The Seventh Dimension 11.17.07: A Decade of Duplication

The Survivor Series is upon us. One of the WWE’s classic ‘big four’ events, albeit the ‘bastard stepchild’ of the quartet these days, it’s still one of the company’s most successful and memorable shows each year. A show that has seen multiple World heavyweight title changes (in fact, from 1994 through to 1999, the WWF Championship changed hands every year), but also many other moments that will live on in infamy for the rest of time, or at least for another couple of years. And, of course, there is one occurrence that will ALWAYS be associated with the show.

Since 1832, and its official city status, Montreal has been perhaps the most economically-chief and culturally-significant place in all of Canada. When you ask any lay person to name a city in Canada, about 65% of them will say “Montreal”. That’s my estimate, anyway. I’d say around 25% would say “Toronto”, 5% would go for “Vancouver”, 4% “Ottawa”, and 1% “mummy doesn’t allow me to talk to strangers”. Hey, it’s not like I was aiming to ask children. It’s not my fault, either, if their parents tie them to a lamppost while they browsing in Claire’s Accessories. There’s a reason contraception was invented, you know.

Anyway, that’s beside the point. The thing is, as much as has happened at the Survivor Series in its 21-year history, and as much as Montreal has accomplished (admittedly, I didn’t really look into it. But it’s bound to be quite a lot, right?), wrestling fans will always relate the two with one incident. One that defined wrestling forever more.

I’m talking of course about…Jean-Pierre Lafitte being replaced by the 1-2-3 kid at Survivor Series 1995!

…

No, of course I’m not. I’m talking, predictably, about that bloody screw-job. You know, the one where what’s-his-name wrestled who’s-it and then he tapped out. But, he didn’t! So, like, he was screwed! But then, it wasn’t even a storyline screw, because also, right, he was screwed backstage! Yeah, because he was off to some other place, and he couldn’t leave with the prize (whatever that was…a bangle, was it?), so the dude what ran the show told him that “you’re going to win tonight, high five, hugs and kisses”, but then he told the other bloke “no WAY, he’s going down like Chloe Jones, God rest her soul even though she won’t be dead until eight years from now”. And that’s exactly how it happened.

Forgive me, but I am so over this bullshit. I know I came into this late (well, not THAT late…I can’t help being young), but I won’t apologise for being apathetic about something that I had no clue even happened until I watched another Survivor Series, the 2000 edition, to hear Lawler stating that “Bret screwed Bret”. In fact, as someone who didn’t even have the internet at that time, I can’t remember if I even knew who Bret was! So, to me, they were taking valuable time away from the beginning of the show to chat candidly about someone who, for all I knew, was a traffic warden or some shit.

Even now, having read all the facts, I fail to see what all the fuss is about. Now look, I’m not stupid, I know the repercussions were immense (the start of the Mister McMahon character, the ‘breaking-of-the-fourth-wall’ in terms of kayfabe, the final proof that WCW was inept at booking, etc). I’m not going to go into a rant about “Oh my word, without Montreal WCW would definitely have won, and then Dean Malenko would have won like fifty-million World titles and Owen would still be alive and Davey Boy would have lived forever in a cottage by the sea, la la la la la!” I don’t care about that. What’s done is done, and that’s part of my point.

I’m talking about the event itself. You see, there are some who see it like this – Bret had dignity, he was a company man, and he should have been able to job on his own terms instead of in his own country to the man he hated most in the whole world. Others take this approach – Vince had already been fucked over by Alundra Blaze years previously, he couldn’t trust anyone at that point with the corporate rivalry being what it was, and Bret should have been more professional. These are both fine, very good points. However, I see it more like this:

Bret was a willie. > Michaels was a willie. > They had a match. > The show ended. > Life went on.

Too simple? Again, the ramifications later were HUGE, as Bischoff failed to capitalise on the notoriety, Vince McMahon feuded with Austin, and wrestling ‘lost its innocence’. But can all these major new pathways be contributed SOLELY to the screw-job? Was the attitude era not already in effect at this stage? Was Vince McMahon not already getting attacked by Austin in the ring? Was Stone Cold’s push not already more than a year into its existence? Had the first Hell in a Cell match, along with Kane’s debut, not already taken place a month prior? Was WCW not already running their Sting/Hogan angle for Starrcade which damaged the company immensely due to Hogan’s ego, and NOT due to Bret Hart? Was the internet not already in operation? BOO VINCE, THE GREATEST GENI-CUNT EVER! HE’S MORE INFLUENTIAL THAN MY UNCLE KEVIN~!1

Come on, now. The writing was on the wall LONG before the screw-job took place. Survivor Series merely accelerated the process.

