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| Matches: so good, Everything else: so bad Photo Credit: WWE.com |
However, we're at the point where if the feud ends now, we'll be deprived of what they've been able to do in the ring. I know that sounds really weird to ready for some of you, given how much of a hate boner people have for him in the ring. However, I've always dug what he could do as a wrestler, but that being said, even I was starting to get a bit underwhelmed by his matches. But then he started feuding with Cesaro, and holy shit, the matches. They got good again.
The Elimination Chamber match was put together so well and centered around an injured body part the way that dudes how cursorily work the arm for plaudits only could dream of executing. Both guys bumped their asses off, and while the finish was a bit off-putting, I thought it was brilliant to portray the European heel as a flopper. WWE wants to be considered sport-like, right? Then playing up some of the more unsavory aspects of sport for heel heat is the way to go. Their match last night had similar strains of brutality in it, especially with Cesaro getting drop toe held into a chair, wrecking it. Again, the finish was a bit disappointing, but it was slick and made sense.
So that begs the question, if a story absolutely sucks or has no point, is it worth telling if the action in the ring is far above average? Obviously, there are going to be people in the peanut gallery who will chime in and say these matches have been mediocre or worse, but the point isn't so much that Miz/Cesaro has been an objectively excellent ring feud. It's that I've found it to be superb while the story has been bland at the very best. This isn't the first feud that has suffered from this fate, and I'm pretty sure there have been situations even this year for people across many companies where the story has blown or drawn out for too long, but the matches were stellar. The most recent WWE example was probably Randy Orton vs. Christian. I didn't think the matches were as good as people said they were outside of the first Smackdown title switch, but hey, again, it's all subjective.
But yeah, is a story worth telling by the execution of the main driving action alone? In movies, bad scripts usually can't be saved by explosions or great fight scenes, but the funny thing is that they do a good job masking those bad scripts. How else could the Michael Bay Transformers franchise make gobs and gobs of money? I don't want to speak for everyone, but it almost feel like if you put on a gaudy enough spectacle, some people will forgive awful dialogue or storytelling. Some others might have thought the stories those movies told were good, but that's a debate for a film blog. And by debate, I mean troll piece.
With pro wrestling, I feel like while acting, promos, and stories are important, the action itself is paramount. If it wasn't, then it wouldn't be wrestling, it would be some kind of theater, serialized or single-serve, with the action as a backdrop. I hate to get existential here, but the match is the thing. If two guys are going to get together to have good matches for the sake of seeing which guy is "better," isn't that all the reason that people need to have a story in this milieu?
So with that reasoning, WWE got it backwards, or at the very least, they dressed up a feud that didn't need dressing up. The only thing needed was to have Miz want to go after the United States Championship and have Cesaro accept his challenge. Obviously, they could have booked the finishes or the sequence of matches a lot better. I didn't say this was a triumph of creative will, just that the wrestling was good, okay?