Wrestling - Road to Wrestlemania 29

[Cool Chris]

I loved HHH back around 2000-2002 when I was really in to WWF/E. I thought he was A+ all the way around (ok, maybe he went on a little too long on the mic). Stopped watching for a few years and only casually follow it now, so can't comment on his career trajectory during that time. It do agree with the above about the diversity of Tier 1 talent and developing mid-level talent. 

[KevShmev]

It's sad that a guy like The Miz has been given a spot in the main event at Wrestlemania, but CM Punk never has been.  Miz is destined to be nothing more than a mid-carder, with the occasional main event match in stuff like Elimination Chamber or whatever.  Meanwhile, Punk is overdue to main event WM. Doing Cena/HHH at WM 30 would be terrible, as you know Cena would win, and it is a match that has already been done a million times.  I say, let the Orton/HHH relationship slowly fall apart, with them meeting at WM and HHH finally putting him over clean.  Make these the top matches at WM:

Cena/Punk/Bryan triple threat for the title (assuming this weekend does unify the two world titles)
Undertake vs Lesnar
Orton vs HHH
Shield vs Wyatt family (they have teased them as not getting along, so make this a 6-man tag)

Also, there is talk that Hulk Hogan might be back with the company in some form, and if true, considering he was THE face of Wrestlemania in its early days, it would make sense to feature him in some way at WM 30.  But I doubt he can work a match by himself, so figure out some tag match or something he can be part of, maybe with Big Show, Ryback or whoever.

I know some, given what has happened lately, would like to see HHH and Michaels reform as DX and take on Punk and Bryan at WM.  That probably would be great, assuming DX puts them over, but they'd have to figure out a way to let Michaels come back and wrestle, since his loss to 'Taker forced him to retire.

[Zook]

I know some, given what has happened lately, would like to see HHH and Michaels reform as DX and take on Punk and Bryan at WM.  That probably would be great, assuming DX puts them over, but they'd have to figure out a way to let Michaels come back and wrestle, since his loss to 'Taker forced him to retire.

What's the story with that?

Also, I think HHH is great on the mic. Always seems natural, like Punk or Cena, and unlike lol Orton who sounds like a bad low budget movie villain doing a monologue.

[DebraKadabra]

I had the same reaction as CM Punk did when Stephanie referred to HHH last night as the "king of kings":



In other words,

Punk's reactions through that whole thing were so priceless.  Same with the MEGA pop Bryan got from the home crowd.

[KevShmev]

[Jaq]

Okay guys, here is why HHH is bad and you should feel bad.

Wrestling basically boils down to two guys fighting over something. One wrestler is the heel, the guy you hate. He tends to be in the position of dominance for as long as possible in order to keep people coming back to see him get his comeuppance. The other wrestler is the face, the guy you cheer for. He tends to be the guy fighting the uphill battle, either against the heel's superior ability to cheat or be ruthless, or in his ability to stack the odds against the face. While stories have ebbs and flows, there is one constant that should happen: the fans have to believe that the face CAN win, can overcome the insane odds against them and win.

This brings us to the concept of "putting someone over." In the strictest sense, that's when someone lets the other guy "win." Bear in mind, and this is something that HHH in particular seems to forget, no one is actually "winning" and "losing." The storyline and writers determines which character has the position of strength, but there is no actual competition. "Putting someone over" also means that even if you win, you make the other guy look like a million bucks doing so. Ric Flair was pretty bad in terms of the former-his constant insistence on holding onto the belt for long stretches and going over when he clearly shouldn't have was a major part of the decline of Jim Crockett Promotions back in the 80s-but he was brilliant at the latter.

Lastly, the heel's job in promos is to cast themselves as being better than the face not because he actually IS, but because he thinks he is. The heel is supposed to ignore that it takes desperately levels of cheating, foreign objects, and a small army of bad guy henchmen, and say, in cocky fashion "I'm better than you." The heel has to suggest though that his opponent is better than him, and that despite the fact that the face is always losing, he CAN win. The job of the face is to reassure the audience that he really is better than the heel, that he CAN win, and that the crowd is right to back him.

