It’s clear after watching WWE RAW this past week, broadcasting from Beaumont, Texas, that the main event of WrestleMania, the reason WWE feels you should watch WrestleMania is not the WWE championship matches, instead it’s the feud between Vince McMahon and Shawn Michaels.
As I stated last week, I’m not a fan of drugs used in angles in wrestling, whatsoever, because of the real life drug policy. This week, WWE did a affective job of being predictably ridiculous with the opening of the show: the footage from last week, Vince and Shane McMahon bringing out a Brent Spiner-looking drug analyst and the traditional local indy talent posing as security guards. Michaels has to come out and supposedly urinate in a cup on national television behind a black curtain with supervision while Vince and Shane McMahon look at the camera and say that drugs are for losers and to not end up like Shawn Michaels. Michaels miraculously fills up a tall glass of urine in a matter of seconds as the drug analyst is litmus testing the sample. Michaels finally gets to speak saying, “It’s better to be pissed off than pissed on,” and I just didn’t believe they were going to throw simulated urine on the McMahons on national television, but it really happened. The segment reminded me of something “Stone Cold” Steve Austin could have gotten away with years ago in his feud with Vince. The classic aspect to the entire thing was Vince crossing his eyes while urine is being thrown on him. I caught it during the second replay but just in case people were late tuning in, they replayed the segment at least three times. The most interesting aspect of the storyline is the fact this is a maturing Michaels, I can only imagine what this would have been like with “the Shawn Michaels of old” who was a Degenerate out to shock the world and rebel against a Corporate McMahon. Naturally the point is Michaels moved on and Vince is crazy, out of touch and a power hungry heel.
In retaliation, Vince puts Michaels in a steel cage with the Spirit Squad in what was an affective use of them as a group and furthering the storyline even further. Michaels was outnumbered and it was like watching the WWE video games, with Michaels having to keep turning around to face another Spirit Squad member. Appropriately, to not de-push the green guys and further the angle, Shane McMahon comes out to pick what’s left of Michaels apart by slamming the cage door in his face. Shane pulls out his most famous move, the Shane McMahon-Van Dam Terminator trash can spot where Shane jumps from one end of the ring from the top turnbuckle to the other side of the ring, drop kicking an already bleeding Michaels in his face. Since Shane hasn’t done the move in at least two years, I was concerned because it’s still a risky move for even a seasoned performer like RVD. However, he did it on point, unconsciously raising the standard of all athletes backstage because once again, if a McMahon can pull a memorable high risk move out, so can the boys and girls in the back. They’ve done a great job with this particular aspect of the angle, hyping the Shane McMahon and Shawn Michaels street fight on Saturday Night’s Main Event on NBC, coming back on March 18th. McMahon grabs Michaels by his face and shouts at him that he would pay dearly on Saturday for the money camera shot. I’m looking forward to SNME thanks to this week’s RAW, because Monday was not only the first real episode where RAW focused on Wrestlemania, but in turn, heavy promotion for SNME where WWE hopes for success on NBC.
Having said this, it is clear that Cena and Triple H is going to play secondary at WrestleMania. Either they feel it really needs no build up or they just aren’t interested in making the actual WWE Championship the center of WrestleMania. The traditionalist in me thinks the championships should be the main focus of the biggest event of the year for the company, but since McMahon is involved in this year’s event in a major way, he certainly won’t take a back seat. It’ll be up to the audience to ultimately decide if that is a bad decision. Because of the lack of build up, where even the contract signing felt like it was secondary of importance to the McMahon/Michaels feud, more columnists such as myself are going to ultimately give more column time to McMahon and Michaels.
What I can write about Triple H and Cena is Triple H knows how to work this storyline where he’s Ric Flair-style confident. This type of attitude gives the audience a chance to warm up to Cena, but ultimately, no matter what happens, fans that cheer Cena (mostly women) are not going to stop cheering for Cena anytime soon and the fans that have been booing Cena are not going to hate Hunter more just because it’s what the WWE expects them to do. Where the WWE has to figure out is the happy balance, to not have a greater disownment of Cena turnover by the WWE audience by not piling on Cena too heavy or make him look even more vulnerable to Triple H’s confidence. The WWE did the right thing by not giving away a lot of Cena/Hunter together in the six-man tag main event because that’s something they do need to invest in for WrestleMania. The use of Randy Orton at the end was a nice touch, and left the audience with questions to where former-Evolution members (Triple H and Orton) stood with each other.
As far as the actual tag teams of Kane and Big Show and Masters and Carlito, I expect the title to change hands at WrestleMania just to keep it fresh. Kane and Big Show can dominate the match entirely but Carlito and Masters can cheat to win and it’s believable, hopefully leading to a future payoff with a face turn by Chris Masters when they eventually lose the titles down the line and Carlito putting all the blame on Masters, starting a feud between the two. Kane and Big Show could end up feuding but unless there is a formable opponent (hopefully a new big man altogether) after their storyline, than I don’t know if the storyline could last longer than three months without hurting their characters.
The announcing team was handled much better than usual last night, with the announcers not acting oblivious to things obvious to the audience and actually was used the way it was used when JR was the lead commentator, being the “objective” voice of the audience watching. The Coach is at his best when he’s able to be a heel and not have to be too many roles. The return of Jim Ross commentating on Saturday will be a great treat for viewers. I would really love to see him secure that role of commentating Saturdays because he brings his love for the game and product like no announcer commentating today can. He’s going to remind the audience why he’s the best in the business.
Other highlights remain the use of Trish Stratus and Mickie James, setting up them teaming together against Victoria and Candice Michelle for SNME. If they do the turn on Saturday, the build up has been so good that when Mickie does turn on Trish, it’s going to be money at WrestleMania. Week in and week out, they have their roles down perfectly. Thank you WWE for allowing Victoria ring time this week as the girls did about eight minutes of hard-hitting action in a roughly-five minute match. I am thankful Torrie Wilson isn’t wrestling on Saturday because wrestling is not her strong point. I had no problem with how they set it up if Mickie is revealed as the one who punked her out, but for anyone who has played the WWE video games, this seemed right out of WWE Smackdown versus RAW on PS2.
RVD and Shelton Benjamin could have be stronger and more smooth than it actually was, but the addition to Flair to commentary, and teasing what Money in the Bank will offer at WrestleMania worked in forwarding the storyline.
Mick Foley and Edge’s storyline continues with affective movie-preview style video packages with Edge burying Foley. However, unless Foley can pull out all the stops on Saturday during Edge’s The Cutting Edge, he looks really weak in comparision to Edge to the audience right now and that’s not fair because Foley can entertain and work when he chooses to.
The bottom line for all the storylines is simple, Saturday Night’s Main Event must sell WrestleMania to the ones unsure whether or not they want to shell out the big bucks to watch the event on April 2nd.
Thanks to all those who tune into Big E Sports show at rocklandworldradio.com every Tuesday between 7-8 EST to hear hosts Erik Fenton, Dave Lagreca and I to discuss professional wrestling and whatever else is going on! You just never know what we’re going to talk about next! Also, special thanks to Mark Straz of smarkwire.com for the support of Inside Pulse and Make Movement. Always remember, for things to change, you have to make movement. Thanks for reading and for all the feedback, feel free to contact me anytime at Bam@4sternstaging.com.
