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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2010 6:15:02 GMT -5
Wrote this to post on writing.com in response to this. Will warn you, it's a very long read - {Spoiler}World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has expressed a desire for its fanbase - or, as they have declared us, the WWE Universe - to rise up and support professional wrestling. Among their list of steps toward this end is for those of us to write to our newspapers and spread the word that those of us in this WWE Universe are proud fans that come from all walks of life, and not merely ignorant backwoods hicks as people have tended to picture wrestling fans. I am sorry, sports entertainment fans; this is the correct term.
To that end, I would like to give a portrait into exactly what World Wrestling Entertainment is like by providing a summary of ten storylines - one from each of the past ten years - that every fan and non-fan alike should have intimate knowledge of.
The Invasion (2001) When a crossover is performed well, you expect to see both sides of things come out looking better for it. Generally speaking, the aim is to promote both products and make people who generally only care for one try and take interest in the other product. In something like a fighting game, akin to the Capcom vs. series and its related games, that comes with making both sides equal and presenting the very best each side has to offer.
In early 2001, what was then the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) bought out their chief competitors, World Championship Wrestling (WCW), as well as a company that was small but had a rabid fanbase named Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW). This was something that wrestling fans had salivated since all three companies were at the peak of their popularity in the late 1990's: WWF's top stars such as Steve Austin, The Rock, The Undertaker, and Triple H along with rising stars such as Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle competing against the greatest stars of WCW - among them Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Ric Flair, and Bill Goldberg plus newcomers to the main-event scene such as Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page (DDP), with the extremists of ECW a wildcard.
Battle lines were first drawn at the Invasion pay-per-view that would later go on to serve as the common name for the storyline that occured over the majority of the year. In the main event of that show, WWF's representatives The Undertaker, The Rock, Chris Jericho, Steve Austin, and Kurt Angle were defeated by the newly-aligned WCW and ECW - The Alliance -'s team of Booker T, DDP, Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley, and Rhyno
Triple H's exclusion from that match and storyline was due to an unfortunately-timed injury, but about Hogan, Nash, Flair, and Goldberg the same cannot be said. Their absence came solely as a result of WWF feeling that it was not worth the money to buy out their contracts - Booker T and DDP were only picked up themselves because both were willing to lose money on the venture. Further, it bares mentioning that the Dudleys had been in the WWF for years at the time - they were at one time ECW talents, but they had been in the WWF since 1999 - and Rhyno had come in shortly after ECW went out of business, although his spot was justified by the fact that he was, until WWE's 2006 revival of ECW, the company's final champion.
This led to the main storylines that carried the Invasion through to its bitter end - Kurt Angle vs. Steve Austin and Chris Jericho vs. The Rock.
Yes, rather than use any of the newly aquired WCW or ECW talent - including the two stars on the rise in Diamond Dallas Page and Booker T - WWF chose to have Steve Austin be revealed as the mastermind and leader of The Alliance alongside Shane and Stephanie McMahon, while a significant portion of a company-wide angle revoled around fighting between The Rock and Chris Jericho while both men stayed firmly on the WWF side until the end of the storyline. To add insult to injury, the very next night after The Alliance was beaten and forced to disband Ric Flair debuted; two months later Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash followed suit, and within the next year Goldberg did as well as another fairly large WCW name in Scott Steiner.
As for DDP and Booker T, their willingness to sign for lowered sums solely to be part of the historic angle was rewarded, right? In DDP's case, he was brought in to feud with The Undertaker - a huge star, perhaps one of the biggest of all time. However, that 'feud' consisted solely of Undertaker slaughtering him at every opportunity and ended with DDP being beaten one-on-one by Taker's wife Sara. DDP retired around a year later. For Booker T's fate, that will be addressed later.
