Last week, MeeThinks took a second look at The World's Strongest Man and attempted to put a positive spin on one of the most disappointing careers in recent memory. No easy task, for sure… but it looks like a number of readers seemed to agree on this one, so just scroll on down as usual and you can find all YourThinks and mine in this week's column.
So what's on tap for this week, you ask?
Well, a bit of soul searching and a LOT of message board surfing (and if you HAVEN'T yet signed up for the forum might I kindly ask WHY?) have lead Mee to the sad conclusion that a good chunk of the ‘net fans simply weren't thrilled with the results of this year's Royal Rumble.
"What?"
"Web fans getting mad at booking decisions and getting worked up at the drop of a hat," you say?
Shocking, I know. And "Much Ado About Nothing" indeed…
I actually ordered the PPV (usually I try to pass on any of the "less important" PPV's, as I've gotta save up for those tickets to the February 27th Supershow at the MCI Center, you know). But this was THE RUMBLE, BABY – and it's easily my favorite "gimmick match" of the WWE Calendar year… if not of all time.
Needless to say, I personally loved the show. Heck, I even made my girlfriend and my room mate watch right along with Mee. Neither of whom are wrestling fans to begin with. My folks even ordered the show from their home up in Jersey – with my dad forcing my mom to watch the thing with him from up there. Shoot – my "lapsed fan" of a brother even watched the PPV from school up in Gettysburg, and guess what?
They all enjoyed the show.
Vegetarian girlfriend? Check.
Reluctant room mate? Check.
"If it's not Rowdy Roddy Piper, then I don't care" Momma? Check.
Fairweather fan of a sibling? Check.
Aspiring IWC ceWebrity writer (that's Mee, btw)? Check.
Yup – everybody *I* know who actually sat down and watched the show totally dug it for what it was, which was close to three solid hours of top-notch WWE sports entertainment at its best.
That said, you can imagine my surprise when I logged on to the interwebs on Monday morning only to find that every fanboy and their digital brother absolutely cringed at every twist, turn, match and outcome of this major PPV event.
Let's go back step by step and look at what went wrong with this puppy (if anything) and see if we can't find out just where the fanboy/casual fan disconnect came to pass, eh?
Rock & roll.
And yes, y'all's glossary entries and reader feedback are below, as usual. So READ ON, mah damies… cause I'm bouts'ta sine your kitty on the runny tine!
(Bonus points to anybody who gets that reference, btw. An awful flick IMO, but dang if it isn't catchy just the same).
Waddatah!
Err, I mean…
MeeThinks: The Post Rumble Grumble Ya know, there's just no pleasing some people…
Columnists from all across the IWC are taking turns throwing their best attempts at pithy putdowns and self-important second guessing at this year's installment of the ‘E's "official" start to the Road to WrestleMania. Here's just a sampler of some of the barbs that have been levied the way of this, the year's first of the company's "Big Four" PPVs:
(note: the names of said columnists and news reporters responsible for the quotes that appear below have been omitted to protect the innocent and/or to avoid getting into an all-out pissing war web feud just for the sake of doing so. Why? Simple – a) web feuds are, by nature, stupid. b) this is the "positive" column, c) I'm just listing *your* opinions and *my* reactions. Free country and it's *my* column, so there. And – perhaps most important of all – point d) it's just fake wrestling and the internet, folks… don't take yourselves to seriously, eh?)
Let's say e) all of the above, and then move on, no? So anyhow – to those quotes!
"Dammit, I just wasted $35."
"Everyone's said before me, in every way possible, how the WWE Royal Rumble was a huge disappointment. I'm not going to disagree with them."
"Well, folks, the consensus right now is that Royal Rumble was a disaster on a number of levels. Oh, I pity you who paid for it. Thank God I didn't."
"There should be shame in Titan Towers. Deep rooted shame, unforgivable shame. Awful, horrible shame. The WWE put out one of its big three pay per views last night, and it was not just bad. It was down right (sic) embarrassing."
Wow, ok…
Enough negativity for one column. Let's break this sucker down and get back to the "good" stuff.
Our Story So Far…
Royal Rumble 2006 is in the books, but not without its fair share of haters and critics.
