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Ahhh.....the world of wrestling. What's the first thing that
springs to mind when you think about wrestling? The characters? The blood? The
weapons? The girls? The storylines? The titles?
You know what I remember? Mostly all of these things. I
remember a time when the World Title picture was dominated by at least 4 to 5
main event wrestlers, when gimmicks stretched out far out from the down-right bizarre
to the extremely charismatic , when special matches were made to draw in the
crowd and test how far a wrestlers body could go in taking
punishment..........when wrestling was fun. Pure unedited, great fun.
I feel quite nostalgic now. But really I loved wrestling
when I was a child. All those great characters like The Undertaker, The Rock,
Stone Cold Steve Austin, Triple H. All those fantastic matches those people
were involved with like the dreaded Hell in a Cell, a journey through hell in
the Inferno Match, and the brutality of the Hardcore Match.
So what's wrestling like nowadays? Well............there's
John Cena who is the Face of WWE, Gimmick PPVs, a Divas division that had
obviously seen better days, and honestly......no fun at all.
Maybe the time has come to review my own status as a
wrestling fan, and whether my time has come full circle. I will give my
opinions on the times when I first became a wrestling fan and how times have
changed throughout the years. This is wrestling........yeaaaa........
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So where to start? Perhaps a little brief description and a quick
history is in order.
For those who don't know, WWE is a popular (I say popular :P)
pro-wrestling company reaching all around the world, using storylines as the
basis for entertainment and high-profile matches. The head of WWE is Vince
McMahon, whom I will be talking about a little bit in this throwback.
I was 8-9 years old when I got into the world of the World
Wrestling Federation (the popular name for WWE at the time). It was during the
time when the 'Attitude Era' was coming into full swing. The Undertaker was
feuding with the deranged Mankind, The Rock was fast becoming a rising star,
and one of my favourite wrestlers was a man called Goldust (which might explain
a lot about my childhood with my KISS and Joker costumes :P). To be honest I
don't always remember this time of my childhood, possibly because my brother
and me kept beating the shit out of each other (mercilessly I might add with
pillows). But thanks to playing WWE 13, I caught up with what was happening
with the popular storylines.
But it was around 1999/2000 that I got fully committed into
a world I loved and kept looking up results on WWF.com as I went along. By this
time Stone Cold had been out for some time, leaving Triple H and The Rock fighting
it out for the WWF Title in my first memorable feud. I do remember that I was completely lead on by
the result of that match, thinking the Rock had won. However discovered to my
annoyance that Triple H had won. Curse you, you little schoolyard berk. Your ass
is grass!
As time went on, I followed the world of WWF with great
passion watching how a twatty American Olympic Hero (commonly known as Kurt
Angle) became the WWF champion, going into a 6 man Hell in a Cell match.
Obviously there was blood all over the place. Despite this however, Mr. Twat
retained the championship. Because he was a twat.
But the next year, 2001 was a very special year (or a shit
one considering how you look at it). What happened was WWF's rival World
Championship Wrestling (known as WCW went out of business, maybe due to their
heads possibly smoking weed at the time, but I'm sure there were other
reasons). WWF subsequently brought out some of the WCW roster's contracts and
started a memorable storyline called 'The Invasion'. This was essentially WCW
trying to destroy WWF. Another twist was when another wrestling company called
Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) forged an Alliance with WCW and took on
the WWF in the second half of 2001. WWF won at the Survivor Series in November
in a 10 man elimination tag-team match (5 vs 5) and became the dominate
wrestling promoter. Now this is where things get a bit interesting, which I
will come back to later.
After this Pay-Per-View, the 'Attitude' Era slowly passed
way towards the 'Ruthless Aggression' era, and quite annoyingly, WWF changed
its name to World Wrestling Entertainment in the early days (thanks to a panda
who sued because it was called Wilfred William Fredrickson who didn't in fact
wrestle and wanted to stop people teasing him about the name). The era
introduced new wrestlers as the destructive Brock Lesnar (who was a twat at
first), a young John Cena (whom to some happy wrestling fans no one really
cared about) and an also young Randy Orton (pre-dating anger issue days). But
of course it also welcomed back Old School wrestlers back into the fold such as
the legendary Hulk Hogan (before sex-tapes), the equally iconic Shawn Michaels
(before retirement tapes) and the secondly iconic Kevin Nash (still in his knee
breaking days. Seriously he broke his quads in quick succession in a couple years.
