Hey yo,
I have been fighting against this becoming a
wrestling-dominated blog. However, it is time to take this ship into shore and throw away the oars FOREVER~! because I cant fight this feeling anymore.
It takes way too much effort to produce a cogent blog that actually constructs a point and leaves the read feeling elucidated on a more universal subject. I have had two ideas rolling around in my head: How Usain Bolt would be perceived if he was American or Chinese/Russian? Is modern entertainment stifled by self-awareness? The problem is I have these good nuggets of ideas. I think Bolt given his incredibly self-assured, cocky demeanor would be less popular in America if he was American and would be outright hated if he was Chinese/Russian. However, as interesting as this nugget is and I would assuredly flesh it out better if I had someone to talk about it with, I do not have the time to write a compelling piece on this subject. I am pretty much basing this on how most American sports fans want their athletes to behave and a Bob Costas snide swipe at Bolt. I would actually have to do research and gauge the current feelings towards Bolt. Then find a Bolt doppelganger that is from America and from other foreign countries. Similarly, I feel that many pieces of art are falling prey to “their reach outstripping their grasp” because of a self-conscious to construct an epic. This would require me to become a critic of different eras to actually back-up my theory and Goddamnit, Martin Fuck in Cuddy does not do anything half-ass.
It takes way too much effort to produce a cogent blog that actually constructs a point and leaves the read feeling elucidated on a more universal subject. I have had two ideas rolling around in my head: How Usain Bolt would be perceived if he was American or Chinese/Russian? Is modern entertainment stifled by self-awareness? The problem is I have these good nuggets of ideas. I think Bolt given his incredibly self-assured, cocky demeanor would be less popular in America if he was American and would be outright hated if he was Chinese/Russian. However, as interesting as this nugget is and I would assuredly flesh it out better if I had someone to talk about it with, I do not have the time to write a compelling piece on this subject. I am pretty much basing this on how most American sports fans want their athletes to behave and a Bob Costas snide swipe at Bolt. I would actually have to do research and gauge the current feelings towards Bolt. Then find a Bolt doppelganger that is from America and from other foreign countries. Similarly, I feel that many pieces of art are falling prey to “their reach outstripping their grasp” because of a self-conscious to construct an epic. This would require me to become a critic of different eras to actually back-up my theory and Goddamnit, Martin Fuck in Cuddy does not do anything half-ass.
With that in my mind, the number one thing I do full-ass is
watch wrestling and lots of it. I digest it well and I feel I analyze it a lot
better than most of the clowns out there. Some of those clowns have parlayed
their reviews into book deals, radio shows and wrestling newsletters. If I can
get paid to write about wrestling, then sign me up. If it does not turn out
that way, then what the hell at least I had fun.
The first match I will review (pay attention kiddies, this is going to be a trivia question, one day) is an encounter that when I finished watching I thought it would be very polarizing on how it was received on the net. Much to my dismay, it was not polarizing as much as it was incredibly loathed. Well consider the following its defense.
Brock Lesnar w/Paul Heyman vs Triple H
Summerslam 2012 Los Angeles, CA
My brother and I were on the fence about ordering Summerslam for the third time in four years. Given Lesnar’s unique performance earlier in the year against Cena, we decided in favor of ordering plus there was a match between family favorites Dolph Ziggler and Chris Jericho we wanted to see. Unfortunately, that match for a myriad of reasons did not live up to expectation. However for the main event, my family was left very satisfied with the performances of both men. The internet was not so kind to the match deemed “slow, disjointed”, “an uneven effort”, “booked too even”, “too formulaic, Brock dominated then hit the finish” and “that Brock looked too much like an ordiniary wrestler and HHH did not bump well for him”. Was this bout the Match of the Year? No, but I think it was in the top handful of matches from WWE this year. As you can see from some of the purported criticisms, the critics are even fighting amongst themselves with what’s wrong with the match.
The story going into this match was that Brock Lesnar had broken HHH’s arm and quit the WWE over not meeting his contractual obligations. Paul Heyman acted as Brock’s agent and did a serviceable job (at times, very good, his post-Summerslam promo was his best yet in this role) as his mouthpiece. After some goading and lackluster booking, the match between the WWE, legendary, rugged stalwart (HHH) and the bully invader (Brock) was booked. For extra heat, Brock broke Shawn Michaels’ arm sending HHH into a tizzy. Helmsley stressed to the official that under no circumstances was he to stop match for anything other than a pinfall or submission because he wanted a true finish to this match. Thus making the match a de facto no disqualification match.
