All of a sudden, it feels like 1998 again. While I’m sure a careful analysis of wrestling’s last true boom period would have 1997 as the peak of the WCW/WWF Monday night war, 1998 was when it was the most alive for me–when Austin vs. McMahon took over the majority of WWF television, when Mick Foley finally became a superstar, and when Chris Jericho turned heel and became something ultimately too good for WCW to handle correctly. Aside from WCW’s neverending list of cock-ups that year–from the abortion of the Sting vs. Hogan feud (which could have been the biggest ever) to the mishandling of the nWo breaking up to the end of Bill Goldberg’s winning streak at the end of the year, few companies have done more in less time to effectively destroy a once-brilliant product–wrestling never felt more alive, more full of possibility. It is therefore understandable that promotions like the WWE keep around guys like Steve Austin for the occasional angle, why they sign guys like The Rock to gigantic money contracts to wrestle a match or two than disappear into the ether, and even that other companies, like TNA, are willing to sign up the talent of that era–your Road Doggs and your Goldusts and, yes, your Mick Foleys–and present them as twisted grotesques of what came before, but this almost singleminded devotion to what was so great about the past has also led to mainstream wrestling being stuck in a creative rut the likes of which would have been unimaginable to me as a kid.
But, like I said, it feels like 1998 again, and that means that wrestling, for the first time since Vince McMahon put WCW out of its misery, once again feels full of possibility. I don’t think this is the first time I’ve said such a thing since I started semi-regularly writing about the TV shows being produced for national television by three (count ’em: three) wildly different wrestling promotions, but it’s true; even if you don’t like the cut of WWE, TNA, or Ring of Honor’s jib (and there are arguments for not liking all three products, to be sure), the independent scene is producing more good non-McMahon wrestling than at any point since the territorial system, Ring of Honor presents something wholly different from the WWE or TNA’s WWE-lite routine, and TNA finally has a world champion who has never appeared on an episode of Raw or Nitro. Wrestling, by its nature as a live, weekly, and scripted product, is a fairly calamitous business, and my goodwill for it could be out the window this time next week. But I don’t think that’s the case. Like I said, it feels a lot like 1998, and this week, that doesn’t mean I was enlivened by the still-awesome Funkasaurus. Here’s what’s up…
Mick Foley is Mick Foley
When Mick Foley asked to be released from his TNA contract last year, it was clear as day that he was coming home to the loving arms of Vince McMahon and the WWE. Considering he was returning during one of the Rock/Cena feud’s busy periods, it even made sense that he’d rehash the old Rock/Mankind this is your life segments and that, like their predecessors, the one he’d do with John Cena was terrible to the point of being kind of humorous (Cena’s dad would make a fabulous heel manager). I thought that was where Foley’s involvement with the WWE would end–the occasional guest humor spot and an induction into the WWE hall of fame–but then he starts off Monday Night Raw.
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but Mick Foley is my all-time favorite wrestler, and was the guy I’d indiscriminately name drop as such whenever asked (now, to be a jerk, I tell them “Sara Del Rey” and grin, smugly). I like his wrestling style, I like his interviews, I like most of the books he’s written, and, for most overweight Attitude era obsessives, he’s something of an avatar, a best case scenario, a feel-good story. Mick Foley, in the very unreal world of professional wrestling, is the most genuine character the medium has ever produced. When he says he’s glad to have gone to Disneyland, he means it. When he mentions that he wants to wrestle because he wants his kids to be able to see him at an age where they’ll remember it, he means it. Yes, he just got done in TNA, where he played a cruelly twisted take on, given his foil, WCW and ECW era Cactus Jacks and late-WWF Muppet Mick Foley, but the paycheck was decent and he wasn’t getting yelled at and he got to work in a theme park and he wasn’t exactly put in a position where he could make somebody a star, so whatever.
This is the WWE, however, and they’ve been mostly wise in how they put forth post-career Mick Foley. Dolph Ziggler’s beef with Mick smacks of Ric Flair’s issues with him from 2006, which resulted in an excellent series of promos with a few disappointing blow-off matches. Mick’s desire to have a moment his kids can be proud of sounds a lot like his motivation for his feud against Edge going into Wrestlemania 22, which was without question Foley’s best WrestleMania match, and one of his better WWE feuds in general.
On an off night, with nothing better to do than play Santa Claus, Mick Foley is one of wrestling’s greatest gifts. On an off night, against a broomstick, Dolph Ziggler is one of the best in the WWE. Given how things are progressing, it doesn’t look like Ziggler has a set WrestleMania opponent, and the WWE usually never does build-up for a nostalgia Royal Rumble entrant. If this leads to a WrestleMania match between the two, and Foley ends up being a serious version of himself, out to prove that he’s not washed up, the next few months will be tremendous, regardless of how often the Rock appears via satellite to pop #boots2asses on Twitter.
Chris Jericho is Chris Jericho
And right now, he’s the overblown, cartoonish Chris Jericho who grew up to be too big for WCW. Well, not cartoonish in quite the same way he was back in 1998, but he mugs like that Jericho, gets the crowd hyped up like that Jericho, and stabs them in the back like that Jericho. As evidenced by every post on this blog, I’m an absolutely huge nerd with an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the wrestling I grew up watching, and seeing Chris Jericho, in 2012, do the things he did then to the current WWE crowd, and to watch it actually work, is awesome. More awesome: The fact that he’s successfully trolled three live audiences without saying a single word.
His entrance this past Monday was great, too: one so long that the other four men who were involved managed to come out before Jericho made it to the ring. His silent return three weeks ago was one of the best swerves in wrestling history (not hard, since most swerves are horrible): There wasn’t a person watching that night who didn’t believe Jericho was coming out, and most of us expected another take on his 1999 WWF debut, which is what we got when he made his first comeback in 2007. He’s got the flamboyant jacket, the “C’MON, BABY,” and the crowd chanting “Y2J” like the masterful heel run that saw him exit the WWE never happened, and he’s managed to be a highlight of the show every week. Does he do the silent entry/exit at the Royal Rumble? Does he make his intentions known soon? Is he shooting straight for CM Punk at WrestleMania? It doesn’t matter. Jericho appears to have lost nothing while away from the WWE, and during his last run, he finally made good on the promise he had way back in WCW–he wasn’t just flash, he wasn’t just gimmick, but he was one of the smartest, most entertaining wrestlers in the world. If he is on a pay per view, I am buying it.
CM Punk and Johnny Ace are Steve Austin and Vince McMahon, Kinda
Because calling CM Punk Steve Austin is unfair to what the two of them represented to their time and their fanbase, and because Johnny Ace, swarthy, evil GM that he is, is an entirely different evil from Vince McMahon. See, Vince McMahon is the kind of dude who’d walk up to Hulk Hogan and spit in his eye. The sort of dude who challenges God to a wrestling match on pay per view and books himself to win. The sort of dude who’ll write you out of history in 1994 and write your obituary in Time Magazine in 2011. Vince McMahon is evil incarnate, man. He’d call his daughter a whore on live TV if he thought it’d sell tickets, and, hey, he did just that on more than one occasion. People put Austin vs. McMahon over as the working man against the evil boss, but really, it was the working man vs. the Devil, and people’ll buy tickets to see a representation of themselves fight evil of that magnitude.
Johnny Ace, on the other-hand, is a more subtle kind of evil. He’s the terrible boss, the underling who looks at a guy like Vince McMahon and says “Sure boss, you vs. God ought to be great.” When CM Punk ousted Vince McMahon from WWE storylines last year, it was because he didn’t care what the Devil could do to him–he was above temptation, he was better than anything McMahon could level. He demanded the private bus, the souvenir cups, the WWE Ice Cream Bars, was promised them, then pledged to leave McMahon without a championship anyway. Ace is the kind of guy Punk can’t get rid of though, because Big Johnny isn’t looking to Punk as his reason for being–he’s looking for the approval of the boss.
