Posted in: The Northern Star The Northern Star--Off The Chart
By XanMan
Mar 4, 2009 - 9:42:50 AM
"Influence is a very unpleasant subject and I deal with it in a maybe irresponsible way, which is to really ignore it. It would be a nightmare if we started to really think about it; it would tie our hands, it would tie everyone else's hands.--Rem Koolhaus
As I'm writing this, fresh in my mind is an enlightening interview that Mean Gene Okerlund did with a wrestling podcast called "Who's Slamming Who?" One of the many questions he was asked was what he considered to be the biggest match in Wrestlemania history. The interviewer, stupidly, gave only one example, which he prefaced by saying, "Obviously, there's Hulk Hogan vs. Andre The Giant from Wrestlemania III," but then neglected to give him other choices for the biggest match in the history of the event. Gene chose, of course, Hogan vs. Andre, but didn't actually name any other matches. Instead, he mentioned various big names from Wrestlemanias past, which I saw a little as an indictment on his current interest in the business, and the lack of knowledge he probably had of what the Wrestlemania matches actually were during his time spent in WCW, so I'm sure that's some of it, but I doubt that's all of it. The bottom line is that there are lots of Wrestlemanias that don't seem to have that big match that gets everyone talking. Or if they do, it's a show-stealer kind of match, not one of the main events. It's not that every main event doesn't deliver, but that they don't always make the best choices.
Last year, there's no doubt that Edge vs. The Undertaker was a brilliant choice, not only to close the event, but to be a main event level title match. Edge had taken great strides over the 48 months previous to reach the main event level, and he and The Undertaker both had undefeated streaks at Wrestlemania. I don't remember them mentioning that aspect much, if at all, but it was a fact. The match had a lot of build-up to it, was the second straight year that The Undertaker was booked in a title vs. streak match, and really delivered. But, while the other main event wasn't necessarily a bad choice for the RAW main event, it definitely wasn't the best one. While matches involving more than two people in Wrestlemania title matches have become more common, it certainly isn't the preferred method, and though this match ended up being quite good, considering, there was absolutely no reason to book it that way. While I'm in the minority in that Cena's return at the Royal Rumble in 2008 ruined the event for me, I have to say that I believe it was made even more pointless by putting him into a Triple Threat match against Orton and Triple H, when his feud with Orton never had a satisfying conclusion.
Some of my dissatisfaction with the WWE is, of course, based on the fact that they don't do anything that I find exciting anymore, for the most part, and the fact that I'd like to watch actual wrestling on my wrestling programs, and that's such a rare thing to see from them; but not all of it. A couple of weeks ago, Davey wrote a column complaining about the WWE swerving just to swerve, which is annoying on its face, and a fairly bad idea, but an even worse one is to refused to give the fans what they want, because the WWE stubbornly believes that they know what we need, so what we want doesn't matter. That's all well and good, when one is dealing with children, but I'm not one, and if they are going to consistently not give me what I want, why in the world should I continue to watch? In some ways, of course, professional wrestling is just a television show, because while it can also be seen as a sporting event in some sense, there isn't really a home team for you to cheer for, there's characters and storylines for you to follow from week to week. Like any other popular show, in some ways the internet is a very bad thing for professional wrestling, because plans for where the stories are going gets out.
This makes me glad that Vince McMahon is keeping a tight lid on what's going on at Wrestlemania from his writers at the moment, because he doesn't want things to leak before it's time for them to be announced, but it also seems like this measure is a bit too late. Not only has pandora's box already been opened, as far as spoilers and insights into other backstage doings at professional wrestling events, but they're so proactive recently in fighting against these spoilers that they change plans that make sense in favor of ones that do not. I quite like the idea of Matt Hardy turning heel and being the one who was behind the attacks on his brother Jeff, but I rather doubt that he was the one they originally intended to play that role. It likely was, as rumored, supposed to go to Christian, which is why we now see Christian in Hardy's former spot, as the top babyface on Smackdown. But, is this really the best decision for the company, or is it merely to swerve us from what we expected to see based on internet rumors, and honestly, it really wouldn't have taken a rocket scientist anyway to think Christian would be behind it, once we knew he was a free agent and was leaning towards signing with the WWE.
