Post Of The Year 2014

[Devon Malcolm]

I know, dreadful spelling.

[HarmonicGenerator]

Nomination: Pitcos' opening post from the 'moaning about wrestling' thread:

 

Wrestling fandom is a fascinating thing, and I haven't followed any real sports since puberty (because why would you?) so I don't know how different it is to those. A flawed football analogy that occurs to me is that WWE is like a premier league team that we've supported for years, but half of us hate the chairman and revel in any failure causing him grief. Or some of us support the local non-league team and hate the premiership lot. Anyway, my point is we still watch it but we've all moaned like fuck about it for years and think we know better than the people who run it and do it. But when did that start for you? I'm roughly 100% certain it comes from reading PowerSlam and/or newzsites because that's how it started for me, and I've no ability to empathise with other people's lives.

 

I think I was reading Powerslam a few years first, though. I know the first issue I got was on holiday in Weymouth and it was the one covering Shawn Michaels winning the title at WrestleMania 12, which amazed me because it was so current to TV pace. I knew I'd be waiting about three months for the WrestleMania results to turn up in WWF magazine, and the Apter mags at the time had STOP PRESS! PIPER HITS SNUKA WITH COCONUT headlines. And I think I bought every issue of PS from then on, but I don't remember it making me negative until about late 1998, when I was parroting that Undertaker wrestled Kane too much. That was definitely from Fin. I don't know if I got this from PowerSlam or if it was just being fifteen and wanting to hate babyfaces, but I had a proper "Austin wins too much" idiocy on me, same way you get "SuperCena" cretins now. One of my highlights of WrestleMania XV was a crowd sign saying I BET AUSTIN WINS because I felt like the bloke who wrote that was doing a big fuck-you to WWE's predictable booking/storytelling that made sense. One of my cringeworthy wrestling memories was after SummerSlam 2000, complaining that the Hardys and Edge and Christian shouldn't be taking the shortcuts of all those dangerous spotfests because they're good wrestlers. I still really enjoyed it though and the whinging was mostly one-offs like that.

 

Then of course after the attitude era novelty wore off, which coincided with everyone getting broadband and fueling each other's negativity, I was well into the complaining about Triple H and so on. For me, that also went along with going to university in 2001 and not having that environment like school/sixth form where there were a big group of us mad into wrestling. Wrestling went from silly, fun shit like mates standing behind each other doing

to "sit at the computer hungover, reading people saying that Vince is burying all the WCW wrestlers." I wonder, had I been a couple of years younger, would me and my schoolmates have been shouting "HERE COMES THE PAIN" and doing spinaroonies, or would we have sat around the common room complaining that Rob Van Dam deserved a bigger push and Undertaker shouldn't be selfishly avoiding doing jobs to young talent. How much of becoming a moaner was my age/life and how much was the industry itself?

 

I'm curious about how that timeline differs from other people's, specifically because the turnaround of top talent in the nineties to early 2000s is different to the eighties or now. No babyface was ever really on top long enough to turn on them in my formative era. Hogan was on the way out, and then Vince was just scrambling through Warrior, Savage, Luger, Michaels, Diesel, Bret etc until he settled on Austin. Then Austin was overtaken by Rock within about eighteen months, and a couple of years later they were both finished. I know from old Observers that people were crying about Hogan's routine from the eighties, but were the people doing the crying mostly ones who never liked him or had they been fans and gone off him? There are shitloads of fifteen year olds now though that have never known wrestling without John Cena, and must have gone from being the kids who buy Cena merchandise to complaining about Cena being for kids and shilling merchandise.

 

So when did you start moaning about wrestling and the way it was run?

[PowerButchi]

People in their place.

 

As bad as the town you lived in that was so piss poor you were considered a celebrity?

 

Fuck off it clearly stated it was a small town were everyone knew each other. Just so happened a lot of people there had a reason to stop me and try to talk to me every five minutes

 

Why, did they want refunds?

[Maverick]

Seconded it, very witty

[Nexus]

 

For continuous laughs over a decent period of time, you can't get much better than Austin Appreciation Night (video here).

