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| How much RKOCorp is too much? Is it too much already? Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Butch: A hearty hale and hello to all the Blogites; your intrepid Main Event and NXT reviewer Butch Rosser here from the hypersunny shores of San Diego to bring you another edition of Coast to Coast. This time, with the boss cranking out content the way Walter White generates the bluest need for a dental plan, I turn to a friend of mine - Mr. Sean Williams - to ping-pong e-mails back and forth through the pneumatic tubes that constitute the Internet.
This is probably going to be a very different edition of C2C since one of us is going to be the good cop (hint: the handsome one of us) and the other is going to be the KILL IT WITH FIRE cop (hint: that'll be Sean). But let's get into the storyline that's dominating the eyeballs and the industry right now: RKOCorp is stamping out dissidents, and the Shield playing Condor Security to the McMahon familia's apple-eating Wink. Opinions range from what I've seen, but I'll be the first to stipulate that my reserved hosannas for officially turning RAW into the Daniel Bryan v. the 1% Show are completely dwarfed by Sean and people like him frustrated that for five consecutive shows they feel that the overarcing storyline can't get any blacker unless Stephanie was to Pedigree everyone's favorite pet goat. Sean, you're the bad cop here; start cracking skulls.
Sean: The sad part here, Mr. Rosser, is that I feel like I'm the protagonist of an episode of the Twilight Zone, fighting against things we as long time fans have been craving for years and years out of Double Double E. The twin goals of long-term story building and heels with actual teeth seemed impossible for a company riding hustle, loyalty and respect (along with saying ones prayers, not trusting anyone, and it not mattering WHAT your name was) to economic success, media prominence...and more than the occasional yawn from long-time fans and purists who wanted something different.
We have a clear long term story direction - Daniel Bryan fighting for what he believes in, for the career that he wants, for the right to be a professional wrestler in a company of sports entertainers run by the very man who made "wrestling" a dirty word. We have other potential heroes oppressed for the fact that they are just that, potential heroes, men with consciences in a time of misguided corporate greed. And we sure as Hell have our villains, The McMahon-Helmsley Era 2.0, Age of Orton II, Big Brother, whatever you want to call them. Everything SHOULD be just hunky-dory, and for many, including many writers on this esteemed Wrestling Blog.
And yet and yet and yet like so many Twilight Zone protags over the years, I have what I claim to have wanted all along and now suffer from a serious case of buyer's remorse.
Where do I start? Daniel Bryan has been left laying for six straight shows, if we count SummerSlam as the start of WWE turning the clock back to midnight of 1984. Six shows in this modern era, of course, doesn't even constitute three full weeks -- it just feels like it's been two months already. If it was just Bryan, though, that would be one thing, but the resistance has been crushed before it could even get started -- the dissent of Cody Rhodes, Dolph Ziggler, The Miz and The Big Show smashed in utero. People are praising the long term nature of this storyline, but they've rushed straight from a democracy into autocracy in basically a week, with the past two weeks serving to hammer home the same points already introduced. Why not let the revolution get SOME traction before Hunter morphs into the E's benevolent dictator?
I do appreciate the fact that apparently Triple H is genre-savvy enough to ruin everyone's good time, but seriously, Hunter, dial it back a little bit? Spoiler alert - the reason the Corporation and your father-in-law drew huge money against Austin is Austin got to beat the crap out of and humiliate them on a weekly basis. No one is buying a ticket to see your twenty minute speeches make their glorious return out of mothballs, or even the Shield and Randy Orton conduct a weekly beatdown so similar to the last that it makes me wonder if I'm watching last week's RAW on DVR.
People say give it time, and to them I say NO HEELS have ever, in the television era, been treated this well. The New World Order was not booked this strongly. Let me repeat that, because it's contentious but true: The nWo was never booked as overwhelmingly strongly, show in and show out, as the McMahon-Helmsley Era 2.0 has. Maybe I'm brainwashed by a decade plus of no alternative to WWE's relentless babyface-centric booking, but the Four Horsemen never looked this infallible either. Would Stone Cold Steve Austin have ever been left laying six straight shows, Mr. Rosser?
The answer to that question is a firm "oh Hell no," and that's because the Corporation of THAT era understood that its role was to make the guys opposite it, not vice-versa When Steve Austin got beaten down, you KNEW a response was coming, and it was probably going to involve a large vehicle of some kind, many Stone Cold Stunners, and multiple Steveweisers being drank over the unconscious bodies of several Corporate schlubs.
I watched Monday Night RAW this week looking for the revenge of Daniel Bryan. Or Dolph Ziggler. Or The Big Show. Or, well, anyone, but no, everyone is cowed in fear of the mighty HHH -- who, if my memory serves me correctly, had a vote of no confidence taken against him a few years ago resulting in the loss of his position. Can we do that again, please? I'm almost hesitant to bring this up for fear that the WWE will find some way to use it to make the babyfaces and the entire roster look even worse than they already do, but that's the rub of having watched this product since Curtis Axel's father was telling us we were gonna see a PerfectPlex.
What happens when you put babyfaces over exclusively since, well, the Iron Shiek got legdropped in...say it with me, folks, 1984? Your fanbase gets used to the way you do things. Sending the people home happy has been the defining trait of the WWF for practically its whole existence. There's a difference, though, between being okay with them being sent home disgruntled a few times to help build a story, and doing it six straight shows with no end in sight. Fool me once,, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me six times, and, well, I'm off to watch Main Event and NXT, WWE programming free of the tendrils of McMahons. At least the Shield WRESTLES on Wednesday nights.
Your turn, Butch. Talk me down from this ledge I'm on before I go buy a "Ten Years Strong" shirt off WWE Shop and begin waxing nostalgic of the days when The Champ Was Here.
BR: Actually, you may want to go back onto or completely off of that ledge when I mention the nWo was completely booked that strongly: within a couple of months the Outsiders won the tag belts and the Big--er, Giant had jumped ship. Before Thanksgiving they'd have Bischoff in their pocket as well. The biggest hero moments in Dubbya Cee for the rest of the year when the black and white express got rolling? Sting's half a minute hope spot at Fall Brawl (followed immediately by WCW losing) and Roddy Piper winning a non-title match at Starrcade. See, while I've been waiting on your response I've been continuing to read Phil Jackson's autobiography. This means I'm getting Cliffs Notes spirtuality, and hilariously enough in universal convergences not five minutes after your response I read a quote from the Buddha.
It's pretty much this, as every Princess Bride fan knows: life is suffering, and the reason why people suffer is because the reality of their life conflicts with the image in their head. You know, things like the nWo not being booked this dominantly and forgetting things like Bryan spray-painting Orton's courtesy vehicle last week. I'm fine with alluding to Austin without ripping him off wholesale; let DB be DB and Austin be Austin. This is what Shoemaker referred to hipster wrestling, I feel, because it's safe to say if it wasn't the McMahons and Orton - if the Shield and the Wyatt Family had formed some sort of uberstable, say - everybody complaining wouldn't be doing so or wouldn't be as much.
But not your camp, no; you hated Triple H and Orton before everybody else did. You loved Bryan Danielson before these snot-nosed punks in the seventh grade who're suddenly on the bandwagon. You moved to Brooklyn in 1996, you never sold your vinyl, have a caramel. Babyface-centric is an understatement, Sean. From the week before the Super Bowl until the Summerslam Pedigree a babyface was the WWE champion, and probably two of the biggest five in the history of McMahonamania. You bring up the old Corporation but watching the Union form was awkward if logical, and it may've been that awkwardness that doomed its long-term potential.