Brock Lesnar hits the ring in his MMA gear (read: Jimmy John’s advertisements adorn his MMA shorts and mouth-guard) with Paul Heyman. Triple H enters with his normal ring entrance. Upon the completion of the super special ring introductions, Brock charges at Triple H and double-legs him into the corner. Brock maintains control in the corner with strikes. HHH briefly displays a flash of wrestling acumen by executing a back heel trip, but Brock escapes that easily. Brock targets the arm with his dreaded Kimura (this is the hold that broke HHH’s and Shawn Michael’s arm) and there is the impressive visual display of Brock applying the Kimura and a standing body-scissors on Triple H while Triple H holds onto the ropes. Normally this would necessitate a rope break, but without the power of disqualifying Lesnar, the referee is powerless to force Brock to break the hold. What follows is the short babyface shine segment with Triple H being able to knock Brock out of the ring twice. All this serves to do is piss Brock off, this is visually symbolized by Brock taking his gloves off. After another double-leg takedown, Brock lands vicious shot to the back of Hunter’s head. The announcers do a good job putting over that would be illegal in the UFC, making it seem extra dastardly. This serves as the transition to the heat segment. Brock dominates Triple H with a hammerlock slam on the announce table, which continues the arm psychology. Brock heads back into the ring for some taunting (as any good bully would) meanwhile this illustrates the no-countout stipulation. The verbal selling of HHH during this portion is well-done with Brock working over the arm. There is a smattering of desperation spots. Normally, I would term them hope spots, but the viewer has very little hope that HHH is going to overcome the Beast. Rather these spots seem like a man lashing out in pure self-preservation rather than attempting to win a competitive bout. Brock sends HHH into the steps and Triple H does not bump as hard as he could have. In another impressive visual display, Brock tips the announce table on its side; mounts it; delivers a superman punch. Then weirdly Lesnar goes for an inside cradle pin, which Triple H kicks out before 1. This leads to the first and only rope-running spot of the match, which sees Lesnar deliver one helluva lariat to HHH. However, Triple H is able to block a vertical suplex attempt into his own. He attempts a Pedigree, but his arm is too injured and Brock is able to send him crashing to the floor as HHH takes his normal corner bump, without the usual vigor.
The first match I will review (pay attention kiddies, this is going to be a trivia question, one day) is an encounter that when I finished watching I thought it would be very polarizing on how it was received on the net. Much to my dismay, it was not polarizing as much as it was incredibly loathed. Well consider the following its defense.
Brock Lesnar w/Paul Heyman vs Triple H
Summerslam 2012 Los Angeles, CA
 |
| The Marquee |
My brother and I were on the fence about ordering Summerslam for the third time in four years. Given Lesnar’s unique performance earlier in the year against Cena, we decided in favor of ordering plus there was a match between family favorites Dolph Ziggler and Chris Jericho we wanted to see. Unfortunately, that match for a myriad of reasons did not live up to expectation. However for the main event, my family was left very satisfied with the performances of both men. The internet was not so kind to the match deemed “slow, disjointed”, “an uneven effort”, “booked too even”, “too formulaic, Brock dominated then hit the finish” and “that Brock looked too much like an ordiniary wrestler and HHH did not bump well for him”. Was this bout the Match of the Year? No, but I think it was in the top handful of matches from WWE this year. As you can see from some of the purported criticisms, the critics are even fighting amongst themselves with what’s wrong with the match.
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| Brock Lesnar's wife, Sable (Rena Mero) circa 1998 |
The story going into this match was that Brock Lesnar had broken HHH’s arm and quit the WWE over not meeting his contractual obligations. Paul Heyman acted as Brock’s agent and did a serviceable job (at times, very good, his post-Summerslam promo was his best yet in this role) as his mouthpiece. After some goading and lackluster booking, the match between the WWE, legendary, rugged stalwart (HHH) and the bully invader (Brock) was booked. For extra heat, Brock broke Shawn Michaels’ arm sending HHH into a tizzy. Helmsley stressed to the official that under no circumstances was he to stop match for anything other than a pinfall or submission because he wanted a true finish to this match. Thus making the match a de facto no disqualification match.