 

At Summerslam 2001 "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, representing the WCW/ECW Alliance, battered the WWF's Kurt Angle but could not beat him, getting himself disqualified to save his championship. The next night on Raw, the Alliance decided to honour Austin's brilliance with an appreciation night, something they said the WWF never did for him.

 

The show was peppered with backstage clips and testimonies of Alliance members sucking up to Stone Cold, chanting "thank you Steve!" and looking forward to the festivities. Throughout, Jim Ross was at his sarcastic best on commentary. "What the hell was that?!" he asked himself after Hurricane Helms spent five minutes explaining the history of the Green Lantern to camera. We then got uber-loser Shawn Stasiak attempt to praise Austin, but viewers were given a blooper reel of all the times he messed up his promo. Amazing.

 

The Alliance stormed to the ring in Stone Cold t-shirts, led by Paul Heyman, Stephanie McMahon and Austin's wife Debra. Heyman began by comparing Stone Cold to Julius Caesar. "Nobody since biblical times has anyone led a force like the Alliance!" The exaggeration throughout the segment is wonderful. Stone Cold is introduced, and Heyman invites Alliance members into the ring to shower Austin with gifts, starting with Hurricane. "What the hell is a Green Lantern?" ponders JR as Helms declares Austin his new hero.

 

Next up, Chris Kanyon! JR: "Ugh. Who better than Kanyon...let me think(!)" After Kanyon reveals a new catchphrase for the ages, Debra offers Stone Cold one of her own home-baked cookies. Austin looks concerned. JR: "He really will be the toughest SOB in the Alliance if he tries to eat one of those bricks(!)"

 

This is followed up with a video package of Austin beating the holy hell out of everyone, before Stephanie invites everyone in the ring to SING A SONG. We get the words to Wind Beneath My Wings (changed to Wind Beneath Our Ring) on the TitanTron and, after Lilian Garcia fails to provide the correct enthusiasm, Steph takes over lead vocals instead. Jim Ross is about to explode. "Oh my God...not that."

 

ECW nutters like Raven and Tommy Dreamer sway back and forth, arm in arm, singing along to a ballad. Imagine predicting that six months previous...

 

After we survive that, Austin notices Tazz is the only person not wearing a Stone Cold or Alliance shirt. Setting up to beat the crap out of him (again), Kurt Angle's music hits. Taking the piss out of the famous Austin beer bath segment from 1999, Angle careers down the aisle in a fucking MILK TRUCK.

 

 

I'm glad I wasn't in the front rows for that one.

 

So, to sum up, the Alliance was decimated at Summerslam, and the night afterwards they all took part in a night-long comedy angle in which they all got drenched in milk. The Invasion storyline, everyone!

 

 

Great recap from Mr Showtime regarding the 'Austin Appreciation Night' in the Best Angles Ever thread.

[Callum1993]

I nominate this from Harmonic Generator. An amazing recap of 'The Streak'.

 

 

My pick for the best angle ever is one that started accidentally, and didn't actively become an angle until it was nearly finished, but retrospectively, was the greatest long-term angle we may ever see. It started when I was 3 and ended when I was 26. I'm talking, of course, about The Undertaker's Streak.

 

I'm classing the Streak as an angle even though, for most of its duration, it wasn't. By its end this year, however, it was the angle - the reason for Undertaker still wrestling, and one of the major selling points - if not the major selling point - of the majority of the past decade's WrestleManias. You could argue it was an angle that nobody knew was an angle until we were about a decade in. Taker slowly racking up wins against Snuka, Roberts, Gonzalez, Bundy, Diesel, Sid, Kane, Bossman and Triple H, and fans and WWE both begin to notice he has never lost at WrestleMania.

 

The first overt reference I personally remember is after the Ric Flair match in 2002. Taker, awestruck at the fact he survived an Arn Anderson spinebuster, stands on the apron and holds out all 10 fingers. 10-0. That's pretty impressive. It takes another couple of years for the Streak to really start to work its way into his WrestleMania matches, and for people to start to speculate about who might end it. This was a big part of the Randy Orton match, if I recall my own mind back then correctly. Orton was the Legend Killer, and the Streak (now at 12-0) was starting to become a legend, and a prominent aspect of the Undertaker's character, especially at 'Mania time. Orton could be the one to end the Streak. He didn't, of course, but it fuels another big part of what made this such a great angle.