Katie Vick (2002) The fall of 2002 saw Triple H only a few months into the heel (or villain) run that would come to be the defining time of his career, from August of 2002 until April of 2005. As the first holder of the newly crowned World Heavyweight Championship, in the wake of the seperation of the newly-christened WWE's two main shows Raw and SmackDown into entirely seperate entities with their own rosters and storylines, Hunter Hearst Helmsley needed a defining feud to showcase his strength and gain back friends lost since WCW and ECW had closed their doors and wrestling was suddenly no longer red-hot and mainstream.
WWE chairman Vince McMahon and producer Kevin Dunn were the masterminds behind the idea of the Katie Vick storyline. Immediately after successfully defending the tag-team championship he held with the Hurricane solo against six men in a phenomenal match, a large, scary-looking masked man by the name of Kane whose backstory was that he spent his adolescence in an asylum after suffering horrific burns as a child was confronted by Triple H; Hunter claimed that Kane was a murderer and promised to reveal more details on the next week's Raw.
Katie Vick, Triple H volunteered, was a girlfriend that Kane had in high school. This flew in the face of Kane's previously established backstory that had served as the basis of his character for years, but Helmsley was not done; Katie had been killed in a car wreck in which Kane was the driver, and Hunter accused Kane of having intentionally killed her and then raped her corpse.
Kane was the face (or good guy) in this feud, keep in mind. He denied the allegations while confirming that he did date Katie Vick and she did die in a carwreck, but that it was an accident. Triple H was not done with merely the accusation, however; to back-up his point, he produced footage of himself wearing a replica of Kane's mask similuating sex with a mannequin in a cheerleader costume. To retaliate, The Hurricane produced footage of himself simulating removing assorted objects from Triple H's anus.
In the end, Triple H defeated Kane in their eventual match and Katie Vick was relegated to being a punchline both to fans and WWE themselves.
Triple H vs. Booker T (2003) Triple H's reign of dominance carried him into the start of the new year, and heading into the biggest show of the year - WrestleMania XIX - he needed a new challenger, one that he had not already beaten over the past months of dominance. Remember Booker T? Given his past success as a five-time WCW Champion and a rather popular star, it was decided to pit him up against Triple H as their only meaningful encounter previously had been in a six man elimination match where neither was responsible for the other's loss.
They needed a good, emotional build in a hurry to make it worthy of being on the biggest show of the year, however. To that end, Triple H began to talk about how people like Booker T are not worthy of being champion, and that Booker was born inherently inferior to him. All well and good, except for one thing - Booker T is African American. This was never explicitly stated, but the implications were very strong: especially in regards to a segment in which Triple H showed off Booker's actual mugshot from his youth after robbing a Wendy's for all the world to see, and when the two ran into each other in the bathroom and Hunter tried to pay Booker a dollar to fetch him a towel.
This led into their confrontation at WrestleMania, where Booker had to win to prove that black is only a color and that his skin did not mean that he could not compete at Triple H's level. And the result? Triple H won and Booker T dropped so far down that one year later it took him and both of the Dudleys to be considered equal to Hunter in a trade between brands.
Eugene (2004) Eugene was not a storyline so much as a character, and he was around for a very long time - but his debut and his peak were in 2004, and so that is what I will focus on.
William Regal, a snobby Brit with a black heart, was informed by Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff that he was being tasked with training Eric's nephew, Eugene, to wrestle. When Regal ultimately met Eugene, he quickly discovered that he was mentally handicapped, but extremely gifted in the ring despite this. To start with, Eugene was extremely popular; the man portraying the character did so well, and he was portrayed in a fairly realistic and inspiring fashion. Then, however, in a trend that was common in this time period when things caught on, he ran into Triple H.
I feel that I should stop now to mention that this list is not being driven solely by dislike of Triple H. You will notice that I cited his absence as one flaw of the Invasion above, and after this point he has not played a significant role in any of the other storylines that I intend to mention despite remaining a major fixture of the company to this day.
