Evolution Schematic 02.16.08: WWE Weddings.

Writer’s Notes

Well, I might be a little late, but darn it, Valentine’s Day deservers more attention!

I mean, no other holiday has been turned into such a huge commercial enterprise so quickly than Valentine’s Day, the chocolate makers, the florists, the jewellers, they all deserve some sort of award for getting it so engrained…

Although really the toy and electronic manufacturers probably hold a better claim to the award, what with Christmas and all.

That said, the chocolate makers pretty much single handily turned a religion’s focal point into a celebration of all things chocolaty, that’s pretty darn impressive…

Wait wait, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Secretary’s Day… It’s easy enough to take a festival and make it into a commercial venture, but to just create them out of thin air, the card companies really stepped up there.

But really, I guess the award truly belongs to the banks, for helping them all out and then wiping out trillions of dollars out of people’s money, rasing rates at a moment’s notice while still posting billion dollar profits. Well done, you boys and girls win the ‘Biggest Bastards’ award. Congratulations.

Overview

Weddings. Normally a happy time, when a man and woman (or man and man or woman and woman, the Evolution Schematic is committed to equal rights for all, no matter what your gimmick is) pledge their undying love for each other, and commit to spend the rest of their lives together for tax purposes.

However, a wedding in WWF/E is not normally a cause for celebration, at least not to the fans. Nope, while those involved may (or may not) be happy, weddings tend to end up ruined, people end up brutalised, and above all, they can scar people’s minds for good.

Seriously, did anyone WANT to see Al Wilson in his underpants?

However, it wasn’t always like that. There were some good ones before the rot set in. A simpler time, and simpler people…

Origins- If you don’t know what a wedding is by now, then congratulations on what must be your first time using a computer.

From Wikipedia: A wedding is a ceremony that celebrates the beginning of a marriage or civil union.

From WWE: A wedding is a ceremony that ends up with more people hating each other than they did at the start, with or without the union actually taking place.

Debut- Joyce. Does anyone know a woman by that name who isn’t over 50?

(Apart from Ms Jimenez, Yang and Chepchumba)

Uncle Elmer was Hillbilly Jim’s Uncle. He was a hillbilly as well, part of the Hillbilly Family.

That’s not an insult, that’s what they were called.

And by golly, when he found the girl for him (hopefully someone outside the family tree, but given the rest of the family, just being a cousin is maybe too much to hope for), Joyce, he proposed. She accepted, but in order to let the whole world celebrate with them, they held the wedding on the second Saturday Night’s Main Event. Of course, when it got to the ‘Speak Now’ bit, someone stood up for what was right and decent. Roddy Piper came out, said that the wrestling ring was no place to hold a wedding (hear hear) and then, after insulting all the hillbillies… let without major incident.

Less lucky was Jesse Ventura, who spent most of the ceremony making fun of Elmer and his bride (“They look like two carp after the same piece of corn!”) and ended up going head first into the cake.

From this innocent, mild beginning, came a series of much more violent outcomes.

Phase 2- As much as you might hate that man, you gotta love that hat.

The second wedding in WWF/E history was bigger than Elmer and his girl. It was so big, you had to pay for it! The Match Made In Heaven (to counter-point the Match Made In Hell between the teams of Hogan and Warrior and the team of Slaughter, Mustafa & Adnan which is indeed a match they would show in hell on a loop) was the main event of the Summerslam 91 PPV. And with a hat that had a feather over a foot long, the retired Macho Man Randy Savage married his long time manager Elizabeth. The wedding itself went off without a hitch, it was the reception that Jake Roberts and the Undertaker ruined with a cobra. The wedding itself was fine.

Dull, but fine. The next attempted marriage was the exact opposite.

Phase 3- Assuming only one religion is right, aren’t most marriages unholy?

For 8 years later, the WWF was a very different place. Cartoonish superheros and the fight between good and evil gave way to shades of grey, more violence and a LOT more sex.

That being good or bad is up to you.

But one man who, while changing, was still basically the same was The Undertaker, who was still evil and full of mind games. And as part of the huge mind game that was Vince McMahon’s plot to fuck with Stone Cold, Vince got The Undertaker to try and marry Stephanie in an Unholy Ceremony. Wearing black, tied to a cro- Undertaker Symbol, she was the symbol of wronged innocence. But Vince and Taker knew that Austin, while a bastard, still had some respect for the sanctity of marriage, and thus would run out and save the day. He did, the wedding did not take place. Although Paul Bearer did make a unique minister.

Phase 4- Steph must have really liked getting married on Raw, huh?

It should have been classy. A joyous symbol of love and above all class that proved the WWF could be respectable, could rise about the conceptions and the sneers that it had been getting from the mainstream media. Stephanie McMahon and Test were very much in love, it seemed, and their union would be a wonderful occasion. After all, DX had been banned from ruining the ceremony, they couldn’t run in and beat anyone up, the wedding was safe, right?

Of course, one can ruin a wedding without beating anyone up…

Phase 4b- How the hell was this legally binding? Oh wait, she was in on it…

For HHH stayed at the top of the ramp, and merely played a video. That video showed Steph, knocked out from a mickie given to her during her bachelorette party (a drug, not Miss James, although if she had been entertainment at said party that would have been bizarre. Hot, but bizarre), sitting in a car with HHH. Then the two drove into a drive through wedding chapel, and with HHH doing a BAD impersonation of Steph, the two were ‘married’. Of course, the legal questions of this (HHH was shown, ON CAMERA, to be faking Steph’s I Do and thus it doesn’t count) were silenced at Armageddon when Steph helped HHH beat Vince and show the world that she was in on it, having had a relationship with HHH while dating Test, which I guess says something about Test’s abiltity to keep women.