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| Triple H's wife, Stephanie McMahon, Why yes Triple H graduated with honors from the Kliq School of Politics! |
Brock Lesnar hits the ring in his MMA gear (read: Jimmy John’s advertisements adorn his MMA shorts and mouth-guard) with Paul Heyman. Triple H enters with his normal ring entrance. Upon the completion of the super special ring introductions, Brock charges at Triple H and double-legs him into the corner. Brock maintains control in the corner with strikes. HHH briefly displays a flash of wrestling acumen by executing a back heel trip, but Brock escapes that easily. Brock targets the arm with his dreaded Kimura (this is the hold that broke HHH’s and Shawn Michael’s arm) and there is the impressive visual display of Brock applying the Kimura and a standing body-scissors on Triple H while Triple H holds onto the ropes. Normally this would necessitate a rope break, but without the power of disqualifying Lesnar, the referee is powerless to force Brock to break the hold. What follows is the short babyface shine segment with Triple H being able to knock Brock out of the ring twice. All this serves to do is piss Brock off, this is visually symbolized by Brock taking his gloves off. After another double-leg takedown, Brock lands vicious shot to the back of Hunter’s head. The announcers do a good job putting over that would be illegal in the UFC, making it seem extra dastardly. This serves as the transition to the heat segment. Brock dominates Triple H with a hammerlock slam on the announce table, which continues the arm psychology. Brock heads back into the ring for some taunting (as any good bully would) meanwhile this illustrates the no-countout stipulation. The verbal selling of HHH during this portion is well-done with Brock working over the arm. There is a smattering of desperation spots. Normally, I would term them hope spots, but the viewer has very little hope that HHH is going to overcome the Beast. Rather these spots seem like a man lashing out in pure self-preservation rather than attempting to win a competitive bout. Brock sends HHH into the steps and Triple H does not bump as hard as he could have. In another impressive visual display, Brock tips the announce table on its side; mounts it; delivers a superman punch. Then weirdly Lesnar goes for an inside cradle pin, which Triple H kicks out before 1. This leads to the first and only rope-running spot of the match, which sees Lesnar deliver one helluva lariat to HHH. However, Triple H is able to block a vertical suplex attempt into his own. He attempts a Pedigree, but his arm is too injured and Brock is able to send him crashing to the floor as HHH takes his normal corner bump, without the usual vigor.
This is the hook of the entire match: in an act of utter
self-preservation and total fortune, Triple H uses a leverage move to send
Brock crashing abdomen first into the edge of the announce table. Immediately,
Brock is double over in pain and selling so well that he snookered my dad into
thinking he was legit hurt. The selling was truly fantastic with Heyman putting
it over with his concern “Are you hurt?”. His tone was perfect. Brock spits up
and there goes the mouthguard. HHH capitalizes on this stroke of good luck by
attacking the abdomen with unrelenting fury, punches first then the vaunted HHH
knee. For those that do not know, Brock Lesnar legitimately had a disease known
as diverticulitis that caused huge portions of his intestines to be removed.
This is the driving force for his retirement from UFC. It was a great bit of
storytelling that hooked my entire family into the match. While Triple H was
ravaging Brock with knees to his gut, Heyman was screaming “Stop doing that”
and again his tone was so spot-on. We head to the finish after HHH hits the
spinebuster. A couple of finish reversals before Brock kicks out of the first
Pedigree. Brock then hits a wicked low-blow and follows that up with the F-5,
which only gets two. So Brock goes back to his bread and butter: the Kimura and
HHH makes the ropes, but there are no rope breaks. However, Triple H is able to
escape due to punches to the mid-section (abdomen psychology). HHH hits another
Pedigree, but when Triple H was trying to turn him over for the pin, Brock in a
flash caught him in the Kimura. Then proceeded to break his arm and HHH was
forced HHH to tap out.
Almost no wasted motion throughout the fight and a well-thought story made this seemingly an easy thumbs up from me. I am a sucker for Monster Heel takes on Franchise Babyface (see Vader/Sting). I think Brock did a good job emulating Vader especially in the corner. He was just absolutely relentless on the arm and going for the Kimura. I did not care one iota about the lack of variety in his offense. It was logical for him to keep vicious and arm-focused. He broke it once before, why deviate from that. The pacing was a bit on the methodical side, but it was never intended to be a sprint. It always had my attention and never felt like it dragged. I do not see the disjointed argument at all. The match layout was very typical:
Heel domination -> Babyface Shine -> Heat segment with hope spots -> Hope Spot finally connects -> Babyface comeback -> Finish.
The blow to the head transitioned to heat segment and the leverage move that “discovers” Brock’s weakness transitioned to the comeback. The transitions were accomplished and logical thus negating the "disjointed" arguement. Cena was able to defeat Lesnar because of a fluke chain shot. The idea was to put over that Cena was able to survive the onslaught. This match was built on that premise of HHH discovering a weakness to the monster he could exploit, but it was too little too late for our hero. This type of inter-match storytelling almost never happens in the WWE and I was eating it up. The dueling arm/abdomen psychology was bordering on brilliant for WWE’s typical ring work.
