Welcome to another edition of Deconstructing the Moveset, aka “not quite the best damned Thursday feature column”
Apparently my column on Triple H not having the title was just on time as he won it only four days after I posted it.
Matt170385 chimed in with this burning missive:
Lol, you’re a funny guy. It’s proberlly as i just smoked a jay.
Anyway i digress, on an addition of Smackdown before the Incident on raw with HHH in about december the crowd chanted to Lesnar “You tapped out” after benoit had said to Lesnar “You….Tapped….Out” (encouraging a chant) after Lesnar suprisingly enough had “Tapped Out”. This was before Benoit had jumped ship to Raw due to Benoit not being allowed a title shot on Smackdown as he made Brock “tap out”. However the Gm at the time Paul Heyman (Legend, funny hair too) wanted Brock to be what he built Smackdown around/on. Which retrospectively (that is a big word for a stoner) was not such a bright idea, that’s proberlly why he got demoted or they realised he had a hillarious hair. Anyway… the crowd did not invent the chant Benoit did. However i agree with the column and the fact that he tapped out to benoit is enough for anyone to mark out.
YouKnowsIt.
Hmmm… By “smoked a jay” I sure hope you mean gunned down a guy named Jay in a video game, as the “other” kind would “proberlly” be illegal. However, now that you mention it, you are right despite being high. ALthough you bring up a good point. Would the WWE have moved Benoit to RAW if they knew Lesnar was going to jump ship to NOT go play football in the NFL? Besides that it wasn’t actually Heyman who built Smackdown! around Lesnar, but more likely Vince who has always had a love for big men. Fir instance, the Big Show is only HALF-WAY through his contract. When he jumped to the WWE1 in 1999 he signed for a TEN YEAR DEAL. That’s unbelievable in ANY sport, let alone wrestling. But who created the “You Suck” chant for Kurt Angle. Thanks for writing.
“I think am I thinking what you think I think you’re thinking Dude” -Mankind
EazyV588 responded to my response to her response to my column:
well since you repied to me (which rarely happens with you people), I know who Kamala is because it was my best friend who got me into wrestling in the first place and he had been watching it as a kid. When I was really really into it, sometimes I would borrow his old tapes he recorded and that’s how I know who all the old wrestlers are (even though I tell people I’ve been watching it forever and grew up watching the old wrestlers).
“You people”? I’ll assume that you’re talking about people from Connecticut. Or possibly audio engineers. But not internet wrestling columnists. We love to write back to ANYONE with an opinion. I’m glad that you know who Kamala is. Despite questioning my sexuality, you’re a-okay in my book. Thanks for writing, but you’re still a bitch for calling me gay.
TIVO GEMS:
Gem #1: Courtesy of Smackdown!
Angle vs. Guerrero lumberjack match
To finally answer the question Jason Arsenault’s father asked me at a 99 Restaurant the day I graduated from college, the Big Show is back from surgery! And how. Despite his normal size, he looked HUGE. You could absolutely see that the Big Show really took the time off to work his upper body and it shows. This is probably the best Mr. Wight has looked since his long haired days in WCW3. We’ll just see if he can continue with his momentum.
Gem #2: Courtesy of RAW
Kane’s wife is a bitch
Up until the untimely miscarraige that we’re going to find out about nexy week thanks to MR. Snitsky, Kane’s development since becoming a daddy has been amazing. Who would have thought that our little Glen Jacobs would have grown up since uttering his first worlds as Kane “AUSTIN – NEXT SUNDAY THE BLOOD IS YOURS” right before their King of the Ring First Blood Match for the world title.His delivery has been great and managed to turn an angle that relied on Lita’s acting into something humorous. From his wedding vows to Heat’s creepy request for sex from Lita, to this week’s “My new wife’s a bitch” to uncle Eric, Kane has turned this angle around. He even saw his first PPV win in a long time over Matt Hardy.
Gem #3: Courtesy of RAW
The Highlight Reel
Jericho has been on a tear lately on the mic and this week was no exception. Always keeping his promos fresh, this week’s interaction with the crowd was dynamite. It shows how a heel SHOULD turn around to become as face, as the last time he was in a ring with Shawn Michaels he was a heel. The history between the two was not forgotten while they were in the ring together, but they co-existed and even had a really memorable moment together as they both top-rope planchad onto Captain Charisma and Goat-Boy. The WWE has handled his turn suprisingly well. Edge’s injury has only helped the angle with Michaels and Christian entering into the equation. I was nearly drooling at the idea of a Edge/Christian reunion to face up against Y2J and HBK once Mr. Big Teeth gets back.
WHAT DOES THE WORLD TITLE MEAN?
The world title. It’s the light at the end of the tunnel, the most cherished prize in the game. But what does it really mean? If you’re Ric Flair, it means that the company has put it’s faith in you that you will make money for it4. For Chris Benoit, it was the result of 18 years of hard work and to prove that he was “For Real” as he claims. For Mick Foley, it means that despite all the odds, an underdog CAN do it with hard work and dedication. For Bret Hart, it means that you’re not kidding when you say “The Best there is, the best there was, and the best that ever will be.”