On the one hand, you had a long shot underdog in Rey Mysterio pulling off the miraculous Rumble victory after drawing the number two entry position and lasting in the match for a record-setting time limit (besting Beniot's prior record by less than a minute). Oh yeah, that and he dedicated his match to a fallen Eddie Guerrero – which, while noble and all, has definitely gotten a good chunk of the IWC in an uproar because his critics argue that Rey Rey is just trading cheap heat from the Guerrero name, and that he's simply opened a veritable Pandora's Box in making it totally legit for modern-day competitors to invoke and/or disrespect Eddie's name as storylines demand.
On another hand, you had the Royal Rumble match itself getting third billing on the card, coming in the middle of the PPV and leaving both world title bouts to follow. Didn't help matters that in each of the "main event" bouts that followed, ‘net fans tend to have a "hate on" for two the performers involved.
On yet another hand (so many hands! It's like Ganesha, no?), the Raw title match got second billing, and fans saw the IWC's latest whipping boy du jour CLEANLY going over Raw's "Rated R Superstar" (and ratings booster of a champion) Edge (and taking back the WWE Title in the process) in the match that immediately followed the Rumble bout.
And on still another hand, the Smackdown title bout headlined the card (and, of course – we are all supposed to believe that the blue brand is the "inferior" one, right?), and this match (which featured fellow IWC good-for-nothing Mark Henry) – while "pedestrian" in nature, as expected – ultimately amounted to nothing more than an angle advancement match to set up a showdown between The Undertaker and Kurt Angle for the World Title at No Way Out (an "also-ran, throwaway"of a PPV, according to most IWC'ers).
Couple all that with the fact that The Boogeyman went over former WWE Champion JBL (in a pretty clean match, no less), Mickie James turned all-out-psycho lesbian on her "role model" Trish Stratus, and a cruiserweight "spotfest" of a contest was thrown together at the last minute to headline the card (and get the title off of a semi-injured Kid Kash and onto a freshly-repackaged Hurricane… err, "Gregory" Helms), and you can see why those diehard IWC fanboys left this year's Rumble feeling as if somebody had just peed in their Kool Aid.
To top it all off – Tatanka and Goldust each made their re-debut. Buffalo held his own, but poor Goldie was gone from the Rumble after doing one of the WORST over-the-top sell-jobs of an elimination in recent memory.
Ring rust's a bitch, no?
Ah well…
As you can see, this year's Road to WrestleMania is definitely off to a rocky start (and I don't mean Maivia)…
So…
Did Rey Rey name-drop his way to a win? Did Taker bury Mark Henry and the Rumble match? Did Boogeyman deserve a clean victory over a former world champion like JBL?
MeeThinks the answers to these questions (and more) might really surprise you! Rather than joining in on the Rumble Grumbling, let's see if we can't hash out a few alternate explanations that the IWC elite might simply be too hung up on themselves to accept in a little column I likes to call…
MeeThinks
We'll tackle these issues in order of importance (and in order in which they ultimately appeared on the PPV itself), with the criticism and its stepwise gripes in headers marked by bolded italics, and MeeThinks just below.
Issue I: The Opening Match "It was a spot fest"
Um, yes. So were most of the TLC matches that the IWC fanboys used to mark so hard for, too. This certainly doesn't take away from the fact that they can still be all kinds of exciting when booked properly.
"Spot fest" contests have their place on a wrestling card too, ya know. Sure, they lack the psychology of a Steamboat/Savage type bout, but what they *DO* bring is fast-paced, guaranteed crowd-popping action to help work the crowd into a frenzy and get them hot for the remainder of the card.
"It's too fast paced and spotty?"
Have you even SEEN your average X Division six-man tag in TNA? Spottiness is part and parcel to much of the X Division style, just as it was intrinsic to the cruiserweight style that was so over in WCW for those early years of Nitro, and just like it's still quite popular in the Lucha Libre tradition.
But IWC'ers loves them their TNA, the "glory days" of cruiserweights, and all things Lucha (or Puro, for that matter), ya know… so the "spottiness" of those styles automatically gets a free pass. But when the ‘E gives their cruisers some time to showcase a similar style, all of the sudden every fanboy in his mom and dad's basement across the country throws a shit fit?
I call shenanigans.