Here's where Triple H goes wrong. He not only beats the face, he does so decisively. No one will buy tickets to see the rematch because they already know the bad guy won and the hero has no chance in hell of winning. He doesn't show weakness. He's rarely beaten clean in a one on one match. He's never given his in ring comeuppance. This is compounded by his promos. Triple HHH is given twenty minutes of air time to make the opponent look like utter shit. His promos, which tend to be so long they wind up going unchallenged by the face. His victory is a foregone conclusion.

If you want a perfect study in how the storytelling in Triple H matches and angles goes wrong, look no further than his rematch with the Undertaker. WWE actually kind of backed their way into a long running arc at Wrestlemania that worked like this: Shawn Michaels beats Ric Flair in a retirement match. Then Michaels loses in an awesome match against the Undertaker. Michaels, mindful of what Ric Flair did, and maybe wanting to do what Flair couldn't, challenges the Undertaker to a match where if he lost, he'd retire...and Michaels lost. HHH challenges the Undertaker to attempt to beat the man who retired his friend, the man who retired Ric Flair...and LOSES.

The logical follow up should have been "and then HHH challenges the Undertaker to a retirement match, to do what both Flair and Michaels couldn't do, doubly so. Beat the Undertaker at Wrestlemania AND win a retirement match at Wrestlemania." What did we get? We got the Undertaker...the guy who WON, remember...practically begging HHH, the man who LOST, for a WM rematch, and HHH refusing because wrestling him meant the Undertaker would get hurt. The story telling was upside down and made HHH look invincible. It happens all the time in his angles. He doesn't lose. He doesn't put the guy over. There's never a CHANCE he can lose. There's your problem right there.

[KevShmev]

Well said, Jaq. 

We also can't forget a number of times in the last few years where an up-and-coming star is doing this, that or whatever, and HHH comes out of nowhere, pedigrees the guy, and buries him, all for a cheap pop and to make himself look great again, like, "Yeah, this new guy is okay, but I am a legend, and I can come out and bury him in less than 30 seconds any time I want."  You never see Cena do something like that. 

I know a lot of people are sick of Cena, and yeah, the guy wins a ton (because he still makes the company a crap load of money, obviously), but he at least often puts people over in the sense of making them look really good before going all SuperCena and winning (similar to what Hogan used to do in the 80s, when his opponents always came out of the match as the loser, but always looking better than they did before it). 

And don't get me started on Ric Flair's hypocrisy.  He bashed the crap out of Bret Hart for Montreal - ignoring the fact that Bret would have dropped the belt to Michaels; he just didn't want to do it in Montreal that night, and his creative control clause, something Vince gave him, gave him that right - when just years earlier, Flair refused to drop the NWA/WCW title to Lex Luger on a number of occasions.  Then again, I think, despite his status as one of the best ever, most know that he is a piece of shit in real life.

[Syzzle]

You just said everything that makes HHH so great. Honestly the WWE needs to book more heels like they did HHH back in the day.

[KevShmev]

Honestly, I have no problem with a heel who wins fair and square.  In fact, I wish they would do it more often, but that doesn't mean the heel always has to win the feud or every match.  That was the great thing about Flair back in the 80s; as much as he cheated, he would win a lot of his matches fair and square, and even when he was in full heel mode at times, he still had totally clean world title wins over guys like Kerry Von Erich, Ronnie Garvin, and Ricky Steamboat.

I also remember being shocked, but pleasantly surprised, by the way the Sting/Vader match ended at the Great American Bash in '92.  Vader crushed Sting with a power bomb and pinned him cleanly to take the title.

[Zook]

Oh it actually was a retirement match.

[Cool Chris]

I had the same reaction as CM Punk did when Stephanie referred to HHH last night as the "king of kings":

That's his nickname, not any sillier than "The Best in the World."