And the Resistance is already in place. Nobody stays away in wrestling; the moment he finishes honeymooning, Cody Rhodes is going to be back and more over than he's ever been in his life. Last night's match with Orton and his borderline Hard Times Daddy promo post-match did that, and you're not served by him winning it. Oh, by the way, for those scoring at home, that's another Orton victory clean with the RKO that he looked good to great but not infallible in eventually winning.
I'm sure Ric Flair didn't bounce around for 15 minutes and then win with a figure-four on WCW Saturday Night in Year Orwell, not ever. But I digress. People want Big Show to Do Something RIGHT NOW, thus completely eradicating another year of his wibbly-wobbly alignment adjustments into a clear babyface role. The ironclad contract is starting to play into the story, and it's not a matter of if, but when he snaps out and drops a Facgimer that the ramifications of that will be felt and not just alluded to by the (ugh, hate this term but there isn't another good one) IWC.
Everybody seemed to love Dolph Ziggler bumping because it's awesome, but now it also has necessary pathos behind it. He gets in a couple spots to show off and then he goes Full Ziggler and loses. It's making him a babyface when his turn was wibbly-wobbly and his slutshaming AJ to gain that sympathy in a way that had some side-eye potential has turned into him shutting up and getting beaten up undeservedly. That's completely sympathetic, not being the latest ex of and making poking fun at a 90-pound woman with mental issues.
Even the Miz -- oh, look, it's another member of the roster who's a former World/WWE Champion who's turn was incomprehensible at best and not connecting to the fanbase at large at worse! Is the same thing happening to him? On a lower scale, yes. It's almost like there's enough people in there to form a multi-man team for some sort of big name pay-per-view event coming up in the near future!
And I'm pretty sure the reason you and your camp are saying there's no resistance and they're dead in the water already after two and a half weeks is because of Terra Ryzing being the man behind Orton's puppet strings. I'm not saying forget past history: I remember Jericho, Van Dam and Booker T same as you do. And at the time that they were happening I was just as irate. The thing is, that time had Jennifer Lopez featuring Ja Rule at the top of the charts, which isn't the case now.
Time changes people, people change time, and you have to allow for both. (Maybe Phil Jackson's doing more work on me than I realize.) This is different because not only is the stranglehold the E has now absolute, but Triple H is no longer an active full-timer. I'm even going to cede he's the center of the show as the main antagonist, but there's light years difference between him in a suit cutting the promos we all love to hate and hiding behind the Shield and Orton against having to back it up in the ring every night for 300+ days a year.
Not only that, you're watching a virtual monopoly and near dictatorship that hasn't just swallowed their competition whole in the months prior, and they're showing a long arc for a change. Why shouldn't they change things up? Their cash cow and superhero is away and will be for a while. Their so-called competition is doing so badly they're booking transparently desperate, losing roster members left and right, having given up on their long-term angles halfway through Act I. And as we all know, the arc is long but it bends towards justice. Eventually.
If you want to skip to WrestleMania 30, you're well within your right to. Me, I made my peace with this a while ago. I thought back in July once Orton tapped out that this was the path they were going to try to go down, which I'm ultimately fine with as long as Bryan gets another victory over Orton at the end of this and gets a real run with the belt. (A run that seems assured given his clean living, being awesome in the ring, having been rebuilt in Stamford's image, his lovable boyfriend exposure on Total Divas, et al.)
I'm just kinda confused as to why when all the best dramas of the past decade plus that're widely held to be some of the best television of all time provide long-term storytelling with a villain or a group of villains at the center it gets heralded forever, but when the E does it they can't do it for more than three weeks without getting torn apart.
This is probably going to be a very different edition of C2C since one of us is going to be the good cop (hint: the handsome one of us) and the other is going to be the KILL IT WITH FIRE cop (hint: that'll be Sean). But let's get into the storyline that's dominating the eyeballs and the industry right now: RKOCorp is stamping out dissidents, and the Shield playing Condor Security to the McMahon familia's apple-eating Wink. Opinions range from what I've seen, but I'll be the first to stipulate that my reserved hosannas for officially turning RAW into the Daniel Bryan v. the 1% Show are completely dwarfed by Sean and people like him frustrated that for five consecutive shows they feel that the overarcing storyline can't get any blacker unless Stephanie was to Pedigree everyone's favorite pet goat. Sean, you're the bad cop here; start cracking skulls.
Sean: The sad part here, Mr. Rosser, is that I feel like I'm the protagonist of an episode of the Twilight Zone, fighting against things we as long time fans have been craving for years and years out of Double Double E. The twin goals of long-term story building and heels with actual teeth seemed impossible for a company riding hustle, loyalty and respect (along with saying ones prayers, not trusting anyone, and it not mattering WHAT your name was) to economic success, media prominence...and more than the occasional yawn from long-time fans and purists who wanted something different.
We have a clear long term story direction - Daniel Bryan fighting for what he believes in, for the career that he wants, for the right to be a professional wrestler in a company of sports entertainers run by the very man who made "wrestling" a dirty word. We have other potential heroes oppressed for the fact that they are just that, potential heroes, men with consciences in a time of misguided corporate greed. And we sure as Hell have our villains, The McMahon-Helmsley Era 2.0, Age of Orton II, Big Brother, whatever you want to call them. Everything SHOULD be just hunky-dory, and for many, including many writers on this esteemed Wrestling Blog.
And yet and yet and yet like so many Twilight Zone protags over the years, I have what I claim to have wanted all along and now suffer from a serious case of buyer's remorse.
Where do I start? Daniel Bryan has been left laying for six straight shows, if we count SummerSlam as the start of WWE turning the clock back to midnight of 1984. Six shows in this modern era, of course, doesn't even constitute three full weeks -- it just feels like it's been two months already. If it was just Bryan, though, that would be one thing, but the resistance has been crushed before it could even get started -- the dissent of Cody Rhodes, Dolph Ziggler, The Miz and The Big Show smashed in utero. People are praising the long term nature of this storyline, but they've rushed straight from a democracy into autocracy in basically a week, with the past two weeks serving to hammer home the same points already introduced. Why not let the revolution get SOME traction before Hunter morphs into the E's benevolent dictator?
I do appreciate the fact that apparently Triple H is genre-savvy enough to ruin everyone's good time, but seriously, Hunter, dial it back a little bit? Spoiler alert - the reason the Corporation and your father-in-law drew huge money against Austin is Austin got to beat the crap out of and humiliate them on a weekly basis. No one is buying a ticket to see your twenty minute speeches make their glorious return out of mothballs, or even the Shield and Randy Orton conduct a weekly beatdown so similar to the last that it makes me wonder if I'm watching last week's RAW on DVR.
People say give it time, and to them I say NO HEELS have ever, in the television era, been treated this well. The New World Order was not booked this strongly. Let me repeat that, because it's contentious but true: The nWo was never booked as overwhelmingly strongly, show in and show out, as the McMahon-Helmsley Era 2.0 has. Maybe I'm brainwashed by a decade plus of no alternative to WWE's relentless babyface-centric booking, but the Four Horsemen never looked this infallible either. Would Stone Cold Steve Austin have ever been left laying six straight shows, Mr. Rosser?
The answer to that question is a firm "oh Hell no," and that's because the Corporation of THAT era understood that its role was to make the guys opposite it, not vice-versa When Steve Austin got beaten down, you KNEW a response was coming, and it was probably going to involve a large vehicle of some kind, many Stone Cold Stunners, and multiple Steveweisers being drank over the unconscious bodies of several Corporate schlubs.