And yet, to this day, it is not only a talking point among us fans (including feasible conspiracy theories…shame that kind of clear-value logic and concise reckoning can’t be put to better use on issues that actually matter), but is repeatedly revisited by wrestling shows, as well. Looking back, the first use of this as a fully-worked angle was not only forgivable, but was rather satisfactory – that being, the Deadly Games final where The Rock and McMahon screwed Mankind out of the title. This was one year after the Montreal event, and was great because it actually turned The Rock into a heel. That was fine.

The problem is that there is NO POINT in reminding people constantly of what happened. It worked the first time (well, second, if you include the original episode) because it had been one full year since. This meant that it was BOTH fresh in the minds of those who experienced it, but also long enough in the past that fans would be riled up, in a good way, to see it play out once more. It worked that one time because, at that point, it was ONLY that one time that it was frequented, and at the perfect time. It also worked because it was the culmination of a long, drawn-out tournament for the WWF Championship that most thought they had sussed as to what the result would be (i.e. The Rock or Austin beating Mankind in the final as a good guy), and it completely swerved the audience while also creating a new showpiece heel. That was another reason it worked – the colossal shock-value of The Rock fucking the fans over and siding with Vince, and henceforth giving them Mick Foley to cheer instead.

Since then, wrestling promoters have gone to the well so many times that it hurts my balls. I’m not talking about Dusty finishes or regular screw-jobs, as they’ve obviously been around since the dawn of time in every profession (though not called the ‘Dusty finish’, I take it. God, imagine how funny that would be? You happen to call yourself ‘Dusty’ because your surname is ‘Rhodes’, which sounds like ‘Roads’, and then you become renowned for finishes that are ALREADY called ‘Dusty finishes’. You contributed jack shit to the business, junior!). But, obviously, Vince noticed how successful the first two junctures were and kept doing what worked before. I can’t blame him too much, but it’s got beyond a joke now. Ironically, however, it wasn’t even Vince who carried the tradition on! See, I’ve listed, chronologically, the instances I can think of where the Montreal screw-job has been directly ripped from. And the next on the list was? WCW having Bret Hart defeat Goldberg in the same way! IN THE STARRCADE MAIN EVENT!!! Oh my goodness me, why was it any surprise that they went out of business?

In all honesty, they haven’t been THAT regular, unless you pigeonhole ALL occasions where a commissioner or a CEO wanks somebody over. In which case, my ‘WCW did it next’ theory is fucked, I guess. 1999 really opened the floodgates in terms of these, as you could argue that Vince winning the Rumble, Undertaker beating Stone Cold at WWF: Pushing Up The Daisies – sorry, Owen – and the ladder match where Big Boss Man, supposedly, moved the clip-board on behalf of the McMahons were ALSO nods to Montreal. Then there was Vince screwing The Rock at Wrestlemania 2000, then again a year later at X-7, then helping The Rock beat Hogan at No Way Out four years ago, and then having Shane defeat Shawn Michaels himself with the Sharpshooter without Michaels tapping. Most recently, Vince beat Lashley for the ECW belt and then fucked him out of winning it back a month later by creating an entirely new precedent. There have been plenty more in-between, but I fear just thinking about them will leave me on anti-depressants for the rest of my life.

But is that unfair? Is it unfair now to label every ‘screw-job’ involving a McMahon as ‘a homage to Montreal’? And, likewise, is it also unfair to roll our eyes each time we see such an example, without taking the context into account? I’ll leave that up to you to decide. All I know is, I’m fully expecting something similar to go down in the Orton/Michaels match tomorrow, possibly with a double-turn. If this happens, I’ll just have to hope it’s because it’s ten years since the original happening, and 10 is a lovely round number to climax on.

If not, we could be in for a long, depressing line of “_____ screwed _____” angles for a while to come.

Thanks to the wonders of Youtube, I’ve watched the documentary portion of the John Cena ‘My Life’ DVD. I figured, since it’s about wrestling and this is a wrestling column, that I’d give a brief review of it. So here goes.

The documentary starts by chronicalling, much to the chagrin of those who believe Cena is passionless and just going through the motions in order to make a quick buck, his childhood love of professional wrestling. As a young boy, he and his four brothers convinced their father to purchase cable just so that they could watch more of it. They set mattresses up downstairs and beat each other to a pulp. Make no mistake, John Cena lives wrestling and has done for a long time.