Must have walked under a ladder maybe).
This era lasted from around 2001/2002 to 2008 and contained
quite memorable matches such as the rivalry between Shawn Michaels and Triple
H, Eddie Guerrero vs Brock Lesnar, John Cena vs JBL, Randy Orton vs Chris
Benoit, the list is quite long. However of course more so then any other era,
'Ruthless Aggression' had more tragic and horrifying moments that overshadowed WWE
for many years. I will point out two of the main ones:
1.
Eddie Guerrero was on the up and rise as the
most popular wrestler in living memory. But on November 13th 2005,
Eddie sadly passed away from a heart attack while staying at a hotel. This came
as a complete shock to me and other wrestling fans around the world. The next Raw
became a tribute show to Eddie and all storylines were cancelled. Tributes
poured in and wrestler talked at length about their memories about him (his
close friend Rey Mysterio actually taking off his mask after he had finished
his statement). Nothing like this had happened since the tragic death of Owen
Hart 6 years prior, and it still surely stings in the hearts of many in the
world of wrestling.
2.
Chris Benoit was also becoming a main event
attraction in WWE. However in the course of one weekend in June 2007, his
reputation and good name was systematically destroyed by his own doing. The June
25th Raw show started off as another tribute to Chris Benoit as it
was sadly revealed that he had also died. It was revealed shortly after a
police investigation that Benoit had actually committed the murder of both his
wife and his young son before killing himself over that three day period. Since
then Benoit has been near completely erased from WWE history and no mention has
been made of him ever since. There are many theories as to why he committed
these murders, but as much no motivation has been made clear for these
deplorable actions.
What makes this more sadder is that both men won their
brand's respective top titles on the night of WWE's flagship PPV, Wrestlemania
XX in 2004 and now they have disappeared of the face of the earth. One man
remembered greatly and remains popular to this day, the other with blood on his
hands, his reputation dead in the water. Both events shocked me very much and
writing about those times almost brought tears to my eyes.
A year later, WWE overhauled its image into more family
friendly territory, which has become recently known as the 'PG' era. Gone was
the blood and swearing and hardcore matches. Entering through was a new world
of gimmick pay-per-views, children as the source of market produce, and the
focusing of one John Cena as the company's 'Face' (whom pretty much became a
Hulk Hogan clone from the 80s. Except without a beard............ And the bandana..............and
the initial awesomeness. You can guess I was never a massive John Cena fan from
the off. Twas getting into my rock persona back then).
Now this era has received a lot of criticism from some of
the fan-base (or WWE universe in the loop), some of which I will talk about in
good time.
There weren't many memorable feuds around this time. The two
that stood out I guess were obviously the Shawn Michaels vs Undertaker fued
(which gave the best match in the world at Wrestlemania 25 which I probably
still need to see) and the Cena vs Nexus feud. The former resulted in Shawn
Michaels retiring from the sport and two great matches, the latter resulting in
a failed stable and failed storyline in a way. Also this was a point where I
steered away from wrestling for a time as I was quite busy with university work
so I don't really remember what was properly happening around this time (though
the anonymous GM storyline I kept up with and ultimately found silly when it
came to its conclusion.
But then in February 2011, The Rock made a surprise return
to 'home' and proceeded to rip apart John Cena. Because only The Rock could do
that with great awesomeness. Over the months, things slowly changed in terms of
content, such as swearing slowly became common-place once more and apparently
chairs and the steel steps around the arena being used as well. Everything
cultivated in July that year when CM Punk worked a promo, berating John Cena
and the current product. That same month, CM Punk won his first WWE
championship.
The 'PG' era thus became the 'Reality' Era, where use of
tweeting (which I found kinda stupid) and other social media to promote the WWE
into a new limelight (which worked ingeniously with the accidental racism in
one of the characters. Luckily that was quashed and no-body remembers
it......there's no elephant in the room......Honest!!). Of course there were
rises of new superstars such the ever-hungry Ryback, the Triple H of the past
rip-off Damien Sandow and the new recent stable from WWE's developmental grounds,
The Shield.