[DebraKadabra]

Um... I didn't say that.  I KNOW "King of Kings" is one of Triple H's nicknames.

[KevShmev]

The question then becomes, how many nicknames is too many?

[Cool Chris]

Hmm... not sure. Let me check with The Undertaker.

Or Apollo Creed.

[Jaffa]

Okay guys, here is why HHH is bad and you should feel bad.

*snip*

Sorry, but as far as I'm concerned, this is a load of nonsense.  You make it sound like there's only one 'correct' relationship between the good guys and the bad guys, but wrestling would get incredibly stale incredibly fast if every single feud followed the exact same dynamic. 

The heel's fundamental job is to get booed.  The face's fundamental job is to get cheered.  It's that simple.  There are lots of ways for each side to play their role, and there are lots of possible relationships between the two roles. 

You may not like the way Triple H plays his role, but the fact that someone doesn't fit your mold of how a superstar should behave as a face or a heel doesn't mean they're bad.  Hell, look back at Eddie Guerrero - during his championship reign, he destroyed the traditional heel/face relationship by cheating more than all of his opponents combined and getting cheered like crazy for it.  Was Eddie Guerrero bad because he wasn't playing the face role correctly?


And as for the Wrestlemania matches between Triple H and the Undertaker, I think you left out the part where Triple H DID lose their rematch.  You may have issues with how the match was built up (and I agree with you that it was a little bizarre), but I don't know how you can say that "there's never a CHANCE he can lose" when he lost in the example you're using. 

[Dimitrius]

Undertaker at WM is the exception to the rule, because Undertaker will never lose at WM.

[Jaffa]

I understand, I just thought it was odd that he chose the exception to the rule as an example of the rule. 

[Jaq]

It wasn't an example of how HHH never loses, it was the prime example of how everything is booked to make him look the best possible, to the point that the match was booked BACKWARDS and utterly contrary to how it should have been booked. (I called it how his matches AND angles are booked wrong, if you care to re-read my post.) It was a citation of the utterly fucked up booking of the angle, not "HHH wins every match."

If you want a fucked up booking of his MATCHES, Booker T at WM 19 is the perfect example of that. That match saw him kick out of every move in Booker T's arsenal and win after hitting a pedigree and then taking FOREVER to make the cover...after a racially insensitive angle that made no one involved look good. Or how about Summerslam 2003, I believe it was, where Goldberg was getting the pops of a lifetime and HHH was so injured he could barely move, but HHH convinced everyone that jobbing to Goldberg in a one on one match in one of the lesser viewed PPVs was a better idea. Goldberg died right there.

Or hey, here's one for you. He puts over Batista clean at WM. BUT! We get an angle for the rematch where the sole story is "Batista is terrified of the pedigree!" So you figure, okay, the pedigree is going to figure in the finish, and Batista is going to kick out of it and prove he's better. Instead, it doesn't play into the match at ALL and the crowd is left thinking "well he's only champion until HHH hits a pedigree." Even when he loses the story is about him-at that particular Mania, he traded a win over the Undertaker for being one of the symbols of an ENTIRE ERA OF WRESTLING.

There might be other ways to book wrestling, though I take exception with how you saw Eddie Guerrero. As a heel, he cheated massively, gloriously, immensely. As a face, though, he was booked as Clever Eddie, the underdog who used his wits to overcome the heels. But you can't tell me booking one man to always come out on top in a way that never makes anyone look good-and sometimes he even makes HIMSELF look bad-is a good idea.

[Jaffa]

If it wasn't an example of how Triple H never loses, why did you finish the paragraph by talking about how Triple H never loses?  But fair enough.  I agree with you that the build-up to that match was bizarre, so if that's all your point was, no disagreement from me. 

I wasn't a fan of his program with Booker T, and I don't recall his program with Goldberg that well, but I'm willing to concede that it was probably stupid.  So no argument from me on those points, either. 

