Alternate Reality by Vin Tastic – Is WWE forgiven?

One advantage of serving overseas is that the Armed Forces Network airs every WWE pay-per-view for free, just one night after the live show. While I’m no longer a WWE fan (I’ve watched less than 10 hours of original WWE programming in the past year, and I can’t even recall the last ppv I ordered), I do keep up with current happenings via the outstanding efforts of my Pulse Wrestling colleagues, and a few things about Unforgiven made me curious enough to tune in, especially considering the price.

TODAY’S ISSUE: A look at WWE’s Unforgiven pay-per-view.

The recent events and angles that made me curious enough to watch Unforgiven are:

1) The new title match concept, the Championship Scramble. This was the talk of the town leading up to the show, and I wanted to see how it fared in planning and execution. I felt that doing three of them on one card might be overkill, but I was willing to give WWE a shot. After all, they are the company that pioneered the Royal Rumble, Elimination Chamber, and other match concepts that have been successful. Maybe Pat Patterson had one more trick up his sleeve?

2) Matt Hardy’s push. Sure, it’s only in ECW, the bottom of WWE’s barrel, but I’ve been an MF’er for years, and it’s high time he got some respect from the bookers. I was very interested to see him win a major singles title.

3) Nothing got more coverage than the vendetta between Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho. From what I’ve read, the build to their unsanctioned match alone could have sold this show. They’re both phenomenal performers, and Jericho’s on my list of all-time favorites, so count me in.

4) I hear Brian Kendrick has a new gimmick with an accompanying push to get it over, including a new bodyguard. I seem to recall another guy who went from tag team specialist to an undeniable singles force around 11 years ago, and that success came shortly after HE added a bodyguard. I’m quite sure Kendrick knows the guy, too. Considering the man formerly known as Spanky is a gold mine of talent between the ropes with buckets of untapped potential on the WWE stage, I was looking forward to seeing him mix it up with some of the biggest dogs in the company.

5) The fact that several new guys were getting a turn at the top of the card (or at least a chance to develop to that point), including CM Punk, Matt Hardy, The Brian Kendrick, DiBiase and Rhodes, and Matt “Evan Bourne” Sydal, signaled that WWE might be honestly attempting to shuffle the deck. This was more than enough reason to watch a free ppv and see how they incorporated fresh faces in more than peripheral, undercard roles. Along that train of thought, I’ve been hearing the term “New Horsemen” in the wind, and it seemed third-generation star Randy Orton was about to assume leadership of DiBiase and Rhodes, forming a new stable in the process. I certainly didn’t want to miss that.

6) I’ve been hearing wild stuff about Kane’s abduction and torture of Rey Mysterio, and I had a feeling some of the details in the angle would be revealed during this show. This sort of thing epitomizes what I usually despise about WWE booking, but if something interesting could breathe new life into one or both of these tired characters, I’d give it a chance.

There you have it. Six entirely independent reasons for me to tune in to a show I ordinarily wouldn’t cared enough about to glance at, even for free. One by one, let’s examine how WWE delivered on each of these hooks that got my attention in the first place.

1) The scramble concept was not nearly as complicated or confusing as most conversations I saw online speculated it might be. The ECW scramble was well executed, and Matt Hardy played incredibly smart defense when he needed to, hanging onto his “current” championship long enough for the 20-minute time limit to expire, and becoming the “official” ECW champion. Kudos to Matt Striker (who is very good on commentary) for explaining the intricacies of scramble match rules, since it was the first time we’d ever seen one.

The ECW scramble had a good mix of workers, featuring four decent hands in the ring and one monster with whom they had to contend. They made the concept work and kept the match exciting, which the world title scramble later in the card didn’t, since the first three men were lumbering bruisers, and that really slowed things down. Plus, CM Punk was one of the draws of the show, so eliminating him in a cheap way annoyed me and left the match missing a key point of intrigue: how would Punk fare in this unique environment with the odds against him, especially since he’d had so much difficulty hanging onto his belt of late even with more straight-up odds. And anyway, if the champ was injured in a backstage attack, he must have been stripped of his title so it could be contested without him in the match, and that’s a completely ridiculous way to take a championship from a reigning champion. Bad WWE bookers!

