Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Why so subtle?



The new storyline involving Jack Swagger and Zeb Coulter (Dutch Mantell) peaked my interest right away when it started. First of all, I really like Dutch Mantel and secondly I think adding an old hand to a young superstar who has potential is always a good move. However, in its short time on television it hasn’t gone the way I thought it would.

When Zeb first took the microphone and cut his promo, I was interested because I saw how edgy this sort of angle could be despite Zeb’s subtleness. Thoughts of Col. DeBeers and his incredibly racist programs entered my head, I thought about Greg Valentine and the Junk Yard Dog, and other angles on this wavelength. With a Mexican World Heavyweight Champion, it wasn’t hard to see where this was going. Sure enough Jack Swagger won the number one contender spot and will battle Alberto Del Rio for the World Title at Wrestlemania. However the most recent Raw has seemingly taken this in a direction that I didn’t expect. 



Friday, January 4, 2013

The Emancipation of a Babyface…



When Alberto Del Rio and Ricardo Rodriguez saved the Spanish announce team from 3MB at the recent TLC PPV, I was taken aback by how silly this face turn seemed. The Spanish announce table being constantly mistreated by everyone has never elicited a reaction from a wrestler, Hispanic or not, for anything other than laughs. However here we were, Del Rio and the also recently turned baby face Miz were teaming with the Brooklyn Brawler against 3MB and the crowd more or less just accepted it. Del Rio of course has recently run over Santa Claus bringing into question how long this face turn is going to last, but this caused me to think about other ridiculous face turns. There are plenty, but none stick out anymore in my mind than the turn of the Mighty Hercules.  


When Ted DiBiase arrived in the World Wrestling Federation he made a point of showing that he could have whatever he wanted because of him enormous wealth. The Million Dollar Man had paid people to kiss his feet, wipe sweat off his body, paid other wrestlers to take his matches for him, and he even paid for a random person to get plastic surgery to look just like Dave Hebner in an elaborate scheme to try and steal the WWF Championship (however Jack Tunney put a stop to that). For weeks DiBiase was bragging about a special new possession that he had acquired, and on Superstars of Wrestling he was interviewed by Gene Okerlund with Bobby Heenan, Virgil, and Hercules present.



DiBiase declared that he has acquired something that few men have had the money to own and even fewer had actually purchased. He then handed Bobby Heenan a gold briefcase supposedly filled with cash for his purchase and announced that he had bought himself a slave! DiBiase, Virgil and Heenan laughed as Hercules smiled along and flexed apparently oblivious of why he was probably out there with Heenan. Gene Okerlund, somewhat accepting that you can own a slave in 1988, asked him who his slave was. DiBiase then announced that his slave was none other than Hercules! Not surprisingly Hercules wasn’t pleased by this. He confronted Heenan about it, and when his back was turned to DiBiase he was attacked by The Million Dollar Man and his bodyguard. After a good beat down, Hercules made a comeback and chased them off.

Perhaps DiBiase didn’t think that Hercules would mind being his slave and would just accept being bought. If you had followed Hercules’ WWF career, you would know that he originally was managed by “Classy” Freddie Blassie before his contract was sold to Slick, and then not too long after that Bobby Heenan had purchased the services of Hercules from Slick. Despite his previous acceptance of being bought and sold by managers he balked at DiBiase’s claim of ownership. Now one would think in 1988 that a claim of owning a slave would be a pretty cut and dry case, but that is not so in the WWF. Researchers for both DiBiase and Jesse Ventura had found evidence that this slavery contract was in fact valid. DiBiase, not wanting to be bothered with going through the legal system, agreed to put Hercules’ freedom up for grabs in a match on Saturday Night’s Main Event. If Hercules could beat Virgil he would be a free man. 

Luckily for the abolitionist movement, Hercules won his match against Virgil and it was no longer a question of whether or not he was a slave. Hercules was a free man and perhaps more importantly a full-fledged babyface. The Mighty Hercules would battle the Million Dollar Man and other heels for over a year getting cheered by adoring crowds everywhere.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Wrestling's greatest love story...


There has been a lot of wrestling storylines and angles based around love interests. Currently on RAW you have an angle (that I hate) involving a young lady named AJ who is trying to vie for the attention of C.M. Punk, Daniel Bryan and previously Kane. In the past we have had iconic marriages such as those of Billy & Chuck, Macho Man & Elizabeth, and Uncle Elmer & some broad. Romances budded between Eddie Gilbert & Missy Hyatt, Hurricane and Super Molly, and Jimmy Garvin & Precious. We have also seen bitter feuds over women such as Macho Man vs Ric Flair, Matt Hardy vs Edge, and Jake Roberts vs Rick Rude. However, no other story tugged on our heart strings nearly as much as the romance between Colonel Robert Parker and Sister Sherri Martel.

Monday, July 9, 2012

The man children hated ...



When you think about the WWE from 1990-1991, you really have a lot going on. The Ultimate Warrior dethroned Hulk Hogan for the WWE Title, Sgt. Slaughter turned his back on America and backed Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the Macho King reverts back to the Macho Man and marries his long time manager Elizabeth, and finally the real World’s Champion Ric Flair makes the jump from WCW to WWE with the NWA title. The time period is really stacked with memorable moments which over time have over shadowed the topic that I’m writing about today. However, even with all this stuff going on, I am of the opinion that the most hated man of the time period (especially among children) was none other than Earthquake.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

It doesn't need to be complex...


For people to become invested in a wrestling storyline, it seems today that you need elaborate plot twists, multiple love interests, and most importantly political intrigue involving the “boss” of the company. You must have 20 to 30 minutes of time set aside on each of your television shows for long drawn out discussions between competitors in your main events and you can’t even worry about making your undercard interesting because there simply isn’t enough time.  It would be impossible to create interest in a wrestling angle if you could only devout 2-4 minutes of air time on your shows to promote a match, right ?

Well if you think that, you’d be wrong. 18 years later, I still vividly remember one feud that played out between the 4th tier singles champion in WCW (4th because had two World Titles, WCW & WCW-I) and an announcer. I don’t remember it because it had a lot of time devoted to it, or because it had a crazy storyline or finished with an insane gimmick match; I remember it because it was a straight forward, easy to understand story and led to an amazing wrestling match. I’m taking about is the feud between WCW Television Champion "Lord" Steven Regal and “The Living Legend” Larry Zbyszko.