Now you have the worker vs. boss plotline at its most basic. Johnny Ace wants Punk gone because Punk doesn’t respect him, but he can’t fire him because Punk makes the company a lot of money and because his boss was relieved of his duties for trying to pull the exact same stunt. Punk, by the same token, wants Ace out, but since Ace has been walked all over for practically his entire American career, he’s not going anywhere. The only thing to do, then, is for the two to constantly antagonize each other. Punk does this:
And Ace, angry and with cause, declares himself the special guest referee for Punk’s match at the Royal Rumble and does this:
Both men have a legitimate reason to be upset with each other, and it’s done a few things that, months ago, I wouldn’t have assumed possible. First, it led CM Punk out of his post-Money in the Bank rut, where he was stuck going nowhere against Triple H, Kevin Nash, Alberto Del Rio, The Miz, and John Cena. No matter how good Punk’s matches were (and they were good), they were always going to be shadowed by the sense that his breakthrough summer was being wasted. Second, it’s made David Otunga, who I thought would be fired by now, an effective shitheel. Third, it’s given Johnny Ace, a successful wrestler in Japan and the inventor of the Diamond Cutter/RKO, an American career worth writing home about.
Ace’s career in America didn’t flounder because he lacked talent (he wasn’t great, and he wasn’t his brother, but he wasn’t horrible). The guy was given limited roles (the flag carrier for the Bushwhackers!) and lame gimmicks (a surfer!) and he did the best he could with them (he learned to skateboard for his role as one half of the Dynamic Dudes, which is more than what most people in lame job gimmicks do for their craft). Now, in 2012, he is the most over heel in wrestling. He declares his name and the crowd goes apoplectic. He demands a separate camera to wish John Morrison the best in his future endeavors. He “forgets” to check the envelope that says Zack Ryder isn’t medically cleared to compete. Worst of all for the fans, aside from a few flubs, he seems like a competent man for the job of running Raw, which is more than Triple H, Vince McMahon, and the Muppets can say. He knows his limitations, he knows what hardcore fans think of him, and he has turned it into an absolutely fascinating study in jealousy, fear, and ego. I’ve said it before, and every week he makes me believe it: Johnny Ace is entering McMahon/Eric Bischoff/Paul Heyman territory as a dickish authority figure, and that, right there, is rarefied air.
In 2002, my father took me to see The Scorpion King because I loved wrestling and, in 2002, to a wrestling fan, there was no badder man on the face of the planet than The Rock. Had I known that The Scorpion King represented the beginning of the end of the Rock’s tenure in the WWE, I’m sure I would have felt differently, but The Scorpion King wass the sort of dumb, fun action movie I’m still cool with, where the action scenes are comprehensible and the one-liners aren’t too stupid. Believe me, though: replacing the Rock is an impossibility, a task so Herculean that even the mighty Vince McMahon, possessed of untold promotional genius, realized almost immediately the the only way to start down that particularly foolhardy road was to wait until the Rock’s disinterested, Clark Kentian double—Dwayne Johnson—was ready to descend from Witch Mountain, willing to speak about himself in the third person again. Sadly for Universal Pictures, Johnson will probably never return to the movie that made The Tooth Fairy possible, but, like Vince McMahon, they seem to have accepted that, turning the Mummy spin-off into a direct-to-DVD, Redbox-friendly franchise.
The Scorpion King 3: Battle For Redemption is somewhat successful in that sense, the sort of time-waster determined not to bore, but without the ambition necessary to rise above its station. The one-liners are piled-on, the sidekicks oafish, the villains flamboyant and/or borrowed from a video game franchise, and the ninjas plentiful; if Scorpion King 3 were dinner, it’d be prison meatloaf. Sure, it lacks the refinement of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol or the inventiveness of Attack the Block, but cabbage and ground chuck function perfectly well as a meal, no matter how horrible it ultimately tastes.
Some years after the first Scorpion King, Mathayus (Victor Webster) is a broken man. Due to unseen circumstances, his kingdom is smashed and his queen is dead. As the helpful narration has it, Mathayus lives for mercenary gold and a good way to die, which lands him in the employ of Horus (Ron Pearlman), a king whose brother Talus (Billy Zane) hunts for the Book of the Dead and a queen worthy of his libidinous lifestyle. That Pearlman and Zane, dressed respectively like a monarch in a community theatre version of Shakespeare and a Halloween pirate, are as Egyptian as Abraham Lincoln is unimportant, especially considering that the Book of the Dead (“Book of the Dead” often prefaced with “Egyptian”) appears to be under lock and key somewhere in the lush jungles of Asia. If Talus gets the book, he gains the ability to summon three warriors (Dave Bautista, Kimbo Slice, and Selina Lo) of untold power. In stopping them, Mathayus is joined by the Germanic barbarian Olaf (Bostin Christopher) and Silda (Krystal Vee), the object of Talus’ infatuation.
The plot, if you can call it that, is an endless series of double crossings and feigned double crossings. Mathayus and Olaf are working for Horus, then Talus, then they’re in it for themselves, and there’s a chance that the ghost warriors could turn on Talus as soon as they got tired of taking orders from a tacky pirate. None of Mathayus and Olaf’s schemings get beyond Mathayus insulting Olaf’s smell, but, as Adam West once said, criminals are a cowardly, superstitious lot, and hearing Olaf’s choice responses to Mathayus (his best: “I smell delicious”) is worth putting off the ultimately underwhelming throwdown between Mathayus and Zane’s scenery-chewing Talus for. Olaf, in fact, does much of the film’s heavy lifting, bashing in heads, hugging dudes, and peeing on enough ninjas’ heads to keep things moving along.
Zane’s relentlessness is also a thing to behold. In a movie where ninjas join forces with a guy who becomes an insanely powerful mummy, his Talus is the only thing popping from the film’s immutable, all-pervasive blandness. He’s got his finger in a lot of dams, too: world domination, artifact hunting, ghost soldier commanding, Mathayus hunting, Silda seducing, and being a doer of acts most villainous. The fun Zane appeared to have making Scorpion King 3 is noticeable, but not quite viral. Victor Webster, wearing a hobo beard and hoping he looks enough like the Rock to pass as him from long distances, plays Mathayus as a bump on a log, and while Krystal Vee reminds him again and again that he’s battling for redemption, it becomes clear that too many people involved in the making of this movie were battling ennui.
And that’s the whole problem with Scorpion King 3, really. This is the third movie in a franchise spun-off to explain the origins of a bit villain from the second movie in another franchise. When The Mummy returned for another installment, it skipped out on Mathayus and the pyramids in favor of China and abominable snowmen. Granted, nobody was going to pick this up expecting something above mediocrity, something consistent and somehow significant to a franchise that’s liked enough, if not universally, but the hollowness of this particular effort really stands out. I went to a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurant once, and wandering from table to table was a man who was hired to impersonate Forrest Gump. There was an airshow that day, so the poor guy had to talk a lot about how the planes reminded him of Vietnam, which, of course, is where he got shot in the buttocks. I realized, finishing my meal in the awkward silence between my group and Forrest, that there are few jobs worse than inhabiting a character created for somebody else. The sadness of celebrity impersonation permeates Scorpion King 3, and Billy Zane is powerless to save the film from the scruffy-headed impostor who, unfortunately for him, spends much of his time moping about how he used to be a legend. Victor Webster may be jacked and he may be tan and he may be wearing something similar to what the Rock wore in the original, but put the Rock’s words into his mouth and, as one would expect, the result is schoolyard imitation, not particularly inspired, even by a need for attention.
Rating:
The Scorpion King 3: Battle For Redemption. Directed by Roel Reiné. With Victor Webster (Mathayus), Billy Zane (Talus), Bostin Christopher (Olaf), David Bautista (Argomael), Kimbo Slice (Zulu Kondo), Krystal Vee (Silda), and Ron Pearlman (Horus). Released January 17, 2012, by Universal Pictures.