I think the company slightly improved now, but still the way
that storylines and characters are played out, there is a great divide between
the main event stars and the middle to lower stars in terms of.....caring? that
too strong a word?
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Now for my views. What's changed since I started watching
and what's changed now? What I would like to go into is 5 major points that I
think are appropriate to look at some differences between then and now.
1. 1. Main event stars.
In the past you had a number of
superstars to love and loathe. You had Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock,
Triple H, The Undertaker, Kane, Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, Shawn Michaels, Mick
Foley etc. You had at least 10 main event stars from that time period so there
was someone to like out of a good even number. Nowadays you have obviously John
Cena, Randy Orton........erm......Ryback? (yea he's getting pushed into the
main event scene), Alberto Del Rio, Sheamus, CM Punk. At least 5 superstars wrestling
on a full time basis. That's nearly half of how many superstars were in the
main event 10 years ago.
There is a bit of choice there
still, but really for me I don't personally care about these people. CM Punk is
probably the most popular out of these guys, but actually he hasn't been in a
main event on a PPV for a good while, even as WWE Champion. The company always
puts the emphasis on John Cena in many aspects, even when he wasn't in the
title picture recently with his feud against the "up-and-coming"
Dolph Ziggler (up and coming is a strong phrase, more repeatedly used cannon
fodder against more popular superstars). Even if John Cena is the 'Face' of the
WWE, should you really have ONE person as the overall powerhouse of the
company?
This is something I have been
thinking about for a bit. Fair enough, you need someone to promote the
business. But does it need to be just one person who is made out to be the best
in the world? If everything was equalled out between superstars, it might
showcase them as also the best in the world AND show off WWE's strength in
numbers as having the best superstars in the business. This is possibly a bad
move on WWE's bad, because really one superstar doesn't make a business.
2. 2. John Cena
Cena is one of the most controversial
superstars today. Not because he hasn't done anything bad. But because of the
character he plays on television. A section of the fans really hate him and
want him to turn into a bad character to living things up. Erm......no. I think
the problem is the creative staff in part. Cena is booked to win almost
everytime, and if he must lose, it's due to interference or someone costing him
a match. The last time he lost cleanly (meaning without cheating or outside
interference) was to The Rock at last year's Wrestlemania. And I don't think
anyone remembers the last time he tapped out at all. (They should do a
storyline around that, it would make for interesting viewing!)
Unfortunately, a character like this
is not original. This has happened before in the middle 1980s with Hulk Hogan.
He was booked as the biggest superstar in the world and lost sometimes by
interference in matches and was cost world titles matches as well. However when
Hogan stayed down, he stayed down. Cena does not. Going back very quickly to
the Cena vs Nexus feud, there was meant to be a huge match against a group of
WWE superstars and the recently formed Nexus stable. Cena at one point was the
last man and hit onto exposed concrete. However, Cena recovered quickly and
then proceeded to defeat the remaining two members. Ok some superstars should
be superhuman, but not at the point of being hit onto concrete which should effectively
knock someone out. Interestingly, in a main event last December, John Cena is
about to claim victory by climbing a ladder, yet is pushed over and proceeds to
be knocked out after hitting the ropes below. O_O . Great creative writing WWE!
Just Great!
Now I've argued for that side of
hating John Cena, let's be impartial for a minute and look at the good side of
his character as the 'Face'.
For a start, he is quite popular
with the children in the Make-a-Wish foundation, granting over 300 wishes to
meet him! And apparently, no other celebrity comes close, clocking in around
the 200 mark. That is a really fantastic feat in on itself, and keeps him
remaining popular with the target market. I don't remember reading ever of 'Attitude'
Era wrestlers getting asked to do that, though admittedly that would have
something to do with the TV rating WWE had at the time. Also quite recently,
WWE had a promotional deal with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure (a cancer
foundation) for breast cancer awareness month and of course, John Cena promoted
a pink/black wristband and t-shirt to promote this. So there is a good point to
this character making a connection with children and women, especially when it's
the target audience. It really helps the company to promote him as a hero to
women and kids.