I will disagree with you on Batista, though.  The fact is, Batista went on to become a megastar, and his program with Triple H was a large part of what launched that.  You can say that the pedigree angle was designed to make Triple H look good, but you certainly can't say that Triple H buried Batista.  Triple H helped make Batista.  Before Evolution, Batista was Reverend Devon's bodyguard.  After working with Triple H (and Flair, granted), Batista was The Animal. 


As for Eddie Guerrero, yes, he was booked as Clever Eddie, the underdog who used his wits to overcome the heels - by cheating, a lot of the time.    I'm not sure why you would object to that.  His theme song wasn't "I mislead, I outwit, I cleverly acquire," it was "I lie, I cheat, I steal."  He wore that badge with honor, and he was the most lovable hooligan any of us had ever seen. 

[Cool Chris]

Booker T

You used in your examples the most annoying wrestler ever. Your argument is invalid

[jingle.boy]

You used in your examples the most annoying wrestler ever. Your argument is invalid

When did he mention Buff Bagwell?

[Destiny Of Chaos]

 Bravo WWE.... you've given me reason to care about a Cena/Orton match. Enjoy the PPV buy... because I don't want to read about what happens.... I need to see it for myself.

[KevShmev]

More importantly, there apparently was an incident with A.J. Lee and Michelle Beadle the other day.  Apparently, Beadle called CM Punk a f*#kface in the parking lot in jest (she admitted this on twitter), and the next thing she knows, A.J. is screaming at her for disrespecting her boyfriend.  Knowing Vince and how much he loves and wants celebrities around, Lee is gonna pay for this time big time.

Also, given Beadle's rep, I would bet good money she and Punk have hooked up before.  Beadle loves to party and hang with athletes, and Punk has never met an attractive gal he didn't do the nasty with.

[Jaffa]

Great tag team title match.

[Destiny Of Chaos]

Tag match was hot. Divas match was good as well.

[Destiny Of Chaos]

Orton clean. Who would've thunk it?

[Syzzle]

That wasn't a clean win by Orton

[Destiny Of Chaos]

That wasn't a clean win by Orton

He won what was essentially a hardcore match with no outside interference..... that's a clean win.

[KevShmev]

I didn't see it, but if there was no interference, then it had to have been a clean win, or at least as clean a win as you'll get in a gimmick match.

[Syzzle]

No interference doesn't automatically make it a clean win. It was a typical ending to a Cena match not clean at all.

[Destiny Of Chaos]

No interference doesn't automatically make it a clean win. It was a typical ending to a Cena match not clean at all.

If there was no interference and a rule wasn't broken....then.....it.....was......a......clean......win.

[Dimitrius]

I was surprise by how good the PPV was! I didn't watch it live, but besides the Miz/Kofi match (which I completely fast forward through) all the rest were pretty good!

I never would've expected Orton to win clean (don't bother with him, DoC, we've established on the NBA thread he's a troll), but I loved how the WWE polled fans to what they wanted the new belt to be called then went and named it whatever they wanted to anyway!

[KevShmev]

Awesome match between Bryan and Orton last night (despite the stupid finish).  Bryan/Orton is becoming like Punk/Cena: they have wrestled each other so many times now that their matches are almost always really good. 

Plus, starting the match early meant that it wasn't your usual quick "let's get this match over with in less than 10 minutes" RAW match, so Bryan was able to use a lot of weardown holds and moves, which is great for a match of that length.  I liked the way he repeatedly worked on Orton's legs.  And Orton sold it really well, even yelling "Jesus!" once when Bryan delivered what looked like a really hard kick to the thigh.

[KevShmev]

Okay, so to recap:

-Not only did they bury Bryan in the feud with Orton, now they have him as part of a heel stable.   After getting the loudest cheers all year, he barely got a reaction Monday night.  Good going, WWE.   
-Lesnar vs. Big Show.  Really?

There is a reason I barely watch this anymore.  I can usually DVR RAW and get through it in about 20 minutes now.  It's sad how badly they have screwed up Daniel Bryan's momentum.

[jingle.boy]

in the WWE... not you.