Render or Add – HHH as Special Referee

Columns, Top Story

Currently, I am the review guy, but I don’t know what to review right now. It seems by now other writers have already reviewed almost every show people care about already. What I’d love to do is review oldschool shows such as Memphis TV, MidSouth TV, and etc., but I don’t believe the regular viewer out there would love those reviews, as they’re too “passé” and it’s past their era. However, if enough people would want them, please tell me. I’d be glad to do them. If not, other suggestions are welcomed as well.

With that out of the way…..

Last night on Raw, HHH made himself the special referee for the match. As much of a mirror image this entire feud has been of WWF 1997 Raw, it became more similar when  HHH was named the special referee since HBK was the referee for the Undertaker vs. Bret Hart match at Summerslam 1997 and also since HBK had no experience refereeing as well (even though HHH HAS refereed a match before unless this Raw never happened like Chris Benoit never wrestled in WWE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Hs4AsU2N0).

Many people will declare that HHH as the referee is a ghastly idea. Those people would have rational points in their argument, with the biggest, of course, being HHH’s ego that he sometimes puts in front of anything. While I am a HHH defender, I agree that sometimes his ego does get in the way and ruin things for business. For instance, his feud against Booker T, where Booker T was beat down verbally by HHH’s racist remarks leading into their match. Clearly this created a lot of sympathy for Booker T and made fans want to see him win the title, although HHH ended up beating Booker T clean in the center of the ring. In any racist angle, the attacker should never ever go over. It was bad for business because it made WWE look racist and really killed Booker’s momentum.

Still, I believe HHH is trying to do the right thing for business. Granted, his idea of pedigreeing Punk on his first night back under the new contract was the most counterproductive idea they could have done (if it’s true that is), but I really believe HHH is trying to do what’s right for the business. Either way, Punk has a lot of creative control invested into this angle and HHH is seemingly willing to allow Punk to overrule decisions if he doesn’t think they’re doing the right thing.

In any event, HHH adds another element to this match. So many different things could possibly happen. He could go the obvious route and screw CM Punk purposely or by mistake out, he could screw John Cena purposely or by mistake, if CM Punk or John Cena wins, he could have them set them up and have Del Rio come out, or who knows… maybe they have something planned that we don’t see ever happening.

The WWE, yet again, has really built up their mainevent match by creating a shade of gray of what might just happen. HHH refereeing sure has its downsides – ego hindering from the moment/getting too involved, but it still adds  another component added to the match, making the unpredictably and anticipation extremely groundbreaking.

If HHH costs John Cena the match, they could go with that feud so many different, intriguing ways. If HHH costs CM Punk the match, while it won’t be the best outcome, there are still solid things they could do with it. If HHH doesn’t cost CM Punk the match, but later on challenges him for the title that also could be very intriguing.

Concisely, HHH as the referee has its pros and cons, but the pros far out weigh the cons and it has put this on par, if not better, with the MITB build last month. Personally speaking, I am very eager to see this match not only to most likely see an amazing match but also to see where they go with this. As mentioned above, there are so many ways they could go with this – and in my view, that is what drives people to want and see a match, vise-versa to them being able to telegraph everything in advance.