"Look, I don't know whether this relationship makes you biased or not, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say it doesn't, but there is definitely some favorable treatment going Pearson's way. Intentional or not I don't know, I don't care, I don't like it. And I don't like you."--Bobby Donnell
Now, they've seemingly gone and done it again, and I, for one, am annoyed. You might say that I've no reason to be, that not only am I not guaranteed anything by the rumors that float around the internet from time to time, but that by writing for a website that makes the majority of its money by posting said rumors, that I've got no right to complain at all. That's a fair point, and believe me, the irony isn't lost on me, but I generally tend to ignore rumors and rarely, if ever, mention any that happen to get through my screens. Does this matter? It does to me, which may be self-deceiving, but as Wireman says in Stephen King's Duma Key, we fool ourselves so much we could do it for a living. To me, the ultimate self-deceiver is Vince McMahon who believes that he brought professional wrestling to national prominence, yet, like his yes-man Kevin Dunn refuses to call it such. They hide behind the wall of the term they created to describe the industry that feeds the business they run, while they seem to despise those that actually work in the industry. The only question seems to be whether they despise the workers more, or us, as their consumers.
Does that sound harsh? It shouldn't. They clearly don't give a damn about their customers. If they did, they wouldn't do such stupid things as the Diva search or McMahon's Million Dollar Mania, which despite what they said on air wasn't about rewarding us, at all, but instead was about trying to raise ratings for a ship that was sinking while the company tried to figure out how to book around the absence of John Cena. If it was about rewarding us, why would one of the people calling in with the correct password for the night only have won $2? No, it was about spending money to make money, and I'm very pleased that this is one plan that backfired in Vince's face. What about Cyber Sunday? Remember how that was supposed to be an interactive pay per view to get the fans involved and let them make choices in the matches? Well, what about last year, when you had to pay a dollar per vote? If you voted just once on each match, you would have shelled out an additional $7, and, of course, they encouraged you to vote a lot more often than that, didn't they? Of course they did. Why wouldn't they want you to pay even more money for one of their overpriced events?
See, to me, $39.95 is a helluva lot to expect to shell out every month in order to be able to follow every piece of the storylines. I've said before that I think the WWE would make more money by offering their "regular" pay per views for less, maybe $15, because more people would buy them and then they could charge their $34.95 or $39.95 for the big ones like Wrestlemania, SummerSlam, Royal Rumble, and Survivor Series. People would be willing to pay more for the original, more important events because they'd been following the story so long, and because those ones usually deliver something special that the others don't. Of course, even though it makes sense and it would actually help the consumer who wants to continue to follow their product, while also making more money, they don't do it. I don't know why. Maybe they're afraid they would be seen as low class doing that, instead of the excellent way that they're seen by the national media at this juncture. In the wake of the Benoit tragedy, they were ripped apart by everyone in it, and now with Hall of Famer Verne Gagne's recent involvement in the death of a fellow resident, it doesn't seem like they can do anything right.
Please don't tell me Gagne didn't wrestle for McMahon and his World Wrestling Federation; I'm well aware of that. The fact is, though, that nobody in the media really gives a damn about what the actual facts are. They hear the words "wrestler" and "WWE" together in the same sentence, and they automatically try to draw the worst connotation possible. That being the case, why not try to get the WWE a little positive publicity by actually showing they give a damn about their consumer for once, lowering prices, acknowledging that they actually are in the business of *slaps forehead* professional wrestling, and giving us something decent in the way of in-ring action. The upcoming pay per view is not, despite what the WWE and others would have you believe, the 25th anniversary of Wrestlemania any more than 2000 was the first year of the new millenium, but that doesn't mean that it can't be a time to really bring it with the matches and try to bring together something really special, and I hope they aren't forgoing that just because some people have made good educated guesses on what the main events would be.
