Let’s start here: Furious 7 is the latest in a growing list of action movies that I found myself simultaneously awed and troubled by. While I am continuously surprised that a franchise as pleasurable as this one frequently is came from the same film that spawned listless spinoffs like Torque and Biker Boyz, the seventh installment of The Fast and the Furious‘s now thankfully untangled universe spends a not insignificant amount of time arguing that, in the right hands, global surveillance is a good thing. You’ve seen this before—Batman, needing to find the Joker, convinces his tech guy, with little more than a shrug, to let him jack into every phone in Gotham City. Superman flies up, up, and away so that he can listen very carefully for the heartbeat of the one specific person in Metropolis he’s looking for. Professor X builds a machine that can let him listen to the thoughts of hundreds of thousands of human beings at once so he can identify the mutants in the crowd, show up on their doorstep, and give them a hug. The Avengers spent half a movie trying to fix a flying boat that was being used to spy on the world and only got upset about it later. Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) is a superhero, too, perhaps the 21st century’s first original one, and here, in 2015, when a government agent named Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) tells him that there’s a flash drive that’ll let him or whoever has it tap into every Internet-ready device on the planet, he is completely unfazed. Hell, that kind of thing might even be useful.
Furious 7 means nothing by its MacGuffin, of course. Mr. Nobody promises that it can be used to track down Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), a shadow who has been hunting Toretto and his makeshift family for crippling his brother in Fast & Furious 6, but Shaw is never exactly hiding, unless that’s what he’s doing by showing up on a mountain pass with a specially rigged car designed to force Toretto and his crew off the edge of a cliff. Dom’s proposed alternate plan of hanging out and drinking Corona until Shaw found him probably would have worked, truth be told. But as all the fancy computers in the world bleep and bloop until they’re locked on to the face and voice of a computer hacker who is trying to bring this spy system down with a prayer and a digital readout screen, one can’t help but wonder how important these big, dumb, exciting action spectacles will be in normalizing the already near-constant state of surveillance we live under.
Director James Wan, taking over for Justin Lin, is taken by quick-edited establishing shots of Furious 7‘s many foreign cities and rapid-fire montages of female anatomy just, you know, standing around during the series’ now perfunctory drag racing and beachfront sequences, a somewhat goofy throwback to the series as it was before Lin made it a canvas for spectacle. That nostalgia serves both narrative and extra-narrative purposes, though, as the film is at least nominally about the creation and evolution of a makeshift family, and is absolutely about giving deceased star Paul Walker a final bow. As Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) struggles with her memory and her place in the crew, Furious 7 wrings the most tension out of the action sequences revolving around Walker’s Brian O’Conner, a new father who would be struggling with his adjustment to the domestic life if Deckard Shaw’s revenge plot didn’t involve cutting every branch of the Toretto family tree. The Fast and the Furious has struggled in the past to make Walker and Jordana Brewster’s domestic quibbles seem relevant to the business of whipping around exotic cities in cars capable of lightspeed, but if Furious 7 isn’t focused on these characters (and Brewster has been relegated to pregnancy and staying back at the fort for some time now), then it is at least dedicated to giving them a real ending, a thing not often afforded to the main character of a decade-spanning action franchise.
The attention paid to the core characters from The Fast and the Furious means that there is less for the ancillary characters to do, Tej (Ludacris) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson) getting their tech guy/comic relief licks in from the fringes of the film so that Kurt Russell can wax sarcastic about the shadowy government organization he works for. Dwayne Johnson, whose character completely changed the scope and tenor of the series, spends most of this installment hospitalized. When he’s in play, though, he’s in play: flexing, waggling his eyebrows, spouting catchphrases—Hobbs is Dwayne Johnson in “The Rock” mode, pure brain candy. With each film he appears in, it’s clear that Johnson is on another level as an action star, bringing together physical presence and charisma in a way that suggests peak Schwarzenegger or Stallone, if either of those men were capable of having fun with themselves as living action figures. He and Diesel are compelling foils to each other and to the Schwarzenegger/Stallone rivalry, Johnson’s best vehicles being those where he is all mega-watt charm and Diesel’s being those where he can brood and menace. Diesel is forever the philosopher-king of the quarter-mile, and it’d be easy for a movie with Furious 7‘s purpose to get lost, gazing into its own navel. If Furious 7 is the last film in the series that suggests a family barbecue and a return to normalcy is ever going to be possible for these characters, Toretto is going to need his buddy Hobbs around to remind him that there’s a whole world out there to simultaneously save and destroy, one car at a time.
Furious 7. With Vin Diesel (Dominic Toretto), Paul Walker (Brian O’Conner), Jason Statham (Deckard Shaw), Michelle Rodriguez (Letty), Jordana Brewster (Mia), Tyrese Gibson (Roman), Ludacris (Taj), Dwayne Johnson (Hobbs), Kurt Russell (Mr. Nobody), Nathalie Emmanuel (Ramsey), Tony Jaa (Kiet), Djimon Hounsou (Jakande), and Ronda Rousey (Kara). Directed by James Wan, from a screenplay by Chris Morgan.
At times, last night’s episode of WWE Raw felt like it was being piped in from several alternate universes, which, I suspect, is just the nature of the “family reunion” style of show the company is fond of putting on when it meets and eclipses certain milestones. If, like me, you have an oddly (sadly) precise memory for the goings-on of World Wrestling Entertainment, things like the Degeneration X reunion—which saw Triple H and Shawn Michaels join forces with X-Pac and the New Age Outlaws for fifteen minutes of passable, PG jokes about how old the quintet has become—are head-scratching affairs due to giant, gaping holes in continuity. Yes, the Triple H/Shawn Michaels configuration of the group wore the same t-shirts as the Triple H/X-Pac/New Age Outlaws iteration, but Michaels had considerable beef with those dudes once he was ousted from the group, and said beef was never satisfactorily resolved. (more…)
The long and short of Sunday’s Wrestlemania is this: The matches that were meant to deliver, delivered. The matches that were going to be OK, were OK. The match that was going to suck, sucked. The only thing I had against what may possibly be the WWE’s biggest show (and perhaps its best) since Wrestlemania X7 was that Daniel Bryan lost his World Heavyweight Championship in 18 seconds, and, to be honest, I can’t complain about that either, given how that turned out. But, no matter how successful any given WrestleMania is, the RAW following is just as important, if not more so. While Wrestlemania is the cumulative blow-off of an entire year’s worth of build and anticipation, the Raw the night after serves as a platform upon which the company launches its new year, usually by bringing in new faces, re-debuting old ones, establishing the upper-echelon going forward, at least for the first quarter of the year.
