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| This is good, especially this year, but they need better company Photo Credit: WWE.com |
However, I get this nagging feeling sometimes that this year's Mania is a watershed moment in that it's now going to be the place where the guys who already made it as stars get to nab all the top matches, whether they be the current crop of guys like Rock, Lesnar, Jericho, Triple H, or Undertaker, or a whole new cadre of wrestlers who may or may not include Steve Austin, Batista, Sting, or Kurt Angle. It's great to have the open palette for Mania, but when the intake gets clogged too much with the people whose career is something other than professional wrestling, you start muddling the narrative.
It's not like WWE is a clean-running engine when it comes to its own internal storytelling anyway. There are examples each week of the spoken word saying one thing and the actions on the screen saying another. Cena is the clearest example with his "OVERCOME THE ODDS" character that hasn't had to overcome a single deck stacked against him since maybe, MAYBE, WrestleMania XX, and arguably, that was only because we didn't know he had it in him to whip Big Show in his sleep with relative ease. Sheamus as the face of their anti-bullying campaign out of the ring and being the biggest bully in the world inside of it was another good one. Oh, and how about "smart, sexy, powerful" Eve Torres who broke down in the middle of the ring crying to Cena because their fiendish plot was found out?
But if WWE takes away the kernel of the ultimate dream of any wrestler to headline WrestleMania, then what would the company be instead of a pit of lies? How can I, the viewer, be expected to be invested in any wrestler who isn't a part-timer or the upper echelon of the company (which right now, consists of two guys) to be a Mania main eventer? That question is actually disingenuous. I'm a full-service wrestling fan. I'm with WWE for the entire year, and so my favorites like Mark Henry, Daniel Bryan, Dolph Ziggler, and Antonio Cesaro have my devotion whether they get The Rock in the main event or a random appearance in The World's Largest Harlem Shake.
However, it's not me that WWE has to worry about. I'm a wrestling fan, if we're going back to the K. Sawyer Paul model of nomenclature for what kinds of fans watch this wonderful art. It's the fans of characters and the fans of movements that they need to concern themselves with. The characters that people who only order Mania for aren't going to be around forever. What happens when Rock considers his story in WWE done or when he finds the grind of doing a bunch of movies a year PLUS wrestling part-time too much? What when Lesnar decides after WrestleMania XXXI that he's had his fill of the wrestling business in total and either retires to become Jimmy John's spokesman or tries a MMA comeback? They'll have to be replaced.
The fans of movements might not seem like they're there, but in all actuality, I almost feel like "watching WrestleMania" is a movement in and of itself, or at the very least, it's part of the pan-sports movement that has seen a lot of the more influential writers in the alternative sports media immersing themselves not only in the major stuff, but in nascent or underexposed sports in America like soccer, MMA, tennis, golf, and yes, professional wrestling (even if it's totally not a sport). Now, WWE can be happy with those people who order the event every year and not concern themselves with building up fans of their full year of goods and services, and they can do very well for themselves just doing that. However, I don't think I can reasonably expect the average person to drop an increasing amount of money on WrestleMania every year when the cards don't seem as special.
The key to keeping everyone happy, or at least attempting to keep everyone happy, is to keep the dream alive, to keep "main eventing WrestleMania" as not only THE goal for every wrestler on the roster, but one that is attainable for more full-time guys than CM Punk and John Cena. I don't mean to say that part-timer vs. part-timer matches or part-timer vs. Cena/Punk matches aren't viable. Fuck, Punk/Rock to me is the only choice to headline Mania XXX next year. I'm also not saying to PUSH EVERYBODY, because when that happens, you get 1998 WWF, and the last person's plan of action to emulate should be Vince Russo's.
But there needs to be the dream to stay alive for wrestlers to be in big time main event-level matches at WrestleMania. I don't know whether it should be Bryan, Ziggler, Ryback, or whomever next year. I just know that someone fresh to the upper upper echelon has to have a big-time match (and no, a World Heavyweight Championship match against either Jack Swagger or Alberto del Rio does not count at this point). WrestleMania is a special event because the legends come out. They always have. However, at what point does WWE need to start cycling in new guys into the firmament?
If they were smart, it would be next year, and they would be regular about it. I'm not saying WWE has to do it OR ELSE ARMAGEDDON, but man, it would be nice for the narrative to be whole, not to feel like I was watching one show from May to December, and a whole other one for WrestleMania season.
This post was inspired a lot by Episode 77 of the International Object podcast. Listen to it, and by God, subscribe to them already, geez.