But the ECW version of the scramble was a fun match and the second one (for the WWE title) came off very well. It also had the fortune of solid workers to execute the concept and they put on a hell of a match. Between the multiple teases of Jeff Hardy following in his brother’s footsteps from earlier in the show, Kendrick’s surprising success in the match, and the drama that unfolded as time ran out, I found myself drawn into the story. It almost seemed like Triple H might lose his belt here, and since they made me believe it could happen, the intrigue made the contest quite entertaining. With two good ones and one very bad one, I’ll call the new gimmick match an overall success. Scramble match concept: DELIVERED.

2) Matt Hardy’s first major singles title victory in his long WWF/E tenure has finally come, and his emotional moment with brother Jeff backstage was a nice touch. It was a true mark-out for me when Hardy emerged victorious from the first ever championship scramble, especially since they allowed him to play it so very wisely, as if the character truly understood the match parameters. I expect good things to come on Tuesday nights for the Cameron, NC native. Congrats, Mr. Hardy. Matt Hardy’s big moment: DELIVERED.

3) WWE did a terrific job building heat between Jericho and Michaels, but my concern going into the match was that along with the “unsanctioned” stipulation also should have come a brutal, bloody brawl due to the threat/promise of excessive violence between these two, and I was worried they’d painted themselves into a corner. Jericho and Michaels would have to perform a sickening match in order to deliver on the hype, and in WWE when people feel pressure to deliver on that scale, train-wrecks like King of the Ring 1998 can be the result.

It was a nice touch that HBK walked to the ring minus his usual routine of posing, praying, and showboating; he just wanted Jericho. But Michaels using a cheesy wrestling move like a catapult (even into the ring post) didn’t fit in with the anger and frustration his character should have been feeling toward Y2J, who played the vicious, violent, dangerous heel to perfection.

The entire match suffered from split personality disorder. In one moment, Shawn would literally choke Jericho to the mat with both hands (which made sense for the storyline) but then he’d kip up and pander to the crowd, stomping his foot to “tune up the band” before going for Sweet Chin Music, or do the flip-twisting “Jannetty sell” of Lance Cade’s lariat. The contest was somewhere between an aggressive wrestling match and the vicious gore-fest it needed to be, and therefore, didn’t live up to the hype. Instead of being the amazingly brutal, gut wrenching emotional ride it promised to be, it was just like any other no-disqualification or hardcore match in recent memory. Don’t get me wrong, for the health and welfare of these two family men, I’m glad it WASN’T more, but then they shouldn’t have booked the build-up they way they did.

The story of HBK enduring both the eye injury and the triceps tear worked wonderfully well, as he showed how much suffering he was willing to accept to avenge his wife, and his willingness to blast Jericho with a fire extinguisher depicted his rage and hatred for Y2J. But although ring announcer Lillian Garcia took special care to explain that this match had to end via pinfall or submission, the referee (in an UNSANCTIONED match mind you) stopped the action and awarded the bout to Michaels. There was no gory blade job, Jericho didn’t seem to be in the sort of jeopardy you’d expect after all the hype, and the rain of weak punches HBK poured down on Jericho’s forehead wasn’t enough justification to stop the match. Although Jericho was “unconscious”, the ending was simply flat, but I guess a knockout is sort of equivalent to a submission in this case.

Shawn was clearly emotional, as he should have been, but his crying didn’t seem like the appropriate response to the beating he’d just delivered. Seething anger, drained exhaustion, or even being pleased with his vengeance may have fit the situation better. His promo later in the night was more on target with where the storyline arc needed to go. This one is difficult for me to call. On one hand, the match did boast some great intensity, but on the other, it never really went to that dark place they guaranteed. The upcoming weeks of storyline can salvage this and keep it entertaining, but if this match was the blow-off to the feud, then it fell short of expectations. Michaels versus Jericho: DID NOT DELIVER.

NOTES: I was shocked to see Michaels utilize a crossface submission hold; I’ve never seen him employ such a maneuver before. And to this day, it drives me crazy to hear the announcers call a standard Boston crab the “Walls of Jericho”. The original Walls was a devastating submission hold that nearly folded Jericho’s opponents in half. The Boston crab looks like a rest hold, especially the WWE version of it.

Another commentating flub was when Michael Cole described one lone, single chair shot by HBK as a “flurry of offense”. And speaking of mistakes, just before the finish, the camera honed right in for a long time on Michaels talking into Jericho’s ear about what they were about to do. That was a poor camera angle, and once the production team saw it they should have switched to a wide shot, or another angle. Talk about hurting the viewers’ ability to suspend disbelief. Whether these notes affected my overall decision about how this match delivered is debatable, but they certainly didn’t help matters.