I don’t have a crystal clear memory of every post-Wrestlemania episode of Monday Night Raw (or Wrestling Challenge or whatever), so pardon me if there are several hidden gems out there that go unaccounted for with this statement: Last night’s episode of Monday Night Raw might be the best one in a decade. For all I know, it may be the best episode of Raw ever. That’s not hyperbole; Raw, with nary a mention of the classic encounter between The Undertaker and Triple H that took place the night before, was better than all the hype, speculation, and drama leading up to or coming out of any Wrestlemania I can remember watching. It had, as its hook, the re-debut of a much maligned former WWE superstar, the return of a main event wrestler from injury, and a return so mind-bendingly improbable that I saw a picture of him in Miami hours before the show and kind of assumed he was just there to go on vacation. This was a Raw so good that I’m writing about it right now, as opposed to writing about it at the end of the week or, like every Raw this year, simply letting it dissipate, like mist. So yeah, here’s how everything went down:
The Crowd Was Insane
The crowd at Wrestlemania 28 was great, but the thing that happens when you take a roof off a stadium and put a wrestling crowd in there is that there’ll be long stretches of time where the crowd seems silent. The opening stretch of Chris Jericho vs. CM Punk, for example, seemed quiet, but in any other arena there would have been a fairly audible buzz. With 50,000 fewer people, the American Airlines Center seemed like it was going to explode the whole evening, as the fans chanted “YES! YES! YES!” for Daniel Bryan the entire night, even when The Rock was out there, even when John Cena was out there, and changed it to “SI!” for the return of Alberto Del Rio. I’ve watched a ton of wrestling and have heard a lot of crowds, and few compare to the sustained bombastics of tonight’s bunch. They were absolutely high on wrestling, making everything that happened seem important. That’s good, because most everything that did happen was, indeed, important.
Johnny Ace and “People Power”
Ace’s team won at Wrestlemania and, as such, he’s the GM of Raw and SmackDown! His speech opening Raw was brief, but it let us know exactly the kind of guy Ace was going to be, without the fear of losing his job hanging overhead: Smug and vindictive. Those are the two qualities that make the whole general manager thing work, and it gives guys like Zack Ryder and Santino a smarmy jerk to work with when, previously, the only thing they had working in their favor was how well-liked they are. It’s a good move with the potential to be made better, should the split between the two shows be brought to a merciful end. There’s been little distinguishing the two for years, and now, there’s even less. Do it! Pull the trigger.
The Rock Once Again Has My Hopes Up
The Rock won at Wrestlemania in a match that didn’t quite live up to the Once in a Lifetime hype, but it was still a good encounter and, hey, nothing was going to live up to the expectation placed upon it. And on Raw he came out and said exactly what I wasn’t expecting him to say, which was that Wrestlemania 28 was under no circumstances The Rock’s match. No. He want’s more. Specifically, he wants the WWE Title.
I’m not sure why “Christ” is a bleepable word or why “JHC” wound up being chanted (other than that the crowd was up for anything), but The Rock, once again, seems serious about this whole wrestling thing and is looking for an eighth reign atop the WWE. Something I didn’t mention while writing about Wrestlemania 28 is that The Rock, simply by being in the building, merely by being on the show, gives every wrestler on the roster more exposure than they’d receive were the Rock merely sipping bloody Marys in his trailer on the set of G.I. Joe. John Cena, as we’ll later learn, is pretty much occupied, leaving The Rock with some slim pickings when it comes to worthy championship opponents: Should The Rock go one on one with CM Punk or Daniel Bryan, for example, I will absolutely lose my mind. Moreover, a feud against a guy like CM Punk would probably elevate him to the sort of godhood only reserved for men like John Cena and The Rock himself, particularly if Punk does what Cena couldn’t and wins the thing.
That being said, The Rock will probably end up in a feud against Randy Orton or something, but a man can dream.
Funk Is In A Feud
I love Brodus Clay, to the point that his five minute dance number with Mamma Clay and the Bridge Club wasn’t an unnecessary intrusion on a night where I really didn’t want unnecessary intrusions. But if there’s something that Clay needed, it was a chance to expand beyond the three minute matches he’s been exclusively featured in since his re-debut. At the conclusion of a triple threat match for the United States Championship, Brodus came out and rescued Santino from the combined forces of Jack Swagger and Dolph Ziggler (Swaggler, as the kids say), absolutely leveling Ziggler with a headbutt that Ziggler made look like the very image of death. If that’s a one-off, for shame. If Clay ends up being part of an extended angle with either Ziggler or Swagger, that’s good. Santino, I’m convinced, will never be a useful figure to me again, but if he gets Brodus a seven minute tag match on Raw or a pay per view, I’ll do him a solid and pretend that his stellar heel run ended before the whole Santina farce.