There is also a point that Cena's
merchandise is also possibly a big money maker for the company. If true (and it's
more than likely), then WWE is doing the right thing for the business.
Capitalising on a popular figure would bring in more revenue for any company,
and John Cena would have been raking it in for the last 7/8 years since being
at the top. It would be foolhardy to the point of insanity to NOT have Cena on
TV (which has happened before and ratings dropped. o_o oops).
So really the case with Cena is a
tough one. I think that while Cena is a necessity to the business for his
popular image, his character might need some revamping but not too much so fans
don't recognise him at all. Maybe have him lose cleanly once in a while and
possibly tap out to a superstar that looks capable of doing the act.
3. Domination
The third point I want to talk about is going back to the 5
vs 5 elimation tag team match I mentioned earlier.
One of the reasons why WWE went towards a more edgier product in the first place was that it was dominated virtually by WCW for over 80 weeks. Eventually, WWE overcame its problems and became the dominant force, while WCW floundered and devastatingly crashed due to all sorts of problems (possibly from backstage personal smoking weed. I'm sure even the fans could smell it). When it did, WWE brought out not just WCW but also ECW (because they had all sorts of financial problems, though not on a bigger scale of crap as WCW had). So WWE had pretty much taken out two birds with one stone, becoming the most dominant wrestling promotion in the United States.
One of the reasons why WWE went towards a more edgier product in the first place was that it was dominated virtually by WCW for over 80 weeks. Eventually, WWE overcame its problems and became the dominant force, while WCW floundered and devastatingly crashed due to all sorts of problems (possibly from backstage personal smoking weed. I'm sure even the fans could smell it). When it did, WWE brought out not just WCW but also ECW (because they had all sorts of financial problems, though not on a bigger scale of crap as WCW had). So WWE had pretty much taken out two birds with one stone, becoming the most dominant wrestling promotion in the United States.
Nowadays, WWE has a minor rival in TNA
Impact Wrestling (which would be true in saying that it is WWE's graveyard
where all its former stars go to). But really, TNA is kind of a minnow in
comparison to WWE. No disrespect to any of its fan, but it probably would be
crushed. In fact, it did go head-to-head with WWE for a few months when it
changed time-slots to Mondays, against WWE Raw. However, ratings didn't really
change much and TNA eventually moved back to its Thursday night slot.
So in essence, WWE has no competition.
Nothing to challenge the business in terms of major star power and creative
storylines. Essentially to a Western audience, WWE IS wrestling. And unless one
gets into wrestling, WWE is all we think about. If there was another company to
take up WWE into another war of ratings, it would be interesting to watch. But in
this day and age, it's highly unlikely for the moment. For now, WWE is the
dominant wrestling product expanded worldwide, and there's nothing we can do about
it for the minute.
4. Female Wrestlers
Like the main event stars of the past, you
had many memorable Divas (women wrestlers) ranging across the roster, like the
Canadian's favourite daughter Trish Status, to the high-flying Lita, the
psychopathic Victoria, and the 9th Wonder of the World Chyna (whose
profession nowadays is.........porn. Yeah apologies for destroying any
childhood dreams).
In WWE now, there are...............this
girl called AJ.......and that girl called Kaitlyn.......ok I'm going to be
honest. The Divas division is absolute shit. There are no recognisable
favourite Divas in the company anymore (apart from AJ and she doesn't even
wrestle). During the early part of 2000s, there were many interesting female
characters that audiences loved to watch and loved in general. But leading on
from that, Trish Status and Lita retired in late 2006. Now I'm sure that there
were a few interesting divas after they left. But watching many WWE matches in
today's product, the matches do not last very long at least around 2 minutes in
comparison to some matches lasting at least around 7-10 minutes in the past.
Now one argument could be made that women
could be weaker than men in terms of how much their bodies could take in a
match. However, I counter this with the fact that women have competed in steel
cage and hardcore matches. So that argument immediately becomes invalid (no pun
intended with said meme). There should
be a match of Trish Status vs Victoria at Survivor Series 2002 on Youtube, so
check it out when you find the time. Lot of stuff involving a trash can!
