Alternate Reality by Vin Tastic

Columns

Last week on SmackDown! (26 May 06), a new character debuted. Just when WWE was not messing with a good thing, Fit Finlay lifted up the ring apron to reveal a small person who looked very much like a Leprechaun.

TODAY’S ISSUE: Finlay’s new sidekick

Dave Findlay has always portrayed a tough guy wrestling character, and has done it well. Since 1978, “Finlay” has been a tough, angry, Irish brawler who also possesses solid grappling skills. He won championships all over the world, and earned the respect of his fans by being a hard-nosed, aggressive competitor.

Finlay has defeated professional wrestling luminaries like Chris Benoit, Booker T, Eddie Gilbert, and Rey Mysterio. He came back from a severe nerve injury in his knee to surprise doctors by not only walking, but also competing at a world-class level in the ring once again.

After WWE acquired WCW, Finlay was signed as a road agent. He became responsible for discipline and backstage management at live events, but perhaps more importantly for teaching younger workers the subtle art of pro wrestling. He specialized in mentoring and training the Divas, producing many solid women’s matches over the years.

When WWE started hyping Finlay’s return to ring action late last year, I immediately thought he might take his training to the next level for young stars like Bobby Lashley, and later, Gunner Scott. There would be no better way for Finlay to educate young wrestlers than by actually working a program with them. Finlay and his assigned opponent/pupil would wrestle against each other in singles and tag team matches all over the country for weeks while their storyline feud played out on television. The information he’d pass on to his students in these matches would be invaluable. What a great idea, I thought.

Upon his re-debut, WWE immediately made it clear that Finlay was a tough bastard. He was disqualified in his very first match on SmackDown! against Matt Hardy for using excessive violent force. Feeling that the referee was hasty in that decision and having already lost the match anyway, Finlay demonstrated legitimate grounds to issue a disqualification by stomping Hardy’s head against the steel ring steps. One word: ouch.

The following week, Finlay managed to secure a victory by pin fall over Funaki, but he refused to stop beating on him after the match, so the referee reversed his decision and awarded the match to Funaki via disqualification. Damn, Finlay was definitely one tough bastard, and he obviously cared more about hurting people than he did about winning wrestling matches.

Assaulting opponents with his European style, unique usage of the ring apron, and his Emerald Fusion finisher (called the Celtic Cross), Finlay looked to continue rolling over the SmackDown! mid-card. The Belfast Bruiser could have elevated many young members of the roster. I imagined Finlay hanging around the US Title area of the mid-card with the likes of Lashley, Scott, Ken Kennedy and Paul Burchill as an in-ring professor, passing on his wealth of knowledge to the young guns of SmackDown!. In fact, think of what he could do for the more established, but still less experienced upper-carders like Batista and Randy Orton?

So, with a solid character/performer combination that did not require any tweaking, WWE’s absurd Creative Department reared their ugly heads yet again. Enter “Lucky” (for lack of anything better to call him at this point) the Leprechaun. The midget came out scratching, biting, and clawing at Finlay’s defeated opponent, while Finlay himself urged, then later restrained the little person. Here we go again…

Finlay doesn’t need to add a comedic side to his persona. His fiercely intense, no-nonsense approach is what makes the character work: STRIKE ONE. He’s also a loner, so adding a co-worker of any sort waters down Finlay’s very nature: STRIKE TWO. Unless Finlay turns on Lucky and brutally pummels the Hell out of him, they’re headed for a strikeout and the ruination of Finlay’s elegantly simple character.

If they weaken Finlay’s character, then they also lessen his ability to put over younger guys that survive a grueling feud with Finlay. If putting over younger talent wasn’t the purpose for bringing Finlay back to active competition, then I don’t really see the point of un-retiring him in the first place.

Sometimes you just have to sit back and realize that what WWE is trying to do is make single television shows, rather than weaving compelling story arcs. This might work for a situation comedy, but not for pro wrestling. Once you introduce a character, you’re sort of stuck with him unless you provide a logical reason to remove him from television. Rather, that should be the case. WWE has completely removed characters, storylines, and events from their own history without batting an eye, which insults the intelligence of their paying customers.

The basic goal of a weekly pro wrestling television show is to entice the audience to spend money on pay-per-views, merchandise, and live event tickets. I’ve mentioned before that with every booking decision, character development and catch-phrase WWE creates, they should be thinking, “how does this help make our company money?”

Clearly, Lucky the Leprechaun is NOT going to help earn the company a dime. So why bring him in? Because Vince never learns from his mistakes. Remember Max-Mini in the late 1990s? How about the failed Juniors Division of 2005? Mr. McMahon digs midgets for his own personal reasons, so he tries to use them on television as often as possible. You know, I love softball, but this is a wrestling column, and I recognize that softball’s not an appropriate topic for “Alternate Reality”. Therefore, I leave softball out of this column, and write about what you’re here to read about: professional wrestling.

Vince McMahon has never demonstrated a similar form of self-editing. Toilet humor, shock TV, puppie-lust (you know what I mean), juvenile sexual jokes, bad gags, and racial stereotypes have run rampant in Vince’s kingdom. If only he’d stick to promoting wrestling events for wrestling fans, and stop trying to be Howard Stern or Hugh Hefner or the guy who wrote all the Meatballs and Porky’s movies, the WWE could be the greatest wrestling promotion of all time. I know that financially they are, but the amount of wrestlecrap fans need to tromp through to reach enjoyable moments can be insurmountable at times. Recent examples of entertaining WWE programming for me include the rare Michaels/Angle classics, the solidly written Mickie/Trish feud, the time-tested tag team title program between MNM and the Hooliganz, and the buzz-generating ECW revival.

It’s too bad that Vince’s immature sense of humor and steroid-inflated ego ensure the above are exceptions, rather than the rule.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled reality.

p.s. – After a good night’s sleep, some people say they “slept like a baby”. Don’t babies wake up every two hours? That’s not the kind of sleep I want to get!

Master Sergeant, United States Air Force