Deep down, I love Brodus Clay, and was always destined to. My love of big Brodie stems from a deep-seeded love of the suplex, which, I believe, is something that every wrestling fan shares. This explains the love most of us had or still have for guys like Scott Steiner, Taz, Kurt Angle, Shelton Benjamin, Brock Lesnar, and, yes, Chris Benoit: the suplex is just that majestic a creature, simple and beautiful in its brutality. Beyond Steiner and Lesnar, what unified the suplex throwers of the world is that they’re all undersized when compared to your typical main event wrestler. Chris Benoit made it despite his size, Benjamin was held back because of it, and Kurt Angle had the good fortune of being an Olympic gold medalist with good charisma and an unnatural drive. All of these men hold the suplex in common (Taz, who was forced to retire before he could really make an impact in the mainstream, was the Human Suplex Machine, afterall), and, outside of the piledriver, few finishing manuvers in wrestling have had the tenure of the suplex, nor have they looked as dangerous.
It’s not that wrestling fans are in love with danger (though there’s a loud minority that prefer broken glass and barbwire to hammerlocks and the armdrag takeover), but wrestling, the art of wrestling, is all about the perception of danger. When a man is lifted into the air and dumped onto his head, when he is flipped over and turned inside out and left lying on the canvas, it looks to all the world that the guy on the receiving end of the move should be dead, and that the man performing it is among the baddest on the planet. Brodus Clay? He can throw a suplex. A big suplex. A nasty suplex. Watch:
Clay is a monster, a legitimate nightmare of a man. He stands at 6’7″, weighs 375 lbs., and his weapon of choice is a move that aims to land other men on their head and neck. As a fan of wrestling, as a fan of the suplex, there was nothing to dislike about Clay. He looked so much like a potential superstar that he was shoehorned into Alberto Del Rio’s Wrestlemania main event despite losing his season of NXT, that he avoided the indignity of NXT: Redemption, that he was put into a WWE Films production before making his proper debut, and that he was given a lengthy series of squash matches on WWE Superstars. Finally, after months of waiting, this video played on Raw:
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t really looking forward to Clay making his debut on Raw, squashing some poor bastard, and repeating this routine until they figured out what to do with him. Although squash matches are quick and boring, they not only allow a guy to showcase what he’s got (re: suplexes), but, more often than not these days, the guy getting squashed is somebody on the independent scene whose work I enjoy, who should be getting evaluated by WWE, and who deserves the exposure. It’s the best of all possible worlds, even if the path of Brodus “Mastodon of Mayhem” Clay was likely the same for every monstrous guy brought in by the WWE: He’d beat a bunch of people, run into and be stopped by John Cena or Randy Orton (or, last decade, the Undertaker), and be relegated to a series of go-nowhere feuds and matches until his eventual release. Nevermind the fact that Clay looked much more talented than the likes of Big Daddy V, the Great Kahli, Giant Gonzales, or Wrestlemania 2 headliner King Kong Bundy, that is the way of the world. But then this happened:
And it kept happening and happening and happening, often with Johnny Ace’s caveat that the debut “needed to be as big as possible,” and that he “would hate to be Clay’s first opponent.” The argument that his debut needed to be the biggest thing on the card was nice, but unnecessary–in the span between his initial hype video and his debut, really only three episodes of Raw were too stacked for him to appear: The one where Chris Jericho came back, the one where Kane came back, and the one with the Muppets, which was a Raw he was apparently legitimately bumped from due to the volume of Muppet sketches aired. It got to the point that, on the 1/2/12 Raw, Ace didn’t even talk to Brodus on the phone as he’d been doing for the past few months; he casually mentioned him in passing on Twitter. But, while the world (and Brodus) waited for Clay to make his debut, two things happened: Johnny Ace and David Otunga grew into their role as shitheel antagonists in a way that was ultimately different (and thus refreshing) from Vince McMahon, Paul Heyman, and Eric Bischoff, the big three of pro wrestling authoritarian dickery (“Big” Johnny’s antics on this week’s Raw were priceless, as was his disdain for John Morrison), and Clay’s debut had the sort of serious buzz among wrestling fans that the WWE’s been unable to manufacture in years. In the back of my head, I thought that Clay wasn’t going to make his debut until the Royal Rumble, where he’d either tie or break Kane’s record for eliminations; that, to me, was the only way to justify and pay off on months of legitimate build. What happened this week, when he finally made his debut?
The swaggering Funkasaurus from Planet Funk was decidedly not what was advertised by the glowering, menacing Brodus Clay who trumpeted about being the fall of humanity, and, from geeky internet reports, it wasn’t what was originally planned. If you’re a wrestling conspiracy theorist (and, if you watch wrestling, you probably are), you might be tempted to connect the dots and deduce that the Funkasaurus is Brodus Clay’s punishment for essentially leaking his planned debut match against John Morrison some weeks ago. Regardless, the moment you heard Justin Roberts say “From Planet Funk,” your reaction was to immediately love this Brodus Clay or hate him.
If you hated the Funkasaurus, I feel you. Those hype vignettes for Clay pimped him as a cross-pollination between Taz and Vader, a big dude who could work good matches in a company that has historically had big dudes who could hardly throw convincing punches. Giving up that goldmine for Planet Funk, in terms of what was expected, is like giving up a penthouse suite for a roadside motel. This is nothing new for the WWE, and that’s what’s been so heartbreaking about being a mainstream wrestling fan: they’re never satisfied with having good wrestlers. In Brodus Clay, like with Nick “Eugene” Dinsmore or “Pirate” Paul Burchill or Steve “Real Man’s Man” Regal, they were given a pretty good steak (in Regal’s case, a great steak), but for whatever reason they’re requesting that the chef dump a ton of glitter on the plate. Perhaps, once the initial shock and comedy value of the Funkasaurus has been wrung for every drop the concept is worth, poor Brodus Clay, like Eugene, won’t have much of a career to look forward to. If that ends up being the case, then yes, as a wrestling fan, I’ll be angry right along with those of you who wanted Brodus to run through a bunch of nobodies every week like Raw was an episode of WCW Saturday Night from 1993.
But right now, I love the Funkasaurus, and while it’s a weird comparison, much of the reason why I love the version of Brodus Clay is similar to the reason why I love the Chris Jericho silent treatment angle: Knowing the weight of everybody’s expectations, the WWE threw a curveball that literally nobody saw coming. Yes, Brodus Clay can throw a mean suplex, but so what? This is 2012, and if you’re not TRENDING WORLDWIDE on Twitter, you’re not notable. This is unsubstantiated and totally based on my observation of the internet wrestling community (I don’t do much observing, to be honest), but, based on things like Twitter, Tumblr, and message boards, it’s entirely possible that Clay’s debut stole the show from Chris Jericho, whose own shtick is so next level that the one-two punch of Jericho’s crazy light-up jacket and Brodus Clay on the same show should be causing the (WWE) universe to collapse in on itself.
This is the same Brodus Clay who destroyed a million jobbers, who should have won NXT, who was involved in a World Heavyweight Title match at Wrestlemania, and who could end up as a guy I’d be more than willing to pay money to see wrestle. But there’s no way that was happening right now. Not with Jericho back, not with Kane back, not with CM Punk and Dolph Ziggler tearing down houses, not with the Rock looming in the near future and, of course, the constant threat of the Undertaker or Triple H or Kevin Nash or, hell, Rob Van Dam making a run at Wrestlemania. If regular Brodus Clay debuts in such a jam-packed environment, he becomes forgotten as soon as he’s left off Raw so David Otunga can take two swigs from his travel coffee mug. The Funkasaurus? It’s the same Brodus Clay, only he gyrates to get out of waistlocks and apologizes for the suplex. It’s a unique character (not really, but still) in a sea of look-and-soundalikes. It’s fun, and on a show that has relentlessly beaten the fun out of guys like Santino, and is aiming to do the same to Zack Ryder. It featured what was perhaps a subtle nod to Gob Bleuth’s tearaway pants. It’s somehow found a use for the girl who told Steve Austin that her favorite match was Melina vs. Alicia Fox, beyond being the recipient of the best browbeating in reality TV history.