LORD TENSAI
Re-debuts of old characters rarely work, as wrestling fans have a longer memory than promoters believe and, usually, when a wrestler is making his second or third reappearance on the main show under his second or third gimmick, fans tend to know and are merciless about the past. As an example, fans still chant “Sexual Chocolate” at Mark Henry, despite how awesome he is as a giant, unstoppable monster. To my mind, there’ve been very few good redebuts in the history of wrestling. Two spring to mind immediately: Umaga, a drastically new look and style for a guy who was formerly a member of a sibling gangster Samoan tag team, and Kane, who had to suffer stints as a more popular wrestler’s doppelganger and as an evil dentist before settling into the role that will define his entire career. It’s early, but I’d like to add Lord Tensai to that list after one match, if only because the basis of the gimmick is so surprisingly unique. Look at this teaser video:
For the past few weeks, I’ve been under the assumption that A-Train (the artist formerly known as Prince Albert, he of the team T&A, both things being about as “Attitude Era” as you can get while still being forgettable) was returning with the gimmick that he was Asian, which would probably have been one of the worst ideas ever considering just how white he is. But Lord Tensai, who was once only distinguishable from other monster wrestlers by the fact that he had a ton of hair on his back, comes out to the ring dressed like an early 90s Great Muta and Michael Cole flat out acknowledges what everybody knows: That this guy used to go be in the WWE and that he went to Japan. Not only did he go to Japan, but he adopted the Japanese lifestyle because, get this, it made him a better wrestler. It wasn’t the sort of praise I was expecting. It was exactly the sort of praise this character deserves.
The match itself is simple brutality; one guy roughing up another. Brodus Clay was probably pushed into a feud because they can’t have two guys out there indiscriminately squashing the Alex Rileys and Heath Slaters of the world, but this here is one of the more impressive squash matches I can recall seeing. As opposed to just being a few moves leading to the star’s finishing move, Riley pretty much takes everything Tensai has to offer, to the point that he literally can’t continue. How good was this, as a re-debut? The fans, initially torn between making fun of A-Train’s past and cheering for Daniel Bryan, come around for Tensai’s butterfly suplex and are firmly in his pocket as he drills Riley with the fatsplash and his old Baldo Bomb finisher, which will surely get a better name. Also, Tensai appears to be bringing Asian Mist back to the WWE, which is amazing because I really love Asian Mist, and it’s unprecedented that a white guy can do it without looking stupid. A promising start, to say the least.
CM Punk vs. Mark Henry
This was just a good match, which is important, because that’s pretty much what wrestling is about. Punk and Henry really have little reason to be fighting, but Mark Henry has established himself as a solid title threat and, after calling Johnny Ace a “toolbox” (hard to believe that’s the best Punk could come up with), what other means of punishment would be more suitable for a WWE Champion with a hurt back than a title defense against a huge dude whose whole game is crushing spines?
There’s more to the match than the above, but you get the picture: Punk looks like a valiant champion, Henry looks like a killer, and the world keeps turning. The way the match ended, and with rumors that Chris Jericho was going to take time off (already!) to do a Fozzy tour, I was actually thinking that this’d be a good way to get a short, meaningful feud between the two started. But things didn’t turn out that way, and Mark Henry looks to be part of an angle to bring back Abraham Washington, who might end up being—shock of shocks—a manager in a managerless era.
Chris Jericho Forces CM Punk to Drink
Yes, Punk and Jericho continue to re-do one of Punk’s seminal indie storylines—the feud with Raven that ran through Ring of Honor and several other promotions—but to me, it’s different because of the essential difference in Raven and Chris Jericho’s characters: Raven was always looking to bring his opponent down to his level; Jericho is always seeking to elevate himself above his. Jericho failed in his Wrestlemania bid to prove to the world that he was a better wrestler than CM Punk (that not really being one of Raven’s objectives), and, as such, is resorting to prove that he’s the better person, if only because he won’t compromise his moral values, whatever those may be. With Punk down and out because of his match against Henry, Jericho has the opportunity to do what he said he was going to do and make Punk drink:
Call me crazy (or an apologist), but I like that Jericho slipped in the booze on the ground. Most dudes, given that situation, would freeze. Jericho pivots and starts beating on Punk. I won’t go as far as to say that it adds a shade of realism to the segment, but it’s nice to know that these things can’t flap some people. And Jericho’s promo was really quite good. The only thing totally unbelievable about the whole thing (beyond the fact that the second bottle of Jack Daniels breaks in Jericho’s hand) is how much booze Jericho felt was necessary to be a dick. I mean, Punk is pretty freakin’ straight edge. A travel-sized bottle of Jack from the airplane probably would have been shameful enough. But I guess if we’re going to have metaphors on Monday night, they need to be as big as possible.
ALBERTO DEL RIO
Literally the only bad thing about Alberto Del Rio returning on Raw is that it might mean pushing Daniel Bryan out of the title picture. Sheamus is still a big, oafish Irishman despite carrying around the World Heavyweight Championship, and, in order to establish himself as a true championship level face, he needs an opponent who is both talented and decidedly a heel. Outside of the American Airlines Center, where the crowd booed Sheamus because he was in that eighteen second match against Daniel Bryan—an eighteen second match that might have done more to get the Bryan over than anything he’s done in his WWE career—Del Rio will play exactly as he’s meant to, and will give SmackDown! a needed shot in the arm.
The return of Del Rio also meant the return of Ricardo, whose introduction of Del Rio, complete with the blaring trumpets, the cars, and Del Rio’s scarf, has been sorely missed. The guy has been doing breathing exercises, too, as his “RIO” lasted almost a full minute. If we end up getting a Del Rio/Sheamus feud, it’ll be pretty good. If Daniel Bryan is somehow still involved, it’ll be utterly fantastic. Better, Christian’s momentary return before Wrestlemania hints at him being ready to make a return, as well, meaning that both brands (should brand distinctions somehow continue to matter) carry a rich assortment of top guys for the first time in awhile.
BROCK LESNAR
I mostly know Brock Lesnar as a video game character, an action figure of freakish size and strength. I saw him debut, a whole ten years ago, the day after Wrestlemania X8, and it was obvious that he was going to be something special. I just never got to see most of his significant matches, as they mostly took place after the dreadful Kane/Triple H Katie Vick angle that chased me away from wrestling for four years. I don’t know if it’s my lack of interest in a bald Kurt Angle or my fear that much of Brock’s run may have been overrated or hasn’t aged particularly well, but Lesnar’s reign atop the WWE is one that I haven’t gone back and visited, despite really liking his match against The Rock at Summerslam 2002. I’d rather have him be an exaggerated figure of other people’s memories than another in a long list of potential disappointments I’ve faced as a fan.
