Suspension of Disbelief: Investment Opportunities. (The Shield, Bray Wyatt, Daniel Bryan)

Columns, PPVs, Top Story, TV Shows

Before I get started…

The Mundotaker?

Breyck Lesnar?

Triple Reych?

Dreyne “The Rock” Johnson?

One of these has to fit, because apparently I only show up a couple of times a year — usually RumbleMania season — bump the regular contributors off the front page, soak up 50-100 comments (some of them are even nice!), and then leave after the Raw after ‘Mania.

Wait a second…

Wait… Just one second…

What’s this?

Why, it’s a tangent!

I don’t know what the buzz was on the infamous Izod Center Raw After WrestleMania crowd, but let me tell you that I hated it then and I still hate it now. I understand that some folks out there thought it was this incredible moment where the WWE Universe rejected the Status Quo and stood up for its favorites and let Creative know that they wanted Newer and Better.

In reality though, that crowd’s legacy is “Fandangoing,” which has had all the lasting impact of Planking, Tebowing, Icing, Bad Habit, and Open Chest Day.

In reality though, that crowd’s legacy is that whenever a crowd’s attention span is up — SQUIRREL! — they’ll start chanting RAN-DY SA-VAGE OR J-B-L or whatever else. I mean, it took 12 years but they finally found something more annoying than “What!”

There was no bucking of the system, there was no great cultural swing, there was no revolution. It was a wacky night and a lot of people had fun… and even more people got the next bit of Wannabe into their system. It has now become the WWE equivalent of the bad Austin Powers impressions we had to deal with for a few years there, or when you started a sentence with “This one time…” and invariably some asshole would chime in with “…AT BAND CAMP!?” Or, to a lesser extent, the proliferation of super-clever “That’s What She Said” interjections.

Bravo, East Rutherford. Bravo.

*adjusts tie*

But I digress.

Point is, since we last met, I won another beer pong tournament, found an amazing girlfriend who is affectionate and intelligent and thoughtful, strengthened some friendships, damaged others, mourned Paul Walker, celebrated the birth of my first-ever God son, took two trips to Florida, and celebrated the first Knicks playoff series win since 2000.

And now we’re caught up.

Suspension of Disbelief begins… Now!

So, as per usual, I took April and May of last year off from Wrestling, and then with Beach Volleyball on Mondays I kinda took off the summer, so I missed the whole Daniel Bryan tug-of-war, the introduction to the Wyatts, and a couple of other things.

I rejoined the fray in the fall, the pay-per-view after SummerSlam and caught the whole rise of The Authority, the Rhodes’ Renaissance, and a couple of other assorted bits.

I watched it all, and some stuff was intriguing, but overall, for the most part…

…I didn’t care.

It’s not like I wasn’t interested, or wasn’t entertained, or didn’t see some cool matches or hear some good promos. It’s not like there weren’t characters I enjoyed.

I just didn’t care.

If you know me — even if it’s just through these zeroes and ones — you know that I care about this stuff. Since I was 8 years old professional wrestling has always provided me with inspiration, motivation, characters to emulate, characters to avoid winding up like, the whole gamut that any entertainment medium should strive to run.

So not caring was a bummer, and it bummed me out continually until a couple things happened.

Thing Number One!

It took me a little bit to root for The Shield. They were cool, they were talented, they were booked to damn near perfection, but I’m an old school type so I don’t particularly root for Bad Guys. I can enjoy them — I’ve said repeatedly that the heels that are allowed to do more than snivel and cower are routinely more interesting than most of the faces — but I can still never root for them in the Suspension Of Disbeliefiverse.

Then, when the stellar and criminally short-lived Shield vs Wyatts feud happened, I crossed over and routinely consider them the highlights of the show. I fully admit I’m late to the party and will gladly accept all Bandwagon flack, but so what? It’s the internet. *shrug*

Thing Number Two!

Occupy Raw!

(not to be confused with “Hijack Raw” which was completely ridiculous and made wrestling fans look like giant petulant goofs)

Once Daniel Bryan was done with the sarcastic “Duhhhhh Triple H!” shtick that brought to mind the latter days of “Full House” where there were no jokes, just catchphrases and (how) Rudeness, I could get behind his whole campaign. I wasn’t anywhere NEAR as hurt/shocked/offended as a baffling number of people were by the fact that the guy that wasn’t announced for the Royal Rumble was, you know, not in the Royal Rumble. I was content to see where it all went.

And it went somewhere awesome.

Seeing all those people in the ring was so cool. Sheeit, even if they were plants, the 15,000 people in the arena on their feet and chanting “YES!” were not. It was cool seeing Hunter get all bent out of shape. It was cool seeing Steph get all bent out of shape. I totally bought in to the idea that Hunter was so offended at the idea that this little bearded gnat was in his ring taking over his show with his fans who, let’s face it, were way more Tri-Lam than Alpha Beta. I love that it caused Hunter’s brain to overheat and smoke at the idea that he couldn’t/didn’t shape that moment. Half kayfabe, half reality, I can see how a guy who is obsessed with being recognized for every little thing he did, whether or not it was that impressive at the time, would totally lose his shit at someone taking over what’s supposed to be HHHtv (Vhhh1?) and writing his own history that has Hunter as a passenger rather than the driver.

I bought in.

Thing Number Three!

Bray Wyatt, eater of worlds, maker of sense.

Wow.

I mean…

Wow.

Such an incredible character, so charismatic, so interesting, and scarily dead-on in his observations. He’s just a creepy bastard, and he might be the perfect foil for who/what John Cena has become.

I mean, I know I went full-on Fanboy about Rock vs Cena and whatnot, but that was an Alpha Male Pissing Contest that I just happened to have a strong emotional attachment to.

This shit right here though?

Lawdy, lawdy.

John has decided to go all-in and really sell the fear, the confusion, the doubt, the crisis of faith that the undeniably brilliant Bray Wyatt character is supposed to instill.

I’ve said for a while that WWE won’t have a storyline based on anything but ego or anger or vengeance, but for one of the very, very few times in the last 16 years since I re-joined the wrestling watching ranks, they are exploring those themes to fantastic results.

***

So that’s what’s got me turned in and turned up for WrestleMania XXX: Beads For Boobs. For the first time in a long time, there is an emotional component for me, there is an intriguing storyline component for me, there are folks and bits to incorporate into my own life.

I have bought in at the time when WWE wants you to buy in, at a time when their stock — literally and figuratively — goes up. Everyone goes in for RumbleMania season and while it got off to a slow start, the Road to this year’s WrestleMania is INFINITELY more interesting than the road to last year’s, even though the same thing happened and the card got leaked early, which meant we extrapolated who would have to win and who would have to lose, which meant we were essentially sitting on spoilers for 6 weeks until we got some New. In any event, I’m excited, I’m interested, and as if I needed any other incentives, HULK HOGAN will be back! Invested indeed.

Now all we have to do is hope that the market doesn’t crash this Sunday.

This has been Suspension of Disbelief.

Rey Mundo is a seasonal contributor to Inside Pulse with a penchant for hugs, the musical stylings of Kanye West, and an unfortunate sinus infection that gave him the day off to write this.