I watched Monday Night RAW this week looking for the revenge of Daniel Bryan. Or Dolph Ziggler. Or The Big Show. Or, well, anyone, but no, everyone is cowed in fear of the mighty HHH -- who, if my memory serves me correctly, had a vote of no confidence taken against him a few years ago resulting in the loss of his position. Can we do that again, please? I'm almost hesitant to bring this up for fear that the WWE will find some way to use it to make the babyfaces and the entire roster look even worse than they already do, but that's the rub of having watched this product since Curtis Axel's father was telling us we were gonna see a PerfectPlex.
What happens when you put babyfaces over exclusively since, well, the Iron Shiek got legdropped in...say it with me, folks, 1984? Your fanbase gets used to the way you do things. Sending the people home happy has been the defining trait of the WWF for practically its whole existence. There's a difference, though, between being okay with them being sent home disgruntled a few times to help build a story, and doing it six straight shows with no end in sight. Fool me once,, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me six times, and, well, I'm off to watch Main Event and NXT, WWE programming free of the tendrils of McMahons. At least the Shield WRESTLES on Wednesday nights.
Your turn, Butch. Talk me down from this ledge I'm on before I go buy a "Ten Years Strong" shirt off WWE Shop and begin waxing nostalgic of the days when The Champ Was Here.
BR: Actually, you may want to go back onto or completely off of that ledge when I mention the nWo was completely booked that strongly: within a couple of months the Outsiders won the tag belts and the Big--er, Giant had jumped ship. Before Thanksgiving they'd have Bischoff in their pocket as well. The biggest hero moments in Dubbya Cee for the rest of the year when the black and white express got rolling? Sting's half a minute hope spot at Fall Brawl (followed immediately by WCW losing) and Roddy Piper winning a non-title match at Starrcade. See, while I've been waiting on your response I've been continuing to read Phil Jackson's autobiography. This means I'm getting Cliffs Notes spirtuality, and hilariously enough in universal convergences not five minutes after your response I read a quote from the Buddha.
It's pretty much this, as every Princess Bride fan knows: life is suffering, and the reason why people suffer is because the reality of their life conflicts with the image in their head. You know, things like the nWo not being booked this dominantly and forgetting things like Bryan spray-painting Orton's courtesy vehicle last week. I'm fine with alluding to Austin without ripping him off wholesale; let DB be DB and Austin be Austin. This is what Shoemaker referred to hipster wrestling, I feel, because it's safe to say if it wasn't the McMahons and Orton - if the Shield and the Wyatt Family had formed some sort of uberstable, say - everybody complaining wouldn't be doing so or wouldn't be as much.
But not your camp, no; you hated Triple H and Orton before everybody else did. You loved Bryan Danielson before these snot-nosed punks in the seventh grade who're suddenly on the bandwagon. You moved to Brooklyn in 1996, you never sold your vinyl, have a caramel. Babyface-centric is an understatement, Sean. From the week before the Super Bowl until the Summerslam Pedigree a babyface was the WWE champion, and probably two of the biggest five in the history of McMahonamania. You bring up the old Corporation but watching the Union form was awkward if logical, and it may've been that awkwardness that doomed its long-term potential.
And the Resistance is already in place. Nobody stays away in wrestling; the moment he finishes honeymooning, Cody Rhodes is going to be back and more over than he's ever been in his life. Last night's match with Orton and his borderline Hard Times Daddy promo post-match did that, and you're not served by him winning it. Oh, by the way, for those scoring at home, that's another Orton victory clean with the RKO that he looked good to great but not infallible in eventually winning.
I'm sure Ric Flair didn't bounce around for 15 minutes and then win with a figure-four on WCW Saturday Night in Year Orwell, not ever. But I digress. People want Big Show to Do Something RIGHT NOW, thus completely eradicating another year of his wibbly-wobbly alignment adjustments into a clear babyface role. The ironclad contract is starting to play into the story, and it's not a matter of if, but when he snaps out and drops a Facgimer that the ramifications of that will be felt and not just alluded to by the (ugh, hate this term but there isn't another good one) IWC.
Everybody seemed to love Dolph Ziggler bumping because it's awesome, but now it also has necessary pathos behind it. He gets in a couple spots to show off and then he goes Full Ziggler and loses. It's making him a babyface when his turn was wibbly-wobbly and his slutshaming AJ to gain that sympathy in a way that had some side-eye potential has turned into him shutting up and getting beaten up undeservedly. That's completely sympathetic, not being the latest ex of and making poking fun at a 90-pound woman with mental issues.
Even the Miz -- oh, look, it's another member of the roster who's a former World/WWE Champion who's turn was incomprehensible at best and not connecting to the fanbase at large at worse! Is the same thing happening to him? On a lower scale, yes. It's almost like there's enough people in there to form a multi-man team for some sort of big name pay-per-view event coming up in the near future!
Time changes people, people change time, and you have to allow for both. (Maybe Phil Jackson's doing more work on me than I realize.) This is different because not only is the stranglehold the E has now absolute, but Triple H is no longer an active full-timer. I'm even going to cede he's the center of the show as the main antagonist, but there's light years difference between him in a suit cutting the promos we all love to hate and hiding behind the Shield and Orton against having to back it up in the ring every night for 300+ days a year.
Not only that, you're watching a virtual monopoly and near dictatorship that hasn't just swallowed their competition whole in the months prior, and they're showing a long arc for a change. Why shouldn't they change things up? Their cash cow and superhero is away and will be for a while. Their so-called competition is doing so badly they're booking transparently desperate, losing roster members left and right, having given up on their long-term angles halfway through Act I. And as we all know, the arc is long but it bends towards justice. Eventually.
If you want to skip to WrestleMania 30, you're well within your right to. Me, I made my peace with this a while ago. I thought back in July once Orton tapped out that this was the path they were going to try to go down, which I'm ultimately fine with as long as Bryan gets another victory over Orton at the end of this and gets a real run with the belt. (A run that seems assured given his clean living, being awesome in the ring, having been rebuilt in Stamford's image, his lovable boyfriend exposure on Total Divas, et al.)
I'm just kinda confused as to why when all the best dramas of the past decade plus that're widely held to be some of the best television of all time provide long-term storytelling with a villain or a group of villains at the center it gets heralded forever, but when the E does it they can't do it for more than three weeks without getting torn apart.
SW: Damnit, Rosser, you lied to me. What happened to your promised opening of "ORTON ROOLZ 5EVA !!11!!!1!" Now I have to do actual work.
I'm giving you the nWo comments -- for now. Once I take this all full circle, you'll understand the differences involved. Suffice it to say for now that dominance isn't simply a matter of title belts and beating people up, there's more to it, and that “more to it” is where my answer lies.
After an admittedly well reasoned out section on the nWo, though, you decide to go for the cheap shot. The low blow (and, for the record, Ric Flair would have never beaten Cody Rhodes in a featured contest on the muthaship at 6:05 without at LEAST kicking him in the nuts before the figure-four. Come on, Randy! Cheat! Poke him in the eye! Kick him in the dick! Do something! Your dad wore a cast for a millenium off of one injury, it's in your BLOOD, son!) of smarkdom. Of hipster wrestling. Call it whatever you want, but really, I can only speak for yours truly on this matter, so my thoughts on your hypotheticals:
I don't actually hate Triple H. The only times I've ever really hated Hunter are when he didn't drop the WWE Championship to TAKA Michinoku (you have no idea how crazy I was going on my couch when I thought he was going to win, no lie) and the phantom title change in State College, PA, but both those times, it was the sort of hate I'm SUPPOSED to have for the dude.