But when John Cena asked the Rock to come out for a handshake and Lesnar’s music hit instead, I nearly leaped out of my chair. This was big. This was huge. The crowd, who had been loud all night, somehow got louder. And Cena, usually so cool in the face of danger, looked like he was cracking, even if only a little. The beauty of this segment is its simplicity:
Lesnar says nothing to Cena, at least nothing he can hear. He gets into the ring, points to the name on his shirt, offers Cena a handshake and, before Cena has time to react, Lesnar puts him in the F5, which remains one of the coolest finishing moves ever devised. The fans, no longer able to express their joy with mere chants of “YES! YES! YES!” resort to the now little-heard “HOLY SHIT” chant. Michael Cole claims that the entire landscape of the WWE has changed, and for once he’s not lying.
This was a great swerve. A GREAT swerve. I was expecting Cena to ask for a rematch against The Rock, an opportunity to redeem himself in the face of failure. After Wrestlemania, he doesn’t like The Rock; he wants to show the respect he has for him, and hopes The Rock will do the same. Instead we get Lesnar. Lesnar who so obviously does not respect anybody. Lesnar whose mere presence tells the fans that things have very much gotten real. Brock is wordless, but he doesn’t need words when he’s got the F5, when he can get up and kick Cena’s stupid little hat across the ring like he was toying with a child.
This is a challenge, the sort of thing John Cena can’t remain stagnant against. The Rock and John Cena were opposites, sure, but The Rock didn’t hate Cena and certainly didn’t hate the WWE. Brock Lesnar hates everything and is the WWE’s prodigal son, leaving for the NFL, for a stint in Japan, for a successful-if-short run in the UFC. He hated the traveling, hated the life, hated everything about professional wrestling. Cena, by contrast, loves the life and loves the WWE more than anything in the world. Brock is a world-destroyer, a man built of pure rage, and it’s not the gimmicky rage of Kane. This is real. This is a threat. This is a guy who is either going to kill John Cena or turn him into something he doesn’t want to become.
When I was complaining about the build-up to Cena’s match against The Rock, I said that, in terms of clear, effective storytelling, the feud between Rock and Steve Austin pretty much encapsulated everything that’s great about wrestling, and that’s true. This, too, is clear and effective storytelling, and in one short, deafening utterance. Music. F5. Hat kick. Brock Lesnar hates John Cena. Brock Lesnar wants to fight John Cena. Brock Lesnar can destroy John Cena. What does Cena do? Where does he go from here? I have no idea, and that’s exactly why I love professional wrestling: Even when things seem clear as day, it retains the capacity to shock, it still manages to surprise.
Despite what I said about my experience as a wrestling announcer, I find myself in a familiar position on WrestleMania night: Shivering with anticipation for the evening’s proceedings, preparing myself for an intense letdown. It’s a strange thing, the wrestling fan’s relationship with Wrestlemania, and while many fans now might be happy with the show because it’s given Ring of Honor and Dragon Gate USA a chance to get their names out there, while they may claim to be in it for the Hall of Fame, the FCW talent performing during Wrestlemania week, the Highspots.com reception, or the weird excuse to take a week off of work, the fact remains that this is Wrestlemania, and that wrestling fans have come to expect a lot from what the WWE bills the Showcase of the Immortals. No matter how good or bad the build, no matter how good or bad the card, no matter how good or bad the actual show, we care because we’ve been primed to care for so many years, because the old adage that “Anything can happen in the World Wrestling Federation Entertainment” is, on one night, actually true. If wrestling is my religion, than this is my Christmas.
This has been a weird road to Wrestlemania for me. As of June 3, I’ll be training to become a wrestler myself, and, as such, have been watching Raw and SmackDown! less as a form of free entertainment than as a means to watch an incredibly well-produced training video. Yes, I’ve been paying attention to the stories, and yes, my heart skips a beat whenever Daniel Bryan pulls out a cheap win or Chris Jericho ekes out a small package victory over CM Punk, but my interest in learning how to wrestle, coupled with a course schedule that makes it impossible to catch a whole show, means that I’ve been following the events by proxy, that I’ve had to read recaps of Raw and SmackDown! and formulate for myself the whys and wherefores of certain feuds. Is it possible to catch up on Raw and SmackDown! later? Sure. But beyond maybe a Punk/Jericho or Daniel Bryan segment here and there, I haven’t missed a whole lot, and the point of Raw is its live nature—there’s more energy when you’re watching stuff happen as it unfolds. So, if I get anything wrong, that’s my feeble excuse. Please believe it. I only just learned that Randy Orton and Kane are having a match at Wrestlemania because Kane shook his hand once, months ago. I just thought Kane was a magnet for RKOs.
While Wrestlemania may be a sucker’s game, prone to over-analysis and disappointment, I am ready to play. So ready, in fact, that I’ve gone back through history to note that the event, as it (and I) have aged, has dropped its formerly charming taglines in favor of declarative statements that are both too descriptive and too hyperbolic. Wrestlemania III’s tagline, for example, was “Bigger! Badder! Better!” which was unequivocally true. The event was the best Wrestlemania to that point (and remained the best for awhile), set an indoor attendance record, and acted as a prototype for pretty much every Wrestlemania in the future. This Wrestlemania, for those of you who somehow don’t know that The Rock is facing John Cena in the main event, has been tagged as “Once in a Lifetime,” which may or may not be true. Wrestlemania 27, which was hosted by The Rock, was “The Biggest Wrestlemania Ever,” which it wasn’t. Wrestlemania 25 was “The 25th Anniversary of Wrestlemania” despite only being the 24th. These, my friends, do not compare to taglines like “What the World Has Come To” (WM II), “The MegaPowers Explode!” (WM V), “The Ultimate Challenge” (WM VI) “Heat!” (WM 13) or “Where it All Begins…Again” (WM XX), vague baubles of information that somehow served as a theme for the evening, as opposed to a bit of copy the show could never live up to.