 

The discussion and the speculation about who could end the Streak, and who should end it, and who deserves to end it, went on for at least a decade. It's been part of UKFF ever since I joined in 2007, I know that much. The best angles provoke discussion, and through its longevity, very few angles can compare with the Streak for amount of time spent talking about it. 2007, incidentally, is the point where the angle itself really kicks into gear, and becomes such a vital component of WrestleMania season.

 

The Undertaker's Royal Rumble face-off with Shawn Michaels, and his following match with Batista at WrestleMania 23 (15-0), show that he can still really go in the ring, particularly on the big stage of 'Mania. That feeds into the Streak angle - for the next half-dozen WrestleManias, Taker has one of, if not the, best matches of the night, even though the result of each one is a foregone conclusion. The drama is created through the fact the Streak might end, and everyone gets drawn in more and more through that fact. Even when it's a title match, it's really about whether Undertaker is going to lose this time. That's the angle they feed from year after year, and the challenge becomes how to keep that going.

 

Enter the Shawn Michaels matches, and a storyline encompassing the Streak that itself was a sublime piece of five-year long-term booking, beginning with that Rumble encounter and ending in 2012 with Hell In A Cell.

 

2009: Taker, now 16-0, faces off against Michaels, and he comes closer than anyone else has to ending the Streak. Taker puts absolutely everything he has into the match, and (I think) disappears for a bit afterwards.

 

2010: Michaels is being driven mad by the fact he couldn't beat the Undertaker at WrestleMania, and puts his career on the line against the Streak. Doubt begins to stir in people's minds. Undertaker won't lose, of course he won't, it's WrestleMania, but would they really retire HBK? Yes. Taker wins, Shawn nearly kills himself - "STAY DOWN!" yells Undertaker before ending Michaels - but he will not give up. He will not stop trying to end the Streak. But it can't be ended.

 

2011: Or can it? Triple H's turn now. You could write hundreds of words on this match alone. I won't, because ShortOrderCook already did that for me last year. Read that review, by the way. Anyway, the match contains one of my favourite wrestling moments ever: Triple H hits the Tombstone, and for a couple of seconds, everyone believes the Streak is over. Ending the Streak is a matter of pride for Triple H and he gives EVERYTHING to it. But like Michaels the year before, Undertaker will never give it up. He wins, but he can't even walk out of the ring. The Streak has consumed him, and he is sacrificing his body and his wellbeing to keep it intact.

 

2012: Hell in a Cell. Again, Undertaker looks gone. Each year he returns, each year he looks a little more worn down, a little more haggard, a little older - and more vulnerable. He can't keep up the level of work he has in previous years. The Streak becomes more precarious each time he defends it. Again, there's a moment where everything thinks it's over - Sweet Chin Music! Pedigree! - but it's not. He wins. Just. And needs help walking out.

 

As I've mentioned, this is a superb five-year storyline in its own right. But it works as a subplot within the larger angle of the Streak itself. I'd argue that since Orton, it's been in the minds of everyone watching, but as an audience, we've spent the Michaels and Triple H years investing more and more in it. Taker only really comes back now to defend it. One of these years it's going to end. It's the talking point. It's the angle that comes back year after year, with only slightly changed circumstances, but it never becomes old or repetitive, whether that's through different opponents trying different tactics, or different kinds of matches (Menry and the Casket Match), but most importantly, through the realities of Undertaker's mortality starting to come through the supernatural aesthetics. The Undertaker who plowed through Snuka and Roberts, the Undertaker who hit Kane with Tombstones in 1998 and 2004, even the Undertaker who main-evented against Edge, is no longer there. The Streak has been his constant, to throw in a LOST reference for no good reason.

 

But it's not just because of Undertaker. The Streak has been our constant, as fans. I said at the start that I was 3 years old when the Streak began. A hell of a lot has happened since 1991 in wrestling:

Flair came to WWF.