I also don't hate Randy Orton. I think Orton's actually one of the more underrated performers on their roster who does a ton of little tiny things people don't notice very well indeed. I do object that he's the only heel on the roster they ever decide to run with, the rudo John Cena, if you weeell, but other than that? Enjoy the dude's work, if not some of his past expressions of his personality.
The Shield and Wyatt Family forming an uber-stable wouldn't make any sense. I do give McMahonland credit – an alliance of Vince, Stephanie, Hunter, Randall, and the Shield makes perfect Goddamned sense. Its one of the most logical things they've done in a long damned time.
Dirty little secret: I like Daniel Bryan and all, and yeah, sure, I saw him live a lot of times and Bryan Danielson attempted to murder me with Tyler Black at an ROH TV taping. It's on DVD and everything. I have evidence. But I've never been one of his biggest fanboys. I'm pleasantly surprised the WWE's decided to use his considerable talents and constantly (in the past) underrated charisma to the best of his abilities, but my displeasure with this storyline has never been about Daniel Bryan not being the man, or being buried, or anything of that sort.
One final note before we move onto what actually IS wrong with this storyline – let's be honest here – the Union collapsed because Vince McMahon wanted to destroy a union (clearly latent anti-Jesse Ventura fantasies coming to play), and because the main story was Austin vs. McMahon. For the record, I loved the Union, it had my four favorite guys in the company at the time.
We now move on to the brains of the beast.
I also don't hate Randy Orton. I think Orton's actually one of the more underrated performers on their roster who does a ton of little tiny things people don't notice very well indeed. I do object that he's the only heel on the roster they ever decide to run with, the rudo John Cena, if you weeell, but other than that? Enjoy the dude's work, if not some of his past expressions of his personality.
The Shield and Wyatt Family forming an uber-stable wouldn't make any sense. I do give McMahonland credit – an alliance of Vince, Stephanie, Hunter, Randall, and the Shield makes perfect Goddamned sense. Its one of the most logical things they've done in a long damned time.
Dirty little secret: I like Daniel Bryan and all, and yeah, sure, I saw him live a lot of times and Bryan Danielson attempted to murder me with Tyler Black at an ROH TV taping. It's on DVD and everything. I have evidence. But I've never been one of his biggest fanboys. I'm pleasantly surprised the WWE's decided to use his considerable talents and constantly (in the past) underrated charisma to the best of his abilities, but my displeasure with this storyline has never been about Daniel Bryan not being the man, or being buried, or anything of that sort.
One final note before we move onto what actually IS wrong with this storyline – let's be honest here – the Union collapsed because Vince McMahon wanted to destroy a union (clearly latent anti-Jesse Ventura fantasies coming to play), and because the main story was Austin vs. McMahon. For the record, I loved the Union, it had my four favorite guys in the company at the time.
We now move on to the brains of the beast.
What's the difference between the HHH who got no-confidenced a few years back and had to sit there and do nothing but make constipated faces about it? Didn't Vince McMahon lose all his power in the company in storyline? (I could be wrong about this point, since it seemed like during that stretch he gained and lost it every few days.) Why are people willing to work for the McMahon-Helmsley Era 2.0 when if HHH tried to start firing people en masse, the people he works for, the Board of Directors, would tell him to shove his BEST FOR BUSINESS speeches where the son doesn't shine, fire him, and hire back any fired talent?
Ah yes, the Board of Directors, introduced during the Attitude Era as a check on Vince McMahon because somewhere along the line Vince and the writers were smart enough to realize “Hey, having a totally theoretically omnipotent force for evil makes no sense!” Why would ANYONE decide firing the future of your company is a good business decision? Hunter's supposed to be the Cerebral Assassin, right? He's not an idiot. The blend of being Real Life Corporate Figure and Heel Authority Figure creates an inherent conflict of interest that's hard to reconcile – and before you bring up Vince, let's remember that he didn't degenerate into “YOOOOOUUUU'REEEE FIIIIIIIRRREEEEEDDD” caricature until the end of/post mortem of the Attitude Era, and he at least only ever fired Austin once, when he was at the end of his rope – because he knew that firing people who were making him money, or could make him money, was, say it with me, not best for business.
And that's just big picture stuff. We move on to the individual players involved.
Ah yes, the Board of Directors, introduced during the Attitude Era as a check on Vince McMahon because somewhere along the line Vince and the writers were smart enough to realize “Hey, having a totally theoretically omnipotent force for evil makes no sense!” Why would ANYONE decide firing the future of your company is a good business decision? Hunter's supposed to be the Cerebral Assassin, right? He's not an idiot. The blend of being Real Life Corporate Figure and Heel Authority Figure creates an inherent conflict of interest that's hard to reconcile – and before you bring up Vince, let's remember that he didn't degenerate into “YOOOOOUUUU'REEEE FIIIIIIIRRREEEEEDDD” caricature until the end of/post mortem of the Attitude Era, and he at least only ever fired Austin once, when he was at the end of his rope – because he knew that firing people who were making him money, or could make him money, was, say it with me, not best for business.
And that's just big picture stuff. We move on to the individual players involved.
The Big Show having an iron-clad contract was made for this storyline. Made for it. Having Show come out and do basically whatever the Hell he wants because Hunter can't fire him would have been absolutely perfect – and, for the record, would have JUSTIFIED Hunter turning the WWE into 1984 after a few weeks of Big Show solo-tanking Hunter's army. With a Show who can only be punished with three on one handicap matches (that he can conceivably win with three punches because, y'know, HE'S A GIANT), and Daniel Bryan running around being the YES! to the Neo-Corporation's NO!, after seeing that his glorious plan isn't working so well? Sure, THEN crush the dissent. The Empire, of course, Strikes Back, but it didn't REALLY strike back until the second half of the movie.
If you treat Star Wars as Bryan's chase for the title, we skipped straight to Triple H telling him that he was his father four minutes into the new film. This is why I sigh when people say that this is long-term storytelling; it technically may be, but it's hot-shotting vital elements of the story far sooner than they should be. Instead, we've decided to give Show a reason to not do anything by hearkening back to that TREMENDOUS HBK-JBL feud rather than let Big Show do the one thing he does better than act – smash puny humans. Wrecking Ball Big Show has only ever really been heel. Let the guy do it with the cheers of the crowd for once, and see what you get. Why not?
Dolph Ziggler's turn was wibbly-wobbly and timey-wimey because he is a hashtag-HEEL who the fans love. You can side-eye everything he said to AJ Lee all you want (justifiably so, too), but we are not the target audience. In WWE Land, if you're a heel, anything bad that happens to you is justifiable because you're a heel. Misters Hogan, Austin, Rock, et al established that the only law WWE faces are governed by is the Code of Hammurabi. Ziggler being a face in large part by lambasting AJ might make you and me and TH a little uncomfortable, but most of the WWE Universe doesn't seem to have a problem with it, and so face he remains. He's another guy who got his feet cut out from under him, practically every time he reaches for the stratosphere. If THIS angle is somehow how he becomes a permanent main-event fixture? I'll be happy as Hell for him, but even if the ends justify the means, I don't have to like the means.
By contrast, The Miz's face turn didn't go so well because, let's face it, HE'S THE MIZ. I like The Miz. I love that he loves wrestling. But he made a career out of being a hateable little prick, and he's very, very good at it to boot. Face Miz is, to me, a waste of his talents, but if WWE wants to make him one, I will admit that there are worse ways to do it than this one they have chosen.