If I were coming up with the tagline to this year’s show, I would have taken a hint from the WrestleManias whose themes came from specific matches, like “The Macho/Flair Affair” from XIII, only my tagline, somehow, covers every match on the card. This year’s Mania should be branded “The Cult of Insecurity,” as every match, from the pre-show tag team title bout to the main event between Cena and the Rock, has been about just that: Insecurity. This isn’t necessarily a factor in the show’s storylines (though in some instances, it very much is), but it’s there, haunting the show. Why else have the past four weeks featured mostly talk between the participants in the shows four main events? Why else would the only bit of physical interaction between John Cena and The Rock be their mutual show of strength on poor Mark Henry? Not that I don’t understand why the WWE would wait for a single punch to be thrown between the two of them until we’ve paid for it—this match, after all, has been built-up for over a year, and any kind of physical contact between the two could spoil their eventual confrontation—but there’s been no way to alleviate the awkward tension growing between the two, and, as demonstrated by this tastefully scored music video documenting the Steve Austin vs. The Rock feud leading into Wrestlemania X7, a bit of violence never hurt nobody’s buy rate:
All of the important stuff is there: How evenly matched the two are, how much each wants/needs to win, and, unsaid, how important the match is to the company. As for disrespect, both Austin and the Rock use each other’s respective finishing moves on one another, which is, all good wrestling fans know, taboo. The lead-in to Cena/Rock, by comparison, has been somewhat of a letdown for three reasons, two of which I’ll explain now: First, when the Rock was announced for WrestleMania 27 and when he said he was never leaving what he considered to be his home, I think we had a somewhat unreasonable expectation of The Rock that he’d give up the rather lucrative business of making movies that gross hundreds of millions of dollars in favor of having matches against Jack Swagger on SmackDown! The second reason, which has a lot to do with our utopian understanding of The Rock’s promise to never leave, is that we expected him to verbally emasculate John Cena on a weekly basis, so upsetting our stalwart Fruity Pebble that he’d be forced to get mean, lest the former Dr. of Thuganomics fall on his sword.
I don’t think any of us were ready for the realization that The Rock may have peaked around Wrestlemania 27, the nexus of his best Cena-related material, that Cena would actually stand his own against The Rock, that, in many instances, The Rock would actually look weak compared to Cena. Yes, it was a great moment when the Rock told Cena on Raw this past Monday that beating him meant that the Rock would own Wrestlemania victories over Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, and Cena—three of the biggest draws of all time—but there’ve been so many missteps on the path to that statement that, at times, it’s seemed like The Rock wasn’t aware that he had a match. It’s gotten to the point where there are some audible “Rocky sucks” chants, and while the reaction to John Cena at last night’s Hall of Fame ceremony could be looked at as an omen of what the fans want, it’s really more of what Cena’s been receiving since 2007 in a venue designed to attract the company’s “knowledgeable” fanbase, the exact group that’s declared Cena persona non grata. The Rock continues to get an amazing reaction every time he comes out, but the way he does his thing and the way the crowd responds feels more like a sitcom or a well-rehearsed (in some cases poorly rehearsed) stand-up routine. His endless mea culpas to the fans, his pauses to smile and flex his inhuman musculature, his endless Twitter references—all of them lead me to believe that Dwayne Johnson is not comfortable in The Rock’s skin, and it’s exactly that kind of insecurity which has permeated the whole card, previews and predictions of which follow…
WWE Tag Team Championships: Primo and Epico (champions) vs. The Usos vs. Tyson Kidd and Justin Gabriel
In year’s past, the “pre-show” match would be taped as an exclusive addition to the WrestleMania DVD. This year, however, the match will be streamed live on YouTube and WWE.com, in the company’s effort to increase its visibility in the realm of social media. This is good for pretty much everybody involved, as The Usos and Primo and Epico are both great tag teams (though they are somewhat generic), Justin Gabriel is pretty good, and Tyson Kidd might be the most underrated wrestler in the world, capable of putting on a good match with anybody, on any given night. Given time (the match is slated to start at 6:30, a whole 30 minutes before the show properly gets underway), this could be a show-stealing bout, but it will also be emblematic of the WWE’s lack of faith in its tag team division, which was supposed to be headlined by the team of Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne. Were Evan Bourne not suspended and injured, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see this match on the main card. Instead, it features a team that formed on Thursday.
Granted, Kidd and Gabriel deserve the spotlight, but I don’t know if it says much about the titles that a duo who’ve yet to compete together already have a shot at the straps. Pragmatically, both men have reigns as Tag Team Champions under their belts, so I guess that gives them enough credibility, but they’ve got a few other tag teams who could have gone in this slot. If they gave more time to those tag teams to establish themselves as something more than a pair of similarly dressed men, perhaps there’d be no problems in the WWE Tag Team division. As it stands, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if this devolved into a battle royal, much like last year’s Sheamus vs. Daniel Bryan tilt for the United States Championship.
WINNERS: The Usos.
Maria Menounos and Kelly Kelly vs. Eve Torres and Beth Phoenix
I love women’s wrestling, so it kind of pains me to know that Beth Phoenix will likely be pinned by the host of Extra, this despite months of WWE programming making it clear that no current WWE Diva can get the job done. Menounos, for what it’s worth, looked pretty good in her one wrestling match, and standing around talking about Hollywood gossip in front of a host of slack-jawed troglodytes has probably prepared her well for the stress of competing before a crowd that will likely top one million paying viewers. Despite that, I will not be able to get over the lack of Natalya in a non-farting capacity, nor the rumors that this was supposed to be Beth Phoenix vs. Kharma, who made a rather triumphant return at this year’s Royal Rumble.
