Theater of the Absurd: The WWE Week In Review PLUS Wrestlemania Preview
Note: This column normally appears at The Rec Room, but Scott has very kindly allowed me to cross-post to his blog so that I can shamelessly plug my column. If you enjoy it, please head over to The Rec Room and have a look through the other content. My own personal author page is right here with plenty of comic book and wrestling stuff. Enjoy!
You may notice this column is up a tad early and is therefore not technically a “week” in review. Based on the Smackdown spoilers, not much is happening this Friday, and I’d really like to get this up early enough to be relevant.
The TOTA isn’t a standard play-by-play recap. It’s organized by feud/performer, breaking down and analyzing the events of each story as we go along. Typically I ignore minor performers that show up but don’t really contribute anything that moves things forward (hello R Truth!), but this week we’ll go match by match anyway so a lot of those schmucks are sneaking in via the Andre the Giant Memorial Payday Royal.
We have a lot of ground to cover, fawning over Daniel Bryan to do, and ambivalence towards HHH to ponder, so let the festivities begin.
WWE World Heavyweight Championship: Randy Orton(c) vs Grandpa Dave vs ?
This Week: HHH and Steph made fun of us for singing Fandango’s music last year, saying we just want to be a part of the flavor of the month, before showing a hype video of all the internet darlings HHH has buried over the years. Internet hipster types ironically love HHH now because they’re exactly the sheep Steph is making fun of. Dave interrupted in a Georgetown jersey to reiterate that HHH has never defeated him and that Steph is the brawn of the operation, which is actually sort of forward-thinking and empowering for Big Dave so good on him. Orton came out to protest the triple threat yet again. HHH asked if he can bring out the viper, and made Orton vs Dave no DQ. During the match, D-Bry assaulted HHH, getting the better of all of the former Evolution members and sending HHH running. Yes chants erupted in my living room.
Analysis: I spent a lot of time thinking about that HHH video and promo. Way too much.
So everyone loves HHH now because he’s embraced the “IWC” perception of him as a power hungry egomaniac who buries people out of massive insecurity and raging ego. He’s successfully reinvented himself, I’ll admit, by finally settling upon a balance between “cerebral badass” and “arrogant millionaire” that fits without feeling like a lukewarm rehash of stuff he’s done before. I think people saying things like “hur hur I hope he wins at mania just so I can laugh at the dumb mad people dur hur” are overdoing it a tad, though. The only way this character turn works is if Bryan DESTROYS him at Mania – this is HHH’s ascension into full Vince McMahon-esque egomaniacal boss. This is HHH accepting and reveling in the fact that he’s professional wrestling’s Dr. Doom. That’s great stuff, objectively, but the story only succeeds if the villain gets his comeuppance at the end of the chapter (not the story, since it’s an ongoing narrative – just the chapter ending Sunday). Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not wild about rewarding someone for being an arrogant manipulative slime ball just because he admitted to being a piece of crap, you know?
Steph raised an interesting if twisted point: we want to be a part of something. That’s not really a particularly original or insightful thought, but it’s how she twisted it that made it so provocative. Simple, popular things catching on and bringing people together has been the core of pop culture forever. That’s what pop IS. Steph twisted it to make us feel ashamed for liking popular things, to make us feel simple and dumb for cheering for someone, to try to make us question why we even like Daniel Bryan in the first place. A lot of us felt so dumb, in fact, we overcompensated and started cheering (or tweeting, anyway) for the people who pointed out how dumb we are. It’s professional wrestling Stockholm Syndrome.
She’s not ACTUALLY raising a good or even valid point. She’s just doing an amazing job of making you feel stupid, and manipulating you into being a part of something else – ironic HHH hipster love. STOP IT. I am kind of impressed they resisted the urge to edit in a few people HHH never even worked with all that much (or at all) just to screw with us. Edge, Big Show, Christian, Vader, Ron Simmons, even throw some clips of Sting in there just to REALLY send the rumor mill into a panic.