Eugene was quickly brought in by Triple H to help him in his feud against Chris Benoit, the first face that had been genuinely able to thwart him at every turn. Eugene was the sort of thing he needed - a skilled hand who was too naive to question Triple H, who he declared his all-time favorite wrestler, and who was too innocent for Benoit to properly fight against. Eventually, however, Eugene wised up, and ultimately assisted Benoit in overcoming Hunter in their last showdown before Benoit moved on to the quickly on-the-rise Randy Orton.
It was after this that things went downhill. Eugene went from being a ring genius to merely doing comedy moves and poor imitations of the finishers of stars of years past, primarily Steve Austin and The Rock. While he had previously been able to hang with anyone, when he was put head-to-head with Hunter the commentators talked about how deadly this would be and how poor Eugene did not stand a chance and sure enough, he was annihilated.
This led to a long trip downhill for Eugene, that would ultimately culminate in him turning heel - yes, a mentally-handicapped villain. Soon after Eugene switched from wearing trunks and at least looking like a genuine wrestler to wearing a superhero costume, again with no change in character, and he was eventually released from his contract.
Rey Mysterio vs. Eddie Guerrero (2005) Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero were longtime friends, and when Mysterio's tag team partner Rob Van Dam suffered a serious injury Guerrero quickly took over for him. However, jealousy soon arose from Eddie over the fact that he had never beaten Rey one-on-one - and so, he challenged Mysterio to a friendly match at WrestleMania 21. Rey won yet again, and the tag team continued on for a couple of more months, albeit growing steadily more strained in the process. When they lost their tag team titles, however, Guerrero turned on Mysterio and sought to prove that he was in fact able to beat Rey. They faced off once more, and Mysterio won.
To this point, the storyline was very by the numbers and, due to the talent of the men involved, very good. However, things quickly jumped off the deep end.
In his desperation, Eddie began to seek out Rey's eight-year-old son Dominic, who he wished to tell a "bed time story". He would follow Dominic around in the park, call him into the ring to attempt to tell him a secret, and of things of that nature until Rey said that he had had enough. As such Eddie got one more shot at Rey, this time with the stipulation that if Mysterio won then Guerrero would have to keep his secret to himself.
Once more, Guerrero was unable to defeat Mysterio. However, true to his mantra of, "Lie, cheat, and steal," Eddie told his secret anyway - Dominic was his biological son, and he had allowed Rey to adopt him. Now Eddie wished to reclaim custody of the boy, until Rey challenged him to one last match - if Rey won he got to keep Dominic, if Eddie did he both took Rey's son away and finally got the win he so craved.
In the match proper, Guerrero took Mysterio to the limit. However, Eddie's own wife Vickie ran in and prevented him from winning when he was on the verge of it, and as such Rey retained custody of his son and once more managed to foil Guerrero. That is, until a couple of weeks later when Eddie beat him in a throwaway cage match and the matter was dropped.
Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero (2006) In November of 2005, only around three months after the conclusion of his feud with Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero suddenly died of heart failure that came as a result his previous, although overcome, issues with drugs.
The Dominic issue quickly swept under the rug, Rey Mysterio began to use Guerrero's finishing move the Frog Splash and added a point to the sky to his entrance and celebration rituals. Nothing too major at first, but Rey then won the Royal Rumble - a thirty-man match that guarantees the winner a chance for a championship of their choosing at WrestleMania.
He won by last eliminating Randy Orton, who took issue with this. As such Randy put forth a challenge for Rey to defend his title shot against him at No Way Out, the pay-per-view between the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania. Rey rightfully refused at first, until Orton began to tell him that Eddie Guerrero was not, in fact, in Heaven but burning in Hell. In order to silence Orton, Rey accepted - and he lost.
However, by order of SmackDown General Manager Theodore Long Mysterio was added into the World Heavyweight Championship match alongside Orton and defending champion Kurt Angle, on the basis that Orton had manipulated him into the match and then cheated to win it and at WrestleMania, Mysterio won his first major championship by pinning Orton. This was all well and good - Mysterio had avenged his friend's honor and finally become the top guy in spite of his small stature all in one go.
