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| If you squint really hard, you can see Piper and Hogan there instead Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Now, of course there are major differences between that abomination of a feud from WCW and this one that's starting out right now. For one, Hulk Hogan led the nWo, and Barrett only used to lead a renegade group bent on takeover. Also, Barrett's Intercontinental Championship is probably the fifth most important title in WWE right now after the the World Heavyweight Championship, Undertaker's Streak, the WWE Championship, and Being John Cena, not the most important like the Big Gold Belt was. Also, Roddy Piper was pretend-Scottish, not for real-Irish. But then again, carbon copying is not needed to elicit feelings of deja vu. There's definitely a striking similarity between the two stories, and that's a bad thing, not because of the unoriginality (remember, wrestling is built on copycats and rehashes), but because the source material was dreck to begin with.
Eric Bischoff's WCW was doomed to fail from the start for several reasons, one of which was that he had a propensity to have wrestlers feud over things that weren't germane to professional wrestling nor were they compelling enough to port over to wrestling. There are non-wrestling tropes for sure that can believably make someone think that a sanctioned fight within the squared circle would solve the issue. Starrcade '96 had one of those on its undercard, with Jeff Jarrett defending the honor of Kevin Sullivan in a fight with He Who Shall Not Be Named over the snaking of Sullivan's wife. I can believe that someone would want to beat the piss out of another man with the convenient guise of "sanctioned wrestling match."
However, feuding over who was the bigger movie star? Really? That's what WCW and Bischoff were going for to close out their most important year to date? Hogan and Piper could have fought over any number of things germane to the New World Order's takeover of WCW, which at that point was still new enough to feel like it should have dominated the main event in a way that didn't involve movies or even worse, legal bullshit wrangling (perhaps the most signature of Bischoff's favorite idiotic wrestling storyline devices). If it was bad in WCW 17 years ago, what makes anyone think that it's good today?
Good wrestling feuds require a connection with the crowd. Having Sheamus come out and basically pick a fight with Barrett over his bit role in a movie seems not to have the kind of connectivity that would end up as productive. If anything, it shows an organizational cognitive dissonance. The writers know that the fans hate the endless shilling for WWE movies or the fact that it takes wrestlers they dig like John Cena and The M... err, John Cena off-camera for extended amounts of time. The popping may not really be for the fact that they wanna see Sheamus beat up Barrett for a legitimate reason, but that it could end up as their way of saying "WWE movies are stupid! YEAH!"
But at least WWE has an avenue to make money off these movies. I'm not sure WCW was making money off Santa with Muscles or whatever shitty movie Piper was off making. Still, the historical precedent is there, and it evokes the old cliche "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it." As I remind you guys from time to time, cliches don't become cliches because they don't have a kernel of truth to them. The sadder truth is that neither Sheamus nor Barrett are as established as Hogan and Piper were. They don't need rewarmed gruel from the pits of WCW's submarine galley to get memorable connections with the crowd. They need time to wrestle and something that will evoke more than schadenfreude at how shitty an endeavor WWE Films has been for the fans at least.
One last note, if you want historical perspective on all this? Do yourselves a favor and listen to the What A Maneuver! Podcast. You'll be reminded that the good ol' days weren't always good, and that tomorrow may not be as bad as it seems.