Anyway. I wrote a ways back that they’re trying to artificially recreate “Cena heat” with Grandpa Dave, splitting the audience reaction to him and portraying him as not caring about it. They’re still at it – his attempt at cheap heat by wearing a hometown jersey supports my theory – and it’s still not working. If anything, they’re gonna risk turning Orton face again. He’s inadvertently showing more personality than he has since the RNN days by standing around snickering at Dave’s weird botoxed face and sucking up to Steph. Orton gets a lot of crap, and I’m not saying he’s always my favorite performer, but he’s really great when he has something to sink his teeth into. His character right now is actually the most complex he’s ever been. He’s trapped between his insecurities, his ego, his corporate masters, and his uncontrollable rage issues. He’s obsessed with keeping what he’s got and unsure of how to prove himself, even though he knows he can. He’s effectively neutered himself by signing on with the Authority. He’s kinda fascinating right now.
Prediction: Well, I can’t really get into this without first predicting…
Winner enters the WWEWHC Triple Threat: Daniel Bryan vs HHH
This Week: Raw ended with Daniel Bryan beating the holy hell out of HHH, destroying Dave with a knee plus (are we really calling it that?), and dropkicking Randy Orton to death. Yes chanting ensued as Daniel Bryan Wrestlemania sign pointed.
Analysis: In HHH’s defense, he sold like a CHAMP for Bryan. Flailing on the ring apron like a fish while Bryan caned him, flopping over the steps head first, running up the ramp while hiding behind his wife. Dave and Randy both just exploded instantly upon contact with Bryan, leaving the most popular man in sports entertainment seemingly riding high and strong into Mania…
Prediction: … except… win on TV, lose on PPV, right? It’s pretty much been the only constant in pro wrestling since the Attitude Era: dude goes through a table or whatever on Monday, he’s heading into next Monday with some newly won gold. But they can’t possibly, right? Surely there’s no way. Why go through all of this, and throw us that last minute hope of the triple threat match, just to NOT deliver? They can’t be that blind. They aren’t deaf. Bryan HAS to win, right? And I mean win BOTH matches – not some shenanigans where HHH wins, but Bryan goes to the main event on some technicality, making it a four way. It has to be clean, it has to be strong. This is his retribution. If Monday was HHH’s ascension into full blown Archvillain, Sunday has to be Byan’s final metamorphosis into our new Hero. The hero doesn’t win on a technicality. He just wins.
In a perfect world, HHH taps to the Yes Lock, and then the main event is 30 minutes of Bryan delivering running dropkicks to Orton in the corner and suicide dives onto Dave while he adjusts his oxygen mask on the floor.
Remember the near falls in HBK-Taker? How stressful every single one of them was? How your heart almost leapt out of your chest every time the ref came close to three? The near falls in this match are going to cause goddamn aneurysms. It’s gonna make HBK-Taker look like your infant child blissfully falling asleep in your arms. I am going to need new underwear after the first pedigree kickout spot. Hopefully they’re stocking up on adult diapers at the concession stands or the Superdome is gonna get nasty.
Daniel Bryan beats HHH, goes on to become the NEW WWE World Heavyweight Champion. Anything else is unthinkable… right?
Right?
Bray Wyatt vs John Cena
This Week: Bray said the world is bleeding and it craves change, etc. “Do I have your attention now, kids?” seems like a shot at Punk, maybe? We’ll all see Cena as the monster as he does, eventually. Later, he squashed that young whippersnapper R-Truth before John Cena finally got the better of Wyatt by posing as one of his followers. Cena later told Renee he’ll stuff his foot in Wyatt’s posterior this Sunday.
Analysis: The notes I take during Bray Wyatt promos are becoming increasingly impressionistic, as I find myself more interested in listening and figuring out the overall “feel” of what he’s saying rather than picking them apart. That’s good stuff, right there. He’s definitely grown on me by leaps and bounds the last few months. I almost feel like this feud is going over a lot of people’s heads. When Wyatt says he sees Cena as a monster and says he’s just like Hogan, and they play inappropriately chosen rap music for the video package, he’s essentially calling Cena fake. A product. An act. I don’t really think a lot of people are getting this, somehow. It’s good stuff and an interesting twist on Punk’s old motivation from 2011 – “I hate the idea of you, John,” which is why that “do I have your attention now?” line struck me as a Punk reference (go watch the video package lead in to their match at MITB ’11 – that line is played about 948 times). This feud has got a lot of layers and actual meaning to it, which is pretty impressive.