But what about those “other” guys? Mostly, I wonder what the world title means when it’s around someone like David Arquette. These were very dark times for World Championship Wrestling. April 25th, 2000 David Arquette, most known for his appearances in the Scream movies, collect calling commercials and marriage to Courtney Cox, won the WCW World Heaavyweight title in a special stipulation tag match while teaming with Diamond Dallas Page against Eric Bischoff and Jeff Jarrett in a cross promotion with his movie Ready to Rumble. What did this mean for the business? An actor, who wasn’t particularly strong or big or anything really, was supposedly at the top of our business. The business that I have more love for than most of my ex-girlfriend’s combined had someone who was completely new to it as it’s “best”.
To say I was upset was an understatement. Five days later, the title was vacated, but Mr. Arquette was placed in the triple tier cage match with Jarrett and DDP (the one where Kanyon took the gimmicked bump into the entrance ramp courtesy of Mike Awesome5). Arquette turned on DDP, handed Jarrett the title on a silver platter and was quickly aborted like a mass of stem cells from the wrestling world.
We’ll avoid Vince Russo’s title reign as well. He’s another
But what did it mean to the guys who have also only held the title once? Think about Ron Simmons who held the title from August to December in 1992. Think about what the title reign meant to professional wrestling. It was a big statement6. Mr. Simmons only reached that zenith once in his long career, and so did David Arquette. Heck, he was in the wrestling business for only a few months at most, and he won the title. No wonder Ric Flair’s had the title so many times, right? Wrong.
When Ron Simmons won the title, it simply meant more. Not just because he was the first african-american to put the gold around his waist, but it meant more to him as a wrestler, an athlete, a performer. A black man was the champion of the world. It meant the pinnacle of his career all compacted into that exact moment as Big Van Vader lay on his back for a three count. It didn’t mean anything to David Arquette, just part of a cross-promotion with his movie, which not only flopped, but was bad to boot.
So we’ll move ahead to the time between Wrestlemania XX and Summerslam 2004. Just the mere mention of “Chris Benoit” and “World Title” in the same sentence makes me happy wrestling fan7. Did it mean the same thing to Chris Benoit when his 18 years of a wrestling career all came together when Triple H tapped out of the Crippler Crossface in the middle of the 125 year old Madison Square Garden as it meant to Mr. Courtney Cox? Obviously not, but you can bet it was closer to the feeling Ron Simmons had when he held the belt.
For Benoit, the title meant that all his decisions were the right ones. That his career gamble jump from WCW to WWE was right. That he wasn’t too small, that he wasn’t uncharismatic, that he had it in him to win the big one. I’m sure while training in the Dungeon 18 years earlier he never thought that the day would come where nearly a million people in the U.S. alone would be watching him de-throne the most dominant champion in recent history at Wrestlemania XX.
Do you think that in the Worcester Centrum December 28th, 19988, that Mick Foley felt the same way that Mr. Arquette did winning the title? That all of his “sleeping on the floors of motel 6’s9” and “in the back of his Ford Fairmount” as I’ll remember Michael Cole calling the match wishing it was J.R. Do you think they both felt the same thing?
Doubtful.
It’s the wrestler who makes the belt, not the belt that makes the wrestler. We’ve all seen more emotion go into a cruiserweight title victories than a world heavyweight title victories. It’s all about the wrestler who fights for and holds that title. And for the fan, it’s all about sitting at the edge of your seat screaming “TAP!” or gradually getting closer and closer to the TV as you feel every impact of the match with your stomach in a ball not knowing just who will win or how, but you’ve made the connection already to both competitors.
So the next time the title changes hands, you look at that wrestlers eyes and how they look at that title before you judge how they affect that title. When Ric Flair holds it time 13, 14, 15, you’ll see his eyes that he still knows and respects what that title means. When it’s put across the waist of Eddie Guererro or Chris Benoit or Mick Foley, you can see what the title means instantly.
1 To interfere in Vince’s favor but to have it backfire on him at the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre2
2 Vince vs. Austin in a steel cage
3 Which I think that he’s looking better with longer hair.
4 http://www.wrestlingplanet.com/wpheadlines/93151717.shtml
5 “The Career Killer”, “The Fat Chick Thriller”, or “The Mullet”
6 Yeah, the same Ron Simmons who was Farooq and was fired by the WWE to make room for the John Bradshaw Layfield character. The statement was certainly bigger than WCW’s “We have a Black commissioner, champion and commentator while being sued for discrimination” statement.
7 Unless the sentence is “Chris Benoit lost the World Title at Summerslam.” But you get my point.
8 Aired January 4th, 1999
9 Where no doubt, the light was “left on for him”
This week’s question: Didn’t Mark Jindrak’s “reflection of perfection” angle not work with Shawn Stasiak or Scotty Riggs? Why try again?