The Cody Rhodes bit is especially infuriating because for the millionth time, the WWE had a guy made, in the center of the ring, and refused to pull the trigger. If I was in charge, I would have audibled to Rhodes pinning Orton with Cross Rhodes, clean as Casper's sheet. THEN you have Hunter come out and fire Cody anyway. At that point, HHH isn't firing a guy with potential to be a threat. He's firing an ACTIVE, DANGEROUS threat, a guy who just proved he can beat the World Champion -- and for literally no justifiable reason other than he can and he wants to protect the Face of WWE. Tell me that's not better than what we got. I dare you.
And yes, Butch, I know we're heading to Survivor Series, but if that means that I have to put up with another two months of RAWs ending with Randy Orton RKOing Daniel Bryan, the only Survivor Series I'll be watching is 1993 – because I would rather watch Four Doinks vs. Bam Bam, Bastion Booger, and the Headshrinkers than see the same exact end to a show eight more times.
Never mind the basic ludicrous premise that Randy Orton, a man the company has to fire if he gets caught with pot in his system tomorrow, a man who has shit in the gym bag of a former roster member, is better for business than Daniel Bryan, a man who has all of the positives that you were kind enough to listen to me going for him. Sure, Hunter's a heel, but that still means he has to look at this as a businessman, hear nightly Daniel Bryan chants, see merch figures (to be fair, I'm sure Randall Keith Orton moves a metric ton of RKO-branded merchandise), and decide that rather than listening to his fanbase and consumers, he's going to support Randy Orton because what do the people who pay my salary really know after all?
Do I think Daniel Bryan should be the face of the WWE? I honestly don't care one way or another, but if I was a businessman in Hunter's shoes, good old goatface starts to look a Hell of a lot better to me than a potential loose cannon and nightmare story for the company.
You're up. Let's finish this fight over the facts so we can get down to the actual crux of this matter, and why for the first time since I was playing 7-Up in Mrs. Goodman's first grade class I'll be actively avoiding Monday Night RAW next week.
BR: Hm. I think that Big Show argument would carry more water if it isn't abundantly clear to even the back row that he doesn't want to do this (if you missed seeing it, you can also hear him say 'I don't want to do this!' on a few occassions). He's not shrugging and smiling and going O WELP I PUNCH NOW; he's being made to suffer as an instrument to do what nobody else could, let alone to someone he likes. These are the people who usually start off the first scene of the movie looking good, then appear to be evil, only to rediscover their full humanity at the end, usually by stopping a bunch of bullets with their body and dying.
The symbolism in that put up against a man who's been wrestling for the better part of two decades is pretty clear, though now I'm going to be horribly sad if the Shield don't triple powerbomb him off the stage into retirement with Bryan reaching for the sky with tears in his eyes wailing HELLLLLLLLMSSSSSSSSLEYYYYYYYYYYYYY! (That'd be awesome, and you know it rhymes, Marge.)
I'm mostly in agreement about the alternate timeline Cody you invented, except for one thing that ties into one of my (relatively) few complaints about the angle. I think they're protecting Orton to have Bryan's win mean all the more when the time comes by having him stack up a series of wins over anybody who isn't OUR MAIN MAN D-BRY RIGHT THERE in addition to his slithery ways. Lest anybody forget, Orton hasn't beaten Bryan. Maybe all year. Doctor stoppages, countouts, and most prominently to me to set off my preque vu, him being made to tap out in the middle of the ring and shaking hands after the match. Randy Orton shaking somebody's hand?! You might as well have had Snooki in a power suit making reasonable points about Syria when that happened; the writing was on the wall. Based on the crowd reaction, Cody became an active, dangerous threat anyway the moment it took Orton more than five minutes to get rid of him and he hit his finisher on him for a 2.9 count.
Pencils down.
If you put down "Orton, Randall Kenneth", you win! See, that's the thing about JBL's misdirection about Orton cashing in the briefcase and missing from the three-headed announcing hydra - the fact that this is what it's taking for Orton to beat Bryan, to avenge him having to tap out. It's taking three other champions and a corporate machine to stop one troll-looking cruiserweight. The fact that's the weight that's got to be carried in order to try and subdue this hairy little vegan with anger managment problems is what the story's going to hang on. While Cody beating Orton and then getting fired would be a great alternative, that bumps Cody up to if not ahead of Bryan in the queue for the title and being the one who takes down RKOCorp.
You want him in the poster of this movie; you don't want him getting his name above the title. And also: it's another heel champion losing a non-title match five shows after he got the belt. In addition to that, if Cody's not planning on a three-day honeymoon, you probably don't have the Late Night Equestrian or his modern-day equivalent showing up until when, October? Maybe early November? As Cody himself said right after it happened, it's not about the fact he lost the match, it's the stipulation. It's the whole vulgar display of power. Cody's moment to shine came huge Monday, and bigger ones are to come once he helps Daniel tear down the glass ceiling.
The behind-the-scene machinations of the resident Viper that you rightfully noted -- how many of the middle schoolers giving the E the financial lifeblood they run on most know about those indiscretions? In order for me to believe that's the sort of the thing most of the audience is up in arms about I'd have to believe most wrestling commentators on the Internet spell badly, go wildly off the handle at the slightest provocation, and run around using gay slurs in lieu of being actually creati...you know what, never mind.
You said it yourself, you don't like the means. It overlooks the fact of the fanbase not even flagging a little in their support of him and the fact that it may've expanded because of this happening. Or the fact that the four most important champions go scurrying when he's by himself and armed only with a chair, the fact that when certain elephants in the room aren't Pedigreeing him from behind that not even John Cena can stop him, or that they have to neutralize or corrupt an entire roster to even try and slow down this indie guy's momentum. Hey, we can even ignore the fact that after 30 minutes and being the second guy in two years to pin Cena cleanly and the first full-time member of the roster in Crom knows how long he was standing in the center of the ring daring Orton to cash in, which is about the apex of the fighting babyface scale.
The same people who are keeping Daniel Bryan down are a multi-million dollar publicly traded corporation who sell sheep masks to children willing to hold up Cult Of Personality signs and sell Cena Sucks shirts. See, that's what they've learned about business in the post-WCW era: they can play both sides of the fence and still get rich. You almost certainly won't see Daniel Bryan get fired because lookit all them shirts! Dig them signs! Sell that little ripoff Terrible Towel for a fiver and get a couple more grand! Now, humiliated and not winning the title? That's a different thing. The same way a Board of Directors probably wouldn't look the other way at the firing of a guy -- again, ONE guy, singular, A -- who never was in the forefront of a company with no main events not raking in the merchandising duckets. Triple H could probably explain that away in a sentence or two were it to come down to that. But again, here's the results based on what's been happening.
A) It keeps happening, at which during some point in the future you'd win this argument and this goes down next to the Invasion, Steph/Kurt/Trips, etc.
B) It doesn't keep happening, which means it's up for grabs unless I get everything I predicted, at which point I will infer your father was a hamster and your mother smelt of elderberries.
You can use past history and the darkest part of the timeline as a guide. I'm not saying I'm completely in love with every single aspect of it all; I just like it more than you and probably most. At the end of the day I suspect, feel, and want that this'll end conclusively with the Goat over all, underdog no more, and the specter of unfair evil holding sway for a bit doesn't perturb me the same way it doesn't when Walter White is a murderous liar or Don Draper is an adulterous one.
