For Your Consideration…HHHe Ain’t So Bad

Welcome to week 69.

Heh, 69. Ah, sometimes comedy just writes itself and other times it’s “According to Jim”. So this week’s column might not be the longest due to the fact that I’m stuck in the office with what feels like the makings of a really crappy cold, and on top of several motions and a pile of legal research, I have to churn out my report for this Sunday’s TNA Roundtable. Yes, the perils of being both an IWC commentator and a real life law associate just don’t seem to meld. On the “plus” side, I get a week off next week to acclimate myself to going back for my final year of law school, then it’s the bar and then no more teachers, no more books…

Before I get into the meat and potatoes of today’s column, I want to touch on something that has become a bit of a tradition in my column; discussing Big Brother. If you don’t watch Big Brother ever then this might look like a foreign language to you, but those of you who follow the Houseguests on a weekly basis know that the show is equally embarrassing to watch and incredibly addictive. Every year there are characters that people identify with and characters that people root against. Normally, if “your” pick gets knocked out, someone steps into their place. Think of it as rooting for Jericho if Punk isn’t in the match. So, since we had a special spring edition of BB, I wasn’t really dying for a new season right away. The joy of Big Brother is that it only comes on during the summer and its trashy content usually holds you for a about eight or ten months until you need your next fill. With this back-to-back gimmick, BB no longer feels like a fresh summer treat but rather another reheated leftover. Even the cast for the summer sucks. The one guy I found myself rooting for was Brian, the overly manipulative snake-in-the-grass guy with the cocky charisma and cunning brilliance of an Edge. Unfortunately, he was exposed very quickly in the game (thanks to a well-timed yet despicable heel turn by Ollie, who, as a preacher’s son, probably wasn’t the first one I’d pick to be a backstabbing liar) and sent packing. Since then, the house has been without anyone you can “root” for. In fact, unlike seasons past, there isn’t anyone that’s even moderately tolerable. There’s this big, amorphous alliance between Ollie/April/Keisha/Libra/Renny/Jerry that at one point included Memphis/Jesse/Angie/Michelle and that sort of leaves Dan to float aimlessly. The former alliance is a lot less palatable than the latter. Memphis and Jesse were kind of getting entertaining and Angie (who is a former Gator and a former member of my major) was really pretty hot, but with her evicted and either Memphis or Jesse eliminated tonight; that leaves a really crappy group remaining. It’s getting to the point where I might just stop watching altogether. Ever since Showtime started airing nightly Big Brother telecasts, I was hooked. This season I can’t stomach more than about 20 seconds before turning on anything else. Why? Well there are just some cast members that get so far under my skin that I can’t even watch. Namely Libra. She has X-Pac heat. She is probably the #1 most hated person in BB history from where I stand. I loathe the very sight of her. And part of it is very personal. She just had kids not 6 months ago and chose to leave them with her husband and go on a reality show?! Really? That’s quality parenting. Then, when she goes on the show, she becomes overly hysterical and confrontational and while the show is about manipulation, she is just so unpleasant that it doesn’t make me want to see her get her comeuppance, it makes me want to click over to the next channel. Hopefully she’ll be evicted and Angie will come back and Keisha will wind up wearing the red unitard. Until then, I’ll have my finger poised over the channel up button.

Got that out of my system. Who else wants a piece of me? Oh yeah, Glazer. Glazer’s AMR this week was a response to my column about The Great Khali (or Khali the Great, based on some poor local shlub newspaper reporter who was covering their local house show) and he turned it into an anti-HHH column. On the plus side, I was thrilled to see someone else on the site writing about the WWE, but I think he missed the mark in terms of what I was saying, which puts me in the unenviable position of having to defend Triple H. Ah, it’s time to put on the lawyer hat.

For Your Consideration…HHHe Ain’t So Bad

I am not, for all intents and purposes, a Triple H apologist. I want to make that perfectly clear from the get-go. As a longtime IWC dweller, I know all too well the games and manipulation Hunter has engaged in since pretty much the night after Wrestlemania 14 when he assumed Shawn Michaels’s mantle as #1 guy to hold people down.

For the purposes of this week’s column, I will be applying the standard legal briefwriting tool known as CREAC, which stands for Conclusion, Rule, Rule Explanation, Rule Application and Conclusion (yes, conclusion is twice). Before we begin, a brief synopsis of the facts:

Hunter clearly suffered early on in his career from kicked puppy syndrome. When you kick an innocent puppy, he learns to become a vicious dog. Hunter seemed rather content in the beginning to be a midcard jobber to the stars until Michaels brought him into his Clique and he would have all but had a rocket strapped to his ass straight to the top. But, without going through the endless minutia of the Rise of Hunter, he basically became the whipping boy for the MSG Incident, shuttled down the card, brought back up by Michaels when he needed a running buddy for DX, took over the stable, sold a boatload of t-shirts, got in good with Vince, held guys down he thought were either not good or were a threat, married the boss’s daughter and now spits water at fans on Fridays (read: Tuesdays) instead of Mondays and after defeating Edge at the last PPV will be facing The Great Khali at Summerslam. Whew.