‘Net fans have been BEGGING Vinny Mac to quit "putting a glass ceiling" over his cruisers and to just let them go out there and show their stuff in a no-limits style. They whine and complain ad nauseum that the cruisers never get any TV exposure, and they demand that these smaller competitors be given exposure on PPV contests.
So what happens?
The ‘E gives them what they've been asking for, and they crap all over it just the same.
Hmm… smells like cowpies to me, no?
Moving on to their next argument…
"Kid Kash lost the belt in a match that didn't even get any pre-PPV hype"
Uhh… do you remember how he won the belt in the first place? Hotshot booking to get the strap off of Juvi in his PPV debut match, folks. The ‘E tried to liven things up and give the Cruiserweight Title scene a shaking up. Plus Kash is still nursing an arm injury and if he's gonna be the champ, then he should be defending the belt to help re-establish its legitimacy. That is, unless, of course – you'd rather a) let him keep the title and take it with him off of TV altogether while he heals up, thus killing what little prestige it has left, or b) force Kash to compete injured, giving us another Dave Batista title nightmare on our hands once he goes out with a more serious injury.
With Kash injured, it made perfect sense to have him drop the strap. Helms was doing ZERO over on RAW (well, jobbing to Jerry Lawler was "something…" but not necessarily a step in the right direction), so having him redebut on the blue brand and take their CW title in the process definitely helps to shake things up. With Noble and Helms each back on the Smackdown roster – the cruiserweight division just got a lot more interesting, and with a brand new heel and a brand new champion to boot – the "Hurricane Hot Shot" title swap might just prove to be the shot in the arm that the ‘E was looking for to help put their light heavyweights back on the map.
And even if it doesn't pan out (because the E has botched and buried these folks before), kindly save your hate-mail till it actually, ya know, has the chance to fail in the first place. Skepticism is one thing, but outright derision and dismissal right off the bat is just straight up uncalled for.
Enough defensive venting on the opening contest, though – let's look at Issue numero dos.
Issue II: The Women's Match "Was bad all around"
From a quality control standpoint? Absolutely. Ashley is still VERY green in the ring, and she needs someone who's very competent to carry her to a watchable bout. Short story – Mickie simply isn't polished enough to be the one to do it.
But we all knew that going into the match, folks. And besides, save a few Trish/Victoria matches here or there (and a handful of sweet, sweet Molly Holly bouts to boot) – women's matches tend to be more "show" than "go," and rarely are they technical classics.
So why do we watch the ladies' matches then?
Short perv answer – T&A.
Short clean(er) answer – Cause we like the storylines and we have a vested interest in the characters involved.
Perv answer not withstanding (If your of the "I didn't get my lesbian action!" mindset or what have you, all I'll say to that point is – if you were looking for pseudo softcore porn, there are PLENTY of other sources for it out there), the storyline explanation feeds right into why everybody else watched this match in the first place.
Would Trish screw Mickie over (and who could blame her!?), or would Ms. Stratus call things right down the middle and let the chips fall as they may?
A quick look back at the Roundtable indicates that NOBODY on the 411 staff expected Mickie to walk away with the "W" from this little showdown, so bravo to the ‘E for giving this long-running (and highly entertaining) storyline one last "twist" before kicking it into hard-sell mode for the Road to WrestleMania.
Was the match that great?
Uncategorically "NO." Mickie's last second powerbomb looked seriously botched and I thought for sure that Ashley was legit hurt after taking it. Trish's "stalled" count was further muddied by Lawler's commentary (after her hesitation, he restarted the count at "one," in case y'all didn't catch that), and all told (again, from a "technical" standpoint) the match was pretty lousy.
BUT –
It added one final "turn" to the Mickie stalks Trish angle (now that Mickie openly "loves" her – what will this mean for the Women's Champion!?), and it most definitely succeeded in catching fans by surprise. A guest ref who actually sides with the person they're supposed to be against? Not since HBK accidentally cost ‘Taker the match and won the WWF Championship for Bret Hart do I remember a case like this one.
Bravo to WWE for not taking the obvious "guest ref screws their enemy" route on this one.
Enough said. Moving on…
Issue III: Boogeyman versus JBL "Bad decisions all around…"
Whew – where does a positive writer type begin to debunk a cockamamie catchall critique like this one? Perhaps numbered points are in order.