Except for the fact that in the aftermath Rey lost constantly. He was beaten by Kurt Angle within two weeks after the event; he was annihilated more than once by Mark Henry, a large but decidedly lower-card man who had been around for years doing nothing of note; he was beaten by The Great Khali in the man's very first match; he was beaten by Finlay, a fifty-year-old who had come out of retirement just a few months before; he faced Sabu on an ECW revival show and, while the match went to a draw, Sabu walked out under his own power while Rey was taken out on a stretcher.
Then he lost the title in July, to King Booker - Booker T after a gimmick change that finally got him back into the main event scene years after his WrestleMania XIX experience. This only happened, however, after Rey was caused to lose by Chavo Guerrero. Chavo was Eddie's nephew, although the age difference between Eddie and the brother that produced Chavo was enough that were was little age difference between them; Chavo turned heel in the aftermath, citing that Rey had stolen Eddie's legacy by using his moves and claiming that his every match and action was being done in Eddie's name.
At the August pay-per-view, Chavo defeated Rey - with the help of a heel turn from Eddie's widow Vickie. The two feuded with Rey for a couple of months longer, with the commentators talking about how disrespectful it was for Chavo - Eddie's nephew - to use his moves and taunts while Rey - a friend mentioned only twice in Eddie's autobiography and neither time in detail - doing the same was a touching tribute. Ultimately, Rey took time off for an injury and the angle was dropped. . . until Chavo moved into a temporary feud with Chris Benoit over Eddie's will.
The Death and Son of Vince McMahon (2007) Vince McMahon ended the 2007 draft special of Raw by exiting the building, walking through a hallway full of wrestlers not eager to see him after having suffered repeated humilation and defeat at the hands of Bobby Lashley followed by a McMahon Appreciation Night where no one had anything good to say about him. He then climbed into his limo, and it promptly exploded.
The storyline was that Vince had been murdered, and a huge investigation became underway while his children Shane and Stephanie aimed to takeover the company in his absence. This was ultimately dropped, however, upon the deaths of Chris Benoit and his family.
However, a key part of the planned storyline was later carried out; after making a return a few months later to announce that the explosion was solely his attempt to get people to be more appreciative of him, Vince McMahon left Raw that night in a similar fashion: he saw the same men in the hallway, walked to his limo, and climbed inside. Before he could shut the door, however, his assistant Jonathan Coachman ran to him to announce that he had been served papers to let him know he was being taken to court over an illegitimate son.
However, the son and the woman were not named in the suit. Instead, each week a lawyer representing the pair would come out and issue some variety of hint - that the son had blond hair, or that "things are looking up". Once more, things were derailed from this. The intention even during the stage where this was to play a part in the death storyline was for the son to be Mr. Kennedy, a young up-and-comer on the roster for whom 'looking up' referred to his habit of having a mic descend from the ceiling for him rather than use one of the cordless ones. However, Kennedy was suspended for issues relating to the company's drug-testing policy, and as such plans were changed.
After an early tease that things would be changed to Triple H - an unpleasant option for all involved, seeing as how Hunter was earlier in storyline and is to this day in real life married to Stephanie. However, it was then revealed who Vince's son truly was: Hornswoggle, a leprechaun who previously had only been a comic relief manager for Finlay.
The comic relief continued for months afterward, with zany skits of Vince and Coachman attempting to reign Hornswoggle in. There were segments where he blew up Coach with a bomb under the ring, or spraypainted a tunnel onto a wall and then Carlito ran into it thinking it was real. Ultimately, however, things took a sudden turn for the serious when Vince sicced John Bradshaw Layfield (JBL) onto Hornswoggle; he quickly genuinely hurt him, which drew the ire of Vince and Finlay alike. Ultimately, however, JBL revealed he had done some research and Hornswoggle was not Vince's son at all but Finlay's, soon after which the angle was dropped with no genuine resolution.