Now, the purpose of last week’s column was supposed to be a preemptive response to people who were going to bitch about Khali being named the #1 Contender when there were so many other more deserving candidates. As I said before, the purpose of this match is to ensure that the spotlight of the pay-per-view falls squarely on the shoulders of Batista/Cena and Edge/Undertaker.

Conclusion: Hunter is working towards what is best for the WWE and not for his personal agenda.

Rule: When an individual is working towards the “best” for a company, rather than for the sole desire to get himself over and keep himself a the top, he is willing to engage in selfless activities, put others over and ultimately do the right thing when asked of him.

Rule Explanation: The first part of this is essentially what constitutes the best for the company. Clearly, this can be summarized as the antithesis of Hulk Hogan’s WCW run. More specifically, we can look at current RAW superstar John Cena. Cena has been willing to do whatever the company has asked of him; whether its do countless hours of publicity for Wrestlemania, record a rap album or appear in commercials for canned pasta or razors. And most importantly, it’s doing all of this without complaining.

Rule Application: Triple H is now working towards what is best for the company, because thanks to his marriage to Stephanie McMahon, what’s best for Triple H is what’s best for the company.

Aaron points to Hunter’s squashing of Booker T as being a major negative, but it is something I’ve touched on before in my column and said that it was in fact the right decision. Booker T was unhappy with the WWE’s decision to not use his Houston wrestling school as an official development territory and Booker was making it publicly known that he was getting ready to hang up his boots. By allowing Hunter to come back from injury and beat Booker, it was reestablishing Hunter as a top guy and letting him go over a top heel. Hunter at that point was infinitely more valuable to the WWE than Booker T. If Hunter were to come back and squash a young guy then people would be complaining about Hunter’s continuation of burying new kids.

Speaking of new kids, Hunter has caught a lot of flack for supposed comments he made about CM Punk. It is no secret that Punk has spent a significant amount of his WWE career in the doghouse, but last I checked, he is the World Heavyweight Champion. I’ve said for almost a year now that Punk has lost a lot of his heat due to some poor booking decisions, but in spite of all of the missteps, he’s now a major fan favorite and can move merchandise. Yes, Hunter is critical of him, but since Hunter is about two heartbeats away from the Vince McMahon head booker role, he realizes that Punk is a major future player in the WWE. I don’t think comparing Punk to Jericho is fair just yet because while CM Punk hasn’t been booked as the strongest champion (admittedly an understatement), he isn’t being groomed to be fed to Hunter directly. If anything, Punk is going to be embroiled in this Cena/Batista/Kane/JBL/Jericho main event stew, and that’s one hell of a strong upper card and can only mean better matches for Punk. Lastly, turning Shawn Michaels to feud with Punk wouldn’t be the worst idea ever. Hell, they had to do it for Cena at last year’s Wrestlemania, so maybe it isn’t the biggest insult in the world.

Lastly, there’s Hunter as WWE Champion and the way he beat Edge. First off, look at the incredible amount of restraint Hunter showed by NOT immediately giving himself the gold or even putting himself in the world title picture. He wasn’t the perennial headliner for every PPV since his return, and with the exception of the No Mercy debacle, he didn’t touch the world title scene until Mania. Hunter was willing to put over Cena at the Rumble when he was all but assured the victory, Hunter put over Orton at Mania and he made Cena look good in their world title rematch. The ultimate selfless act was Hunter’s decision to move from RAW to Smackdown where he goes from top babyface on the flagship show to a top babyface on an untested show moving to a new network. Yeah, Hunter beat Edge. He needed to. Edge/Hunter was the obvious match for heel GM Vickie to book as soon as she got a chance, but if Edge won the belt, he would have to drop it to the Undertaker at Summerslam. By allowing Hunter to keep the gold, we can get both a WWE Title match AND Hell in a Cell at the PPV.

Hunter/Khali is not a marquee match. The Great Khali has no true business being in the main event, but Hunter and Creative knew that if Hunter went over anyone else that it would be bad for business. Hunter/Hardy, Hunter/Show and Hunter/Umaga deserve a buildup. Hunter/Khali requires no buildup and no one will bat an eye when The Great Khali jobs. And the fact that Hunter isn’t main eventing the PPV? Yet another sign that he’s willing to do what’s right for business.

Conclusion: By staying away from the title for so long, by putting people over and by willing to be moved from his comfortable role on RAW to the unknown world of Smackdown, Triple H is truly working towards what is best for the WWE and not for what’s best for Hunter.

Lawyered.

This has been for your consideration.