Posted in: Just Business Just Business #32 - Opportunity Knocks And It's Name Aint Mike
By Plan
Jun 25, 2009 - 7:12:55 PM
#32
Opportunity Knocks…And It’s Name Aint Mike
My name is ‘Plan and I am a witness to murder. We all are. It happens right under our noses on a weekly basis every single Monday night. We don’t see it. Why? This murder most foul is not brought on by what does happen so much as what doesn’t happen.
Back in the exciting and unpredictable days of the WWE Brand Draft 2009, I sat and watched on the Internet as men’s lives were played with, their strings pulled by the great puppeteers with their pens and their desks and I had high hopes for one man in particular. I could see him being shifted to a Tuesday night on a show with a thinner roster and more time, time that he could use to shine and prove his worth and show himself as the walking gold mine that he is, the once in a lifetime talent that, if allowed to flourish, would rise high above his peers.
But it was not to be. Instead he wound up on Monday nights, sinking fast in the River of the Damned with no room to swim. And now it looks to be all over. It looks like the opportunity won’t come. It looks like he’ll wind up as just another notch on the Future Endeavours List.
…right?
“The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word `crisis`.”
Dear Mr. McMahon,
I hereby tender my resignation as an employee of World Wrestling Entertainment.
I have been an employee of your company now for four years and even served a previous stint for another two. Upon my second run with the company things were looking up for me. I was given a tag team partner and most people are aware of the opportunity that provides; to get oneself over and hopefully be patient enough to be allowed to have a singles run.
I was glad when it became evident that my run in a tag team would not serve the sole purpose of being a vehicle for exposure. Indeed, when we were given the rub of becoming WWE Tag Team Champions it felt to me like my career was going to do nothing but prosper from then on. Over time, my partner and I were even granted the opportunity to be the longest reigning WWE Tag Team Champions of all time and believe me when I say that was an opportunity I remain eternally grateful for.
Like all great tag teams, I knew this would not last forever and for this, I am not bitter. I am thankful. Upon splitting, incidentally immediately following a first unsuccessful run on Monday Night Raw, I was allowed to be repackaged and given more chances to shine on Friday Night Smackdown! in a singles career that started with promise.
With a new look and a new gimmick, as well as an appearance in a multi-man WWE Championship match on the pay-per-view “Unforgiven” I felt sure that the company was serious about pushing my career to mid card championship success at the very least. This feeling continued when I was granted the opportunity to adopt my own bodyguard character. I did not consider renewed efforts towards Tag Team Championships a set back either.
However, when this all came to the sudden stop that it did I felt somewhat disheartened. I must admit to feeling betrayed and a little shunted as well. I know I can thrive in singles competition but I feel that, now once again being on Monday Night Raw and separated from my bodyguard character, the opportunities to shine will come few and far between, if ever. If I were to say I was contented with this situation, I would be lying not only to you but to myself as well. I know I am talented enough to challenge for mid card championships at the very least; in fact, I am confident enough to believe I could meld well with your main event talents despite my seeming size disadvantage.
Unfortunately, however, at this juncture I do not feel that the company is willing to grant me the proper exposure and screen time to allow me to showcase my wrestling talent in any sense of the word; not in the ring, not on a microphone and not even with interacting with the crowds. As a result, I can not allow myself to remain in a position where I feel my career is stale; I can not allow myself to settle with no progress when other opportunities may await if not elsewhere in the United States of America then certainly over seas.
It is therefore with deep disappointment that I inform you I hereby quit World Wrestling Entertainment. I hope you can understand my position and that this does not close any potential future doors between myself and the company. I leave not on bad terms; simply disheartened terms.
Yours sincerely…
“One brush stroke stands for danger…”
“I wouldn’t sign that if I were you.”
A voice? What the hell? I turned around. It…no. I should rub my eyes. He’s still…how did…. “How…?” is all I manage in my stumbling shock.
“Oh that’s not important. What’s important is you don’t sign that piece of paper.”