It then moves on to the, quite frankly, terrifying body-building portion of his life story, which was instigated by bullying due to his unique tastes and fashion sense. Funny…I was bullied at school as well, yet I became more of an idle toss as a result. Quite strange to see the different routes human beings can take. Anyway, he went to university and played gridiron, was a team leader and made people cry. Then, he became a wrestler. You pretty much know the rest.

It was certainly interesting to see how peoples’ perceptions of him changed during the first few years of his career. Jim Ross immediately saw the potential, and told Vince as soon as he signed him that Cena would be headlining Wrestlemania in a few years from then. However, Vince was not convinced, and nor were many of the other workers. JBL’s summarising in particular is worth noting. He said that he was not impressed at all with Cena’s ‘Prototype’ character, and that he didn’t think Cena would ever make it. However, within three years he was complaining that their match at Wrestlemania 21 wasn’t closing the show and cementing Cena as the company’s biggest star. That’s more than a change of heart, that’s…well, no. It’s a change of heart, that’s what it is. But it’s still good.

Anyway, what else? Oh yeah, Edge talking about how he passed out during the TLC match, came to and thought he’d missed his flight, only to walk right into the ladder and remember he was still competing, was rather humorous. The few clips of The Marine also made me quite want to see it, and Snoop Dogg praising Cena’s rapping skills was surprising as hell. One of the last few lines was one of the most notable – Vince McMahon stating that “one of Cena’s ambitions, and one I believe he will accomplish, is to blow (Austin, The Rock, Hogan and Triple H) out of the water”. That’s a bold statement, to say the least.

What disappointed me was that Cena himself never said a word during the documentary. All the interviews were with his family, peers, even other celebrities, but nothing from John himself. However, it was decent enough and certainly worth watching, if only to laugh at all of the higher-ups sucking his dick and making him out to be the ressurection of Burt Lancaster.

Final score: 8/10

So John Morrison had a fight with JBL earlier this week. This seems to be one of those rare situations where both parties are wrong. JBL is wrong because it’s hardly Morrison and Miz’s fault if they were placed on commentary to bicker and draw the attention away from the match, and they did that. But then, Morrison is also wrong because he drew first blood, as it were, by shoving JBL for no apparent reason. I doubt anything will come of it, but expect Morrison to eat the pin tomorrow.

As I predicted (in private…), Kaz won the Fight For Your Right tournament. Honestly, I was expecting him to win, but sadly I forgot TNA were even holding an event, so I didn’t chime in with the Roundtable. Therefore, I won’t feel too bad if nobody believes me, and that I also predicted Shelley and Sabin would win. But here’s the deal, here – Angle was obviously retaining the title, and Angle is a heel. Christian Cage is also a heel. Kaz is not. Regardless of when the title match was to take place, it seems academic that Frankie Kazarian was to get the next shot. Obviously, others saw it differently, but others are stupid.

Anyway, a lot of people are getting their suspenders in a twist because his title match was on this week’s Impact! instead of being held off for a pay-per-view. This is, once again, one of those times where the reality is balanced somewhat. There is certainly no way that Kaz should have main-evented Turning Point, or even been in the title match with another match closing out the show. Even if they added Sting to the match and made it a triple-threat, it wouldn’t work. However, there IS cause for complaint, because we just paid for a match to see who can earn a match for free television. That’s backwards, obviously, especially since the ladder match was pure class.

Here’s what I’d have done – made the contract a ‘Money In The Bank’ type deal. Have them still fight on Impact! because that match was fun, as a preview for things to come down the line (say Angle was cocky like he was when Cena debuted, and thought he would put Kaz in his place ASAP). Then, have Kaz murder a few people in the upcoming months, and give him the title match at Lockdown. By then, he should have enough fan-support and momentum that he could conceivably sell a few extra buys for an all-cage event. You could still have the match be a triple-threat if you need more name value, or you could have in one-on-one but, again, not close out the show. One way or another, the stature of the match and Kazarian’s stock rise just because it’s a World Heavyweight Championship match.

Oh well, too late now. Perhaps we’ll get Joe (he’s NOT buried!) back into the title mix soon, seeing as he’s in the main-event tag match at Turning Point. Maybe, just maybe, it’s a test for him. If he can put on a good show, and make Nash and Hall look a bit better than they probably are now, then perhaps he’ll have ‘paid his dues’, as it were. Fingers crossed, ey?

