I don’t
remember the exact moment I outgrew wrestling (the WWE kind, not the legit
“we’re not going to have you in the Olympics” kind). For that matter, I’m not sure when wrestling outgrew me. I was never the biggest fan
of that form of entertainment, but I was born in the ‘80s, so I was witness to
the Golden Age of the “sport”. My
all-time favorite wrestler was (and still is) Hulk Hogan, just like many other
five year olds in the late ‘80s. I took
a break from wrestling for awhile but was drawn back to it by the colorful
characters in the late ‘90’s (The Rock, Triple H, Mankind, the return of Hulk
Hogan). As those “superstars” filtered
out and the old guard said their final good-byes I too stopped following as
closely as I did before (which wasn’t that close to begin with). It’s pretty safe to say that if I hadn’t
started dating a girl whose son, Jake, was enamored with the WWE, I wouldn’t
have any idea what was going on at this stage of the game. That being said, my knowledge of the “good
guys” “bad guys” and “relationships” in this current slate of wrestlers is
still incredibly limited. There are only
a few that I even recognize, and most of those are from watching Jake play the
WWE video game.
Even
without knowing the storylines or all of the wrestlers, seeing wrestling live
can be fun. I’ve been to a few of these
events in the past and found them fairly enjoyable. The one main difference about the past
experiences and the most recent one?
Inebriation.
The first few WWE events I
attended, I was highly inebriated and found that the storylines were much
better (or at least much less silly) because of it. This time, I was stone cold sober and found
everything to be ridiculous. Now, I will
freely admit that I was not invested in the storylines or the wrestlers like I
may have been had I went to one of these in the ‘80s or ‘90s, but they could
have at least done something to entertain.
Isn’t the entertainment industry (which the WWE is a part of) supposed
to be growing and gaining new fans as opposed to just cultivating the old fans
(a common comic book industry move)?
Based on the amount of kids there on Friday night, they are able to tap
into the youth market, but in terms of making things interesting for adults
that were on the “outside looking in” so to speak, they failed to deliver. This is not to say that there weren't adults having a good time there. Aside from a few people that were enjoying their wrestling with a side of $8 beer, there were some adults that were legitimately enthralled by the spectacle, shouting out wrestler-specific catch phrases and getting excited with every fake punch thrown.
As with many events such as this,
you don’t put your best stuff on first (concerts, boxing matches, etc.) and the
WWE followed suit as the first few matches were downright ridiculous. The first match amounted to a “dance-off”
between Fandango and what looked like a reject from Run DMC that swallowed the
buffet table on his way out. The second
match was a character that was obviously trying too hard to be hated (even
saying “hello Rochester” while we were in Syracuse) and a wrestler that I’ve
never heard of before but actually provided the best moves and most energy of
anyone out there for the entire night. There were a few tag
team matches, one that was apparently for the title belt, but seeing as how
this event was two days before a pay per view, we all knew what the outcome was
going to be, as no one was going to lose their title belt in shitty little
Syracuse. This match was supposed to be a three way match between
Degeneration X rejects The Shield and a team of The Miz, Dolph Ziggler, and
The Big Show. Wait, the Big Show? I know the Big Show! Sweet!
Oh, right, this is the WWE, and
there’s no way that the Big Show is going to be wasted on shitty little
Syracuse. Before the match started, Big
Show was sent back to the “locker room” to wait. He was told to come back and sit at ringside
for the main event, but he wasn’t wrestling that night. Big Show did a decent job of pretending to be
disappointed, but there’s a reason that he’s still in the WWE while his
contemporaries made the jump to the movies.
At this point I was justifiably bummed at Big Show’s ejection, and the
match went pretty much as you would expect with The Shield winning and
retaining their title belt.
The rest of the matches were fairly
silly with a lot more “story” than I remember.
Is it just me or has the story become more of a focus since the
revelation years ago that the action was all fake? Speaking of fake, if you were not aware that
these guys weren’t actually beating on each other before, take in a wrestling
match nowadays. You can literally see
the punches and kicks not landing.
That combined with the poor acting on the part of the wrestlers leads to
a sub-par experience for those that need more to their entertainment than oiled
up meat heads prancing around a ring.
Hell, even the “main event” match was lame. This was a decent card, too; Daniel Bryan,
the Face of the WWE vs. Randy Orton, doing a decent Heel turn. These two guys did well in terms of creating
tension and playing to the crowd, but you could tell that they were holding
something back (probably because they had a match for the championship two
nights later on pay per view). Hell,
even having Big Show come out and sit ringside wasn’t much fun. For the most part he was just a big
cheerleader for Daniel Bryan all match long.
When things started to devolve toward the end (after Bryan had won the
match) Big Show jumped in and started fighting alongside Bryan, The Miz and
Dolph Ziggler against Orton and The Shield.
The “good guys” won and they ended the evening by hugging it out (which
makes the fact that Big Show knocked out Bryan two nights later at the pay per
view event even more perplexing).
After seeing this display, I have a
few queries:
·
When did the story take center stage?
·
When did the fighting get so fake?
·
When did the writers get so blatant in terms of
labeling characters as Face or Heel? I know they’ve been steering public
opinion forever, but it never felt this forced.
·
Why isn’t there a troupe of midgets in
paramedics costumes that cart away the loser of each match? And don’t tell me it’s a sensitivity thing
because I’ve seen Hornswaggle.
If you have any answers, feel free
to share them in the comments below.
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