“Are you even…here?” I hear myself asking. I can’t stop the words coming out my mouth. What the hell am I thinking? Of course he is! Christ, I’m not bad enough to start hallucinating now too…am I? All I hear is him chuckling with a grin. Man he was looking old. Much older than I could remember him looking back when he was on the television screen and not…in my front room. This was ridiculous. “I mean…why? What? Wait.” He holds his hands up.
“Calm down. I know this might seem confusing. But listen, whether I’m here or not, that’s not the matter at hand.”
I have to ask. Of course I do. “What is?”
“Your career.”
Simple enough answer. But what did he care about my career?
“Listen, I know it seems pretty bleak right now. You went to Raw, you aren’t getting exposure, you’re not getting match time to flex what it is you do best. But I’m here to just reassure you. See, I thought like you are thinking right now on…well on several occasions. Lord knows I had to deal with some bullshit in my career. But I did not resign. I did not let them get the better of me.”
Do I look like some kind of sucker? Things were different back then for god’s sake. There weren’t seven hours of wrestling television from one company in a week, ten on a busy one. There weren’t ten different batches of main events to break through into or bullshit ideas being put forward every two seconds. “Well, I don’t think it’s quite the same,” is all I reply with through my own chuckle.
“Oh, you’d be surprised kid. See it’s a dangerous situation you’re in right now. You’re balancing that fine line and here’s where we find out what steel you’re made from. Do you quit or do you stick at it? There’s nothing stopping you from succeeding. You can’t stop talent.”
Bullshit. With enough ignorance you can do more or less anything…even without realising you’re doing it. “Believe that if you want but I aint sticking around to rot. No baby, I liked it in the Land of the Rising Sun!” I’m signing this thing and no prick in pink is convincing me otherwise. It’s going in the post tomorrow morning.
“To rot? What’s making you rot?”
This guy is a nosy fucker isn’t he? “Alright listen. The same bunch of guys they think interest people and draw money have managed to put a roof over everyone else’s heads and think they know best. I can’t fucking get anywhere while they’re up top. My voice isn’t getting heard backstage and in Vince’s eyes, I’ll never be big enough in stature to be big enough in the company. I’m going nowhere fast.” Now shut the fuck up and let me sign!
“Well I think you’re giving in too easily.”
Fuck you!
“But! Before you start let me take you down memory lane kid. When I was wrestling in tag teams and trying to convince them to get me big on my own, they kept giving me all these promises and not delivering.
Sounds about right….
“I got frustrated, pissed off and I honestly believed at times that Japan was probably going to be my best option. But I stuck with it. Of course, this was back when Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Warrior were getting kept up top at the expense of guys like me. Our physiques were natural and we were ones for the boys. Hulk used to be before Warrior came. The world of the ego it got to be then. Private rooms for the champion and shit like that. Everyone thought I was too small to make it. But see, the guys up top started to get boring. They’d been at it for years now, running close to a decade. People yawned when they turned up, especially when their work stopped delivering.”
Well that sounds about right too….
“I mean my size was an issue for some but I was natural, ya know. My build and my work. I looked realistic and I delivered wrestling and I mean, isn’t that why people watch WWE. For the wrestling the acronym promises? But even when I was champion the bullshit didn’t end. Didn’t get the better of me though. Never will. In the end everything kinda went to shit but in retrospect, sticking with it was the right thing to do. Who knows what would have happened to me if I quit. I wouldn’t have won that many World Championships, not ones as recognisable anyway. Maybe the money pots weren’t as big, but the fans were happier with me because I was real. That and I never half-assed anything so….”
This is coming from a legend here. Maybe he’s right. Maybe you can’t stop talent. Hell, I know I’m better than guys like…wait…where the fuck…what…where’d he go?
“…the other for opportunity.”
“I reckon signing that piece of paper would be damn ricockulous!”
Who the…now he’s here?! This is fucked up. “How did you get in?!”
“Aaah, not important kiddo. Ya know the situation aint as grim as you think it looks right now.”