I like the means overall, and I suspect I'm going to love the end. Especially given the fact there's one RAW before Night of Champions against what's due to be a Texans blowout over my beloved Chargers and that makes the most logical sense to give DB that ray of hope right before the pay-per-view to get a few more sheep masks in the tent a la the Cena/HBK build to WrestleMania 23 where people were complaining every week "Why didn't Shawn superkick him?!" But am I wrong? Is there any sort of minor tweaking they could do with the RKOCorp storyline to keep you from skipping to the end?
SW: Tweaks? Sure – let the faces leave the heels laying every once in a while!
The thing here is, Mr. Rosser, that as I read your arguments, I recognize that they have the ring of truth. You're not wrong, but the ultimate problem with this storyline lies for me in an entirely subjective three letter word: fun.
On paper, this has potential to be one of the best things they've ever done. I can't deny that, and Hell, if for whatever reason I didn't have access to RAW and was only hearing about it from friends, with the exception of every single show ending the same damned way, I'd probably think RKOCorp was a pretty damned cool storyline.
Here's the problem, though: it's miserable to watch. I'm not having fun watching Monday Night RAW anymore, and when I've been watching a show for over two decades and it's not been fun in weeks, there comes a time where I have to consider changing the channel until it is.
I'm reminded of the early days of the BDK angle in CHIKARA – that storyline too had this dichotomy between something that made perfect and total sense and a way in practice of sucking fun out of the room thanks to heel dominance. The difference, of course, is that CHIKARA had fun flowing through its veins, and even the BDK drain on the good time train didn't negate the non-BDK aspects of the show.
(BTW, the nWo? Mostly kept away from the non-”important” parts of the show. I could draw enjoyment from watching cruiserweight matches and the like – but there's more RKOCorp than non RKOCorp on RAW these days, and only so much time to gain solace from the Millions of Dollars dance.)
The McMahon-Helmsley tendrils, by contrast, are inescapable, deepening the feel of WWE 1984, while making me want to watch some other era. Say what one will about John Cena or Hulk Hogan dominating, but Hell, the show was more fun to watch when they were dispatching challengers with the quickness.
This all sounds ludicrous, I know. I survived the down periods of 1993 and 1995. I sat through Katie Vick and never once considered stopping watching RAW. I sat through the non-descript late 00s and kept on trucking. I've taken all the shit the company's fed me over the years and been perfectly okay with it, and now, when they're on the verge of something that in a critical sense, actually has limitless potential, I'm going to leave? Why?
Simple point of philosophy.
The point of bad guys in wrestling is to put over good guys. You have to put over bad guys too, of course, or they can't do their jobs. Professional wrestling is superior to real life because bad people generally don't win, as opposed to real life in which they win every day and depressingly frequently. The concept of “sending the fans home happy” has been mocked by those of our ilk as a philosophy that means Spoiler Alert: Cena Wins, but it's really at the center of everything that is pro wrestling.
You want to make sure fans keep coming through those doors, and what's happening in WWE right now is unprecedented in a company that has sent the fans home happy nearly exclusively since it dropped the third W from its name. Now, WWE's the only game in town, so I doubt they'll see a decrease in asses in seats – but I don't think this is a risk they take if they had actual competition.
Pro wrestling is at its absolute best to me when there's a constant tug of war and give and take between the sides of good and evil. John Cena winning every week doesn't mean I then want the company to take Randy Orton and have HIM win every week, or Damien Sandow or Antonio Cesaro or any of the other underused heels in the company. It's all about the give and take, and WWE's gone from one extreme to the other. Happy medium guys? Please? Anyone?
You asked what could be done to keep me on board, and it would be that – making it a true back and forth struggle between the dystopian forces of evil and the growing ranks of good. Give the good side more frequent victories. Force the Cerebral Assassin to dig down deep. Give me something to smile about on Monday nights. Maybe I'm impatient. If I am, it's the WWE's fault, because they've trained me as a fan to be that way.
Short of that, though? I'm out until post-Night of Champions, if not longer.
Look, I love that RAW now has two or three quality wrestling matches a show, but I've never watched WWE for its five star classics. I'm an unabashed fan of the male soap opera where heroes beat up villains. No matter how much time I spend on the internet, or how many heels I like more than babyfaces, that's never changed for me.
You and others who appreciate what's happening right now do so because you know the payoff's coming, and the reigns of WWE faces have grown tiresome enough that you enjoy the alternative that's in front of you. The destination justifies the journey.
I'm going to skip Monday Night RAW for the first time in twenty years because after six shows of this with more presumably on the way, waiting for the payoff is too painful and depressing for me to care about wanting to see. Never mind the fact that we have two non-wrestlers (albeit Triple H can step into the ring if need be) against whom meaningful revenge is much more difficult to obtain.
I know Daniel Bryan will get his big win. I know Cody Rhodes will come back. I know the Resistance will have its day. In the end, the bad guys will be sent to defeat. The formula will work in the end. I know that.
But every week that I have to watch Dystopian WWE is another week that I delve deeper into my DVD collection and YouTube to find some prowres that's fun to watch. Triple H, the McMahons, Randy Orton, and the Shield have sucked the fun out of a program I've watched for twenty years.
Grudgingly, I have to admit that I can imagine no more dystopian a personal relationship with the WWE than that.
Thanks for the time, Butch. I've got to go now, though, my Cena shirt just arrived in the mail.
BR: Sean joins the list of people checking out of the Reality Era because the evil corporation running roughshod looks too much like real life. How much more Meta World Peace does it get than that?
For me? This is just a show and a performance, and one that I opted into at that. I love the fact I have carte blanche to boo people I hated already. I love the fact a guy I've thought for the past couple of years was the actual BITW~! is getting into Cena-level territory and carrying the white flag for the company. The long-term planning, even if it's not beat by beat perfect. The fact I can get good-to-great matches with my soap opera, that Bryan keeps winning battles (standing and fighting against Big Show without backing down, no matter what place of delusion it comes from -- the spraypainting -- the running off of the bad guys -- the winning the matches) but losing the war (because evil corporation, duhdoy). And yeah, a few months free of Cena and Sheamus factor into it, but not as much as you might think.
For years, I've merely asked that as a fan, I be treated like an adult. Don't do crazy things that'll erode the young fanbase, just use some common sense, show some long-term arc, and assume I'm smart enough to follow along if I'm paying attention. This has lead to buyer's remorse for some. But I feel like instead of watching a Hogan rehash Monster of the Month club, I'm sitting on a winning ticket.
Thanks to Sean Williams for guesting on this installment of Coast to Coast; until you see me again and even when you don't, I'm Butch Rosser, and I'm doing what's best for business. On your knees, dog.
If you treat Star Wars as Bryan's chase for the title, we skipped straight to Triple H telling him that he was his father four minutes into the new film. This is why I sigh when people say that this is long-term storytelling; it technically may be, but it's hot-shotting vital elements of the story far sooner than they should be. Instead, we've decided to give Show a reason to not do anything by hearkening back to that TREMENDOUS HBK-JBL feud rather than let Big Show do the one thing he does better than act – smash puny humans. Wrecking Ball Big Show has only ever really been heel. Let the guy do it with the cheers of the crowd for once, and see what you get. Why not?
