WWE FastLane : Where is WWE heading?

 

Increasingly, it's becoming clear that WWE is being written on the fly, and it's hard to work out exactly where the main storylines are going.   With this is mind, I'll use this blog post to evaluate three current talking points.

The Main Event - Bryan vs Reigns

 

Let's be clear, this is a mess. By putting chosen one Roman Reigns up against the people's favourite Daniel Bryan for a shot at Brock Lesnar's title at Wrestlemania, they have essentially nullified the whole point of the Royal Rumble.  History has repeated itself as farce: this is the second year in a row that hostile crowd reactions to the treatment of Bryan at the Rumble has forced WWE's hand.  They've panicked and clumsily inserted him back in the main event picture.  Again.

Leaving aside arguments about whether Reigns is ready or not, it was clear that the live audience is heavily split.  Reigns has recently been getting some audible cheers, but an awful lot of boos are drowning this out.  It's not entirely his fault, as the fans booing him are probably those who were cheering him during his Shield run.  Indeed, I believe the real target of their ire is the poor overall booking that marred the 2015 Rumble.  It wasn't just that Reigns was being given an arguably unwarranted push, it was much of the action was severly disappointing.  Fan favourites like Bryan, Ambrose and Ziggler were cheaply dispatched like jobbers.  It felt so perfunctory, and even Kofi Kingston's escape, now an annual feature, felt disappointing in comparison to previous years' athletic feats.  When Reigns was left alone in the ring, he acted as a conduit for the fans' frustration, and has been doing so ever since.   Going ahead with a straightforward Lesnar/Reigns match-up at 'Mania without addressing this was clearly asking for trouble.

However, it should be noted that last year's Wrestlemania did become one of the most memorable WWE events in years thanks to Daniel Bryan's heroics.  The swerve was the right thing to do then, and it could be the right thing now.   Over the past week, Reigns' uneasy partnership with Bryan has lit up his prospects following a dismal program the former has been working with Big Show.  On last week's Smackdown, they worked a long 'tag-team turmoil' tournament that saw the team of Reigns and Bryan triumphant after performing throughout the entire 45-minute match.   During the match, the pair proved they were professional enough to be an effective team against several specialist duos, but also that tensions were continuing to simmer.  One notable moment was when Reigns looked uneasy as his cousins, the Usos, emerged as their next opponents.  As Bryan unloaded a vicious series of kicks on one of the twins outside the ring, Reigns even intervened of behalf of his relative.  This showed a more human side to Reigns that helps flesh out his underdeveloped character. 

Then on Raw, both had matches with lumbering big men, though the action in the ring was never the point.  As Reigns faced Kane, Bryan sat ringside and tried to distract his FastLane opponent by starting Yes chants.  This was designed to get under Reigns' skin.  Then, during Bryan's main event with Big Show, Reigns returned the favour by chatting with fans ringside, signing autographs and distributing t-shirts.  Finally, at the end of the match, the two men faced each other and the tension spilled over into a brawl.  The crowd reacted strongly to this ending, which was believably intense.

So the build-up to FastLane's main event has, eventually, worked well thanks to simpler, straightforward booking.  There's a lesson here...But the question remains, what will the outcome be?

Firstly, we could get a big clean win for Reigns.  This would make Reigns look like a viable future champion if he can prevail against an elite performer, and this will benefit his aura.   I have no doubt that this is the result WWE want, but the risk is obvious.  Given Bryan's enduring popularity, if he jobs to Reigns, his fans will surely turn on the big man.  The boos would get much louder and WWE would probably be forced to turn Reigns heel, which would be awkward as they want him to be the next big babyface.  I don't think they want to book heel Reigns versus heel Lesnar.

The second option is a clear Bryan win.  This is the most unlikely option.  Yes, it would be a crowd pleaser, but it would also be an admission that the Reigns project had failed. He would go down in history as the Rumble winner who never got to headline Wrestlemania, and that would hurt his reputation too badly.  Remember how Damien Sandow's career dwindled immediately after he failed to cash in Money In The Bank?

The most likely option is a no contest or a screwy result either way that leads to further storyline complications.   This would pave the way for both men to face off against Lesnar in a triple threat match.  This isn't ideal, as a common complaint about WWE PPVs is the number of inconclusive finishes that dog main events.  However, it could be the least worst option, as it would allow the Bryan vs Reigns feud to simmer further all the way to a 'Mania match that the WWE Universe would accept as legitimate.

Main Eventers in the Mid-Card

As a fan of Dean Ambrose, to me his brief main event run seems like an odd fever dream, as most of the finishes were so bizarre (distracted by a hologram?  temporarily blinded by an exploding monitor?).  Of course, he was only elevated due to the injury-enforced absences of Reigns and Bryan, but he was extremely over, as his merchandise sales proved.  So it's a little worrying that he's now languishing back in the mid-card following a poor feud with Bray Wyatt.

