The “Art” of WrestleMania
Seriously… you enjoyed that?
Well, to be honest, I enjoyed WrestleMania too… probably not in the way the promoters intended, though.
To start with, Al Capone vs. Conan the Son in Law was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. I legitimately needed to wipe the tears of laughter from my eyes to be able to follow the “action” on screen. Nothing is funnier than unintentional comedy, and this match pretty much set a new standard as far as pro wrestling is concerned. I felt a little badly for poor John Cena, though. Imagine living your lifelong dream of headlining at WrestleMania only to have the vast majority of the crowd crap all over you and your match. That must have hurt.
The funniest thing is: HHH thinks he looks cool
What boggles my mind is that I’ve read — all over the web — dozens of posts and articles from dozens of wrestling fans praising this ridiculous burlesque as a decent main event match. It really wasn’t and here’s why:
I was always taught that Pro Wrestling is an extemporaneous form. What that means is that a genuinely good wrestler needs to be able to adapt to the audience’s reaction and build his match accordingly. Neither Cena nor HHH did anything of the sort on Sunday. People have compared their match to Rock vs. Hogan in Toronto, or to the main event of IYH Canadian Stampede. Those are very poor comparisons. In Toronto, The Rock heard that the crowd was against him, and he started pulling out stuff from his bad guy bag of tricks to use against Hogan. They adapted what they were doing to fit with the crowd’s reactions, and the result was a terrific match that people still talk about to this day. At SummerSlam 2002, The Rock made a similar adjustment when he was matched up against the newly popular Brock Lesnar. The resulting match is a big part of the reason why so many people have been fooled into thinking that Brock is a great wrestler. (He isn’t. He’s a great athlete with no real heart for wrestling). At Canadian Stampede, most of the wrestlers were wise enough to use subtleties of body language and facial expressions to play into the Bizarro World crowd reactions. Just look at Brian Pillman’s gleeful smile as he heels it up against the American team. If Cena or HHH had been able to pull something like that off, the match would have been memorable for all the right reasons. As it is, I find myself ranking it alongside Goldberg vs. Lesnar from WM XX as one of the funniest displays of anti-WWE sentiment that’s ever been captured on tape.
A lot of people disagree with me, though. Not only did people enjoy the match, there are people out there that enjoyed the entrances in a non-ironic way. To my absolute astonishment, I’ve read posts from people who think that the silly Barbarian outfit and the insulting and inaccurate Gangster references made a legitimately positive contribution to the atmosphere of the show . I guess that WWE have really found their target audience, and I guess that they’ve successfully educated them to accept damn near any kind of crap as good entertainment, as long as it’s got their brand logo on it. Good for WWE. More power to them!
If you disagree (or not) feel free to tell me about it here (that’s mr.gordi at gmail dot com). I’ll most likely answer you. I might even do a mailbag column one day.
Still, even though I enjoyed WrestleMania, it didn’t come close to making me want to watch their weekly programming again.
The Tag Titles are still being treated as an afterthought, and there was neither a Cruiserweight Title nor an Intercontinental Title match on the card at the biggest show of the year. I like Cruiserweight matches, and I love real tag team action. Neither Big Show & Kane nor Carlito & Masters strike me as what I’d consider to be a real tag team. Maybe I’d feel differently if I’d been watching the last several months of WWE TV, but I doubt it. Real tag teams have a distinctive name and look. Real tag teams work together. Real tag teams aren’t just two singles guys thrown together to give them something to do until the inevitable break up and feud.
Now here’s a real tag team
Tag team break-ups and feuds used to really mean something, because the teams themselves really used to mean something. WWE “creative” have totally lost sight of that, and until they figure it out again, I will remain less interested in their product than I should be.
I’m also an unabashed Benoit mark, and I’m more than fed up of seeing him used as enhancement talent.
I’m an Eddie mark, too, and it’s pretty clear that WWE are going to keep on exploiting his death until everyone is sick of hearing about it. I’m glad I won’t be watching as that happens.
Mickie vs. Trish was entertaining, and I was pleased to see them try and work a little old-fashioned body part psychology into their match. Anybody who thinks that this was one of the greatest women’s matches of all time, however, is either delusional or ill informed. It was the best WWF/E women’s match I’ve seen since the days of the Jumping Bomb Angels, but I could easily list a hundred Joshi matches that blow it out of the water as far as wrestling action and storytelling go… and I’m not even a particularly big Joshi fan. It might also just be that I’m getting too old to find faux lesbianism titillating any more. Still, it’s nice to see the WWE women’s division being given the benefit of an interesting story line. If you enjoyed the match, give AJW a try. I’d be happy to recommend some matches for you.
Mick vs. Edge and HBK vs. VKM were both good matches that used violence and stunts to tell interesting stories. I wouldn’t consider either to be a garbage match, per se, because in my opinion a garbage match just strings together plunder spots with little to no psychology or narrative involved. Neither match will get me to watch RAW or SmackDown! though, because both were obviously special matches that were only going to be seen on Pay per View. That’s good for WWE, since those matches only work if fans aren’t over-exposed to them, and good for me because it frees up about four hours of my time each week.
Likewise, the MITB match gave us some cool spots and big bumps without really giving us any reason to tune in on Monday or Thursday. I am still scratching my head about why they faked a Flair injury if it wasn’t going to lead anywhere, but I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.
A few other thoughts:
– It was nice to see Lucha Taker pull off a tope suicida.
– I think that the new steroid policy has really affected JBL in a bad way. He looked awful, and he dragged Benoit to a boring match.
– The fans booing Cena made perfect sense, but I was surprised that they booed Trish, and absolutely stunned that they turned on Rey.
– I guess the Eddie backlash has started already. You can count me out of that.
– The audience wasn’t rebelling. WWE has killed Cena’s heat by neutering his character.
– I am surprised that Ken Anderson, a very good writer with whom I am often in total agreement, enjoyed WM 22 so much
– I am not surprised that IWC legend Eric S, with whom I frequently disagree, liked the show even less than I did.
For other writer’s takes, click here:
Jimmy Hat (Amusing as always)
Murray (Live and large)
Grut (It’s Grut! You should have read it already)
Heaves (Simple, yet objective)
The Vin-Man (Vinny vs. WWE “Creative”)
Bambi (She’s a radio star)
If you’re sick of reading about WrestleMania, thanks for reading this column anyway! Try Ross’ MMA column for a change of pace.
See you next week!