Did I mention how incredible Lesnar’s selling was? He is not known for his selling, but he put over the abdomen injury so well. I thought Triple H started off selling very well for Lesnar, but then almost seemed to get a bit lazy. Sure he did the bare minimum and not move his left arm, but where were the grimaces and the verbal selling. Also, this may be due to HHH's old age, but he was not throwing himself into bumps as well as he normally does. I think the Cena/Lesnar match is way better, but this match is still very good.
I have no idea how Lesnar came off as ordinary. He used a bunch of amateur/MMA moves and worked over a body part that almost never happens in WWE. In addition, they ran the ropes exactly once and used Irish Whips threes times. This match along with Cena match is the closest WWE has gotten to shoot-style ever. This felt like nothing else I get to see on a regular basis.
In conclusion, I felt like I got my money’s worth for being able to see this on HD TV live. It was a tremendous match that I enjoyed greatly with my family. I think you can improve HHH’s bumping and selling, but he is limited by age on one of those fronts. Also, while I loved the flash submission victory. I thought the finishing sequence was a bit tame with the usual finisher reversals. A grander false finish could have been employed to get the crowd more involved, which admittedly seemed dead during the majority of the match. The high points were definitely Brock’s offense, his selling and the match layout. On the very same card, Jericho had taped ribs and Ziggler did nothing but a token attack of the ribs. I would love to see more body part psychology in WWE, but for now I will just take Brock being an utter beast and having two MOTYC’s to his name having wrestled only two matches on the year.
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| SKULLET~! |
Almost no wasted motion throughout the fight and a well-thought story made this seemingly an easy thumbs up from me. I am a sucker for Monster Heel takes on Franchise Babyface (see Vader/Sting). I think Brock did a good job emulating Vader especially in the corner. He was just absolutely relentless on the arm and going for the Kimura. I did not care one iota about the lack of variety in his offense. It was logical for him to keep vicious and arm-focused. He broke it once before, why deviate from that. The pacing was a bit on the methodical side, but it was never intended to be a sprint. It always had my attention and never felt like it dragged. I do not see the disjointed argument at all. The match layout was very typical:
Heel domination -> Babyface Shine -> Heat segment with hope spots -> Hope Spot finally connects -> Babyface comeback -> Finish.
The blow to the head transitioned to heat segment and the leverage move that “discovers” Brock’s weakness transitioned to the comeback. The transitions were accomplished and logical thus negating the "disjointed" arguement. Cena was able to defeat Lesnar because of a fluke chain shot. The idea was to put over that Cena was able to survive the onslaught. This match was built on that premise of HHH discovering a weakness to the monster he could exploit, but it was too little too late for our hero. This type of inter-match storytelling almost never happens in the WWE and I was eating it up. The dueling arm/abdomen psychology was bordering on brilliant for WWE’s typical ring work.
Did I mention how incredible Lesnar’s selling was? He is not known for his selling, but he put over the abdomen injury so well. I thought Triple H started off selling very well for Lesnar, but then almost seemed to get a bit lazy. Sure he did the bare minimum and not move his left arm, but where were the grimaces and the verbal selling. Also, this may be due to HHH's old age, but he was not throwing himself into bumps as well as he normally does. I think the Cena/Lesnar match is way better, but this match is still very good.
I have no idea how Lesnar came off as ordinary. He used a bunch of amateur/MMA moves and worked over a body part that almost never happens in WWE. In addition, they ran the ropes exactly once and used Irish Whips threes times. This match along with Cena match is the closest WWE has gotten to shoot-style ever. This felt like nothing else I get to see on a regular basis.
In conclusion, I felt like I got my money’s worth for being able to see this on HD TV live. It was a tremendous match that I enjoyed greatly with my family. I think you can improve HHH’s bumping and selling, but he is limited by age on one of those fronts. Also, while I loved the flash submission victory. I thought the finishing sequence was a bit tame with the usual finisher reversals. A grander false finish could have been employed to get the crowd more involved, which admittedly seemed dead during the majority of the match. The high points were definitely Brock’s offense, his selling and the match layout. On the very same card, Jericho had taped ribs and Ziggler did nothing but a token attack of the ribs. I would love to see more body part psychology in WWE, but for now I will just take Brock being an utter beast and having two MOTYC’s to his name having wrestled only two matches on the year.