Another argument that continues to this day
is that backstage, the Divas division is taken less seriously. This does look to
be the case. Former diva Gail Kim have aired grivences about the state of the division,
claiming that those in charge didn't want the Divas to upstage the men, and
that they wanted more "girliness" in matches. Another former diva
Tara has said that "a story cannot be told in 4 minutes with 2 entrances".
What she means is that the length of time that WWE is showing the Diva matches
as such a short length doesn't allow a proper storyline to develop. This could
be taken as a criticism towards the creative department for, lack of a better,
not properly using female wrestlers greatly. Also for some reason, Natalya (a
third generation wrestler from the much respected Hart Family) had a farting
gimmick. That didn't go anywhere and annoyed a lot of fans who thought that it
showed the lacking of seriousness taken with the Divas, making it
disrespectful.
However, I think this isn't fully true. In
2011 WWE showed promos of certain TNA wrestler called Awesome Kong, whom was
dubbed 'Kharma'. Immediately, she was a forced to be reckoned with and possibly
create more dramatic tension in the devision. Unfortunately, Kharma had gotten
pregnant and ultimately had to take time off, derailing the character and
taking WWE back to square one. Since then, nothing of significance has really
happened with the division.
The last thing I should mention is how much
competition there is in the division. ............erm is there? Of the 10
members of the Divas roster, 5 of them are not valets for male superstars. With
few numbers, there isn't much competition to speak of, especially if their
title isn't going to change hands anytime soon.
The Divas Division has gone downhill quite
significantly these past few years from the looks of things. With no proper
direction and proper creative storylines to use for the divas, things look to
stay the same, and not for the better. Hopefully, things will change in future,
but for now, use the time for divas matches as a loo break if you like. It's
what everyone else does!
5. The Storylines
Now this will be quite interesting to talk
about. Many internet fans voice a lot of displeasure towards the WWE creative
writers week in and week out for what is shown on TV. Though not to be too
harsh on them, they are having to write and re-write material every week for
approval to go on the show, sometimes even a few hours before the show is due
to air live or taped, and possibly all this has to be approved by Vince McMahon
himself (so you could probably blame him for the Divas problem if you like).
I'm going to try and attempt to look at two storylines from past and present,
good and bad.
The first good storyline I will talk about
from the 'Attitude Era' is what could be considered the longest feud ever to
occur: Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Vince McMahon. It started the night after
Wrestlemania 14. Austin had won the WWF championship and McMahon wanted him to
conform since Austin wasn't, in his eyes, the correct image of a champion.
Austin promptly gave him a stunner. Throughout the year and well into 1999, the
two fought each other with various degrees of success for both sides.
Eventually, the feud ended in July at the Fully Loaded PPV, where Austin won
and early stipulations required that McMahon would never appear on WWF
television again.
This was an immensely popular feud,
bringing WWF back into the ratings war against WCW. There were definite moments
I remember from this and have relived over again as I played WWE 13. I think I
had more fun playing the game than watching the experience! I'm thinking that
this was a necessity for WWE to happen, because if it hadn't then WWE wouldn't
be as greatly remembered then what it was.
Now for the shit storyline. Get a bucket in
case you feel quezy after you hear this. Some of you might remember Mark Henry,
who was in his 'Sexual Chocolate' gimmick at the time. He started going out with
Mae Young. Who was around 70 years old at the time. And then got pregnant. And
got power-bombed through a table. And gave birth. To a hand.
Good thing you got that bucket out didn't
ya? This was a disturbing storyline (though the words Katie Vick might destroy
some more credibility) and completely bizarre. The only defense for this is
that WWE were trying to use different shocking storylines during the Attitude
Era to bring in a more adult audience. Though saying that, I don't think giving
birth to a hand counts. I hope you agree with me on this. Please?