Hogan left.

Bret became champion.

The New Generation.

Michaels became champion.

The nWo.

Austin 3:16.

The Monday Night Wars.

The Attitude Era.

Rock vs. Austin.

WCW goes out of business.

The Invasion.

The Brand Extension.

Angle, Benoit and Guerrero.

Cena, Orton and Batista.

Punk, Sheamus and Bryan.

Generation after generation,

show after show,

WrestleMania after WrestleMania,

 

and the constant is the Streak. It's always been there. Undertaker does not lose at WrestleMania. It's a fact, it's a concrete certainty. No matter what else happens in wrestling, we know this.

 

Enter Paul Heyman. He doesn't get it done with CM Punk and urn-related mind games (21-0) but returns the following year with Brock Lesnar. Lesnar has been an absolute force of nature since returning in 2012, and Undertaker, once again, is looking ever more frail and physically spent. The angle of the Streak, this time, is whether Taker can withstand the brutality of a match with Lesnar. I personally didn't think he could, but he would still find a way to win, even if Brock destroyed him for the entire match. It's WrestleMania. The Undertaker DOES NOT LOSE AT WRESTLEMANIA.

 

And then he lost.

 

I remember the moment vividly. I had lost interest in the match itself, waiting for the three count and the 22-0 graphic. F5. 1. 2. 3. "The streak... is over." One of Michael Cole's best ever calls. Matter of fact, understated, but filled with a stunned sense of finality. The cameras showing the fans' faces in utter shock - and none of us can pretend our faces were any different. My jaw was open, hands over mouth, for ages afterwards - I can't remember anything about the Divas match that followed, or most of the main event for that matter. The silence of the stadium, filled only by Heyman shouting in disbelief to Brock. Then the groan as "21-1" came up on the screens. It was over.

 

Wins and losses are practically irrelevant in modern WWE, they're so interchangeable. But never has a single pinfall loss meant more to us as a generation than at WM30. People on here at the time equated it to Bruno losing the title, a level of involvement with wrestling we thought we'd lost.

 

But it took two decades to build up that involvement. That first decade, or decade and a half, of the Streak not really being an angle, was completely necessary for the last few years where it really was. That's why I'd class the whole thing as one big angle. It's something we're never likely to experience again, and for the investment given to it over such a long period of time, by the company and by the fans, as demonstrated by the reaction when it ended, showed us all why we're fans of this mental form of entertainment in the first place.

 

The angle has ended now. Brock beat him. But has it really? The effects of it can keep on going. People have mentioned how Heyman's getting a little bit tiresome with it now, but every single time I hear him say that HIS CLIENT, BROCK LESNAR, CONQUERED THE UNDERTAKER'S STREAK, a part of me can't help thinking "fuck you, Paul Heyman. Just fuck you. I hope somebody beats the shit out of you for boasting about that. How DARE you gloat about ending the Streak. Fuck you, and fuck Lesnar too". How long they can keep this aspect of the Streak angle going, I'm not sure. Until a brave young contender defeats Lesnar, maybe, and beats the man who beat the Streak?

 

I'm not sure. And I may have made absolutely no sense in the preceding forty million paragraphs. But I think the Streak, unintentional as it may have been, was the best angle ever, and I hope I've explained why I think that sufficiently. The end.

[stumobir]

A wholehearted +1 for that, a sublime post and a pleasure to read.

[Undefeated Steak]

+1 for the streak post.

[Onyx2]

That was an asbolutely tremendous post. It sums up what it's like to be (and have been) a fan of WWE over the last 23 years, and toed a lovely line between kayfabe and mark.

 

If that isn't the post of 2014, we've had a blinding year. *applauds*

[Chest Rockwell]

+1

[Sergio Mendacious]

Glorious. +1. Harmonic Generator is a great, great man.

[mim731]

+1 from me also. Just a fantastic post.

[Loki]

Yup, spot on. +1

[Carbomb]

+1 from me too. Insightful and well-written.

[WWFChilli]

+1 somebody give Harmonic a medal.