Not only is this everything I love, goofy gimmick included, but it’s got an easy exit strategy: give Clay different music, drop the dance moves, have him beat the tar out of a few guys, and how many WWE Superstars outside of the mighty, unflappable John Cena would dare to make fun of Clay? This transformation is not unheard of. Umaga, for example, was great, but he started life as a Samoan gangster who crashed fake gay weddings. People are willing to forget Vader’s foray into Hulkamania and flat do not remember that Bam Bam Bigelow was a good guy in the 1980s. The reason why is simple: Mention it, and they’ll dance on your grave. Someday, the Funkasaurus will go extinct. Until then, funk is on a roll, and I hope Brodie keeps rolling right along with it.
On a purely fiscal level, I understand why studios acquire movies like The Devil Inside. Shot on digital cameras with a nothing budget, starring nobody, and pre-packaged with the promise that something will eventually happen—something cool and perhaps frightening—they represent the kind of low-risk/high-reward gamble that, after Paranormal Activity, an executive would be foolish to blink at. It’s just that they’re all the same, right? Somebody sets up a bunch of cameras and waits and waits and waits for signs of the supernatural in every day life: an angry ghost or, as the case is here, a squatting demon. The signs are the same, too. Something floats, then someone floats, then things get violent. Yes, these pseudo-documentaries posit, there are things that go bump in the night. At this point, though, they’re bumping very quietly.
Instead of documenting a haunted house, The Devil Inside concerns itself with the familial history of Isabella Rossi (Fernanda Andrade), whose mother (Suzan Crowley) murdered a nun and two priests when Isabella was a young girl. Official reports have it that Maria Rossi just went crazy–and the Hoarders-like house she kept about confirms that diagnosis–but, three days before his death, Isabella’s father tells her the truth: Maria killed those people during an exorcism, which explains why she’s been confined to a mental institute just outside the walls of the Vatican for the past 20 years. Knowing all this, Isabella packs her bags and heads across the ocean with a documentarian to find out the truth about exorcism and her mother. Why she agrees to this is beyond me, but I guess I was raised to know the difference between family business and documentary fodder.
The Devil Inside‘s plot is straightforward enough at first. Isabella, like every pseudo-doc protagonist, has her doubts about the veracity of demonic possession/ghosts/the Blair Witch. If the seeing her mentally ill mother some 20 years after murdering a couple of priests and a nun carries any emotional weight, it sure doesn’t register. Rome for her, like many other cinematic doubters in the ongoing struggle between good and evil, is pretty much a paid vacation. Before seeing the school the Church educates its exorcists in, she tells the camera she hopes it isn’t just some crazy Catholic joke. You know, the kind of joke her mother would murder three people over. Exorcism, of course, is not quite what Isabella expected (not enough pea soup), but that comes later.
The movie is presented as a reel of found footage, put together without the help of the Church, who don’t like releasing film of exorcisms to the public. This set-up allows our other heroes, the priests Ben (Simon Quarterman) and David (Evan Helmuth), to rage against the machine a bit. In this new era of lawsuits and YouTube and science, the Church doesn’t exorcise people unless they’re absolutely sure a person is suffering from something more than bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. Ben and David, renegade clergy that they are, take on many cases the Church ignores, buries, or otherwise lets slip through the cracks. Using their limited knowledge base and years of experience, they’re not only able to determine if a person is possessed, but they’re capable of expelling the possessive demon. After Isabella meets with her mother, cameras in tow, she shows the footage to them and they agree that Maria is possessed. Until they finally meet her, it really seems like they’re reaching: She’s got inverted crosses cut into her skin. Instead of speaking different languages or even in tongues, she takes on an accent. She likes to swear at priests. Typical stuff.
Once these two strands of plot are joined together, The Devil Inside looks to marry them in a way that is fresh and interesting. It fails for a few reasons. The exorcism scenes aren’t anything close to shocking, relying on contortionists and levitation and the aforementioned curse-hurling as a precursor to the possessed escaping restraints, climbing the walls and attacking everybody in the room. The only people this behavior is new to are those on the screen. Worse, The Devil Inside telegraphs everything that happens mere minutes after introducing the premise. For example, there’s no reason anybody seeing this movie needs to be told by the documentarian himself that cameras will be running in the car at all time. And it’s really convenient that Isabella walks in on exorcism class right at the point when the professor starts talking about Multiple Demonic Possession and the demon’s ability to pass from host to host. There are four leads in this movie. Can you guess how many demon’s Maria Rossi is possessed by?
But enough about the humans in this movie: they’re all very pretty, and if you feel pity for nice looking people trying to make a quick buck off of a mentally incapacitated woman, this film’s for you. Me, I’m curious about the devil inside Mrs. Rossi. Movie demons who their eternities locked eternally in scripted conversations that have the same outcome, every time. Some demons, like Crocell, merely teach liberal arts and sciences when summoned. Some, like Abraxas, become Santana records. The ones we’re most acquainted with inhabit spinsters and teenage girls and wait for the coming of a film crew to let loose with an ever-stagnating routine of blood, spit, and the moderately inexplicable. I wonder: is the demon crippling a woman in a cell somewhere in Rome chosen because he or she is really, really good at telling priests off, or did they merely drew the short straw some millennia ago? It’s an interesting paradox–they seem to enjoy promoting the Devil’s work, but they’re too selfless to issue even a press release. Somebody go document them, for a change.
Rating:
The Devil Inside. Directed by William Brent Bell. With Fernanda Andrade (Isabella Rossi), Simon Quartermain (Ben), Evan Helmuth (David), Inout Grama (Michael), and Suzan Crowley (Maria Rossi) Released January 6, 2012, by Paramount Pictures.
In two movies now—The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Social Network—director David Fincher has made something exciting out of the mundane. Not that the mystery at the heart of this remake isn’t engrossing, but the way its protagonists set about solving it, in the hands of just about any other Hollywood director, would be the film’s nadir. Like The Social Network‘s sequences involving long, impenetrable sequences of code, much of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is spent researching, blowing up photographs, looking through slide shows, the Bible, and, in 2011, a card catalog.
This meticulous combing through of old evidence should be boring, but it draws the eye in, asks the viewer to pitch in and solve the mystery with the detectives. It works, even if you can solve the mystery; even, I suspect, if you’ve read the original novel or seen the 2009 Swedish adaptation of it. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is beautifully crafted and well-paced. Clocking in at well over two hours, containing three seemingly unwieldy plots that don’t converge at the center until midway through the movie, Fincher manages to cast familiar territory (even if you haven’t read the novels, the set-up is pure Agatha Christie) as dark, ominous and full of dread. It’s obvious the characters in the movie are walking through a minefield. The suspense is waiting for one of them to make the wrong step.
After being brought down by a Swedish tycoon for a supposedly libelous article in Millennium Magazine, disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is hired by the millionaire Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to investigate the 40-year-old case of his murdered niece, Harriet. The circumstances of the day—a family reunion/company board meeting on a private island, the bridge to which was cut off by an automobile accident—means that Harriet was murdered by one of her own family members, all of whom lead reclusive lives on the island’s various houses. All of the family members appear unbalanced, some of them were Nazi sympathizers during the war. The mystery, for all intents and purposes, seems indecipherable; Blomkvist has been hired to chase after ghosts at the edges of old photographs.
He is eventually assisted by Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a damaged, abused young woman who, like Blomkvist, is an expert investigator, though she comes from an entirely different school of detection. Where Blomkvist relies on personal interviews and the old trick of posting suspect’s names on the wall, Salander is a search engine savant, an obsessive observer, and not entirely pleasant company. A ward of the state, Salander’s guardian suffers a stroke and is no longer able to handle her case. She is given over to Nils Bjurman (Yorick van Wageningen), a sadistic bureaucrat who’ll only give Salander an allowance should she be willing to trade in sexual favors. These scenes are gross and horrifying in ways unrivaled by films whose sole purpose is to be gross and horrifying, and Salander’s revenge is appropriately brutal and torturous. More importantly, they give her the necessary motivation to join Blomkvist. She is a victim chasing an abuser, a woman capable of great violence hunting men who hate women unable to fight back.