I’m not sure how well the actual match will play out, though. Wyatt’s character and promos have finally struck a chord with me, but his ring work is still rough. JBL actually had the stupidest and most astute lines of the night during Wyatt/Truth – the former calling Truth a “tough young superstar” (he’s 42 years old! JBL is 47, he’s barely older than him!), the latter when he referred to Wyatt’s offense as “that’s not a move, that’s just throwing your entire body at your opponent.” The latter statement describes Wyatt’s offense in a nutshell. He just tosses himself around the ring laughing and it’s not that interesting to watch after about 30 seconds. He has some moments here and there – his banzai drop to the back directly into a camel clutch, complete with fishhooks, was a nice little sequence that sold his brutality – but for the most part, it’s bowling shoe ugly, as JR would say. Both guys are passionate and professional, though, so I’ll remain cautiously optimistic.
Prediction: Get the upper hand on tv, lose on PPV: Bray Wyatt gets the win, although we’ll see how much it does for him in the long term. I should save my thoughts till it actually happens, but anything less than inciting a fundamental character shift for Cena (which isn’t happening) would be considered a failure for Bray Wyatt’s character, in story terms. He may beat Cena, but he’ll never break him. And since he’s really all about character and mystique that might harm him in the long run. Still, big win over the face of the company, so I’m probably over thinking it.
The Shield vs The Authority
This Week: Kane and Roman Reigns went to DQ after the rest of the Hounds and the NAO interfered. Kane was beat down but the NAO saved him from a triplebomb.
Analysis: Man, being in the ring with Roman really highlighted how awful Kane’s hair is. Even an average man can’t hope to compete with those gorgeous, silken ebony locks, but for Christ’s sake Kane, at least wash out the Grecian formula before you head out there. I understand being a little jealous and wanting to appear more youthful, but you’ve got to just accept it: no amount of cheap black hair dye is going to distract from the flowing mane of pure night that is the glorious head of Prince Roman.
Mostly cruise control this week. I kinda dig that the Shield’s motivation is basically that they’re offended Kane isn’t acknowledging how awesome they are. Between this match and Bryan/HHH, there’s a slight “the Attitude Era just won’t let go” subtext that I really wish had been played up more as a major theme for this Mania. It could have given Sunday a real, definitive “changing of the guard” feel to it. Goldust vs Cody and maybe Cesaro vs Big Show (the Biggest Swing!) would have been great matches to add to that theme, but no dice.
Prediction: I want to say The Shield, because what do Kane and the NAO get out of winning? Why bother? The Authority might win if it’s to build towards the Shield’s breakup (or at least one of them leaving), but I don’t see any need for that either – you could realistically hold off almost another year now. Shield win (Reigns pins Kane).
Brock Lesnar vs The Undertaker
This Week: Undertaker cut another weird, rambly promo only tangentially related to wrestling, and Lesnar interrupted with Heyman in tow. After approximately 4 hours of staring and pacing around, they brawled and Lesnar got the better of it.
Analysis: “When you get in the ring with me, Lesnar, it’s like swimming in an ocean, an ocean of sharks and seaweed, and that seaweed will drag you down Lesnar, and many men have swam these waters Lesnar, these waters you will swim, and they have all seen how far they can swim, Lesnar, and I have swam farther than them because I will go farther than them, so ask yourself, Lesnar, what will you do in that deep water, Lesnar? Will you keep swimming, Lesnar? Or will you doggy paddle? Will you use floaties, Lesnar, or will you use a boogie board? Or will you swim back to the distant shores, the shores so distant because we swam so far, because I can swim farther, and then will you drown, Lesnar?”
For the love of God, stop giving the Undertaker a microphone unless he’s rollin’ rollin’ rollin’.
Prediction: Lesnar isn’t winning, obviously. The only real drama is in the near falls and how convincing they can make them despite the knowledge Taker isn’t losing, and there’s just no way this match is going to come anywhere near Bryan/HHH in terms of underwear-ruining terror. I really, really want to care, but I just don’t, not really. Whatever. Undertaker wins, I’m sure the match will be an entertainingly brutal spotfest.