“So I hear.” Fuck off and let me do my own thing damn it. I don’t want advice, especially when you’re not even on the same show. This guy doesn’t know what the hell it’s like.
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
What the fuck?! He knew what I was thinking!
“I know exactly what it feels like. I had to sit through the drivel that WCW was ya know. They had less of a clue than Vince would at the age of one hundred fifty with a damn iron lung! You rip the shit out of Greenberg, get great heat and they squash you?! Canadian moose piss right there. But hey, this is about you, not me. This about you…not…quitting right?”
“I’m rotting!” I have to shout at him because he isn’t listening to me either. There’s not even an opening for me!
“I know it looks like there’s no way you can carve a niche for yourself when they book you in ricockulous matches and idiotic angles and that’s why you gotta go piss in Vince’s cereal! But really you should just stick with it and make sure that if they aint going to give you the chance to make gold, then you dig it out. Any opportunity you get. That’s how the Man of 1004 Holds was born baby! And Ralphus…as nuts as that guy was.
“And besides, you do have an opening now. A hell of an opportunity as well! Matt Hardy could be injured I hear. Could need surgery I hear. Could be out for a while and that leaves a nice big gaping space in the Raw mid card, a space that a heel would need to fill, right? Damned if they give it to a fake Irish midget! So if they give you thirty seconds on a microphone, shit out gold kiddo!”
Well he does have a point about Matt I suppose….
“See it’s about opportunity. You gotta make opportunity if you’re not gonna be given opportunities. Oh you’ll piss a lot of people off if you steal the show from them…but ya know, its how I got to where I am. How your mentor got where he is. And isn’t that worth sticking around for anyway? Imagine it. HBK vs. TBK! From one generation to the next! I mean sure, he’s a lying cheating snivelling worm of a human being…but a hell of a talented wrestler too. Like you. You just need to stick it out. Be patient. Wait…for the opportune…moment.”
If Shawn hurried the fuck up and came back I guess we could have an outside chance of working together. Especially if we played by their rules…threw a word in backstage to the big guy. Last time he did that he got ‘Taker and look how that worked out…. “You know what….” Where the hell are these guys disappearing to?!
“In a crisis, be aware of the danger…”
“Hi. I’m…”
“I know.” I’ve heard that one so much. Everyone has. The guy won’t stop fucking doing it. And he’s got the spot I thought I’d wind up getting! “I don’t want to hear anything else, alright? I know, I KNOW there could be a chance but if it doesn’t happen I’m damned. I’m signing this piece….” Great. Now I gotta go outside just to get my pen back. This guy’s an idiot. What does he know anyway? I’ve been….
“So listen, I’m here to let you know about what could happen if you wait for the right moment, like I did. I mean, I went through the same process you have. I debuted against Batista and I took it to his fat ass! Then I wound up fighting some shmuck dressed like Santa, not doing anything…we even had similar lengths of time in the Rumble. Now look at me! I’m beating a former World Champion! My name is gonna be in lights.”
“Get on with it.” Christ, this guy’s annoying.
“Look. Let’s say Matt does need surgery. The matches you could have with Kofi Kingston…man, that’s something to behold, don’t ya think? Imagine you walking down to that ring with the United States Championship over your shoulder because you pulled some tights. Oh sure, some people may say you’re too small but dude, that’s a heat magnet and a damn natural one! Damn man, those people would hate the fact someone so small like you kept cheating to keep championships. You’d be like Rey Mysterio…but cooler. Better. The complete opposite of that Mexican jumping bean I gotta contend with!”
Does this guy shut up?
“I mean I can see it now. You pull the tights one week and people hate you. The next, you get counted out. Then disqualified. Maybe you use the ropes. Maybe you find some way around it. Either way, your size would work to your advantage because to look realistic, you need to cheat to win and that builds heat dude!