The great success of this film, beyond Fincher’s obvious talent for style, is in the performances. Even at the end, when the movie is plodding through the detritus of the investigation that saw Blomkvist disgraced, Lisbeth Salander is a captivating human being. She lives in the margins of other people’s lives. It becomes obvious that she doesn’t always want things to be that way, but the big mystery, bigger still than the one on Henrik Vanger’s island, is how she’ll become something more than the fetishized object of men like Bjurman’s—even Blomkvist’s—desire. Blomkvist, indeed, seems currently incapable of looking at Salander as something more than object. She does her job well and one presumes he finds her enjoyable in bed, but his tastes run mundane (his editor-cum-mistress Erika (Robin Wright)) and, as a romantic interest, Salander’s a bit of a reclamation project.
The plot strands Salander and Blomkvist in a cottage on Vanger’s island, connected nominally to the mainland by a bridge but, in fact, worlds away from either person’s idea of normalcy. The Vangers, whose business ventures have faltered since the sudden disappearance of Harriet 40 years ago, are an odd assortment of shut-ins, misanthropes, and Nazis. Even the two nicest members of the family, Henrik and Martin (Stellan Skarsgård) don’t seem quite right, as their lifetimes of isolation and power have effectively knocked the family from orbit. Most of the people encountered by Salander and Blomkvist are evil or under the direction of evil people, and the Vangers are so varied, so rough, so unlikable, that it’s quite possible any one of them murdered Harriet.
That, ultimately, is the problem with the mystery at the heard of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: The film spends so much time obsessing on Salander, Blomkvist, and the minutiae they’re wading in that much of the plot carries itself out, a precision timepiece ticking away in the background. On its own, the Vanger plot is engrossing material, one of a couple of plotlines that probably could have sustained its own film. While it’s effectively juggled, for the most part, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is nevertheless guilty of some wonky storytelling, if only because it is so taken with its leads. There’s good reason for all that, not the least of which being that the movie doesn’t take many liberties with the original plot. It’s just that I can’t imagine antagonists much more brooding and mysterious than the Vangers, and their coming and going in one film seems all too easy, even if their purpose is to prove our heroes capable. They are, and they’re worth returning to. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo effectively sets the table—I just hope what’s next justifies leaving the island.
Rating:
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Directed by David Fincher. With Daniel Craig (Mikael Blomkvist), Rooney Mara (Lisbeth Salander), Christopher Plummer (Henrik Vanger), Stellan Skarsgård (Martin Vanger), and Robin Wright (Erika Berger). Released December 20th, 2011, by Columbia Pictures.
Beyond the utterly fantastic cage match between Daniel Bryan and Mark Henry and the largely good Survivor Series pay per view, it’s been a relatively lame couple of weeks for the WWE, who, in a mad attempt to a) build Zack Ryder b) build the Cena/Rock match at WrestleMania without the Rock and c) turn CM Punk into a sardonic version of Cena and Randy Orton, have managed to make themselves dreadfully uninteresting heading into the new year. I’ve been watching, but when the gist of my comments for the week could very well be “meh,” my time is better spent on things like grading. But, with the Slammy’s behind us and Alberto Del Rio once again looking like semi-credible heel threats, the WWE is, if not “interesting,” at least presenting a show that I can waste some digital ink on, capped by a very good, if redundantly named Pay Per View.
WWE Monday Night Raw (12/12/11)
Questionable Decision of the Week I: I know that midgets, racial stereotyping, and wigs are, for Vince McMahon, a dude in an ape suit away from comedic perfection, but man has Hornswoggle gotten more and more insufferable since gaining the ability to speak on the holiday SmackDown! Kids love the little guy, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that allowing him to talk is their way of edging him towards the firing line. He’s not cute. He’s not cuddly. And now that he’s trying to talk jive, he’s not in good taste.
Jim Ross: A few weeks ago, there was a sign in the crowd that asked, simply, that the WWE stop bullying Jim Ross. They haven’t, but kudos to Ross for trying his damnedest to work with what is perhaps the worst feud in WWE history. This week, he forgot the words to a rap-off and tried to do a spin-a-roonie, but, predictably, couldn’t. Whatever. Ross pulled off his not being able to pull things off in style. If he needs a rap in the future, I suggest this one:
Mick Foley and Ted DiBiase: They could have read from the telephone book, and I’d have been pleased so long as Ted let loose with his evil laugh.
Road Dogg Jessie James: I guess making fun of Vince McMahon on TNA television gets you somewhere, after all.
CM Punk’s Mega Massive Dynamic Dudes Burn: There are probably two ways of looking at Punk’s fascination with the former Johnny Ace. The first, obviously, is to question why it matters. Most people watching WWE–and it’s not just most kids who watch, but most everybody–have no idea that Ace was a former WCW wrestler and that he was one half of the infamously stupid Dynamic Dudes tag team (though, to his credit, at least he learned how to ride his skateboard). They hate Ace simply because he’s middle management, and the WWE has been telling its fans to hate middle management since the Montreal Screwjob. Making fun of Ace for tagging with Shane Douglas is a lot like making fun of Ace for being Road Warrior Animal’s brother–it hurts, but not because everybody is in on the joke. But, to a nerd like me who knows way too much about WCW and way too much about Ace, the subtle Dynamic Dudes burns have been small relief on a show that’s reached hard and failed to find anything resembling humor, of late. And when Punk comes out to accept a Slammy arm-in-arm with a mannequin wearing a Dynamic Dude’s t-shirt? Gut laughter. It also helps that the nine-minute segment had two of the better video packages of the year:
Granted, Punk’s best lines weren’t put into the video introducing the award, but represented in the video is the stunning transformation of R-Truth, the Punk/Austin confrontation, Booker T’s year of awesomeness, the Big O, and Howard goddamn Finkel. That’s all you need. And then, the Johnny Ace tribute package, put to Stan Bush’s “The Touch,” a video so good it almost made Ace look like a legitimate star, stateside. Not only that, but it involved JIM CORNETTE. The video truly was, as advertised, was Rad, Cool, and Gnarly.
Questionable Decision of the Week II: The “Trending Superstar of the Year” Slammy. It made no sense, and the match itself was pretty much pointless, as the winner wasn’t necessarily going to get a Slammy. Granted Ryder probably was the most popular wrestler of the year, as far as social media metrics go (he also has the most chintzy merch, after a long stretch where all he had was an awkward-looking t-shirt), but he could and probably should have just won the award and had a match where Twitter wasn’t mentioned once every other second.
Christian: I smile every time Christian asks for “one more match.”
Questionable Decision of the Week III: I know that handing Punk every Slammy was probably out of the realm of possibility, but not only was he not nominated for “Game Changer of the Year,” but he did not win “Oh My God Moment of the Year.” Both of which are pretty unreal, when you think about it. Triple H had nothing to do with McMahon getting “fired” other than delivering the news, and the game wasn’t exactly changed by the moment. The Undertaker kicking out of Triple H’s tombstone was a less-than-shocking but still cool moment in an otherwise dull brawl, as compared to Punk overcoming the Montreal Screwjob, beating John freaking Cena and exiting stage left with the WWE Championship.
I’m probably going to write more about this later, for whatever reason, but the Slammys, to me, represented the WWE’s assimilation of CM Punk’s wild summer. He was an aberration, and the company’s ability to shrug off what was, in June, a transcendent moment in the history of the medium, as business as usual in comparison to Cena challenging the Rock to a match that’ll take place next year and the finish to a match that will be forgotten in a year means that what Punk accomplished doesn’t matter beyond putting him into the Cena/Orton strata, but as the one smarks can stand to see win. You almost need to give the company kudos, but that match, as a moment, deserved a little more recognition on its own.