I remain of the opinion that the WWE Diva’s division is three or four pieces away from being great, perhaps better than at any time in the company’s history. Until their recent effort to mine the independent scene hits the mother-lode of experienced, tremendously talented female competitors though, this is exactly the sort of Wrestlemania match the division will spawn. It’s too bad, though, as Eve has made noticeable strides in her ring-work of late and, now that she’s a heel, will probably drop the booty popping from her repertoire. Maybe Menounos’ broken rib will result in her being replaced by Kharma and the match won’t be an awkward celebrity showcase like Snookimania last year, but when it comes to the WWE Divas division I’ll always be living in the future, dreaming of the stuff they could be doing, trying to ignore what they actually promote.
WINNERS: Kelly Kelly and Maria Menounos.
Randy Orton vs. Kane
Like I said earlier, I thought this match was happening because Kane was a magnet for RKOs. As it turns out, Kane once shook Orton’s hand and, now that he’s back and preaching to us the value of embracing hate, he intends to make up for that embarrassment by beating Orton. See? This Wrestlemania really is all about insecurity! As for Orton, he looks pretty listless out there, telling Kane that he already embraces hate, hitting him with RKOs every time the two are within ten feet of each other, but this is generally how Randy Orton’s feuds go. I continue to find it amazing that people cheer for a guy who tells them “My name is Randy Orton, and I will literally murder this man because I am not a good person,” before kicking his opponent in the head during this, the era of concussions, but hey, the fans make the wrestler, and who am I to argue with legions of folks in Orton’s knockoff Affliction gear?
WINNER: Randy Orton.
Team Johnny (David Otunga, Mark Henry, Dolph Ziggler, Jack Swagger, The Miz, and Drew McIntyre) vs. Team Teddy (Santino, Kofi Kingston, R-Truth, Zack Ryder, The Great Khali, and Booker T)
If you would have told me a year ago that I’d be a fan of David Otunga in any capacity…man…I don’t know what I’d do. As a member of The Nexus and CM Punk & the New Nexus All-Stars, Otunga was too plain, too green, too inconsequential for my taste. I felt kind of bad for the guy when Jerry Lawler started dogging on him and Michael McGuillicutty for being the most boring champions in company history, but he kind of had a point, and Otunga wasn’t exactly doing anything to disprove Lawler’s claims. But then CM Punk’s career took off, leaving the New Nexus All-Stars with nowhere to go, and Otunga started bragging about his law degree. He started dressing like a ripped Pee Wee Herman. He started sipping from a travel coffee mug. He was the charismatic moon orbiting Johnny Ace, the unlikely star of the CM Punk/Triple H/Vince McMahon/Kevin Nash/Alberto Del Rio/John Cena/Rey Mysterio/The Miz craziness that followed Money in the Bank, Ace being the uncharismatic, unheralded former star (in Japan!) who smart fans (and more than a few company insiders) credit with ruining the WWE’s developmental system. Both have been a ton of fun to watch, and it’d be a shame to see either go.
This match, though…I’m torn on it. On one hand, I really dislike the whole Money in the Bank thing (not the idea of a guy having a title match good for whenever, but the match itself), and am glad that it will no longer be sullying Wrestlemania with its plethora of unneeded, dangerous spots. Just the same, we have a match featuring a team of four former WWE or World Heavyweight champions going against a team of comedy mid-carders and a semi-retired wrestler who currently calls SmackDown! Not that Long’s team isn’t talented, but Ace’s at least features a bunch of guys who’ve been bumping against the glass ceiling for a few years; Long’s continue starting and stopping just short of it.
If we want to talk insecurity, this bout features Zack Ryder, Kofi Kingston, Jack Swagger, R-Truth, Drew McIntyre, Mark Henry, and Dolph Ziggler, all guys who were marked for main event success sometime in the past two years. Mark Henry’s transformation from Sexual Chocolate to world-beater has been dramatic, but the poor guy got injured during his World Heavyweight Title reign and has been getting crushed by Cena and The Rock and Sheamus and Big Show and whoever needs to look impressive any given week. Ryder’s a self-made man, becoming popular due to a series of YouTube videos about how the WWE didn’t want to use him, which morphed into a series of videos about how the WWE didn’t use him despite how popular he was, which morphed into a series of videos about how great life is when the WWE uses you on a weekly basis. His role in the John Cena/Kane Rise Above Hate feud pretty much killed whatever Ryder had going for him among the set that made him popular, but he is still well-liked and has a freaking garden gnome, so the sky’s the limit for him. The rest of the teams feature dudes who’ve been given opportunities to cement themselves at the top of the card, but, for whatever reason, the ball continues to be taken away from them. Booker T’s inclusion is curious, but I suppose worthwhile. I suspect the line-up for this match was weakened by a plethora of injuries and future endeavorings—Long’s team would look better with John Morrison, Rey Mysterio, and Sin Cara (assuming Cara, at this point, got used to a WWE ring), and Ace’s, while stacked, could have used Christian and Alberto Del Rio.
I hope Johnny Ace’s team wins, though it’s hard to see how a team with feel-good faces Kingston, Santino, and Ryder could possibly lose. From a storyline standpoint, Ace has been bullied around by Long, who has just recently sown the fruits of being unfair to the roster’s heels. Long’s comeuppance would be a valuable lesson to the people who watch wrestling for its message of anti-bullying. Also, while Long has had a good, insanely long run as the GM of SmackDown, tag team matches aren’t really the company’s bag anymore, and with The Undertaker on such a one match a year deal, there aren’t many more matches ol’ peanut-head knows how to book.
WINNER: Team Johnny.
WWE Intercontinental Championship: Cody Rhodes (champion) vs. The Big Show
The focus of this feud has been The Big Show’s absolutely horrible Wrestlemania track record, with Cody Rhodes hoping that the World’s Largest Athlete is insecure (ha-ha!) enough about his failings there that he’ll be vulnerable to further embarrassment. I’ve actually enjoyed one of The Big Show’s Wrestlemania matches (against Floyd Mayweather), but Rhodes has a point and has been persistent with it, airing videos of The Big Show embarrassing himself, beating the guy up with giant, cherry-red boxing gloves, using his name as a euphemism for deification. If ever a man deserved to get beat in a wrestling match, it’s Rhodes, who has been the consummate doucheheel for the past two months. I can’t bring myself to be in Big Show’s corner though, as his response has been to continue smiling and laughing with the fans, yukking it up while Rhodes has his way with Show’s credibility. I wouldn’t be surprised if this match ends up being Big Show’s “Wrestlemania moment,” but Rhodes, who stole the show last year with Rey Mysterio, has been looking for an in-roads to the main event picture for pretty close to a year. My guess (and hope) is that this is his moment, and that this won’t be something The Big Show needs to be embarrassed about.