4) Although The Brian Kendrick was Triple H’s bitch eating 2 pedigrees, both for pinfalls, he looked like a star throughout the match. Bottom line: Kendrick is a reason to watch SmackDown! on Friday nights. If WWE allows his push to continue, the sky’s the limit for this young lion. Possibility of making Kendrick into a big deal: DELIVERED.

5) I wanted to see them crystallize the new unit of Orton with the tag champs, Rhodes and DiBiase, and not only did that develop throughout the show, but they also surprised me with the addition of a new member. Manu, another child of the legendary Anoa’i family, and an example of WWE’s stereotypically wild Samoan, joined Rhodes and DiBiase in the ring after their narrow defeat of another gross stereotype in Crime Time. Incidentally, Manu was the name of the large center in the 1991 football film Necessary Roughness, and that character was also Samoan, I believe. So now these “New Horsemen” have their enforcer, and I’ll be paying close attention to their storylines. Theoretically, Orton should go back after the world title with his new stable backing him up, and Manu might as well snag the IC gold from the living cartoon character to go along with Rhodes and DiBiase as the tag champs. Although with Santino Marella’s Honk-o-meter gimmick getting over, it’s unlikely he’ll drop that strap for a long time, but it’d be fun to see this group of young lions run roughshod over the roster for a while.

Considering the new heel stable, the pushes of Matt Hardy and Kendrick, I’d have been inclined to call this category a success. However, removing CM Punk from the show, Kendrick’s humbling falls at the hands of Triple H, the fact that Evan Bourne wasn’t booked at all, and the long, tedious, annoying segment between Undertaker, Big Show, and Vickie Guerrero, it’s not so easy to call this night a true success for the newer guys. Hope of fresh faces being given serious booking opportunities: NEUTRAL.

6) Mysterio was exactly the same as he was before, unaffected from the standpoints of character, appearance, and wrestling repertoire. So what the hell happened to him in Kane’s lair (or wherever Kane had him)? Nothing, apparently. For all they showed us here, Mysterio might have been on a beach sipping Sangria for a little while, or rehabbing from an injury. I was extremely disappointed that Mysterio just showed up looking, acting, and wrestling the same, even after Kane promised he couldn’t because he physically and mentally destroyed the man. So much for that storyline… Possibility of an intriguing character arc for Mysterio or some fun interaction between he and Kane: DID NOT DELIVER.

Six categories. Three delivered, one was neutral, and two failed to deliver. I believe that mathematically these results would force Unforgiven, into the “success” category, but just barely. Still, I expect the largest and most successful wrestling promotion in the world to deliver on pay-per-view, so the fact that three of my reasons for watching in the first place failed to do so means I wouldn’t have been happy had I spent the whopping $40 for the privilege to see it. Watching for free wasn’t painful, and the show had several solidly entertaining moments, but what WWE didn’t accomplish was convincing me it’s time to start tuning into their weekly stuff regularly again, and I certainly wouldn’t pay for a similar show. There’s a lot more I could do with 40 of my pro wrestling dollars.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled reality.

p.s. – “To err is human, to repent divine, to persist devilish.” – Benjamin Franklin

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Elsewhere on Pulse Wrestling this week…

Phil Clark offers his own analysis of the new Championship Scramble match concept in his latest Reality of Wrestling column.

Another pay-per-view? As usual, we’ve got the Rasslin’ Roundtable and Steve Murray’s phenomenal live coverage of TNA’s No Surrender.

In this week’s edition of Puro Shukan, Mark Buckeldee focuses on Pro Wrestling NOAH’s second Nippon TV Cup Junior Heavyweight Tag League, as well as all sorts of news from the world of puro resu.

More puro, from one of the most respected and knowledgeable fans of Japanese pro wrestling, David Ditch.

Here’s part two of John Wiswell’s exceptional look at the complex character of Jimmy Jacobs. A must read!

Fingers (the boss) discusses Mick Foley’s recent interview with Between the Ropes Radio here.

IWC legend Scott Keith takes a look back at the beginning of the Flair era in WWF with his most recent Smark 24/7 Rant.

Finally this week, ROH Ace Pulse Glazer previews their next Japanese swing in Ring of Honor Weekly.