Questionable Decision of the Week IV: Having an “Oh My God Moment of the Year” award if you’re not going to use Joey Styles.
Having Goldust Do Anything: Even if it’s giving Snooki an award over the Muppets, I’m always a fan.
Questionable Decision of the Week V: Giving Snooki an award for accepting a paycheck. In the aftermath of her WrestleMania moment, John Morrison, Melina and Michelle McCool are gone, Layla hasn’t been seen on TV since getting injured shortly thereafter, and Trish Stratus went back to her yoga studio a slightly richer woman. Meanwhile, on the Muppet episode of Raw, Statler and Waldorf buried Michael Cole and we found out that Sheamus and Beaker are related. Who should have won? If it’s even a question, screw you.
KANE: Yes, yes, yes. I was worried, especially when he came out wearing Casey Jones’ goofy-as-hell mask, but the minute Kane’s old music hit and the lights went red, it was on. This might just be a cheap ploy for WWE to set the record for most masks worn in a public venue (yes, that’s a real record), and I may never have been a big fan of Kane, but whatever. The character always worked best as a silent, indefatigable killer, and if they had to go back to 1997 and give him a mask to get it done, so be it. Here’s a guy people have always liked and respected, who, in return, has been given a title reign where he beat the Undertaker with a flashlight, and where Edge covered his manager in half-eaten chicken wings. This after years of goofy attempts at humanizing him, after the lame reveal of his very much un-burned face, and after years of ill-advised booking. Things have been made right by him, and it’ll be interesting to see what he does.
I just noticed, upon watching that clip, that Jerry Lawler, for whatever reason, cracked a joke about Mark Henry and watermelon. Not that it matters, and not that I’ve never defended Jerry Lawler’s commentary or career before, but between this, his weird joke about the Jerry Sandusky scandal, his obsession with Vickie Guerrero’s weight, and his endlessly creepy comments about pretty much every WWE Diva under the age of 30/under 130 lbs, but Lawler has officially become a detriment to my enjoying the WWE. If he hangs up the headset sometime in the next year, it won’t be too soon.
WWE Tribute to the Troops (12/13/11)
For the record, I skipped past everything that wasn’t wrestling-related. While I appreciate what the WWE says it’s doing for the troops, the company has a long, shady history of exploiting war and patriotism for temporary gain. While turncoat Sgt. Slaughter and Muhammad Hussan aren’t exactly crimes against humanity, I don’t think the WWE should get a ton of extra credit just because they’re doing something nice. After all, they’re also trying to get some money from it, which, if nothing else, is the American way.
Questionable Decision of the Week VI: I understand that it’s not possible to hold the event in a war zone anymore, but it’s still a little weird to see the show taking place in a regular arena, with the TitanTron and everything. The outdoor setting of previous Tribute events, along with the sense that the company really went all out to put on a show for the troops, was a large part of what made those events work so well. Beyond the presence of so many troops, the show went on as would a typical episode of Raw or SmackDown!, building future shows (TLC: Tables Ladders and Chair), and featuring backstage interviews.
Sgt. Slaughter: Always a fan of the cobra clutch, the lisp, the chin. The night probably would have befitted from some “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan, but Slaughter’s a good choice for easy nostalgia.
Zack Ryder vs. Jack Swagger: Sometimes it seems like the Great Ryder Experiment is going to fail, but when 10,000 soldiers are chanting “broski,” something is definitely going right. Dolph Ziggler’s douche-heel ways continue to be something to behold, and Slaughter put Swagger in THE CLUTCH. It may have only been four minutes long, but the match did a lot in building to the Ziggler/Ryder match at TLC.
Questionable Decision of the Week VII: Having the host of a TV show pin Beth Phoenix. There are a lot of problems with the Diva’s division, and having a non-wrestler beat the champion only exacerbates them, even if it’s only in good fun. That being said, in two matches, Maria Menounos has displayed more natural wrestling talent than Alicia Fox. The look on her face during Kelly Kelly’s headscissors of doom was also pretty good.
Questionable Decision of the Week VIII: This picture, ’nuff said.
Cody Rhodes vs. Daniel Bryan: Quietly, Rhodes and Bryan have been developing one of the WWE’s better in-ring feuds. If that becomes something bigger than it is, that’d be great, but they’ve had something like four or five matches against each other on WWE TV this year, and all of them have been worth watching. This one was more about building up Cody’s match against Booker T at TLC, but it was probably the best match of the evening.
Evan Bourne Being an Awkward Nerd Around Miss USA: Made perfect sense.
Air Boom vs. Primo & Epico: The best televised tag team match of the year, even if I wonder where the hell Hunico went in this stable. No matter. Air Boom is back and still working well as a team, and they’ve finally got a heel tandem that wasn’t thrown together hastily to match themselves against. A nice step forward for the WWE Tag Team division.
Christian: He should just say ridiculous things every week until he’s ready to come back. Between presenting himself the invisible Slammy for “Most Courageous” and paying tribute to the Canadian Army, which is the greatest fighting force in the world, Christian manages to be one of the WWE’s more interesting, effective heels, all without stepping into the ring.
CM Punk & John Cena & The Big Show vs. Mark Henry & The Miz & Alberto Del Rio: Any time you can simultaneously build to two main event matches and do so well, you’ve got a stew going. Granted, there’s Cena, a rare healthy scratch at the PPV, but he is pretty much the WWE’s avatar, as far as the troops go, and in Fort Bragg, he has a venue that refuses to boo him or get caught up in the lame LETS GO CENA/CENA SUCKS dueling-chant-a-thon that his matches tend to be. The big story coming out of this match is that I want mark Henry to feud against EVERYBODY. A CM Punk program would be exceptionally nice. Also of note: a twist on Punk’s Savage Elbow Drop and the typical Big Show/Little Guy splash spot. It looked adlibbed and, more important, it looked like Punk and Big Show were having fun with it. There are few things more infectious than wrestlers having fun at their jobs.
WWE NXT (12/13/11)
Questionable Decision of the Week IX: Granted that I haven’t seen NXT in a few weeks, but whoever decided to replace William Regal with Matt Striker deserves to be drawn and quartered. The only made-up facts I want to hear are Regal’s wonderful Maxine Facts of the Week.
Trent Baretta Gets a Microphone: And the first thing is does is call C. Recks (like I’d forget my clever tag name for Curt Hawkins and Tyler Recks) a pair of “grumpypantses.” Then Yoshi Tatsu told Recks to wash his hair. This is pretty much why I watch the alternate, horrifying universe that is WWE NXT.
The Bateman/Maxine/Curtis Love Triangle Video: This might just be the worst angle of the year, but you wouldn’t know if from the video they put together to hype the love triumvirate’s appearance on Percy Watson’s talk show. In all seriousness, it was put together better than some videos used to promote main event Pay Per View matches. If anything comes from this, I hope it’s that Bateman and Curtis get a shot. Both are talented, well-rounded wrestlers, and might even work well as a tag team. As soon as they figure a way off of the Island of Misfit Toys, they should see their fortunes improve. I mean, Bateman got a sign this week, so you know somebody cares.
Johnny Curtis’ Defense When Accused of Paying off JTG: “I don’t have that much money.” How sad.
Maxine is Tired of Titus O’Neil Barking: She speaks for us all.
Finding Out that “Uso” means “Brother” in Samoan: So they’re the Brother Brothers. I laughed.
One of Titus O’Neil’s Son’s Names is Titus. The Other’s is T.J.: I hope that stands for “Titus Jr.”
Titus O’Neil Compares Himself to Ted DiBiase Sr., Ron Simmons, and The Rock: I laughed, then I was thankful that he left out Vader. O’Neil is probably going to end up like Scotty Goldman…only Scotty doesn’t suck. And he probably wouldn’t fall over every fifth word. It’s no wonder they keep bringing guys back onto this never ending show–it takes all hands on deck to carry poor Titus through a segment, let alone a weekly, episodic telecast.