Now onto the present storylines. One of the
more recent ones I got interested in was the CM Punk vs John Cena storyline in
2011. CM Punk had a massive real -life rant on stage about how he is the best
'wrestler' in the WWE, how people kiss Vince McMahon's ass, how he should be
promoted as one of the best, and finally attacking Vince McMahon himself. This
set off fans world-wide and got many people behind him. Eventually everything
came to a head at the July PPV, Money in the Bank. I literally sat up until the
end of the show at 4 in the morning, watching how CM Punk defeated John Cena to
become the next WWE champion. That was properly the best shock I have ever had
watching as a fan. This was quite the storyline by creative and they at least
had something to work with thanks to CM Punk's rant, with a great twist at the
end.
The shit one I can definitely remember was
the Anonymous General Manager storyline. In June 2010, Vince McMahon appointed
a general manager who was to remain hidden for the time being. Over time, it
seemed to be messing with our heads as to who the person actually was, using
different quotes from past superstars. But really, the anonymous GM just went
nowhere and after a year of being used and being a nuisance, they were quietly
dropped, without any revelation. Now I'm guessing your thoughts are: what was
the point? Well he was revealed in July 2012, as the loveable Hornswoggle............BIGGEST
DISAPPOINTMENT EVER!!!! Seriously though, it was crap that WWE had Hornswoggle
as the GM all this time and yet was meant to be built up as a game-changer.
Quite a let-down I must say.
So you see there was quite a major difference
between storylines from the past and now. WWE would go into quite bizarre and
dark storylines during their feud with WCW. But some of them were at the least
consistent and prompted great interest with the fans. It's kind of the same in
today's product, but storylines still need to be thought out properly. Examples
like the Anonymous GM and the Nexus storyline show how storylines with poorly
planned endings can get egg on the company's face. I heard a quote saying that
'Once you have the ending, you can develop the story from there'. Or something
along those lines. That then could make for good storytelling. But don't get me
wrong, WWE do have good storylines. But sometimes they need to think about how
they can complete them with at least a satisfactory payoff.
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The final part of this wrestling I will review is my own
status as a WWE fan which is so easy to do (ha bloody ha).
Nowadays with wrestling, I don't properly watch the shows as
I used to. I use the Internet to get my fix of drugs.....erm WRESTLING NEWS,
like results and hearing backstage know-how. I suppose it takes the fun of it
when you know the results of the shows before their aired, but with live shows
you get the results anyway. Also it is interesting to hear what does happen
backstage with all the wrestlers and seeing who is getting a big push and
what-not.
One thing I'm not massively interested in is the new generation
of wrestlers shown on WWE nowadays. People like Kofi Kingston, Sheamus, Alberto
Del Rio, Cody Rhodes, The Great Khali, even Ryback just don't have that appeal
to me as a fan of wrestling. I don't care about these characters. Children
aren't the only demographic, there are some adult men who like to watch
wrestling (some of them bit more mad then others). But there are some older
wrestlers still there I grew up with. Yet what will happen when all they stop?
I'm not sure I would stay to watch wrestling if I'm not that invested into the
new characters. And if I did, it will because of childhood nostalgia that isn't
even there anymore.
Secondly, the only real WWE products I have brought in
recent memory are of course the video games. And this is where the full circle
notion comes in. I started playing the video games in 1997 with WWF War-Zone,
all the way to WWE 13 which of course features the Attitude Era mode. This is
where I thought it would appropriate to stop with all the wrestling, where I
began my interest all those years ago. Sounds weird I know, but there you go. The
Attitude Era Mode was a nostalgic trip for me and brought me into understanding
that era a bit more than I did at the time. But it didn't make me want to stay
into wrestling for so long.
Yet I still have a ridiculous passion for wrestling, I just
can't escape it. Maybe it's still quite an obsession of mine to keep in my
life, even though none of the characters really do it for me. Though I did give
up watching it, because I didn't want my friends to think I was completely
obsessed with wrestling :P.
I think for the moment, it might be worth while to wean myself
off wrestling for a time at least until after Wrestlemania 29 because we all
know what will happen there anyway. The Champ will Return. More importantly, will
the Fan return? It's only a matter of time......
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And that's my second article complete ! I hope you enjoyed
this edition and keep tuned. Til the next fortnight, this is Si saying: Good
night!
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