Matt and MVP are feuding again, and I’m relieved and pleased with how it went down. For those who didn’t see Smackdown! last night, MVP and Hardy defended their WWE Tag Team Championships against John Morrison and Mike Mizanin. MVP faked an injury and tagged out to Matt, who suffered a legitimate (kayfabe) knee injury and was pinned in short order for the titles as he was outnumbered. MVP then demanded an immediate rematch for the belts, started the match, but again tagged out with a phoney injury. Matt could barely stand at this point, great selling on this, and was pwned once more by the ECW duo. Afterwards, MVP helped Matt to his feet, but then knocked him down and obliterated the knee, including using the steel steps. This was brutal shit, and really added a ton of bad blood to a feud that, let’s face it, was little more than a comedy “you’re different from me”, “I’m more different than you are” odd-couple routine that took the focus away from what this thing is really about – the United States Heavyweight Championship. Of course, that was the intention, and I’m not pretending it wasn’t. It was genius, but at the same time it HAD to end soon, becuase otherwise they risked having many fans forget they were ever fighting in the first place.

I do have a couple of small issues, though – 1) is that it happened in the same week as MVP began his whole “hey, dude, we’re friends and I ain’t gonna fight yar” angle, which now seems a little rushed (how fitting for such a LONG storyline), but at least they’ll now be at each other’s throats for Survivor Series. 2) is that it took place JUST before Survivor Series. I’d have had this happen either a few weeks ago, or on next week’s Smackdown. But, again, the battle-lines are drawn now for tomorrow night, and we get an extra week of build for the US Title match. The next question is when will the match take place? I think we’ll know by tomorrow night. If Hardy competes tomorrow and isn’t stretchered out, we’ll probably see the match at Armageddon. If there is an injury angle, look for it to take place at Wrestlemania. Either way, Matt’s on his way to his first major singles’ title, and as a mark for him I’m chuffed. No disrespect intended to MVP, who is great.

Also, I must say that (although it seems to have blown the result for the ECW title match tomorrow) I’m looking forward to Morrison and The Miz reigning supreme in the Smackdown/ECW tag ‘division’. It’s Miz’s first championship as well, so well done to him.

Rubbish (well, overly-optimistic) Youtube Quote of the Week~! From Batista vs Mark Henry:

zila07
undertaker will tombstone batista at top of the cell

Meh, could happen. But let’s face it, they had Shane in the cell last year and he didn’t go flying. Shane! And Orton the year before, even when they actually worked an angle where the cage door was opened. It’s completely unrealistic to not only suggest, but to STATE AS FACT, that Batista and Undertaker will be climbing tomorrow night. But again, we shall see.

The Matter: I’m so over having friends. Really, they’re crap. Utterly diabolical bellends who let me down time and time again. I guess I should start with a positive – at least THIS time I was invited to the party, unlike last time when I was the only one from our group (and I mean only) to be omitted – despite being one of the most eager to participate, and they knew this. But maybe I was better off that night, because every time I do get a chance to go out with them, I get discarded like a tourist in Portugal. It happened again this week, and I was left to just drink more and chat with randoms while the rest were no doubt back at Rosie’s flat playing Russian Roulette with my friendship. I mentioned last week I was a depressive sort, and I wasn’t joking. This treatment flat-out sucks all of the motivation from my soul. At this point, without even a job to pass the time, this site is all I have. God, I’m an idiot.

On the plus side, though, I bought TWO (~!) replica belts this week. Each of the WWE World titles. very nice, as well. But am I happy? Well, what is happiness? Answer me that. Go on.

The Link: There are loads of links I could reference, but I’ll just go for the easy, recent choice – Christian’s Coalition leaving him and joining Angle. Bastards. Never mind, Christian, come down Oceana next week and I’ll buy you a Becks (as long as it’s before two, after that the price goes up).

And I guess you could link the belt purchase with Ted DiBiase trying to do the same in 1988. Much like the Million Dollar Man, I didn’t get an official championship reign from it either! I feel cheated. Why does Mark Henry get to bend the rules with the European Championship, and I get jack-diddly-shittington? It’s so unfair. *Sniff*

Just one piece of feedback this week, from Weng Yu, who was a bit worried last week when I spoke of my lack of ideas.

Hey TG,

Peace.

Thanks for writing. I haven’t given up yet, and I must be doing something right, as I was offered another column by some videogames site (that I respectfully declined). Thanks for your support!

That’s it for another week. I ended up enjoying this, which is important for me. I think it’s the preparating that I hate so. Once I’m in the swing of things, I could write for hours (and, in fact, do) without rest. Hopefully it’ll be another good one next time around. You deserve it, just for sticking with me and my bullshit.

Uber-fans, or people with too much free time, can check out my blog as my friend and I are writing a great politically-inspired story that’s superficially about fruit. It’s called Lemonges, and it’s coming along nicely. I’ve posted the prologue as a preview, so certainly give that a look if you enjoy shit and only shit.

For the rest of you – Class dismissed!