"I can't believe JBL jobbed to this hack…"
1) Like it or not, folks (and Mee likes it quite a bit) – Boogeyman is here to stay for the immediate future, at least – and characters receiving a "push" *tend* to get themselves PPV contests. So if the office was so intent on putting Boogey into a PPV bout, they might as well pit him against an established star like JBL which will instantly give the guy some credibility and make the program leading up to their PPV actually mean something. Rather than wasting PPV time with a squash of Boogey versus a lesser-established "enhancement talent" the likes of Scotty 2 Hotty (cause we all remember Mordecai versus Bob Holly, don't we?), at least pairing Boogey with JBL gave fans the notion that maybe, just maybe the new guy wouldn't necessarily be the one walking away with the deuce.
Plus –
It was Boogey's first PPV match, people. If you're still upset because you honestly thought the guy would be jobbing cleanly, clearly you haven't watched nearly enough professional wrestling in the past 20 years to pick up on this little known phenomenon we like to call "the new guy usually wins." For these fans' sake, kindly allow me to offer the following formula:
New wrestler with a push + PPV Debut = usually wins, and never jobs cleanly.
Sure, Boogey could have won via DQ or some other such shenanigans – but this sort of thing would only serve to prolong this feud, and the same IWC'ers who were so critical of the program in the first place certainly wouldn't want to see it go on any longer than necessary, no would they?
So yeah, the new guy went over cleanly. This sort of thing tends to happen. Get over it and move on.
"But it's THE BOOGEYMAN for crying out loud!!! This guy sucks!"
2) Maybe you didn't hear Mee the first time. So here's your refresher. Now kindly get over yourself and scramble for a new argument…
"well… well… JBL's SO shouldn't be jobbing to a comedy character like Boogeyman!"
3) Simon Dean is a comedy character. Boogeyman might be "funny" and/or "creepy amusing in a train-wreck sort of way," but he is in no way being played as any more of a "comedy" character than guys like Kane or Abyss. His whole character is that of a whack job who actually buys into his over-the-top gimmick in spite of his ridiculousness. Is it "funny" that a guy could be that loco? Absolutely. But does his character's motivation recognize that his entire gimmick is all kinds of over the top? Not in a million years.
Kinda like this –
Chris Parks plays "Abyss" – a wrestling variation of a deranged asylum escapee. While the audience and Parks – the performer – know full well just how far-out this character might be, the actual character of "Abyss" really is one that's meant to be perceived as "legit crazy."
Same for Kane. His backstory has gone through so many tweaks and re-writes that every casual WWE fan (and Glen Jacobs – the man behind "Kane" – himself) could tell you that the ridiculousness of this character itself is quite laughable when you think really stop and think about it. But in the ring? "Kane" is a monster who's meant to be feared because he's legitimately a "tortured soul" monster, DESPITE the fact that anybody in their right mind would find such a premise to be laughable.
So yes, former WWE Champion JBL did "job cleanly" to The Boogeyman at one of the four major PPV's of the WWE calendar year, but he most certainly didn't "job cleanly" to a comedy character.
Next gripe?
"But JBL's a former World Champion!"
This line of reasoning is exactly what made me come onboard as an internet wrestling columnist in the first place. Why, you ask? Here's why – the same people crapping all over JBL's loss to The Boogeyman on the grounds that Bradshaw "is a former World Champion!" are the EXACT same people who were pissed to see the guy win the belt in the first place, saying that he never deserved to be a champion to begin with.
Morons.
Now sure, I understand IWC'ers are overprotective of all things Eddie and Beniot (and perhaps with good reason) – so it's only natural that they'd be sore at JBL and Orton (respectively) for having ended each man's title reign – but in the end it breaks down like this:
Either JBL *is* World Champion caliber or he *isn't* - you can't have it both ways, kids.
If JBL *is* championship material, then you shouldn't have griped from the second he won the title from Latino Heat in the first place (never mind the fact that Eddie himself was the one who actually petitioned to make JBL champ, but that's another story of course…). And if JBL *isn't* world championship material (and, by extension, if he "never was") – then stop whining when he drops a match to a new guy.
And heck – even if JBL *was* a deserving world champion (as MeeThinks he most certainly was, as did Eddie Guerrero himself), that doesn't magically give him "protected" status to guarantee that he never can lose a match to an up-and-comer months after his title reign has ended.