WINNER: Cody Rhodes.
World Heavyweight Championship: Sheamus vs. Daniel Bryan (champion)
At last year’s Wrestlemania, despite a physical build-up and a few good to very good matches between the two, the scheduled United States championship match was relegated to the pre-show. It then morphed mid-match into a battle royale that was won by The Great Khali. As if embarrassed by that turn of events, neither man has mentioned their prior history, instead going into Wrestlemania as unlikely Royal Rumble winner and unlikely champion, respectively, two parts of the match least likely to have not been made a triple threat title match featuring Randy Orton. I’m glad for it, though, as Daniel Bryan is my homeboy and Sheamus has constantly been a surprise since his somewhat lame WWE Championship run against John Cena, despite not coming up with an interesting good guy persona. This seems like a terrible waste, as Sheamus could have been the great defender here, sticking up for Daniel Bryan’s bullied girlfriend. After all, Sheamus often says that he was picked on for being short and fat—why not rescue poor AJ, who is being emotionally held hostage by the World Heavyweight Champion?
This feud, perhaps more than any other, has been noticeable due to its lack of physical confrontation between the combatants. The most meaningful interaction the two have had was Sheamus declaring his intent to face Byran at Wrestlemania. Since then, Sheamus has been kept in a holding pattern of short matches and lame jokes about Ireland. Daniel Bryan has, in turn, solidified himself as the WWE’s best heel, a modern, vegan Macho Man who uses his cunning, his wits, and his woman to offset the fact that he’s not as imposing as the vast majority of his opponents. His title reign has been a joy to behold, and his build going into this show has involved several awesome matches against CM Punk, but this feud hasn’t been much to write home about beyond Bryan’s continued dickery and AJ’s doe-eyed infatuation with her man:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F85EjlHgxr4
I have a sinking feeling that Bryan’s reign atop SmackDown! is at an end, as Sheamus has been on a massive roll since his summer feud against Mark Henry came to an end. It makes sense, though, as a Guerrero/Benoit style post-match embrace with fellow ROH alum/Best in the World CM Punk just isn’t going to happen. Maybe, when Sheamus has the title, he can finally point out how Bryan hasn’t exactly been a star to poor little AJ.
WINNER: Sheamus
WWE Championship: CM Punk (champion) vs. Chris Jericho
Insecurity: The Storyline! For the most part, this has been a great angle. Chris Jericho came back after those ominous end of the world promos, trolled the crowd, came up short at the Royal Rumble, and got to challenge CM Punk anyway. His motive was obvious to anybody paying attention to the work he did before his brief hiatus: As the guy who called himself “the best in the world at what he does,” it makes sense that he’d be pissed at a guy calling himself the best in the world.
Honestly, that’s all the feud needed. I would have purchased any pay per view with a Jericho/Punk tilt on it, and the Best in the World vs. Best in the World angle is one that looked to be building quite nicely through Jericho’s physical one-upmanship and his sneaky win over Punk in an excellent tag team match on Raw:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMVpDyZLdHg
Put Punk, despite those setbacks, appeared unflappable, as evidenced by this face-to-face confrontation between the two:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMWGO1BDg7k
Cockiness is reasonable from a guy who ousted Vince McMahon from his position of power, but wrestlers can’t be nonchalant forever. If Jericho’s failings at the Rumble and the fact that he’d been away from wrestling for a year made him feel insecure, he was, in bringing up Punk’s family and their demons, looking to bring M Punk down to a similar level of uncertainty. Jericho is tremendous at lending his feuds a touch of the personal—see his feud against Shawn Michaels—and Punk’s reaction to Jericho’s claim that Punk’s father was an alcoholic—near wordlessness (save him yelling “bullshit!” from the WWE’s biggest loudmouth—was a good appropriation of Punk’s Ring of Honor feud against Raven.
That particular part of the program (your sister’s a junkie, your mom’s a slut!) has gotten a little old, but the match still has that Best in the World vs. Best in the World hook, still features two of my absolute favorite wrestlers, and now features a CM Punk who is fighting for something more than pride or championships, which is something he hasn’t been able to say since his triumph at Money in the Bank. Formerly the voice of the voiceless, Punk is now the only man capable of defending his family’s honor. He’s good at playing out his emotions in the ring, as is Jericho. This *should* be match of the night. I’m afraid that anything less than match of the year will be a letdown.
WINNER: CM Punk
Hell in a Cell Match; Shawn Michaels, Special Referee: The Undertaker vs. Triple H
It’s hard for me to take Triple H and Undertaker telling each other that they’re the last of their breed (wrestlers of the Attitude era, in case you haven’t caught on), when The Big Show, Kane, and Mark Henry are all wrestling on the same card and when The Rock has appeared on more WWE programming in the past year than The Undertaker in the year between this match and Undertaker vs. Triple H II. I wasn’t much for last year’s bout (and their match at X7 hasn’t aged particularly well), but the WWE keeps saying that it was an all-time classic and there are a ton of people who agree, or who are at least willing to pretend. The only way to top a match where the two guys hucked atomic bombs at one another for twenty minutes is, of course, to put the two under Hell in a Cell and add Shawn Michaels to the mix as special guest referee. I have to say, though, that it’s somewhat disappointing that Mick Foley wasn’t involved somehow, perhaps to give an in-depth interview on the subject of facing these men in such environs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UZ5w6KxXrs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIlc6tSfArA
The WWE is not nearly as barbaric as it was when the Micker was getting hurled from gigantic structures, and I highly doubt anything nearly as crazy will happen here. The addition of Shawn Michaels (who was also involved in a more limited capacity last year) is what adds the match’s truly interesting wrinkly, as Triple H only took this match after Undertaker insinuated that Shawn was the better of the two. On the other side of insecurity, check the Undertaker’s hair when he makes his grand return: It’s glued to the brim of his hat.