YES, BOO HIM.
WWE Superstars (12/15/11)
Apparently: Superstars is now a nebulous, undefined zone where WWE superstars compete for a 10 match contract for Raw or SmackDown!. This is news to me, and smells of something Matt Striker made up because he doesn’t think matches are important enough on their own, but if this is indeed the case, I kind of like the idea, provided it’s followed up on and the likes of Drew McIntyre or Justin Gabriel really do get a chance to be on Raw or SmackDown!. It smacks a little bit like the concept of NXT, minus the awful format and still-green wrestlers.
Hunico’s Sweet Ride: I’m going to let Dusty Rhodes handle this one…
Hunico vs. Trent Baretta: The Abe Lincoln tights are gone, replaced with a sloppy mess that may as well read “Fire Me” instead of “Trent?” but Baretta is pretty much capable of having a good match with anybody. Lucky for him, Hunico’s pretty good as well. It’s a short match, and I can’t quite say that it’s worth seeking out for anything specific (beyond Hunico’s bicycle!), but the week leading up to TLC is kind of weak on the wrestling, so I’m mentioning it by name.
Questionable Decision of the Week X: Just noticed this, but it looks like the album cover for the TLC theme song is a swastika…being eaten by some disembodied heads.
Air Boom vs. Epico & Primo: Longer and better than their match at Tribute to the Troops. Kofi, it seems, has been watching his indie tapes. There’s certainly more Low-Ki in his offence, and he’s minimized his use of annoying roll-throughs and leaping chops and other suchlike garbage, though he does roll through for a leaping clothesline off a hot tag. Epico and Primo work very well together, even if Rosa Mandes feels tacked on, and if a few other teams can start getting exposure, there might just be something to this tag team division thing. Worth seeking out.
WWE Friday Night SmackDown! (12/16/11)
Booker T: I know that plenty of people on these here internets don’t like Booker T, but as a huge, huge WCW fan, the Harlem Heat theme song makes me so, so happy. Not only that, but Booker T sounded more serious in his interview at the beginning of SmackDown! than he had since his feud with Scott Steiner as WCW crashed down around him. If they let Booker sound more natural on the headset, he might yet prove to be a very, very good addition to the commentary booth. Not that I’m not already the only person who likes him as a commentator. Because I am. I love his commentary. But I wouldn’t mind a short-term return to the ring for Booker, as his feud against Rhodes has been far more interesting than any recent iteration of the young wrestler vs. old announcer feud the WWE seems to love. His facial expressions while Rhodes was running him down? Sublime.
Daniel Bryan vs. Cody Rhodes: For the love of God, somebody please give these two a twenty minute match without another feud hanging overhead. Without Booker T interfering, Rhodes and Bryan just flat out have another good match in their unsung series, and this one’s got a good finish, to boot. Bryan, I hope, will soon be booked as something more than just a threat to beat guys like Rhodes and Mark Henry, but I don’t think he’s had a bad outing since signing a WWE contract. Or ever. And Rhodes continues to improve, impress, etc., even if I miss his kneepad-less look.
Questionable Decision of the Week XI: It is no longer enough to just question why the WWE, in building Natalya and Beth as their main women’s heels, feels the need to constantly put Alicia Fox or Kelly Kelly or, really, anybody over them on a near constant basis. I’m willing to accept that Alicia Fox will pick up a win or two if that’s what it takes for women’s wrestling to have a presence on TV, but who benefits from a 90-second match that ends in a surprise roll-up, especially if that’s the finish every week? Certainly not Alicia, who could probably use all the ring time she could get, and definitely not the WWE, who have, in Beth Phoenix and Natalya, two of the most talented women they’ve ever employed. The Diva’s division is in clear and dire need of a rebuilding project, and on a scale much, much larger than that which faces the tag team division. When/if Kharma comes back, that’ll be a step in a positive direction, but you still face a problem where you’ve got three incredibly strong women fighting a roster of limp noodles capable of winning only via flash roll-ups. This needs to change, otherwise why bother?
Mark Henry’s T-Shirt: The WWE have, of late, been releasing a ton of great t-shirts. They’re not iconic in the way of Austin 3:16, but between Henry’s “Hall of Pain” shirt, the C.M. Punk “Best in the World” shirt, the new Daniel Bryan and Wade Barrett shirts, whoever comes up with these things are making a case for wearing wrestling shirts in public again.
Booker T’s Fave Five: 1) Not Booker T 2) These young guys, who it’s all about (I think he meant the Uso Brothers) 3) Rosa Mendez (Shucky, ducky, quack-quack) 4) ??? 5) ???
Big Show vs. Jack Swagger: Not a super tremendous match or anything, but Mark Henry was sitting at ringside, and he was awesome. Also, Swagger had a really nice counter for the chokeslam, rolling through an applying the ankle lock. Sometimes with Big Show, it’s the little things–like not crushing a guy when doing a roll through. I’ve always appreciated him, and I think 2011 has been one of his best years, if not just flat out his best work. Mark Henry taking out the camera guy with a chair before yelling “EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED” was a highlight of the week.
Zack Ryder & Randy Orton vs. Wade Barrett & Dolph Ziggler: You know what’s awesome? Dolph Ziggler selling Randy Orton’s anger stomps like they were murdering him. I don’t know if they’re going to give Ziggler a chance to be at the top of the mountain or if they’re always going to be happy with him as an upper mid-card Mr. Perfect kind of guy, but regardless, Ziggler is constantly stealing the show, win, lose, or draw. Watching he and Barrett as a team on SmackDown, the future looks to be alright for the WWE. Barrett might not be as over as WWE wants us to perceive him, but he’s made rapid improvement since dropping the Nexus/Corre business and going it alone. With the exception of Daniel Bryan, Barrett is the only guy in the group whose WWE career hasn’t stalled out in a series of matches on NXT: Redemption or Superstars, and he earns that distinction every week. As for Orton and Ryder: I’m not the world’s biggest Randy Orton fan (I don’t like him at all, it turns out), but 2011 has been a great year for him. His feuds against Punk, Christian, and Mark Henry were all good, and his feud with Barrett, while not over, has done a lot for him. He’s not quite the superhuman John Cena is, and the weird, goofball facial tics that have become part of his game make no sense to me, but he literally can’t do anything wrong right now, and rather than steamroll the roster, he’s been putting on compelling matches for the better part of the year. I don’t think that random tag teams with Zack Ryder give anybody a rub, but Ryder no longer looks out of place against the upper echelon, which is going to be important if the Ryder Revolution is to result in anything positive. Good tag team main event, even if I hate it when a guy is in a clear position to make the save and doesn’t, as Barrett does at the end of the match here. Sets up nicely for both matches at TLC, and is another good outing for four men who’ve all had very good years.
TLC: Tables, Ladders, Chairs (12/18/11)
Three Unadvertised Matches: I’m generally a fan of unannounced matches, though they don’t make much business sense, because it’s usually a chance for a lesser-known quantity to grab a piece of the spotlight. This month, the WWE served up not just one, not just two, but three unadvertised bonus matches, two of which were for titles. The first, pitting Air Boom against Primo & Epico (looking for a clever tag team name) was more of the same from these four, meaning a solid tag team contest. The difference between this and their Superstars match is that Air Boom pulled out the win. The announcers’ constant focus on Rosa Mendez is a little disconcerting, but while Jerry Lawler salivates over Rosa’s short shorts, two of the WWE’s better tag teams in awhile continue to impress. Also, in 2011, Primo Colon got on pay per view. That’s deserving of congratulations.