Benoit almost lost to Regal on a number of occasions since his world title reign ended – and we didn't hear anybody complaining that Billy Brass Knucks "wasn't championship material" then, did we? (Because no matter how much we all love Regal – fact remains that the guy just hasn't been booked like a world champion).
Triple H lost to Shelton Benjamin a number of times after losing the a world title – and nobody complained that Shel "wasn't worthy of beating a former world champion yet" then, either.
Heck, Orton made it his entire gimmick that he'd beat the tar out of former world champions on his way to the top (see: Mick Foley, Harley Race, etc.), and nobody dared to question the gall of these former champs' decision to put the young guy over in the twilight of their careers.
It's called "giving the rub," folks – and it's what established stars DO to help put over the newer guys as legitimate competitors.
Do all of these guys who've received a rub wind up being future world champions?
Absolutely not. Just ask Billy Kidman, Vampiro or the late Jerry "The Wall" Tuite.
Don't just assume that a rookie beating a former world champion automatically means that the new guy is instantly on his way to becoming the company's next top guy, folks. It's just part of the process of establishing new stars – something that IWC and casual fans alike are ALWAYS happy to see.
In other words – calm the heck down and enjoy it for what it is, eh?
Now, to the Rumble match itself
Issue IV: The Royal Rumble Match "It shouldn't have gone on before the other two matches"
Now normally I'd agree with this argument, but given how the show was ultimately scheduled to end – this one absolutely HAD to go on before our buddy Undertaker came out and (quite literally) destroyed the entire ring. Cancelling the ‘Taker stunt would have killed a genuinely awesome "holy shit" markout moment (hey, Tazz said it – not Mee! Well actually, I said it to. So did my brother… he texted it to me right after the show ended), and rearranging the order of the matches to put Taker's stunt before this match would have meant that stage crews would have had to reassemble the entire ring (in a process that could have taken an hour).
Yeah – watching guys rebuild a collapsed wrestling ring… real fun PPV that would have been.
So if you're steamed that the Rumble match took place smack-dab in the middle of the card, kindly allow yourself to step back for a second and appreciate the bigger picture of things here. Even if the ‘Taker's gimmick has grown old with you as of late, you've TOTALLY got to admit that his little spectacle at the end of the show was loaded with shock-value goodness. If the Rumble match was pushed to the end of the card, this little stunt totally would have had to have been scrapped altogether.
Plus –
Slapping the "underdog face wins the long shot upset" match in the middle of the card totally let fans start second-guessing themselves as to who the winners of the remaining two matches would be. Peter Kent – one of 411's finest and most observant of recappers – even found himself second-guessing the match results, saying "- So since Rey won, does this mean Henry's going to win?" Because with the "big win for the little good guy" already done for the night, I'd wager that there were a bunch of "smart" viewers like Peter who suddenly found themselves doubting their picks for the Cena/Edge, Angle/Henry matchups.
So yeah, this one had to go where it did.
"Tazz & Joey should have called the match, not King & Cole…"
While this is a fair point (and one I would have liked to have seen, personally) – I can totally understand Vince's reasons for not doing things this way in the first place. It pretty much comes down to the following:
1) Vince doesn't have enough faith in Joey Styles yet to call an hour-long "gimmick" match like the Rumble "according to WWE style." While Styles knows his wrestling history and the name of most every wrestling hold known to man, the Rumble isn't exactly a showcase of either. Just a lot of brawling and filler till the final four. Cole did a fine job of calling the action as appropriate, and King even kept up with him for the most part.
2) Tazz was really having an "off" night. Happens to the best of ‘em, too. Miscalling moves, screwing up simple facts (the Mark Henry match), and stuttering through his normally witty one liners, it just wasn't Tazz' night.
So yeah, while it would have been fun to watch him do color commentary instead of Kingfish – the fact of the matter is that Vince didn't have faith in Joey yet, the commentary team needed to be co-branded, and it just wasn't the best night for the man in orange to ply his trade in a match as long as the Rumble.
Here's hoping for Styles and Tazz next year.
As for the match itself
"It sucked. Too many jobbers lasted way too long, too many main-eventers got tossed too soon, and too much ‘dead time' in the middle of the match."
The Royal Rumble is a tough match to book, people.