This was such a good illusion that the next week, in a video package, they had The Undertaker shave his hair off. Since then, he’s been wearing a hood that he won’t take off under any circumstances. When that hood finally comes down tonight, it’d better look like Quato is sticking out from the back of Undi’s head. What’s a little baldness to the Lord of Darkness?
The match itself will be interesting. It could be great or could be terrible (but overrated); there is no middle ground. With any luck, Michaels’ inclusion will make it a little like Bret Hart vs. The Undertaker, from Summerslam 1997. There, Michaels, who had a deep hatred of the anti-American Hart, accidentally hit Undertaker with a chair, giving Hart the Michaels-counted pinfall. Not only did this lead to the Montreal Screwjob a few months later, but it served as the starting point for the Michaels/Taker feud that introduced us to Kane, led to the formation of D-Generation X, and, oh yeah, resulted in the first ever Hell in a Cell match, between Michaels and Undertaker.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71zbMGS3YQs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHhAzB0DQMQ
Beyond that, hopefully the match will be reminiscent of the pair’s better Hell in a Cell history—more Undertaker/Brock Lesnar than Undertaker/Kane, more Triple H/Chris Jericho than DX/McMahons. The cell may force the match to be more restrained than either 27’s endless, structureless brawl or X7’s arena-roaming slapstick, which is for the best. All of that being said, I’m really hoping that Michaels comes out of retirement in the aftermath of this match and puts Taker’s streak to bed next year. Guess how disappointed I’ll be on Monday!
WINNER: The Undertaker.
John Cena vs. The Rock
More than any other match on the card, The Rock and John Cena’s “once in a lifetime” encounter has been touched by insecurity. Surprisingly, the man who has seemed most uncomfortable throughout this whole affair has been The Rock, who has, at times, looked downright flustered in his quest to stick as many objects as humanly possible up John Cena’s ass. If there’s something the true build to this match has exposed, it’s that The Rock simply doesn’t fit with the WWE anymore, no matter how much the fans want him to. He’s certainly too big to be booed en masse, but, as I mentioned 4,000 words ago, there’ve been audible “Rocky sucks” chants from the same “adults” who so hate John Cena that they once rabidly cheered for a heel Great Khali.
Before Raw on Monday, the Rock never made it clear that he really knew he was in a match with John Cena, let alone that he wanted to win the thing. He’s vacillated back and forth between being Dwayne Johnson and The Rock, finally (and disappointingly) settling on Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, an odd hybrid of the two—somewhat humble man with one sentence, cocky man-of-a-thousand-catchphrases the next. You can tell he’s humble because he talks about his love of the WWE and no longer speaks in the third person. Cena has made it clear for a year now that he needs to beat The Rock, that his position as the face of the WWE means nothing if he can’t beat a dude who skipped town to star in The Tooth Fairy. He’s also made it clear that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is neither the man he requested, nor the guy the WWE Universe deserves to see. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, to be blunt, kinda sucks.
Looking back on the past few months, it’s really hard to dispute any of Cena’s claims. Yup, Dwayne Johnson is sometimes, momentarily in The Rock mode, saying funny things about or to John Cena, but it seems like he peaked before Wrestlemania 27, a whole year ago, when he dropped Fruity Pebbles on the world and made it clear that he didn’t like or respect the new face of the company:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=143C-uWoN5E
Since Wrestlemania 27, however, which was mostly derailed by The Rock’s presence (the very thing that was supposed to save the show, ironically), the list of things that The Rock has done makes Cena look, on paper, to be invincible. In a world ruled by logic, the fans would be chanting “Die Rocky Die” and buying more Cena merchandise than ever given The Rock’s need to write notes on his wrist, the creative bankruptcy of a phrase like “kung pao bitch,” awkward Photoshop promos that make it seem like The Rock doesn’t know where the hell he is or what he’s doing, and his abject failure…at karaoke.
Written there: "Kung Pao Bitch." I wish I were joking.
Sure, there’s been a lot of tension between Rock and Cena, but most of it has been in a “will or won’t the Rock show up” sort of way, which has been mostly uninteresting. I don’t care which millionaire loves the WWE more, who works harder, or who matters more to the legacy of the company. To go back to the Austin/Rock video way back at the beginning of this article and a point that I’ve already made: Those things were a part of what made the greatest feud in WWE history so great. They were also mostly unsaid between the two men. They were simply competitors with beef who fought and sweat and bled to prove the other man inferior. They wanted to beat each other; everything else was implied. That is simple, effective storytelling.
I can’t claim to know a damn thing about the innermost workings of the WWE, so it’s possible that this has all been an elaborate ruse and the Rock has been going half-speed on purpose, wasting whole Raws on his birthday and exuding insecurity by thanking the crowd for being there and bragging about fucking Cena’s mom not because he feels out of place, but more because he’s…acting. The story that’s emerged from this, even if it’s an intricate, nuanced fiction, is one that’s convoluted, one that makes me hope that this match is, indeed, a once in a lifetime affair. I love The Rock and I like John Cena (though, in The Rock’s eyes, that makes me a sad virgin) and I have little doubt that the two will have a match worth remembering and worth talking about for a long time, but I can’t believe that any storyline involving The Rock would make me wish that he’d just get tired and leave already, nor could I think of any angle involving him that, before tonight, would make me think that bringing him back was a creative mistake from the start.
WINNER: John Cena.
And now, for the cheesiest, best Wrestlemania theme songs of all time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vr9fdFz4qY
That’s right, ladies and gentlemen: Stars ga-la, stars galore, that’s what Wrestlemania has in-store.