Dolph Ziggler's turn was wibbly-wobbly and timey-wimey because he is a hashtag-HEEL who the fans love. You can side-eye everything he said to AJ Lee all you want (justifiably so, too), but we are not the target audience. In WWE Land, if you're a heel, anything bad that happens to you is justifiable because you're a heel. Misters Hogan, Austin, Rock, et al established that the only law WWE faces are governed by is the Code of Hammurabi. Ziggler being a face in large part by lambasting AJ might make you and me and TH a little uncomfortable, but most of the WWE Universe doesn't seem to have a problem with it, and so face he remains. He's another guy who got his feet cut out from under him, practically every time he reaches for the stratosphere. If THIS angle is somehow how he becomes a permanent main-event fixture? I'll be happy as Hell for him, but even if the ends justify the means, I don't have to like the means.
By contrast, The Miz's face turn didn't go so well because, let's face it, HE'S THE MIZ. I like The Miz. I love that he loves wrestling. But he made a career out of being a hateable little prick, and he's very, very good at it to boot. Face Miz is, to me, a waste of his talents, but if WWE wants to make him one, I will admit that there are worse ways to do it than this one they have chosen.
The Cody Rhodes bit is especially infuriating because for the millionth time, the WWE had a guy made, in the center of the ring, and refused to pull the trigger. If I was in charge, I would have audibled to Rhodes pinning Orton with Cross Rhodes, clean as Casper's sheet. THEN you have Hunter come out and fire Cody anyway. At that point, HHH isn't firing a guy with potential to be a threat. He's firing an ACTIVE, DANGEROUS threat, a guy who just proved he can beat the World Champion -- and for literally no justifiable reason other than he can and he wants to protect the Face of WWE. Tell me that's not better than what we got. I dare you.
And yes, Butch, I know we're heading to Survivor Series, but if that means that I have to put up with another two months of RAWs ending with Randy Orton RKOing Daniel Bryan, the only Survivor Series I'll be watching is 1993 – because I would rather watch Four Doinks vs. Bam Bam, Bastion Booger, and the Headshrinkers than see the same exact end to a show eight more times.
Never mind the basic ludicrous premise that Randy Orton, a man the company has to fire if he gets caught with pot in his system tomorrow, a man who has shit in the gym bag of a former roster member, is better for business than Daniel Bryan, a man who has all of the positives that you were kind enough to listen to me going for him. Sure, Hunter's a heel, but that still means he has to look at this as a businessman, hear nightly Daniel Bryan chants, see merch figures (to be fair, I'm sure Randall Keith Orton moves a metric ton of RKO-branded merchandise), and decide that rather than listening to his fanbase and consumers, he's going to support Randy Orton because what do the people who pay my salary really know after all?
Do I think Daniel Bryan should be the face of the WWE? I honestly don't care one way or another, but if I was a businessman in Hunter's shoes, good old goatface starts to look a Hell of a lot better to me than a potential loose cannon and nightmare story for the company.
You're up. Let's finish this fight over the facts so we can get down to the actual crux of this matter, and why for the first time since I was playing 7-Up in Mrs. Goodman's first grade class I'll be actively avoiding Monday Night RAW next week.
BR: Hm. I think that Big Show argument would carry more water if it isn't abundantly clear to even the back row that he doesn't want to do this (if you missed seeing it, you can also hear him say 'I don't want to do this!' on a few occassions). He's not shrugging and smiling and going O WELP I PUNCH NOW; he's being made to suffer as an instrument to do what nobody else could, let alone to someone he likes. These are the people who usually start off the first scene of the movie looking good, then appear to be evil, only to rediscover their full humanity at the end, usually by stopping a bunch of bullets with their body and dying.
The symbolism in that put up against a man who's been wrestling for the better part of two decades is pretty clear, though now I'm going to be horribly sad if the Shield don't triple powerbomb him off the stage into retirement with Bryan reaching for the sky with tears in his eyes wailing HELLLLLLLLMSSSSSSSSLEYYYYYYYYYYYYY! (That'd be awesome, and you know it rhymes, Marge.)
I'm mostly in agreement about the alternate timeline Cody you invented, except for one thing that ties into one of my (relatively) few complaints about the angle. I think they're protecting Orton to have Bryan's win mean all the more when the time comes by having him stack up a series of wins over anybody who isn't OUR MAIN MAN D-BRY RIGHT THERE in addition to his slithery ways. Lest anybody forget, Orton hasn't beaten Bryan. Maybe all year. Doctor stoppages, countouts, and most prominently to me to set off my preque vu, him being made to tap out in the middle of the ring and shaking hands after the match. Randy Orton shaking somebody's hand?! You might as well have had Snooki in a power suit making reasonable points about Syria when that happened; the writing was on the wall. Based on the crowd reaction, Cody became an active, dangerous threat anyway the moment it took Orton more than five minutes to get rid of him and he hit his finisher on him for a 2.9 count.
Which brings me to today's trivia question: name all of the WWE champions who have won their belts without hitting an offensive maneuver.
Pencils down.
If you put down "Orton, Randall Kenneth", you win! See, that's the thing about JBL's misdirection about Orton cashing in the briefcase and missing from the three-headed announcing hydra - the fact that this is what it's taking for Orton to beat Bryan, to avenge him having to tap out. It's taking three other champions and a corporate machine to stop one troll-looking cruiserweight. The fact that's the weight that's got to be carried in order to try and subdue this hairy little vegan with anger managment problems is what the story's going to hang on. While Cody beating Orton and then getting fired would be a great alternative, that bumps Cody up to if not ahead of Bryan in the queue for the title and being the one who takes down RKOCorp.
You want him in the poster of this movie; you don't want him getting his name above the title. And also: it's another heel champion losing a non-title match five shows after he got the belt. In addition to that, if Cody's not planning on a three-day honeymoon, you probably don't have the Late Night Equestrian or his modern-day equivalent showing up until when, October? Maybe early November? As Cody himself said right after it happened, it's not about the fact he lost the match, it's the stipulation. It's the whole vulgar display of power. Cody's moment to shine came huge Monday, and bigger ones are to come once he helps Daniel tear down the glass ceiling.
The behind-the-scene machinations of the resident Viper that you rightfully noted -- how many of the middle schoolers giving the E the financial lifeblood they run on most know about those indiscretions? In order for me to believe that's the sort of the thing most of the audience is up in arms about I'd have to believe most wrestling commentators on the Internet spell badly, go wildly off the handle at the slightest provocation, and run around using gay slurs in lieu of being actually creati...you know what, never mind.
You said it yourself, you don't like the means. It overlooks the fact of the fanbase not even flagging a little in their support of him and the fact that it may've expanded because of this happening. Or the fact that the four most important champions go scurrying when he's by himself and armed only with a chair, the fact that when certain elephants in the room aren't Pedigreeing him from behind that not even John Cena can stop him, or that they have to neutralize or corrupt an entire roster to even try and slow down this indie guy's momentum. Hey, we can even ignore the fact that after 30 minutes and being the second guy in two years to pin Cena cleanly and the first full-time member of the roster in Crom knows how long he was standing in the center of the ring daring Orton to cash in, which is about the apex of the fighting babyface scale.
The same people who are keeping Daniel Bryan down are a multi-million dollar publicly traded corporation who sell sheep masks to children willing to hold up Cult Of Personality signs and sell Cena Sucks shirts. See, that's what they've learned about business in the post-WCW era: they can play both sides of the fence and still get rich. You almost certainly won't see Daniel Bryan get fired because lookit all them shirts! Dig them signs! Sell that little ripoff Terrible Towel for a fiver and get a couple more grand! Now, humiliated and not winning the title? That's a different thing. The same way a Board of Directors probably wouldn't look the other way at the firing of a guy -- again, ONE guy, singular, A -- who never was in the forefront of a company with no main events not raking in the merchandising duckets. Triple H could probably explain that away in a sentence or two were it to come down to that. But again, here's the results based on what's been happening.