All The Divas Are Exactly The Same Anyway Invitational
This Week: Vickie announced that the Divas Invitational would be one fall with everyone in the ring at once, AJ lost a lumberjills match to Naomi and Summer Rae defeated Natalya via gentle love tap to the noggin.
Analysis: Before you call me sexist, that header reflects how the WWE views their women, not me. So calm down.
I’m not even sure who the heel is anymore. AJ’s whole schtick is “everyone hates me,” so how does hating her make Vickie the bad guy? Conversely, Vickie is supposed to be a heel, but the only person she ever screws with is supposed to be the most dastardly villain on the (female) roster, so how is she bad? And why do all the non-Total Divas hate AJ? She’s never really done anything to them at all.
None of this makes sense. Its just “all women are petty, but some are nice and some are constantly on their periods.” And they all hate AJ for having, like, three character traits instead of one and a half.
On the other hand, there’s only two titles being defended on this Mania card (a fact I just realized while typing it), and one of them is the Divas title. So the main men’s title and the main women’s title only, which is sort of a step in the direction of equality, if you choose to see it that way.
Prediction: The deck is so stacked against her, I’m actually going to say AJ retains just so she can lose to a debuting Paige on Raw and give us some actual good women’s wrestling matches. Wishful thinking, probably. I’d be fine with Naomi winning, just because I like her.
Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal
This Week: Some guys won and some guys lost entirely meaningless matches to remind us that they’re in the battle royal. Piper’s Pit provided an excuse for everyone to brawl and for Rey Mysterio to 619 Big Show in the scrotum.
Analysis: I’m sure this match will be a pretty fun 10-15 minutes, and I actually expect some of it to be pretty damned good once the deadwood is cleared out of the ring. They’re trying to sell it as a big deal and a new Mania tradition, so expect some pretty big spots here and there. At least half these guys should really be doing something more important on the card. But hey, gotta make sure the New Age Outlaws get their payday.
Prediction: They’re pushing pretty heavily for Big Show, so much so that I assume it’s a swerve. Alexander Rusev takes one of the vacant spots and wins, announces that he defeat all man and soon he will defeat real champion. If he dies, he dies.
Pre-Show Tag Team Championship Match: The Usos(c) vs Rybaxel vs The Real Americans vs Los Matadores
This Week: The Usos and LM defeated The RA and Rybaxel via chicanery. According to the SD spoilers, RA defeated LM in what I’m sure will be a good but forgettable match.
Analysis: All of these guys should be on the main card. Ok, maybe not Curtis Axel, but everyone else. Shut up, The Biggest Traps In The Business deserves a spot. I’m hoping that a few of these guys – Ryback and Cesaro specifically – make it into the Andre Battle Royal to at least get them on the show, but I’m not holding out too much hope for that. A pre-show fatal four way with two real teams, one thrown together pairing, and a comedy duo seems like a sad ending to a year that was supposed to have “revitalized” the tag division. Just one tag match between two teams with an issue, on the main card, would be head and shoulders better for the division better than this. Give The Usos and The RA ten minutes to open Mania and watch them try to steal the show. Not this.
Prediction: Usos retain. They’ve got post-Mania singles plans for Cesaro, methinks, and the other teams ain’t winning. Let’s be serious.
Final Word: I’m actually as hyped up for this Wrestlemania as I have been for any show in years. It should be a pretty great card, with the worst matches set to be glorious trainwrecks or at least interesting in terms of how they play out, and at least one match that may drive me to tears one way or the other.
No joke: I haven’t been this emotionally invested in the outcome of a single match since, maybe, MITB 11. Maybe even more so than then because Bryan is so much more of an unlikely story than Punk was at that time.
I can’t imagine that they don’t want highlight reels ending with 70,000 people chanting “Yes” together, right? He’s got to win, right? Surely there’s no other ending possible, right?
Right?
Thanks for reading, Blog O’ Doomers, and I hope you enjoyed. You can follow me on twitter @theultimatematt to see when the next installment of “Theater of the Absurd” goes up. Peace.