John Bradshaw Layfield vs. John Cena (2008) John Layfield is a real life millionaire from stock trading, and in 2004 it carried over to his ring character; gone was his long black hair and penchant for drinking beer under the name Bradshaw. The rechristened JBL quickly became a top star, primarily seeking to buy out his opponents when possible.
He could still put up a bloody, violent brawl, however, and that was what he would do when met with a foe he couldn't get to give in through other means. In this case, there was John Cena; the two had crossed paths before when Cena ended JBL's nine-month WWE Championship reign at WrestleMania 21, and the rivalry heated up once more when both failed in their attempts to intrude into a Randy Orton / Triple H feud for the same title.
The basic structure of the feud saw Cena getting the upper hand on and beating JBL at every twist and turn. Sometimes getting the upperhand wasn't physical, however; in one case, Cena and his newfound, shortlived allies Cryme Tyme - JTG and Shad Gaspard - decided to vandalize JBL's limo. Most of this was standard fare for angering a violent rich man - they smashed out the windshield and windows, they tore off the horns he had on the hood, etc. What that segment will always be remembered for, though, was Cena's choice of phrase to spraypaint on the hood of the car, "JBL is poopy."
Then there was the last Raw before their match at The Great American Bash in July. There, JBL attacked Cena, leading him on a chase through the building and into the parking lot. JBL was waiting to nail Cena with a lead pipe on that occasion, and then laid his head against one car before climbing into another. Despite a great deal of hesitation no one came to stop Layfield, before he drove straight for Cena's head - only for Cena to have apparently vanished, as nothing was hit and he was nowhere in sight. No authorities were called over this attempted murder, either, as JBL showed up free as could be on Sunday and defeated Cena.
Hornswoggle vs. Chavo Guerrero (2009) Just because the storyline of Hornswoggle as Vince McMahon's wacky leprechaun son ended did not mean that his antics did. Instead, in 2009 after being traded back to Raw and away from Finlay Hornswoggle found himself solo.
In a throwaway match on Superstars - a show that consists only of matches that usually have no bearing on storylines - where Chavo Guerrero had to wrestle Hornswoggle while on his knees. Hornswoggle won, and that seemed to be the end of it. However, then Chavo had to wrestle with his hands behind his back on Raw that week.
And the next week, the two faced off in yet another match where the stipulation was designed essentially to make it impossible for Chavo to win. They faced in a match where Chavo had to wear a blindfold; there were tag matches where Hornswoggle would be given unstoppable behemouths while Chavo had people who hadn't won a match in years. On one occasion, they had a falls count anywhere match where backstage Hornswoggle knocked Chavo out with a bucket trap straight out of Home Alone - complete with a cameo by Macaulay Culkin afterward. On another, Chavo had to wrestle in a cow suit. This same sequence played out every single week for months.
Then it looked as though there may have been a point to it; in one random tag match, Chavo's partner of the week was Chris Masters. While Chavo's previous partners usually had reservations about hitting Hornswoggle, Masters did no such thing and attacked the leprechaun before putting him in his signature Masterlock submission. Chavo, however, grew horrified and attacked Masters to stop him.
It looked as though all that time Chavo had been going soft on Hornswoggle, and perhaps this was a cue to turn him face. The next week, however, it was forgotten and indeed reversed, as Chavo finally got his hands on Hornswoggle only for Masters to save him. This was then dropped entirely, with the same formula returning - and when Chavo came out one week and begged Hornswoggle for mercy, he was given none and things simply kept going before finally ending when Chavo was traded to SmackDown.
Vince McMahon vs. Bret Hart (2010) In 1997, Bret Hart left the WWF after he was - against what he was told was the planned match finished - declared the sudden loser of a WWF Championship match against Shawn Michaels. This was not a storyline matter - this genuinely happened in response to Bret's intentions to go to WCW, and between that and his brother Owen's death in 1999 from a stunt done on the WWF's payroll Bret was not eager to return.