Later, Beth Phoenix took on Kelly Kelly in a match for the Diva’s Title that was booked after Kelly slapped Beth at the Slammy’s. Beth and Kelly have faced each other on pay per view a few times now, but this was probably their best outing yet. I feel myself getting furious every time Kelly Kelly manages to reverse the Glam Slam with a roll-up, but thankfully they don’t repeat that as a finishing spot every time. Here, Beth got Kelly up for a powerbomb and simply fell backwards, hitting her with a fairly devestating version of Big Show’s old Alley-Oop finisher. They’ve toned Kelly down a bit, as her satellite headscissors aren’t so horrible and we’ve gone a few weeks without her hitting the stinkface. Now she needs to stop yelling during every offensive and defensive series, and we’ll be at a point where K2 doesn’t make my heart hurt for today’s mainstream wrestling fans.
Finally, Sheamus took on Jack Swagger and won, shocking nobody. It seems like nothing poor Jack Swagger does will propel him forward, which is too bad. I was probably the only person in the world who enjoyed his reign as the World Heavyweight Champion, but, given time and ridiculous gimmicks (Swagger’s dad! The Swagger Soaring Eagle!), he’s a solidly entertaining guy. Now that Dolph Ziggler is without the U.S. Title, it might be wise to have Swagger feud with Zack Ryder for the United States Championship. A Ryder/Ryder’s Dad/Big O vs. Swagger/Swagger’s Dad/Swagger Soaring Eagle match would be the moment of the year.
Zack Ryder Finally Wins the United States Championship: I guess the only thing you can say at this point is “Good for him.” Now comes the true test. If Ryder has a pretty good run with the United States Championship, if he continues to evolve as an in-ring competitor and as a personality, then the Ryder Revolution will stand as a unique, positive moment in wrestling history. Even if Ryder never wins the big one, even if all this does is ensure that Ryder has a job and some merchandise, then it’ll show that a guy can make a name for himself outside of the system, which is something the WWE has been convinced is impossible for some time. If he utterly fails to make an impact now that he’s got what’s essentially a guaranteed place on every Raw telecast, then we return to the status quo. I don’t like the status quo. There’s a lot of pressure on Ryder, especially considering that there was virtually no pressure on him mere months ago, but as long as John Cena isn’t out there ramming Ryder down my throat, I think he’ll do fine.
Dolph Ziggler Finally Has Nothing Tying Him to the Midcard: Sure, he lost the United States Championship, and he’s got a rematch to have, but leaving behind the United States Championship is probably the best thing for Ziggler, who has had very, very good matches against Randy Orton and CM Punk while feuding with Ryder. Like Ryder deserved a chance to make it to the stage, Ziggler now deserves a chance to become a main player. I suspect he will, heading into the Royal Rumble, and I hope he’s given a better WrestleMania platform than last year’s Snooki showcase.
Questionable Decision of the Week XII: Not that the match was bad, but not giving Wade Barrett a win over Randy Orton in a match where there’s no real statement of dominance is kind of weird. A few years ago, when John Cena and Sheamus had a tables match on this show, Sheamus won when Cena fell off the top rope through a table. It gave Sheamus the title (prematurely, but it’s what the WWE wanted), and it was no skin off Cena’s back. Orton could have gone through a table through nefarious means or through the force of Barrett’s will, but a loss wouldn’t have done much to his credibility, as there’s a stark difference between going through a table and being pinned/submitted.
Alberto Del Rio Buries the Miz: He’s not boring on the microphone, and people need to stop claiming that he is.
Kevin Nash vs. Triple H: There was one spot–ONE SPOT–that made the booking of a ladder match between Nash and Triple H look bad, and that was the Pedigree towards the end of it. I’d like to think Nash went down for the move too soon because he was too amped up, knowing how much better the match was than literally everybody’s expectations. Despite its car-wreck nature, there was a lot going on for the match. The ladder spots looked pretty damn dangerous, Nash and Triple H didn’t hold back, throwing bombs the whole time, and Nash unexpectedly took a fall from the ladder through a table, managing to bump more in one match than he did during his entire WCW career. And the finish, where Nash held up the Cliq/Wolfpac sign before Triple H smashed his face in with a good-looking sledgehammer shot, was creative, good, and, for an Attitude Era fan, maybe a little emotional. Maybe. Triple H is beginning to specialize in Special Attraction brawls, and, somehow, he pulled out a really good one with Kevin ‘freaking Nash. If he has another brawl with Taker at next year’s WrestleMania, he might rectify this year’s misfire.
Daniel Bryan is the World Heavyweight Champion: A year ago, Daniel Bryan was the special attraction at an independent wrestling show at a flea market in Taylor Michigan. Yes, that promotion was CHIKARA and, yes, to most hardcore wrestling fans (me included), there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But most wrestlers dream about making it big in the WWE, and most wrestlers never get a chance, regardless of how good they are. Daniel Bryan, ladies and gentlemen, is very good, and it wasn’t too long ago that it seemed like the WWE had dumped him on shady grounds because they don’t know what to do with people of his size or his skillset. Last night, after an underwhelming finish to the Big Show/Mark Henry feud (Mark had a pulled or torn groin, so it’s not a QDotW), Daniel Bryan cashed in his briefs and freaking won the World Heavyweight Championship. You can say what you want about being the champion of SmackDown! or holding a title that’s been held by the Great Khali and a not-yet-ready Jack Swagger, but it’s the second most important belt the WWE has, and Daniel Bryan won it. If you like wrestling, if you remember that the second “W” in “WWE” stands for “wrestling,” Bryan’s championship win is huge, huge news and, depending on how they handle it, could well be the best story going into the early part of 2012. I could write about this endlessly (ENDLESSLY), but Bryan running around with the title last night joins a very short list of moments in mainstream wrestling that made me proud to be a fan.
The Odyssey of Booker T: The Intercontinental Title match between Booker T and Cody Rhodes got three segments last night, and all three of them were pretty good. If you consider that becoming a WWE announcer gives you superpowers between the ropes, attacking Booker T twice before the match was good strategy on the part of Cody Rhodes, and made it pretty clear how important the match was to him and Booker, who showed up regardless of the disadvantage. The match wasn’t the showstealer I kind of expected from Booker T, who is quite good when motivated (and judging by his passionate speeches on Tough Enough, he LOVES the WWE), but it furthered the story and had an interesting finish, where Booker was knocked loopy and started doing the spin-a-roonie during a disadvantageous time. Cody Rhodes continues to look great as the Intercontinental Champion, and it won’t be long before he forces management to nudge him higher up the card.
Ricardo Rodriguez: Not only did he get piefaced, but he took the biggest bump of the evening, falling backwards off of a ladder through a table. It was legit scary watching him go down like that, but hey, that’s the life of a second in wrestling. Between that and his more-somber-than-usual introduction for Del Rio, Ricardo was a highlight of a very strong pay per view and, hopefully, 2012 will see him get some in-ring action. He’s already a better valet than Virgil, and it stands to reason that he’ll make a bigger impact than him in the ring, too. For the record, I really wanted him to get the title, if only because I think there’s an outside chance he would have been declared champion.
CM Punk vs. Alberto Del Rio vs. The Miz: Less crazy, less memorable than most TLC matches, as outside of the Rodriguez bump and Punk taking a tumble from the turnbuckles to the floor, this match was much more about the craftiness of the combatants than their willingness to do insane stuff for the title. Del Rio continues to impress, and I like watching him use the armbar on people using ladders and chairs–very clever. Also clever–having Punk unscrew the turnbuckle to escape the fate of watching somebody climb the ladder to take the title from him while helpless. If there’s any justice in the world, Johnny Ace is going to have a segment on Raw where he fires the ring technician.
No John Cena: I don’t hate John Cena, but he did not make an appearance at TLC. This was new. This was a nice change of pace. It was appreciated. Now he can commence eating chokeslams from Kane and making fun of the Rock for making millions of dollars for not being on TV.
These Pictures: We’re currently watching a product where Kofi Kingston is the least talented person holding a championship belt. Kofi Kingston, for the record, is actually quite good. It’s strange, but I like it. It won’t last, but not all dreams do.