Eliminate men too quickly (as was the criticism of the early-going) – fans are going to gripe that the ring was too empty. Yet fanboys are quick to forget that this sort of thing helped set foreshadow how the match would end. Rey took an HBK-like-beating from each new competitor and still managed to somehow remain in the ring as people didn't see him as a legitimate threat, Trips meanwhile worked his ass off so much in the beginning that he simply "burned out" on a fluke in the end.
Don't eliminate men quickly enough (as fans will argue was the case in the middle of the match) – people will gripe that the ring was just filled with guys who never even stood a chance to win the bout in the first place. Hate to break it to you, folks – but in order to round out a match that calls for 30 participants, you're gonna need to throw in more than a handful of jobbers in order to make the match last for an hour or so. And with a world title shot on the line, it pretty well disqualifies almost half of the competitors that are entering the match from the word "go" ("Orlando Jordan: World Champion?" Not this year, folks…).So naturally, when those jobbers are rolled out (intermittently) and forced to kill time between the entries of those "legitimate threats" the match is simply going to feel its weight.
It's the nature of the beast, really. And I honestly can't think of ONE Royal Rumble in history where some mid-card jobber didn't come out (or a few in a row, perhaps) and the entire room said "meh" as they went back to staring at the entrance ramp to see who'd emerge next.
True, other Rumbles have been more fluid or frenetic than this one, but the overall story arc of the 2006 Royal Rumble match was a very good one at that – so there's something to be said for giving the "fast eliminations" and "lag time" a free pass in light of how the bout ended.
"Goldust and Tatanka!? You're JOKING me, right?!"
Oh get over yourselves. Tatanka looked great since the last time we saw him (and for a dude his age who'd been out of the game for as long as he has), and Goldust definitely earned a solid fan pop for his entrance. Now his exit, of course, was another story altogether… but again, we'll chalk that one up to "ring rust" as much as we can chalk up his rehiring to "nepotism."
And regardless of what got him the job – he's an entertaining character just the same, so don't be so dramatic. It could be much worse…
… he could be Jeff Jarrett, ya know.
" Rey Mysterio won it like a punk, practically lying in the corner for the whole match while everybody else did all the work for him."
Sheesh… it never ends with some people, does it?
Put yourselves in a "real life" situation similar to the Royal Rumble where you've got thirty dudes beating the living hell out of one another until only one guy is left standing. Now if you thought you actually had a chance of winning this thing, which guy would YOU go after from the get-go?
Why the biggest threat, of course.
And who would you leave till the end – just stomping on him whenever you happened to walk past the guy, knowing full well that you could toss him out of the match as soon as you were done beating up on all of the bigger men?
Obviously – the littlest guy in the match.
So Rey won like a punk because he spent the better part of an hour getting the snot kicked out of him while everybody else "didn't take him seriously" and figured that they could give him the old "heave-ho" at a moment's notice… BIG DEAL! If it were a "real" fight, the results could easily have been just the same – with the little man spending the bulk of the contest getting his ass handed to him only to pull off a lucky fluke win after everybody else had tired themselves out in the end.
Does this mean that Rey somehow "didn't deserve to win?"
Absolutely not. His victory was just as legit as anybody else's who's ever gone into that bout and *not* single-handedly eliminated every other competitor. EVERYBODY who's ever won the Rumble has done so out of the right combination (in kayfabe terms) of luck, timing, and wrestling ability. It's kinda like Survivor, folks – not just "outwit" and "outplay" – but "outlast".
And that's exactly what Rey Rey did.
"Well, the only reason Rey Mysterio won was because he dedicated the match to Eddie."
Well, yes and no.
On the one hand – it's pretty hard to deny the fact that Rey *wasn't* the sentimental favorite of the match after name-dropping that he was "doing it for Eddy." But then again – as the 411 Roundtable illustrates – there were PLENTY of fans who were still convinced that Rey Rey simply wasn't going to pull it out no matter WHO he dedicated his match to, living or dead.
* Digression: Incidentally – my nerdy uber-attention to detail of the English language (hey, I have a degree in English, ok?) totally telegraphed Rey as the surefire win of the Rumble match (check the Roundtable, I SO called it).
