Greetings to all. And to all a good greeting. I missed last week’s column due to the intrusion of the real world, but I am back and ready to continue to fantasy book this new stand-alone PPV concept I like to call The McMahon Games.
The last time we visited this feast, we prepared our meal by establishing one men’s World Champion (Brock Lesnar) and one women’s World Champion (Alexa Bliss). With that established, we are ready to start the show.
We will begin with Vince McMahon in the ring to go through the rules for the night. The McMahon Games will feature every wrestler on the Raw and the Smackdown rosters. The participants will be winnowed down throughout the night in a series of intriguing and unique matches. In addition, the World Heavyweight Champion, Brock Lesnar, will defend his title against an opponent who has never had a World Title shot (given that we just established the World Championship last time, it could be pretty much anyone on the roster.) The Women’s World Championship will be on the line as well as the Cruiserweight title. Finally, the winner of the McMahon Games will win the Money in the Bank briefcase with a guaranteed anytime, anywhere title shot.
The McMahon Games will take the role of the Money in the Bank PPV and matches. They may still be a multi-person ladder match for a future title shot, but it will not include the briefcase stipulation. Vince is tired of paying royalties to Chris Jericho off that idea. Now, without further delay, the McMahon Games begin!
The first event in the McMahon Games involves every male wrestler in the locker room. After Vince leaves the ring, a buzzer will sound and a clock will begin counting down from 2 minutes. The goal, as chaotic as it could be, is to get to the ring from wherever you are backstage before the clock counts down. If you are not in the ring when the two minutes are up, you are eliminated from further participation for the evening.
Now, two minutes is not a long time, and the cameras and announcers are not going to be able to capture everything. But that is okay. What is needed in this two minutes is utter chaos and action. Everyone running, punches being thrown, people tripping each other, etc. The best thing is this part of the Games could be used to continue any existing storylines you wanted to further. And if it is not caught on camera originally, you can always pull clips and refer back to it in future programming.
Think, for example, the locker rooms emptying out onto the ramps. A bunch of guys get to the ring and start sliding in. We see Enzo Amore make a dash for the ring, but Big Cass grabs him and throws him six rows deep into the crowd. Or Dean Ambrose clipping Sheamus’ leg as he tries to get to the ring. We could cut backstage and see a group of wrestlers just hanging onto Braun Strowman as he drags them to the ring. And as the timer goes off, Big Show is on the apron, but not inside the ropes and is forced to the back, disappointed.
Once the timer goes off and the referees send those not in the ring back to the locker room, Vince announces that Phase Two begins now! Phase Two involves all those wrestlers, both Raw and Smackdown wrestlers, in the ring. A Battle Royal begins and will continue until 8 competitors are left. Now, I know Battle Royals are not all that uncommon. Hell, the WWE even has their own twist on a battle royal with the Royal Rumble. But Phase One and Phase Two are mostly to serve as elimination rounds.
Big and not-so-big names would be very active in the battle royal. We’d have people we would expect in there, people like Roman Reigns, Braun Strowman, AJ Styles, Kevin Owens, Bray Wyatt, Seth Rollins, Samoa Joe, etc. But we would see them going toe-to-toe with those we wouldn’t necessarily expect to see, like Heath Slater, Sami Zayn, Jay Uso, James Ellsworth (ffs), Curtis Axel, Chad Gable, Mike Kanellis, etc.
Towards the end, after Braun Strowman eliminated a bunch of people, including throwing James Ellsworth halfway up the ramp, Roman Reigns would dump him over the top rope to thunderous boos. That could even be the final elimination before we got to 8 wrestlers. The ringbell would be rang and Vince would announce the final 8 wrestlers who will continue on – Roman Reigns, Matt Hardy, Cesaro, Big E, Sami Zayn, Kofi Kingston, Rusev, and John Cena.