Nonetheless, I'm reasonably comfortable that his IC Title feud with Bad News Barrett is a decent prospect.  For one thing, his rationale, quickly explained in a promo, is clear and unambiguous.  He wants the prestige of the belt, and sees a sarcastic Englishman barring his way, so he wants a match at FastLane.  Furthermore, the farcical bondage-themed contract-signing (dubbed '50 Shades Of Ambrose' by online commenters) was his most entertaining segment in months.  David Otunga even joined in the fun on Twitter, mock-complaining that, in his expert legal opinion, the contract was clearly signed under duress and should be thrown out.   I believe that Ambrose, who has a stronger status in WWE than career mid-carder Barrett, will win the title.  He can then, booked properly and given plenty of air-time, elevate the title and maintain his own profile until he's ready to re-join the main event scene.  No need to rush things.

Then Barrett can continue his new feud with Wayne Rooney......

More intrigiung is that John  Cena, the ultimate main event-hog, has also dropped down to the mid-card.  He's the latest opponent for the formidable (pseudo-Russian) Bulgarian Brute, Rusev.   So far, Rusev's mouthpiece, Lana, has taunted Cena for being an old, broken-down man.  This approach is interesting, as it could be more reality-based than is immediately clear.  At 37, Cena's hardly ancient but it's known that he is carrying injuries.  Never the sprightliest of performers, Cena has lately slowed down his style and now wrestles at a very deliberate pace, and more infrequently.  I suspect that he's paying the price for rushing back too quickly from injury breaks.   Whatever, to maintain his monster heel momentum, Rusev needs to win this, and I believe he will.  I think Cena is just starting to transition into a part-time role now.

Of course, if Super Cena returns and squashes Rusev in five minutes, forget I ever wrote this.....

Rollins is in limbo

No-one in WWE has been quite as feted over the past year as Seth Rollins.  As the Authority's chosen figurehead, he has been faultless both as an explosive technical wrestler and a genuinely loathsome promo guy.   He is the perfect heel.  So it seems very odd that he's been allowed to drift so badly, and he even admitted as much in his promo on Raw last week.   Er, is it really a good idea for WWE to point out booking errors in this manner?
 
Part of the problem is that, as the Money In the Bank briefcase holder, he's had virtually no chance to cash in as Brock Lesnar never wrestles outside PPVs.   The case has become a bit of an albatross, as he can't really get involved in the main event scene given that the holder is supposed to stalk on the outside then strike unexpectedly.  An absentee champion makes this strategy impossible.


At the moment, he's engaged in a filler program with the similarly drifting Dolph Ziggler.  The action's been good, but the storyline background isn't strong.  The whole Ziggler, Rowan and Ryback sacking was an underwhelming angle that should be forgotten, yet this is dragging on now.  There'll probably be a six-man tag  match (also involving J&J Security) at FastLane, which will have its moments but be inconsequential.

I understand the idea is that Randy Orton will return in the run-up to 'Mania' as a face, and this will be a major program for Rollins.  This is fine, but surely he could be used better than this in the interim.  After all Ambrose has unfinished business with his treacherous former compadre.

The rest

Elsewhere, it's more predictable.  Bray Wyatt is being prepared for a match with Undertaker and will continue to issue cryptic statements.  Sting will continue to spook out HHH, but will be elusive.   The Bellas will continue their dominant mean girl act, but Paige might get a surprise victory over Nikki leading to a re-match at Wrestlemania.   The tag team division will continue its slide towards irrelevance.

FastLane is a real turning point for WWE.   Booking has been unsatisfactory for a long time now, but they need to tighten up the storylines to set up the year's biggest show.  Whether they can do that remains to be seen.

The Death of Kayfabe, pt 94....

Watching TNA's re-boot, it's been very noticeable how they've embraced 'the reality era' in wrestling.  A definite effort has been made to place their show within the real world.  So far Mike Tenay has hosted sit-down interviews with both Magnus and Kenny King.  In both cases, the interviewees adopted the same strategy, delivering a mixture of comments in character combined with reflections on the real-life journeys both men have embarked on as professional wrestlers.  In truth, it's not too difficult to tell where the boundaries between the two men's actual life stories and the boasting of the fictional characters lie, but these have still been revealing segments that are a damn site more interesting than the scripted 'interviews' trotted out by certain WWE talents recently (no names need to be mentioned....).   Elsewhere, Lashley has addressed MVP using his real name, Hassan, and the commentary team have dropped references to other wrestling companies, showing that they see themselves as part of a wider overall industry.  Josh Matthews has even been caught using insider terms, like 'audible' (i.e. loud spot-calling), while the mic's on.

WWE, of course, created the reality era when it green-lighted C M Punk's legendary pipebomb promo.  In seven minutes, a stunned Raw audience witnessed something it had never heard before. This was a distinctly tweenerish heel promo that insulted the audience but chimed with the IWC with its complaints about the staleness of the WWE product and its failure to build new stars.   By self-consciously breaking the fourth-wall and even including a shout-out to a short-lived WWE star using (gasp!) his indie name of Colt Cabana, he drew gasps from a crowd used to an extremely insular product. 

