Throughout my life, I’ve watched literally hundreds, no, probably thousands of hours of wrestling and there’s always been one thing that annoys the hell out of me, just because it’s completely stupid.
Picture this situation. It’s the night of the PPV and you’re sitting there, waiting to see all of the big matches, the culminations of each and every storyline that has been building over the last few weeks or even months. The final encounters, the wars to settle the scores, whatever you want to call them, tonight is the night that you’ll get to see them.
The time comes and the big show finally begins. They all start out in basically the same way. The federation logo followed by a video package hyping the event even though you’ve already bought the thing and really don’t need the encouragement.
These videos are always ultra-serious, driving home the point that tonight blood will be spilled and wars will be won and lost with all of the subtlety of a claw hammer to the balls. Dreams will be made, careers will be shortened, lives will be changed forever. Yes, they mean business here, this is serious stuff.
But then something happens, something that noone ever talks about, and for the life of me, I’m not sure why.
It usually goes a little something like this.
Super Serious Voice: “Tonight will be a night that will go down in the annals of time as the night that scores were settled. A night when heros and villains fight for pride, for survival, for their very lives. For on this night, wars will be waged, wrongs will be righted and blood will be spilled. For tonight we will all bear witness to *name of PPV goes here*.”
Then there is a dramatic pause as the video ends and the serious music fades away to be replaced by a more upbeat musical selection and then Super Serious Voice returns, but something about him has changed. It’s almost as though he didn’t actually say what he just finished saying. And it’s at this point that a few simple words kill every bit of seriousness that has just been created.
Super Serious Voice With Twinge Of Happiness And Jubilation: “And now, Subway Sandwiches and Playstation are proud to present…WWE *name of PPV goes here*.”
I realize that somebody has to sponsor these things but why do they have to put those ads in that spot? It would make the whole show look a lot less idiotic if they would just flash the company logos on the screen during breaks in the action or have the comentators mention them at different points throughout the night. In fact, they do that anyway so would it really be that big of an adjustment to make? It’s just one of those things that’s always gotten on my nerves because it takes all of the realism and credibility out of what you’ve just tried to tell me are pure and true fights to the death. And before anybody comments that wrestling is scripted and that what I’m seeing isn’t real, believe me, I’m well aware of that. But still, it looks stupid. I mean where else does this happen?
Let’s say for example you’re at a theatre watching an action movie. The story is at the point where the final confrontation is about to take place, you’re at the climax of events and somebody’s gonna be dead soon. As time passes, your anticipation grows as you wait for the bad guy to get his. But then suddenly the proceedings are brought to a screeching hault so that you can be informed that this death scene is brought to you by Diet Coke before things carry on as if nothing happened. “But that would never happen,” you protest, and you’re right. And why do you think that is? It’s because it would ruin the movie and just plain look stupid, that’s why, which is why nobody does that.
But I have to remember who I’m dealing with here, this is WWE, the same company that is so happy to have a famous person in the building on PPV night that they’ll happily put a nice big article on their website about him hanging out backstage with the superstars, forgetting that just moments earlier in front of a live audience he was laid out cold by one of those same superstars. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go back and read the Mark Cuban Randy Orton thing I wrote about, you can find it in
November’s archives,
just scroll down until you find the post called Nuts To You, And Your Silly Realism To. Actually don’t scroll down, read everything, there’s a lot of it, and some of it is even good.
But my point is that in the interest of making a few extra bucks, the braintrust over at WWE are making themselves, their shows, their storylines and their workers look low rent and stripping away whatever credibility they might have had and believe me, there is no amount of production values in the world that can fix that.
Speaking of wrestling PPV’s, there happens to be one coming up this Sunday and as usual, the good folks over at Salty Ham have posted the monthly roundtable where we try to predict the outcomes of all of the matches. It also doubles as the staff prediction contest which is a year long event that I’m well on my way to winning. I’ve moved up from 5th place to 3rd in the space of a couple of months getting just about perfect on every show from Wrestlemania until now. Come to think of it, I even got perfect on my Backlash picks so I’m on a real role at the moment. Will my hot streak continue or am I talking myself up to much? Only time will tell but in the meantime, if you want to see who myself and some of the other Salty Ham staff like in tomorrow’s matches,
click here.
And if you want to be a part of one of these roundtables, all you have to do is sign up for the message boards on the
Salty Ham.com website,
start posting there, and maybe Roland will pick you to be the monthly reader. He picks a different person each month and maybe the next one could be you.
But even if you don’t like wrestling, you should register for the boards there anyway, they’ve got all kinds of forrums dedicated to everything from music and movies to sports, video games and politics. It’s all there, all you have to do is sign up, and you can do that for free.
Anyway that’s all from me for now, I’ll be back later with something else. Enjoy the Roundtable and enjoy the PpV if you’re watching it. Hell, just enjoy everything, unless it’s something that you can’t possibly enjoy, like trying to shit something square, unless that’s your thing…ahh to hell with it, some of you freaks would find a way to enjoy anything I could possibly come up with so I’m not even gonna bother.