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Follow @LoPPlan Professional wrestling is storytelling, plain and simple. Themes such as competition, betrayal, jealousy, respect, underdog, and so on and so forth are found in tales woven by pro wrestlers as commonly as they are in literature or conventional television and film; society simply misunderstands that fact because of certain ridiculous stereotypes, such as the one centered on its scripted nature. Furthermore, just as there is in Hollywood or the literary game, professional wrestling has various different genres that can help us classify the types of stories told on the 20'X20' canvas. Using the vernacular of “the business,” we traditionally refer to many of these genres as “gimmicks.” In the coming weeks and months, I will team with Samuel 'Plan to thoroughly dissect the essence of each of pro wrestling's match-types. With his book, 101 WWE Matches To See Before You Die, championing that we embrace the performance art that pro wrestling truly is, 'Plan brings a fascinating perspective in support of his stance that the time has come for the fans and the public at large to receive pro wrestling in a more mature fashion. 101 has already begun the process of classifying pro wrestling genres; with my second book, The Greatest Matches, Rivalries, And Stories Of The WrestleMania Era (estimated release in late 2017), as keen on developing the most definitive ranking ever created for wrestling history's second great question as The WrestleMania Era: The Book Of Sports Entertainment was on answering the first (who's the greatest wrestler of all-time), we felt compelled to combine my analytical eye with his interpretative approach to establish a more refined understanding of pro wrestling gimmicks. Each genre and sub-genre will be discussed as we break down what each one is all about and offer up the quintessential match that best embodies its fundamental identity. Cage --> Hell in a Cell We continue today with a type much better suited by the term “genre” than “gimmick,” as it encompasses a variety of different stipulations while adhering to the same general set of guidelines. ‘Plan and I call it… Allow me to paint a picture for you. The setting is among the year’s largest and most prestigious. The card is stacked from top to bottom. The hype machine is in full swing. Two wrestlers with tremendous reputations stand across the ring from each other. There is a buzz in the air. The crowd is going wild before a single punch is thrown. This is history in the making. The world is watching. It doesn’t get any bigger than this. Next thing you know, a half hour has gone by and you’re exhausted emotionally. A match has just taken place that made its participants look Herculean in their ability to overcome that which under normal circumstances – a single rendition of Sweet Chin Music or just one Stone Cold Stunner, RKO, Spear, etc. – would have put them down for the count. A source of added resiliency has been put on display that perfectly characterizes the phrase “larger than life.” The match you have just seen can best be described by one word: EPIC. We are currently living in the age of the Epic. We now see more Epics in a single year than ever before, and they always go down well with the common pro wrestling fan. It should not be difficult to see why to any attentive empiricist. These are matches that operate in a perennial sphere of hyperbole, with common pro wrestling language exacerbated to the extreme. Don’t expect a finishing move to finish anything in an Epic. Don’t expect the action to be done and dusted in anything less than twenty minutes. And certainly don’t expect only one or two false finishes in that time. Lengthy; high stakes; finisher-heavy action; taking place on grandiose stages with big name players; these are the key ingredients to an Epic. Searching for the definitive version is tricky if for no other reason than sheer numeracy, especially in recent years. The Epic is a trend today, in large part because of the already near-mythical Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker match at the 25th Anniversary of WrestleMania. They set the bar and proved the effectiveness of the genre, so should their clash be given the honour? HBK-Taker 1 popularized the style, but the genre was born of the Career-Ending Match between “Macho King” Randy Savage and The Ultimate Warrior. ‘Plan and I are in agreement that it was the blueprint for the modern main-event, as finisher kick-outs and overt showcases of expression to enhance the stories told in the ring were eventually made borderline-requisite by the success of the WrestleMania VII headliner. So, it would be fair to ask whether or not Warrior and Savage also best captured the essence of the Epic Match-type that they pioneered. Perhaps John Cena should at least be one half of the equation. If Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker set the bar, there can be little argument John Cena has tried ceaselessly to raise it, opposite everyone from Randy Orton to The Rock to Kevin Owens and, most recently, AJ Styles. The Epic has not just become his specialty; it’s become his first preference. None of his efforts, however, really stand out as definitive, or the singularly most expressive of inherent genre trope. Of all his big matches, there has always been one bigger. Of his longest clashes, there has always been longer. Of the highest stakes he’s ever fought for, currently at least, there has always been higher. It may not be the first match you think of, but the definite Epic is not a Cena match, or Randy Savage and Ultimate Warrior’s genre incepting effort, nor even the trend-setting Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker match from Texas. The definitive Epic is that last match’s follow-up. “Career vs. Streak,” the return match of arguably the greatest ever, Undertaker vs. Michaels at WrestleMania XXVI was the crescendo of an enthralling on-again, off-again year-long tale of “Mr. WrestleMania” doing everything in his power to hand The Phenom the first blemish on his then-untainted “Show of Shows” win-loss record. Pro wrestling’s most impressive kayfabe accomplishment or the career of the WrestleMania Era’s foremost in-ring performer would have to end to finally settle the score. It was epic from the outset. “If I can’t beat you, I have no career,” HBK told Taker in response to The Deadman’s garish challenge six weeks prior to the rematch. At that moment, it was all but confirmed that Michaels was riding off into the sunset on March 28, 2010, but the two wrestlers perhaps most famous for their ability to raise their games to the highest possible level on the grandest stage were nonetheless able to take us on an emotional thrill-ride that made liberal use of finishing moves and marked theatricality in the best possible way to further psychologically-engross the audience. HBK’s build, for example, to the final delivery of Sweet Chin Music, which included his top turnbuckle-through-announce table moonsault, was physical poetry and as legitimate a false finish to the vaunted “Streak” as was ever produced; there simply was no way that Taker could have kicked out of that…until he did. It was a sequence of events that proved a microcosm of the match as a whole. Consider that where Savage vs. Warrior is only twenty minutes and Michaels vs. Undertaker I is thirty minutes, Michaels vs. Undertaker II finds the perfect balance at 23 minutes. Where Savage vs. Warrior and Michaels vs. Undertaker I were main event matches at their respective WrestleManias, even stealing the show, Michaels vs. Undertaker II was the main event match at its WrestleMania, not needing to steal the show precisely because it was intended to be the show. Where Savage vs. Warrior provided a Retirement Match, and where Michaels vs. Undertaker I provided a Streak Match, Michaels vs. Undertaker II provided both in a single parcel, and all the attendant emotion; not just the nail biting excitement of the Streak potentially ending, but the teary-eyed poignancy of a final goodbye to one of, if not the most beloved pro wrestler in all of WWE history. As for the players? You don’t get anyone more respected than the Undertaker, and you’d be hard pressed to find anyone more beloved in their time than Shawn Michaels. Fittingly, both men’s rivals in both those fields…might have just been one another. Find any Epic match you like and, truthfully, Savage vs. Warrior and Michaels vs. Undertaker I will both be better; it’s just that Michaels vs. Undertaker II merges the best of both those worlds to create the most definitive Epic of all time. So far, at least… QUESTION OF THE DAY: What do you feel is the best representative of the EPIC match and why? Do you believe this genre to be presently over-abundant?
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