"If one wants to get a boat ride, one must be near the river."-- Anchee Min
If you look back at the history of Wrestlemanias, there definitely have been some main events that haven't passed the mustard, so to speak. I don't even really know what that phrase means. Does anyone out there? I hate mustard. I could say, "passed the ketchup," but why the hell am I passing the ketchup when I could be putting it on my burger? Like the number of licks to get to the center of a tootsie pop, the world may never know. Why am I talking so much about food? Probably because here in the land of always winter, it was minus 20 last night, and I had to wake my wife up to give me a jump(not that way, you perverts...though, maybe that wouldn't have been such a bad idea, considering the temp. I really should've called in...) and ended up getting to work right on time, and not having a chance to grab myself some lunch to bring with me. So here I am heading towards lunch time, feeling hungry as hell, and not really having anything to do about it other than raiding the vending machines. Oh well, such is life. And, maybe all of this actually is relevant after all, because there certainly have been times that the main events of the "granddaddy of them all" have left me craving something more.
While I think that overall I would probably have to agree that given the fact that Andre the Giant was supposed to have never been slammed and been undefeated, the Wrestlemania III main event is probably the biggest match of all time for the event, but there's also the series of matches between Stone Cold and The Rock, which at least for the first two were hyped very heavily and delivered on a much bigger scale, at least as far as workrate than the Hogan/Andre match ever could have. Of course, the MegaPowers exploding and the colossal battle between Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior were both huge, as well. Ones that, to me at least, fall on the other side of the ledger would be The Undertaker vs. Psycho Sid, Bret Hart vs. Yokuzuna from Wrestlemania IX, including the resulting aftermath that saw Hulk Hogan regain the title, and the Sid/Hogan match that saw some really weird shit go down in its closing minutes. They really should have booked Hogan/Flair for that one, but maybe they felt that to be too obvious of a way to go. The bottom line here is that Wrestlemania main events actually being huge matches that aren't just overhyped is pretty hit and miss.
I don't think it's only because the matches themselves are lackluster, I think it's because they miss opportunities from time to time. I mentioned already the first match between Bret and Yokozuna, but what about the second one? I guess I can understand wanting Bret walking out with the title at Mania, and not wanting to have the title change hands twice on the same show, except for the fact that they had the title change hands twice within minutes of each other the year before, when we had seen the same two men face off. Why in the world would you have the same two guys in the main event of Wrestlemania two years in a row? It reminds me of when the Dallas Cowboys defeated the Buffalo Bills for the second year in a row in 1994 and my political science professor said, "Why'd we play the season?" Well, why the fuck did we tune in? Seriously. Yeah, there were some great matches there, Bret vs. Owen, and Shawn vs. Razor, but there's no doubt that the main event was lacking. Why in the world didn't they just suck it up and give us a face vs. face final between Luger and Hart? That way, it wouldn't take a guy slipping off a middle rope to end the match and have Bret "overcome the odds."
And they've missed other opportunities in recent years. For instance, Wrestlemania XX had what was probably the greatest Triple Threat match of all time as its finale, and the tearful embrace between Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero was magnificent, but we also saw a great bout between Christian and Chris Jericho, that really seemed to be a star-making opportunity for both men. I remember discussing this in an ETA that's since been lost in the many board changes and computer crashes since that if it was handled right, those two could easily be in the main event of Wrestlemania the following year. Instead, we got Triple H vs. Batista and Christian was gone from the organization soon after, heading off to find glory in TNA before returning to be relegated to ECW as mentioned above. The other huge one was the following year when they allowed Michaels to go back to being a babyface instead of capitalizing on his heel turn against Hulk Hogan and having him become a monster heel. At that point, the best money match available between superstars was heel Michaels vs. face Cena, and again, why they chose not to go that route, I'll never know. It would've been something else.