Here's why…
There's a subtle difference between a person dedicating a MATCH and dedicating a WIN to another person. You'll notice that in all of the hype videos and commentary (save one exception), Rey was said to have been dedicating his MATCH to Eddie Guerrero and NOT to be dedicating a WIN Eddie's way. While the nuance between the two seems pretty superficial, there's actually quite a bit of importance to it… as dedicating a "MATCH" doesn't presume victory, while the implication of dedicating a "WIN" most certainly does.
Triple H picked up on this in his interview with a local Miami newspaper, saying "Rey says he's gonna dedicate his match to Eddie Guerrero? I never heard of anybody dedicating a LOSS before…"
So anyway –
Rey, being a real-life holy man (and a close friend to Eddie) would NEVER desecrate Eddie's name by "dedicating a WIN" that he knew (since it was scripted) would actually be a loss. At the same time, though, it makes perfect sense that he would most certainly be willing to dedicate the match (read: dedicating that he would "give it his all") for the same departed friend, since win or lose – he would have still delivered on this promise.
As such – the ‘E kept the suspicion alive by being careful to say that Rey would dedicate his MATCH and *NOT* that he was dedicating a WIN (again, a presumption which he couldn't guarantee – and given the gravity of the oath, one that he wouldn't dare screw around with).
But –
On the last Smackdown before the Rumble, Daivari joins Cole & Tazz on commentary, and says "Rey says that he's gonna' dedicate his WIN to Eddie Guerrero? He won't even MAKE it to the Rumble!" This phase literally presumes that Rey will, in fact WIN the Rumble match – provided that he can make it there.
Now true, you can write it off as Davairi simply misspeaking – but again, given Rey and the ‘E's conscious attention NOT to say that Rey would dedicate a "win" to Eddie, the fact that Davairi (who MeeThinks was well aware of the outcome of the Rumble match by the time the Smackdown show was taped on Monday night) tried to put Henry over– and in turn, put Rey over as the underdog – by saying as much *clearly* gave the ending of the Rumble away.
/digression.
So anyway
Now whether or not Rey won this year *solely* because of his Eddie friendship is a point that's open for discussion, but allow Mee to go out on a limb here and say:
"And so what if he did?"
Plenty of guys with much less talent than Rey Mysterio have gotten over solely based on their friendships with other performers before. But Rey Rey is one of the hottest stars on the Smackdown roster – if not the whole of the WWE altogether. Besides, it's not like they gave the win to Chavo – who, while talented, is still a far less "over" performer than Rey in his own right.
So yeah, Rey won the Rumble largely due to the fact that Vince & Company recognized that the fans were aching to see him "do it for Eddie," as they'd been cheering for La Raza through little Rey ever since Latino Heat passed away.
But that doesn't diminish the fact that Rey was (and is) still all kinds of "over" on his own merits…
… and you can *bet* that Eddie himself would have wanted to give his little buddy the rub if he could have (heck – right before he died, the man made it his personal mission to get Rey over as a serious "main-event level" competitor).
So good for Eddie for being so generous even in the afterlife,
Good for Vince for giving the fans what they wanted,
And good for Rey for being a capable and talented enough performer on his own merits that the fans would actually accept such an act in the first place.
"Rey name-dropping Eddie's memory is just opening the door for the WWE to be disrespectful to the man's memory. Let him rest in peace!"
Two things here, folks –
One:
If you actually think that Rey Mysterio "suddenly decided to name drop Eddie's memory out of the blue," you're nuts. I guarantee you that whether dedicating the match to Eddie was Vince's idea or Rey Rey's, you can BET that Vicki Guerrero and Rey Rey had a serious talk about the pros and cons of going forward with this "angle" (which isn't really an angle at all), and that Oscar Gonzales (the man behind the "Rey Mysterio" persona) most definitely had the blessing of his close friend's family before agreeing to mention his fallen comrade's name on national television. If anybody has a right to say "let him rest in peace," it's Vicki Guerrero, folks. And if she gave the dedication her blessing, then it's just foolish for us to second guess her.
Two:
This whole "(Chavo and) Rey's mention of Eddie opens Pandora's box to disrespect the guy" argument is a load of crap too. Chavo's entire character at this point in time is a "tribute" character (who receives what can be called "sympathy" pops) to his deceased uncle. So long as the fans feel its appropriate to cheer for the guy simply because his uncle passed away, its in the man's best interests to play to those cheers and to "amend" his character to account for them (the "Three Amigos," the "Eddie Shuffle," the Frogsplash, etc.).