“And then, of course, then there’s Shawn. That there’s a dream feud. They were fast enough with Lance Cade so why not you? Another of his students, ready to be openly recognised as one like Cade was! And you could punk Shawn out, tell him you’re better, it’s a feud that writes itself and the matches…bound to steal the show. And if you beat Shawn, you’re the NEXT Shawn Michaels, ready made. Similar career paths to boot as well! And that, that there’s how you break the glass ceiling. He’s gotta come back some time, right? And look at the facts. He’s done Triple H, done Orton, done Batista, done Cena…there’s only Big Show up there left for him as far as what’s fresh goes. He’s gotta feud with someone, right? Who better than the natural choice.
“And when you break that ceiling, that’s when you REALLY start to piss people off.”
He’s making…sense. A lot of sense.
“Imagine cheating to beat Cena? Damn, that’s some massive heat there. You’d get the following on the IWC too, you’d appeal in someway everywhere. Dude, you can do this. You’re once in a lifetime and you could be the biggest heel magnet this company has seen in quite some time. The opportunity will come when you can start pissing off Cena and Trips and everyone who ever cared about a face. You’d be so fucking annoying.”
“You’d be huge! A huge deal and a huge draw, even if people were tuning in just to see you get yours. The perfect chicken-shit heel…because of your size. That’s the secret weapon to all of it. It aint a disadvantage. It’s an advantage. You’ve got a charisma. You’ve got something special. You just need to stick with it like I did, like the guys before me did. You’ve gotta wait the fuckers out and the opportunity will come.”
Damn straight! This all sounds…awesome. I can do this. I can be patient. Fuck resigning. It worked for Bret. It worked even better for Chris. And Dolph was proof it could still work. It’s about patience…and…and waiting for the inch to take the mile. Shawn could do that. Hell, I could do that somehow someday, I’m sure of it! And if it doesn’t work out on Raw the least I can do is stick around for the next Draft…right? I should be on Smackdown…but maybe…maybe I can help Raw instead. I just got to wait. “I’m….” Damn it! They keep disappearing like that!
Fuck it. I don’t care. I’m sold. I’m signing nothing. But…maybe I should put this spliff out.
“…but recognise the opportunity.”
Patience, they say, is a virtue. We don’t all posses it of course, but when it is there it can be a hell of a gift. The Brian Kendrick’s career looks as if it’s being murdered. He’s not doing anything but being made to look like a joke at the hands of a midget and some fat idiot in a golden jumpsuit.
At first I felt sad for him, I felt like it was already over, like his death warrant had been signed when he got drafted over to the Monday Night brand. It certainly looks like that. Even the initial promise of MVP has been unable to shatter that glass ceiling that’s reappeared on Raw despite the unfulfilled guarantees of the Draft of 2008.
Yet everyone I have talked to has given me the same old tired reasons why The Brian Kendrick can never amount to anything, can never be a WWE Champion. He’s too small. He’s not a big enough star. There are too many established guys above him on the food chain blocking his progress. But I have tried to show you all here today that that is simply not the case. They said Bret was too small. They said Shawn was too small. They said they’d never make it big and look at them now; two of the most beloved, most critically acclaimed and most popular wrestlers of all time.
They had runs as WWE Champion when no one thought they could. You truly can not stop talent. All The Brian Kendrick needs is that one small inch to allow him to snatch back his mile, a mile that’s his to lose. He’s a once in a lifetime talent and all he needs is that one proper opportunity to springboard him into stellar feuds with the top guys in the company for the top accomplishments in the company.
In fact, I believe this so firmly I will go on record and say that if Shawn comes back and helps his protégé, I shall forgive him for Montreal. It seems like little coming from a lowly wrestling fan like myself, but to me that is a huge deal on a personal level. HBK vs. TBK; here’s hoping it happens.
Still don’t believe me? Feed me back and ask for more.
(Author’s Note: This column is dedicated to Xanman, for refreshing my memory and giving me the spurt of energy needed for me to create.)
Written with thanks to John F. Kennedy, from whom the quotes used here are derived.
Feedback to: planm4n89@hotmail.co.uk
Or sign up to LOPForums!
PS: I have come to realise the email address mentioned in previous columns to which feedback should be sent was unfortunately incorrect; if emails have been sent previously, please forward them to the corrected address above.
