryan wins, and then Randy Orton comes down and cashes in his opportunity on a physically and emotionally exhausted Daniel Bryan. Randy Orton is seen as an opportunist, but nobody can fault him, he took advantage of the moment. He’s “The Viper” and he struck at the best possible moment. It makes him look smart. Instead, Triple H took it upon himself to interject himself into the angle, in a way that can’t be undone. Now, Orton is the champ, but nobody really buys that. He’s not even the top heel in that angle.
You want to know who got nuclear heat last night? It wasn’t your new WWE Champion Randy Orton, though it certainly should have been. Stephanie and Triple H took care of that, they’re the heels. You wanted them to pay for insulting your intelligence. Not only did they take the focus off of what happened at Summerslam, they did so in a way that completely diminishes Randy Orton’s title win and makes him look pathetic. Way to emaciate your new WWE champion.
Now, fans have a man that they don’t really care about as their champion. Randy Orton’s always been around. But he’s done so many cartoonish feuds over the last couple of years that I don’t blame them. Remember when he was a monster heel? He was a man who everybody bought as a threat because he injured people by “punting” them in the head. The man who considered himself the apex predator? He’s not even a part of this conversation. He’s a paper champion. Daniel Bryan is forced to rehash the McMahon vs. Austin storyline with himself in the Austin role, and the McMahons? Well, they’re relevant again. They’re the big winners here.
In a few weeks, the fall television season will begin. I’ve already picked out my new fall viewing nights. Football is back on, and thankfully, a full year of hockey will get played. In roughly 2 weeks, none of this is going to matter to me for another few months. I’ll walk away from the WWE and not bat an eyelash – hell after last night, I might do it sooner. Remember, I handed in my life-long wrestling fan card. I owe them nothing.
But at the end of every summer, when I put wrestling into my rear-view mirror for a few months, I always wonder what would have happened if Vince just turned over control to somebody who knew what to do. Somebody who didn’t view themselves as bigger than the company like his family does.
It’s not Triple H, I can’t tell you how sick I am of seeing some of his hand picked stars go nowhere. Damian Sandow shouldn’t be a future World Champion, he’s not over with anybody. The Shield was a novel idea at first, but somebody wake me up when they get some storyline progression. Dean Ambrose is a world class heel, and some of you know that, but the majority of people won’t know it unless he breaks away from that group and gets a shot at expanding his role. Bray Wyatt came in with a great idea of a gimmick, and before Summerslam, we never saw him wrestle once. He was around for almost two months before wrestling. Fans were already getting sick of the gimmick before he wrestled once. Stop trying to make Brad Maddox happen. He’s completely irrelevant with the McMahon family now taking up precious segment time. You want to know why he struggles to get over? Nobody is ever going to buy him as a real talent. He’s only been booked as a whiner. The Brad Maddox character started out as a slimy worm that once upon a time was part of a stupid gimmick with Ryback and The Shield. If you think that’s ever going to get him over, perhaps you don’t know your audience well enough. Vicky Guerrero got over because she got a catch phrase over, and because she knows the business. The fans hate her character in a good way – because she does the job asked of her.
All the WWE knows how to do is market. They market a gimmick, they hype it up, they put some good music to it, and then they’re amazed when things fail. That’s why I’m never going to be a card carrying fan ever again. And that’s why they’re stunned when crowds like the post-Wrestlemania one happen. Those fans aren’t stupid. They don’t drink the Kool Aid. They look at the mockery of what the WWE has become and acknowledge it. And then they do what they want – what’s right. They cheer a heel Dolph Ziggler winning the world title, because he deserved to win. They cheer a Ryback heel turn against John Cena because they hate that John Cena is front and center with everything week in and out. He’s morally the white knight, and some of those fans are tired of having that guy force fed to us. It’s the fans saying “f#ck you” to management. We bought a ticket, but we don’t have to cheer for this crap you’re giving us.
As I close, I reiterate the definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over again in the hope that it brings about a different result. For all the failure the WWE has had, you would think they would learn from their mistakes, but if nothing else, last night’s RAW proved that they’re never going to learn from their mistakes. They’re doomed to repeat them. As for me, I think I’ve decided that they can do so without my Nielsen numbers. After all, I’ve got better things to do with my time… like write a Pittsburgh Penguins column.
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