By the time he finally agreed to do in 2010, however, Bret was no longer an expert technical wrestler; between a career-ending head injury and a stroke in 2002, he was a shell of his former self albeit one people were thrilled to have back. Naturally, the first order of business upon his return on the first Raw of 2010 was to make amends with Shawn Michaels, and then to attempt to do so with McMahon himself. This did not pan out, however, in the decision to build to the two facing off at WrestleMania.
Problems first became apparent when Bret had difficulty throwing even basic punches in his form. A destruction of the set that came with McMahon's initial refusal to wrestle him was extremely slow and plodding, and later in a confrontation with Batista Bret could only take light punches to the back. To mask this, in addition to Batista John Cena was added to the proceedings, as the current face of the WWE sticking up for a former one when met with confrontation from the boss.
Then came what was described as "The worst night of Bret's life" repeatedly through the build when while leaving the building on one Raw Bret's car door was backed into as he climbed into it. It's a stretch to call a leg injury the worst night of a man's life when one night his brother fell over 70 feet on live TV to his death, but WWE chose to describe it as such repeatedly throughout the entirety of the storyline; ultimately, however, as a result of the injury Vince accepted Bret's WrestleMania challenge, which was followed with the reveal that the injury was faked by Hart and Cena in the hopes of tricking him.
The match proper was disastrous. Due to Bret's inability to actually take a hit, for over ten minutes various other members of the Hart family hammered away on McMahon, followed by Bret hammering on Vince with a chair for an excrutiatingly and somewhat uncomfortably long period of time. Afterward, other than a small handful of appearances from both men they have both vanished from WWE programming.
I know what you're thinking after having read all of that: this all sounds like total trash, like something that no one in their right mind would enjoy. You are correct - all of this is horrible, terrible stuff that no company that was trying to sell itself as classy would put on if thinking correctly. However, that's what makes WWE enjoyable: for all of the bad there is a lot more good and whether you are watching it casually or with an analytical eye there is something for everyone to enjoy.
That is why I do not support the Stand Up For WWE campaign - because try as hard as they might, WWE is not classy. They are a major business and I have welcomed them into my home on an almost daily basis since 1998 through many ups and downs, but WWE is not a sports franchise. The term 'sports entertainment' is a sham, and calling fans the WWE Universe is an insulting attempt to control those who watch regularly and hide the fact that all they truly are are wrestling fans. Old and young, from all financial and personl backgrounds, what people genuinely enjoy is when WWE is on form: which most of the time, especially throughout 2010 and the rise of youngsters like The Miz (Michael Mizanin from The Real World, in fact), Sheamus, and The Nexus, it is. WWE simply has too much of an ego and inferiority complex to accept that it fulfills its role fine, and that side projects such as the XFL and WWE Films will always fail because in the end, Vince McMahon was born to promote wrestling.
And he does it well, most of the time.
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Post by Metalheadbanger Man on Oct 19, 2010 8:24:15 GMT -5
Dear Uncle Dave,
Hello. I just wanted to write a letter to you, expressing my love for the WWE and wrestling in general. Now, I know you probably don't care in the slightest, but I am doing this out of a sense of duty to Vince McMahon, because some mean people are saying mean things about him and his company.
Regardless of what your stance on wrestling is, I feel you should know that it has entertained me ever since my youth - the atmosphere, the showmanship, the crazy fans, Ryan Braddock - they all contribute to making me a 23-year-old university graduate who enjoys pre-determined fake fights and the soap opera-esque storylines. So there we have it. I'm a wrestling fan, and I'm pretty proud of it. If you secretly like wrestling, why don't you join me, and e-mail or write to everyone you know telling them so.
I've done it. Now I feel better about myself knowing that even though these letters will have no effect or consequence on anything whatsoever, I got that out in the open.
Thanks for reading, Your nephew Joe
PS. The X-Factor is awful. How can you willingly watch that crap?
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