The Final 8 take a short break as we move on to the Cruiserweight part of the evening. All of the current cruiserweights come out to the ring. Then Vince introduces the Cruiserweight champion – Neville. Neville cuts a promo on the entire division and Vince explains the rules of Phase 3. Apparently, Vince is all about the Battle Royals because the Cruiserweights will not engage in a Battle Royal. But, Vince has been intrigued by the No-Fly Zone movement. Since most of these cruiserweights are more at home above the ring than on the mat, to be eliminated in this Battle Royal, you have to go under the bottom rope to the floor. The kicker is that the winner of the Cruiserweight Battle Royal will get an immediate title shot at Neville!
Everyone would start off fast and crazy. People like Mustafa Ali and Rich Swann would try to remain above the ropes while The Brian Kendrick, Tony Nese, and others try to ground everyone. In the end, after your typical Cruiserweight high flying, crazy spots, and murky allegiances, the final four would come down to Cedric Alexander, Jack Gallagher, Drew Gulak, and TJ Perkins. Gallagher would be eliminated first by Gulak and Perkins. Then Alexander would knock Perkins out of the ring. Gulak and Alexander would beat on each other for a while until Alexander would hit the Lumbar Check and roll Gulak out to the floor.
As soon as Alexander is announced the winner, Neville would attack from behind. Alexander, already having been through a rough Battle Royal, would fight valiantly, but Neville would maintain control through most of the match. These two men would be given another 15 minutes at least after the Battle Royal to tell a nice story in the ring of Alexander hanging on for his life and almost catching Neville several times. Finally, Neville would hit the Red Arrow but Alexander would kick out. The crowd would be eating this up at this point and getting behind Alexander. Neville would go up for another Red Arrow, but Alexander would roll out of the way. Alexander would then bounce up and hit a Lumbar Check on Neville before he collapsed as well.
Eventually, Alexander would roll over and cover Neville, but took too long and Neville would kick out. Alexander would go to pick Neville up, but Neville would catch him in a small package and get the surprise three count while grabbing a handful of tights. Neville would remain the Cruiserweight champion. This would set up Alexander as a hugely crowd-supported challenger and the two men could have a program which lasts a couple PPVs until Alexander would finally go over the top of Neville and capture the belt.
I am going to press pause right here because we are about a third of the way through the McMahon Games now. Next week, we will move onto Phase 4. Just to give you a little sneak peak though, here is how the rest of the McMahon Games will be organized:
Phase 4 – The final 8 competitors will be randomly teamed up together and two tag team matches will take place. The winning teams will move on.
Phase 5 – The World Title will be on the line between Brock Lesnar and a mystery opponent. Lesnar will not know his opponent until the match starts while the opponent would know already. This would put the champion in a bit of a disadvantage. Also, the prospect of a wrestler who has never gotten a World Title shot getting one would be played up by the announcers.
Phase 6 – The two winning teams from Phase 4 will engage in two singles matches, against their tag team partner from that round. So if the team of Wrestler A and Wrestler B won their Phase 4 match, Wrestler A would have to take on Wrestler B in Phase 6. The winners of these two semifinal matches move on to the finals.
Phase 7 – The Women’s World Title will be defended in a Gauntlet match. The Champion will begin the match and each challenger in the Gauntlet will have 2 minutes each. If the challenger can not defeat the Champion within that two minutes, they are eliminated and the Champion moves on. However, if a challenger defeats the Champion in their allotted time, they become the acting Champion and they move on in the Gauntlet. The Champion is the one who has the belt at the end.
The Champion could potentially wear down as the match went on as they faced fresh contenders every 2 minutes. But what if the Champion decided to try to take out the contenders quickly to ease up on the wear and tear. Or maybe the Champion would try to avoid and run for the two minutes each challenger has. This match, while normally in the death slot of a PPV, could be an intriguing and surprising match.
Phase 8 – The main event between the two remaining contenders from the Phase 6 matches. The Money in the Bank briefcase and contract will be on the line, but it will not be a ladder match. Instead, the match would be a No-DQ, falls count anywhere match. After everything these competitors have been through during the evening, this final, brutal match will decide the person most deserving of holding that briefcase.
I hope you are enjoying this so far. Until next week…