A) It keeps happening, at which during some point in the future you'd win this argument and this goes down next to the Invasion, Steph/Kurt/Trips, etc.
B) It doesn't keep happening, which means it's up for grabs unless I get everything I predicted, at which point I will infer your father was a hamster and your mother smelt of elderberries.
You can use past history and the darkest part of the timeline as a guide. I'm not saying I'm completely in love with every single aspect of it all; I just like it more than you and probably most. At the end of the day I suspect, feel, and want that this'll end conclusively with the Goat over all, underdog no more, and the specter of unfair evil holding sway for a bit doesn't perturb me the same way it doesn't when Walter White is a murderous liar or Don Draper is an adulterous one.
I like the means overall, and I suspect I'm going to love the end. Especially given the fact there's one RAW before Night of Champions against what's due to be a Texans blowout over my beloved Chargers and that makes the most logical sense to give DB that ray of hope right before the pay-per-view to get a few more sheep masks in the tent a la the Cena/HBK build to WrestleMania 23 where people were complaining every week "Why didn't Shawn superkick him?!" But am I wrong? Is there any sort of minor tweaking they could do with the RKOCorp storyline to keep you from skipping to the end?
SW: Tweaks? Sure – let the faces leave the heels laying every once in a while!
The thing here is, Mr. Rosser, that as I read your arguments, I recognize that they have the ring of truth. You're not wrong, but the ultimate problem with this storyline lies for me in an entirely subjective three letter word: fun.
On paper, this has potential to be one of the best things they've ever done. I can't deny that, and Hell, if for whatever reason I didn't have access to RAW and was only hearing about it from friends, with the exception of every single show ending the same damned way, I'd probably think RKOCorp was a pretty damned cool storyline.
Here's the problem, though: it's miserable to watch. I'm not having fun watching Monday Night RAW anymore, and when I've been watching a show for over two decades and it's not been fun in weeks, there comes a time where I have to consider changing the channel until it is.
I'm reminded of the early days of the BDK angle in CHIKARA – that storyline too had this dichotomy between something that made perfect and total sense and a way in practice of sucking fun out of the room thanks to heel dominance. The difference, of course, is that CHIKARA had fun flowing through its veins, and even the BDK drain on the good time train didn't negate the non-BDK aspects of the show.
(BTW, the nWo? Mostly kept away from the non-”important” parts of the show. I could draw enjoyment from watching cruiserweight matches and the like – but there's more RKOCorp than non RKOCorp on RAW these days, and only so much time to gain solace from the Millions of Dollars dance.)
The McMahon-Helmsley tendrils, by contrast, are inescapable, deepening the feel of WWE 1984, while making me want to watch some other era. Say what one will about John Cena or Hulk Hogan dominating, but Hell, the show was more fun to watch when they were dispatching challengers with the quickness.
This all sounds ludicrous, I know. I survived the down periods of 1993 and 1995. I sat through Katie Vick and never once considered stopping watching RAW. I sat through the non-descript late 00s and kept on trucking. I've taken all the shit the company's fed me over the years and been perfectly okay with it, and now, when they're on the verge of something that in a critical sense, actually has limitless potential, I'm going to leave? Why?
Simple point of philosophy.
The point of bad guys in wrestling is to put over good guys. You have to put over bad guys too, of course, or they can't do their jobs. Professional wrestling is superior to real life because bad people generally don't win, as opposed to real life in which they win every day and depressingly frequently. The concept of “sending the fans home happy” has been mocked by those of our ilk as a philosophy that means Spoiler Alert: Cena Wins, but it's really at the center of everything that is pro wrestling.
You want to make sure fans keep coming through those doors, and what's happening in WWE right now is unprecedented in a company that has sent the fans home happy nearly exclusively since it dropped the third W from its name. Now, WWE's the only game in town, so I doubt they'll see a decrease in asses in seats – but I don't think this is a risk they take if they had actual competition.
Pro wrestling is at its absolute best to me when there's a constant tug of war and give and take between the sides of good and evil. John Cena winning every week doesn't mean I then want the company to take Randy Orton and have HIM win every week, or Damien Sandow or Antonio Cesaro or any of the other underused heels in the company. It's all about the give and take, and WWE's gone from one extreme to the other. Happy medium guys? Please? Anyone?
You asked what could be done to keep me on board, and it would be that – making it a true back and forth struggle between the dystopian forces of evil and the growing ranks of good. Give the good side more frequent victories. Force the Cerebral Assassin to dig down deep. Give me something to smile about on Monday nights. Maybe I'm impatient. If I am, it's the WWE's fault, because they've trained me as a fan to be that way.
Short of that, though? I'm out until post-Night of Champions, if not longer.
Look, I love that RAW now has two or three quality wrestling matches a show, but I've never watched WWE for its five star classics. I'm an unabashed fan of the male soap opera where heroes beat up villains. No matter how much time I spend on the internet, or how many heels I like more than babyfaces, that's never changed for me.
You and others who appreciate what's happening right now do so because you know the payoff's coming, and the reigns of WWE faces have grown tiresome enough that you enjoy the alternative that's in front of you. The destination justifies the journey.
I'm going to skip Monday Night RAW for the first time in twenty years because after six shows of this with more presumably on the way, waiting for the payoff is too painful and depressing for me to care about wanting to see. Never mind the fact that we have two non-wrestlers (albeit Triple H can step into the ring if need be) against whom meaningful revenge is much more difficult to obtain.
I know Daniel Bryan will get his big win. I know Cody Rhodes will come back. I know the Resistance will have its day. In the end, the bad guys will be sent to defeat. The formula will work in the end. I know that.
But every week that I have to watch Dystopian WWE is another week that I delve deeper into my DVD collection and YouTube to find some prowres that's fun to watch. Triple H, the McMahons, Randy Orton, and the Shield have sucked the fun out of a program I've watched for twenty years.
Grudgingly, I have to admit that I can imagine no more dystopian a personal relationship with the WWE than that.
Thanks for the time, Butch. I've got to go now, though, my Cena shirt just arrived in the mail.
BR: Sean joins the list of people checking out of the Reality Era because the evil corporation running roughshod looks too much like real life. How much more Meta World Peace does it get than that?
For me? This is just a show and a performance, and one that I opted into at that. I love the fact I have carte blanche to boo people I hated already. I love the fact a guy I've thought for the past couple of years was the actual BITW~! is getting into Cena-level territory and carrying the white flag for the company. The long-term planning, even if it's not beat by beat perfect. The fact I can get good-to-great matches with my soap opera, that Bryan keeps winning battles (standing and fighting against Big Show without backing down, no matter what place of delusion it comes from -- the spraypainting -- the running off of the bad guys -- the winning the matches) but losing the war (because evil corporation, duhdoy). And yeah, a few months free of Cena and Sheamus factor into it, but not as much as you might think.
For years, I've merely asked that as a fan, I be treated like an adult. Don't do crazy things that'll erode the young fanbase, just use some common sense, show some long-term arc, and assume I'm smart enough to follow along if I'm paying attention. This has lead to buyer's remorse for some. But I feel like instead of watching a Hogan rehash Monster of the Month club, I'm sitting on a winning ticket.
Thanks to Sean Williams for guesting on this installment of Coast to Coast; until you see me again and even when you don't, I'm Butch Rosser, and I'm doing what's best for business. On your knees, dog.