"It has been proven that things cannot be other than what they are, for since everything is made for an end, everything is necessarily for the best end. Therefore, those who have affirmed that all is well talk nonsense; they ought to have said that all is for the best."--Voltaire
Those roads not travelled are bad enough, but to willingly pull away from what makes sense simply because they are(or maybe just "he is," as in Vince McMahon) afraid that the internet has a good idea of what's coming is downright foolish. To my mind, Wrestlemania main events shouldn't just be about big matches, but about those that have never come before; at least in a major setting or in a major feud. The Rock vs. Austin was a bit of an exception to that rule, because when they battled for the second time, it was almost completely different because it was a face vs. face match that slowly turned into a heel Austin vs. face Rock battle, but this year isn't like that. I was holding out hope for Big Show to be the one challenging Edge for the WWE Title, and that's now been realized. But, what if we had gotten Cena vs. Edge? Leaving aside that I'm sure it would be a good match at the very least, we've seen it before--many times during 2006--and their feud back then even culminated in a TLC match. How much more could these two possibly do to each other? Yes, it's the number one face in the industry vs. the guy that many consider the top heel, but how is it new? How is it fresh?
I'm not real happy about Orton challenging Triple H on the RAW side, either, because we saw that match in some way at four PPV's last year, including as 2/3 of a triple threat title match at Wrestlemania XXIV, but at least for that one we've got some real life drama mixing things up. I'm sure these guys are going to put on a very good match, and despite the bit of staleness that this feud brings, it certainly could be something special. On one hand, you've got the emotion of a guy defending not only the family he has married into, but also his very wife and mother of his children, from the man who is attacking and injury them and on the other you've got a man who lost some months from his career because he had his collar bone broken at the hands of the current WWE Champion. The in-ring action probably isn't going to feel new, but there certainly is a real chance for the storyline surrounding it to be intense. While they have hinted at Triple H and Stephanie's marriage a few times since the DX reunion in 2006, this is the first time that they've actually broken kayfabe in this area and I think it adds a lot of drama that has the potential to blow everything else this year out of the water.
That doesn't, however, mean that I embrace this feud as the correct direction in which to go. It's too late now, I believe. It certainly seems like they're set in going this way, and maybe it'll all turn out alright, but even if it does, am I the only one that feels just a little bit cheated? I'm going to Wrestlemania this year, I'm looking forward to it, and I'm sure that regardless of the matches that eventually fill in the card it will be an awesome experience for me, but what if I wasn't attending? What about the rest of you who are going to be watching on pay per view from the comfort of your homes? Don't you want something more than a rehash from last year and a possible rehash from a feud that ended just over two years ago? I would think so; I do, too. Triple H vs. Edge was a match I'd been predicting for Wrestlemania XXV pretty much ever since the last one concluded and I still think it's a much better idea than Edge/Cena, because it's a huge match that really hasn't been done before. There's no way I can count their sole one-on-one match at Great American Bash 2008, as it was just thrown together at the last minute as a result of CM Punk winning the World Heavyweight Championship.
Now that Edge has said World Championship back, and everything has been turned into turmoil, it's really difficult to see in which direction they're going on the Smackdown side. While I can see the upside of Edge vs. Cena, in that some may not feel that Edge is ready to take the lead in a Wrestlemania main event, something he'd clearly have to do against The Big Show, to me that doesn't outweigh the feeling that we've gone this route before. Perhaps not at Mania, but if there has to be a resumption of a feud Cena's had before for the title, shouldn't it be against Orton? After all, these are the two that are seen as the future of the company, and guys that if used correctly could have the kind of Wrestlemania trilogy that is so fondly remembered between Austin and The Rock. Furthermore, the feud between Orton and Cena never really ended, either in 2007 or in 2008 due to injury on one side, the other, or both. To me, both Big Show/Edge and Orton/Cena have that kind of "big match feel" that I don't think the other two are going to be able to muster up. I know that ship has sailed, but next time they need to decide on the destination before it reaches port, instead of letting ghosts of wayward winds blow it off the best possible course. Once they've plotted course, they should then entrust their sails to ka. Ka like a wind.
Long days, pleasant nights
Points of Light
I'm once again plugging the Columns Series Invitational that's currently running in the LoP Forums. Once the tournament is over, I may go back to plugging normal Columns Forum columns; it may not be possible, because lately I haven't had the time to read a lot of columns. Just giving you a heads up.
You can send any comments by email to me at XanManX@hotmail.com with the words "Northern Star" or "feedback" in the subject line; or, if you're a member of the LoP Forums you can click here to leave feedback, as well.