Now then –
Since Chavo's entire on-screen persona is one of a guy who gets the audience behind him because they miss his uncle (which, like it or not, is pretty much where Chavo is stuck for the time being thanks to the fans continued chants of "Eddie" throughout the guy's matches) – his "tribute" to his late uncle intrinsically becomes a part of his on-screen persona. And once the fans have given the "pro-Eddie" mantle to the real life person (but ultimately the on-screen character) that is Chavo Guerrero, other characters have every right to mock this guy's character (within reason) while they themselves portray heel characters.
In layman's terms –
Triple H mocking the Eddie shuffle is *NOT* a case of Paul Levesque (the man) mocking the memory of Eddie Guerrero (the man), but rather it is a case of Triple H (the character) mocking the fact that the Chavo Guerrero character thrives solely because of the audience's appreciation for his continued "tribute" to his late uncle (who, though a real person was also a professional wrestling character in the first place).
Likewise, Randy Orton's character ragging on the Rey Mysterio character for name-dropping Eddie Guerrero is no more "cheap heat" for Orton than it is a "cheap pop" for Rey. And so long as fans continue to shower Rey Rey with pro-Eddie chants and so long as the Rey Mysterio character continues to embrace them (as opposed to, say JBL – who was also great real-life friends with Eddie but instead has chosen not to "amend" his character to embrace this same pro-Eddie sentiment), its just as "respectful" or "disrespectful" for Mysterio's in-character opponents to call the guy out for his on-screen character's motivation in the first place.
Finally on this point – it's professional wrestling, folks. Bad guys say all kinds of over-the-top "heelish" stuff to turn the fans cheers against them. Did Bret Hart really think the United States needed an enema? Did Hulk Hogan really want all the people who made him rich to "stick it?" Did Kurt Angle really hope the U.S. troops would lose the war in Afghanistan? And did Edge really mean to offend Michael Seitz (a.k.a. Michael Hayes) at the mention of the death of Terry Gordy?
It's scripted, folks. And – within reason, of course – if a face is getting no-brainer "face pops" just for playing to the crowd's sympathies, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with a heel taking a face's heat and turning against them.
Wrapping up the Rey-al Rumble Gripes…
"Rumor has it that the plan right now is NOT to have Rey Mysterio face for a world title at WrestleMania 22, meaning that he will likely lose his title shot in a match against Randy Orton at No Way Out."
Three quick points here, kids –
1) RUMOR has it… ‘nuff said.
2) The very fact that these "rumors" are floating around at this point actually makes the Road to WrestleMania a whole lot more interesting. For the past five years or so, the winner of the Rumble has not only guaranteed himself a shot at a world title at WrestleMania, but has ultimately gone on to win said world title at said WrestleMania. While this makes for a great "Rocky Balboa"-like storyline for the three or so months in-between, it also pretty well telegraphs the finish of the main event to the biggest pay per view match of the year (in other words: if they won the Rumble, then they're going to win the title at WrestleMania). Should Orton wind up winning the #1 contender's spot from Rey, then we've suddenly found ourselves without any "guaranteed" storyline precedent to follow in picking the winner at ‘Mania. That, my friends, is a GOOD thing.
3) Even if Orton should wind up winning the title shot from little Rey and challenging Kurt Angle (or the Undertaker… yeah right) for the title at WrestleMania 22 – this eleventh-hour "screwjob" gives Rey Rey built in credibility for a return match to be the number one contender for Orton's title should The Legend Killer leave WrestleMania as the World Champion. If Rey-haters are reluctant to buy the guy as a World Title contender (and there are plenty of these types – remember all the people who complained about him winning the Rumble in the first place? Yeah, them), then a WrestleMania main event with Rey Rey isn't likely to compel them to get excited about the product in the first place. While I totally disagree with them here, there's something to be said for Vince & Co. playing it safe and letting fans warm up to the idea of Rey Mysterio as a World Champion prior to actually having him main event (and win?) your biggest Pay Per View of the year.
That does it for the PPV through the Rumble match. Click the link below so we can get going with a point-by-point breakdown of those title bouts!
