I wasn’t prepared for just how bad Hulk Hogan would come across at the PPV. True, there are not many performers who retain all the abilities they exhibited in their prime but Hogan looked really slow and deliberate. His weak punches, despite being sold like jackhammers, and his limited arsenal of moves reduced the pacing of the match to a crawl. Not even the impressive pop before and after the contest from his deluded fans still clinging onto the days when Hogan was relevant was enough to salvage anything of value from the match. He had made his mind up long before stepping into the ring that this was going to be a victory for Hulkamania in every sense of the word and the promotion, his opponent and the spirit of passing the torch could fall in line behind his greatness. I don’t care about the ‘result’ of the match, after all this is pro-wrestling and a healthy suspension of reality is vital, but the calculating manner in which Hogan sucked every last drop of ego-boosting life out of the bout and replaced it with nothing but dismissive indifference should be condemned as the worst kind of thoughtless gluttony possible.
A fair assessment of Hogan’s match against Randy Orton at Summerslam? I’ll be surprised if it is because the match I was describing was Hogan’s WCW Bash at the beach main event cage clash with Vader in July 1995. ELEVEN years ago. True, Hogan’s performance at last week’s WWE supercard could be described in equal tones of selfishness and vanity but to dignify his actions with analysis is akin to what bacteriological departments have to do in hospitals and I’ve got better things to do than poke through his shit looking for answers. There is no symbiosis between wrestling and Hogan. He is a parasite. He takes what he wants and gives nothing back. Ultimately the blame lies not with Hogan, because ruthless self-promotion is the cornerstone of capitalism, or with Vince for much the same reason (though I doubt Hulk’s appearance on the card drew any more unique fans than a diva bikini contest would have). It lies with the fans that support him. You are not wrestling fans. And the business will stagnate as long as Vince gives you what you want.
Happily there were several matches on the show that saved it from mediocrity, most notably the “I quit” match featuring Mick Foley and Ric Flair. Firstly, both men gave of themselves for our entertainment. More than any physical sense, and especially considering the genuine disdain for eachother that they held before the feud, they put eachother over for the betterment of their subsequent careers. Foley by giving the ‘win’ to Flair and Flair by agreeing that the win should represent Foley’s fear for his friend Melina and not his own well-being. Meaning that both characters can emerge from the battle with something to be working on, highlighted by Melina’s heel turn on Foley the next night at Raw. Secondly, the match was a masterclass for importance. Too many times thesedays spots are performed purely for the elicited reaction and little thought goes into how moments of meaning come together to form a whole story. In truth, it is unlikely that both Flair and Foley are capable of leaping around the ring or crashing through tables only to rise a few seconds later as if nothing had happened. And why should they? The tempo of a match should be dictated by the requirements of the story, not by the desire to pack as many “holy shit” chants into the time allowed as possible. Good writing. Visually stunning. Match of the night.
I feel the DX/McMahons match languished a little from not being the feud-ending cracker that it could have been (in that it neither was as good a tag contest as it could have been AND that it doesn’t look like being the end of their feud). However, booking the match so the opening was heavily in favour of the bosses using all their ‘resources’ only for it to be turned around so DX got the closing pop to give it a satisfactory finish was the right thing to do on the night and it worked. Whilst any idea shouldn’t be overused to the sacrifice of all others, the booking showed that a few points of interest outside of the straight bell-to-bell action can go a long way to rescuing what could have been a bland match. Like Batista/Booker. During what should have been a decent match for a world title both men seemed to be waiting for the other to take the bout into a higher gear and, in the absence of a younger, better opponent like Orton, it never made it. If, like I said earlier, a match can be salvaged by booking outside of the box then maybe this one wasn’t a prime candidate seeing as singularly they are good workers and their feud is only in its infancy. But someone should have noticed that it needed a creative helping hand and it suffered as a result.
Luckily, the opposite is applicable with the Cena/Edge match. Even though it was their thousandth match of the year (me? Exaggerate?) and transpired with very few non-wrestling ideas except for a set of brass knuckles, it was the chemistry between the two performers and their enthusiasm for the task at hand that made this match a suitable main event for the show. To his credit, the way that Cena has answered most of the critics he had last year (most of whom persist today) was to improve his brawling and up his workrate and the complaint that he’s never going to be a Benoit-type technical wrestler seems to me more of a blatant but meaningless observation than a justifiable reason not to keep him in the main event scene. Equally, Edge goes about his business doing everything that is asked of him by management and is quietly becoming one of Vince’s ‘go-to guys’ in both wrestling and promo. Somehow I still don’t feel that, as champion, enough of the company’s weight is being pushed onto Edge’s shoulders but if he stays in the position long enough then aspects of the spot should become his as others relinquish them. What concerns me is that with Edge and Cena almost reaching (albeit on and off) a year of feuding over the WWE championship, none of the other young talents have risen to the same level and it may take bringing someone back into the title picture just to prolong what should already be over with.
As for the matches I haven’t mentioned yet, Sabu/Show was sloppy, under-prepared and encapsulated all that is wrong with the ‘hardcore-Lite’ style employed by the WWE. It was what you have left if you take all of the passion out of the extreme genre ... a parade of cheap stunts lacking in cohesion and two performers who realise that even if they killed themselves for the sake of extreme-entertainment the match could still be accused of being a superficial spot-fest which deserved to be as far away from the main event as it was. Personally, I was a little disappointed in the Rey/Chavo opener. Emotional grudge matches are never the easiest curtain raisers on a PPV and it came across much colder than it should. Also, I have a feeling that the bookers wanted the grudge element to overshadow any lucha-style fluidity it could have contained and as a consequence the action felt like wrestler A versus wrestler B, not two fiery Latinos fighting over the memory of a deceased comrade. Hopefully that will change as the feud progresses. If they’re going to do something wrong, they might as well do it right.
Why the ‘safety in numbers’ comment? I thought this was a very low-risk card by the WWE. In choosing wrestlers of proven drawing power (only two of the sixteen performers on the card are NOT former world champions) or using wrestlers of a certain age that utilise a traditional, low-risk style (only two of the sixteen are under the age of thirty and seven are over the age of forty), Vince guaranteed that the Summerslam roster could not be accused of being inexperienced or lacking in name value. At a time when the WWE needs to be building for the future it is criminal that guys like Nitro, Lashley, Benjamin, Kendrick, Haas, Carlito, London and Kennedy didn’t receive an advertised match on the PPV and the promotion will find it increasingly difficult to feed these new stars into the second half of the card if they continue to be overlooked. If not, there’s always Hogan for the main event at Wrestlemania? ELEVEN years ... and counting.
Lee
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