Punk is long gone (and indeed burned several bridges with a shocking tell-all exposé on a podcast hosted by Cabana himself) and it seems WWE have rolled this back a bit.  Sure, you might still hear the odd real-life reference, like Bray Wyatt taunting Dean Ambrose over his genuinely tough childhood in Cincinnati.  Yet this feels strictly incidental.  Ultimately, WWE takes place in a thoroughly unrealistic bubble, known as the 'WWE Universe'.  It's a land where no other serious promotions exist, a land where there is no wrestling, just 'sports entertainment', and where a leading monster heel flies into tapings every week from his home in far-off Moscow without suffering any jet-lag at all.

This bubble is hermetically sealed, although complications occur once you get to NXT, where outside promotions are actually mentioned (understandable, given the Japanese back-stories of Hideo Itami, Finn Balor and Adrian Neville).  However, NXT is outside the WWE Universe, and should be seen as an indie promotion that just happens to exist under the overall WWE umbrella.  It's a little tricky.

But what's this?  Recent editions of Raw have trailed the Stone Cold podcast which happens on the Network straight after Raw ends, and has featured candid interviews in which Austin has asked both Vince and HHH tough questions and got straight answers.  This features content about 'booking decisions' and backstage discussions about who is wanting to grab that mythical brass ring.  In short, the kayfabe nature of wrestling, which Raw largely upholds, goes out the window as soon as Raw ends and the Network takes over.

Essentially, in different ways, both companies are doing something very similar here.  They are saying that in the internet age, they understand that everyone knows wrestling is scripted and pre-determined.  The days when 'Apter mags' like Pro-Wrestling Illustrated pretended that all feuds were real now seem quaint.  The game is up for kayfabe.  Many complain that this has drained the fun out of the game, and the child-like innocence has been lost forever as magazines like FSM, blogs like this and endless dirtshirt sites all reveal that the reason Roman Reigns is set for the main event of Wrestlemania is that Vince likes him a lot.  It's not down to wrestling ability.

I understand this thinking, but can't help feeling it's not quite that simple.  Yes, you can say an era passed as soon as Vince admitted that wrestling was fixed after the Montreal Screwjob, but in truth, you could work it out for yourself.  When I was a kid watching British wrestling on Saturday afternoons, there was a true monstrous heel named Giant Haystacks, a king-size bully who terrorised babyfaces like Big Daddy.  My 11-year-old self saw him as the embodiment of evil.  But the more I watched wrestling the more I realised that if he really was that unhinged and violent, no-one would ever agree to face him in the ring.   I didn't yet know the phrase 'unsafe working environment' but realised that this was a situation no amount of money could persuade me to enter.  Did this detract from my enjoyment?  Not one bit.  I still bought into the matches, but realised afterwards it was all just entertainment.  In reality, Giant Haystacks was Martin Ruane, a devout Catholic whose moral code meant he often refused to wrestle on the Sabbath.

I've heard the complaint that wrestling should try to compete more with multi-layered TV shows like Breaking Bad or Game Of Thrones.  This is perhaps asking a bit too much.  After all, we're living through a clear golden age of American television that started with The Sopranos and The Wire, and a humble wrestling show might struggle to attain those levels of narrative heights.  Nonetheless, I think this complaint has a grain of truth.  The problem with most modern wrestling is that it rarely bothers to offer any compelling narratives.  Daniel Bryan's triumph at Wrestlemania XXX worked so well because it was based on a long-running story of a talented yet average-looking guy getting held down and finally triumphing because of innate ability and a hell of a lot of heart.  I have rarely felt so elated after watching a wrestling match, but this is a big exception to the usual rule.

Likewise, the one storyline I'm fixated on in 2015 is the continuing saga of Rockstar Spud and Ethan Carter III.  Unusally for TNA, they haven't rushed this one at all.  Spud's face-turn has been a slow-burner, as the easily-led Brummie has finally realised that EC3 cannot be trusted.  The latter has now employed the large-framed Tyrus (a latterday Haystacks?) as his willing henchman in an attempt to destroy Spud's spirit.  However, Spud is fighting back with the help of Mandrews, the Welshman who won British Bootcamp last year. Mandrews has an array of great high-flying moves and wants to fight for the right cause.  So far EC3's evil machinations have dominated, but everyone involved has played their part perfectly.  It's simple, old-school booking and it works.  On Sunday night, I wanted to hit EC3 over the head with an umbrella like old ladies at a 70s British show.  Despite being aware that I was watching an actor perform a role, I still hated him so much, because his performance was so despicably good. 

The death of kayfabe is not a problem so long as good stories are told in the ring, and this is the true problem.  It's not happening enough, as too many matches have minimal or no build, particularly in WWE.  But just as I can simultaneously applaud James Gandolfini's performance and be appalled at Tony Soprano's actions, I understand that Michael Hutter is doing a great job at being bad in the role of EC3.  I hope he never turns face.