But while these weddings show Steph’s plans working to a tee, the next time round it didn’t work out so well.

Phase 5- If your own father is checking you out, maybe your dress is a little too revealing.

For Steph a few years later found her marriage on the rocks. She had to reel HHH back in. So, she concocted a fake pregnancy and thus, thinking HHH was safely back, arranged for a proper wedding and a renewal of their vows. Unfortunately she didn’t count on her mother finding out that the actor she hired to play the doctor was just that, an actor, and sending HHH a tape of him doing a promotional tape for a sunny destination island (which I just hope was part of his résumé as an example of what he could do because he did not convince me to want to visit there, and I refuse to think that either someone paid him for that or that a island resort would think that a Doctor’s recommendation would help them).

And thus, it was HHH who played everyone, as he didn’t reveal his intentions until the last second, tearing down the place, Pedigreeing Vince (who did manage to block it once) before leaving to cheers and Steph’s screams.

But while Steph would never marry again on WWE TV, she did thing it was a good idea for ratings. So, when she became GM of Smackdown a little later on, and a manager brought to her an idea for a publicity stunt, it seemed too good to pass up.

Phase 6- So who ended up with the Gravy Boat from GLAAD? That was a nice looking Gravy Boat!

This wedding, sorry, ‘commitment ceremony’, was a publicity stunt cooked up by Rico, manager of Billy and Chuck. See, Billy and Chuck were good, close friends. Nothing more, nothing less. But Rico convinced them, and Steph, that pretending to get… What’s the right word, Committed? Hooked Up? Butt Buddied? Whatever the term, Rico convinced everyone that it was a great idea. And they all went along with it, up until a point. After Godfather came in, and the two had said their I Do’s, Billy and Chuck balked at the last moment, blaming Rico for not stopping this whole thing sooner. But then Rico stopped it, revealing his REAL publicity stunt.

See, despite it being a ceremony, they got a ‘real’ minister in, a kindly old man. And as Rico Billy and Chuck all began to argue, he took the microphone. He told them that they should stop fighting, since a commitment is a very special thing, that the bond Billy and Chuck had is sacred, no matter if it lasted 15 years, 15 months or even just 3 minutes!

Wait a minute, did he just say 3 Minutes?

Eric Bischoff then shocked a lot of people by tearing off his Scooby Doo type make up, as 3 Minute Warning took a break from preparing for their upcoming Evolution Schematics and stormed the ring, beating up everyone except Rico, ending with a beautiful Samoan Drop on Stephanie (But she’s not even, wait, sorry, never mind, wrong joke).

But while this wedding ended in on screen violence, the next resulted in off screen violence as fans around the world tore their own eyes out to end it.

Phase 7- See, in marriage, you gotta take the rough with the smooth. The bad as well as the good. The half naked Dawn Marie with the half naked Al Wilson.

Because the next Smackdown Wedding saw Dawn Marie marry Al Wilson, Torrie Wilson’s father. The two women didn’t get on, and thusly becoming mother and daughter was a natural step. And indeed, Dawn Marie didn’t want to get married any old way, no, she stripped mid ceremony and got married in her bra and panties.

So far so good.

But then she made Al strip too, and got him to get married in his tighty whiteys.

Not good.

Still, the wedding itself went off without a hitch, thankfully, although Al’s death on the honeymoon due to over sexing wasn’t a positive. And it certainly didn’t serve as a warning to a future groom.

But between this and the next Smackdown wedding… The whole messy Lita thing took place.

Phase 8- And I thought explaining Kane’s background was hard…

Ok.

So, Lita was the girlfriend of Matt Hardy. She then began to cheat with him on Edge. Then Kane came in, wanting to sire a child and choosing Lita to be the one since… Uh… He liked red hair? Maybe she looked like Katie Vick, I dunno.

Regardless, Kane sired said child with Lita, then due to a match stipulation after pinning Matt Hardy, Lita was forced to marry Kane. Dressed in black by choice, she declared that she would always love Matt Hardy (lying little so and so…) before Trish came out in the Hottest Wedding Outfit In Recorded History, brawled with Lita, then Matt ran out, tried to stop the wedding and ended up getting chokeslammed off the stage for his troubles, Kane getting to marry Lita all the same.

And then things get icky. Well, icky-er.

Phase 8b- Ok, bear with me here.

So while Lita is married to Kane, they do have some small common ground, the baby. So while she hates Kane, she doesn’t despise him. She’s still seeing Matt Hardy behind Kane’s back, with or without his knowledge. And she’s cheating on BOTH of them with Edge.

The woman must have superb time management skills.

But then Gene Snitsky rose his ugly, ugly head, and killed their child by accident. This paradoxically brought Lita and Kane a little closer, since they both shared grief over the child they had created while he was raping her. So now she was in a somewhat cold but not freezing marriage while still ‘in love’ with Matt Hardy AND doing Edge.

But then Matt Hardy found out she was cheating on him with Edge. And Kane as well, technically, but that he already knew because he watched Raw. Regardless, Matt Hardy sorta went public with this, and then got fired. Kane began to grow suspicious, so Lita cut her losses and ditched him to side with Edge as soon as she could.

So now Lita had wronged both Kane and Matt Hardy to shack up with Edge, and then the two decided to get married on Raw since Kane had divorced her after she flushed their ring and Edge’s wife had also left him for cheating on her with a twice cheating woman.

Brain… hurting…

So when the day came, Edge and Lita played a trick on everyone, getting Matt Hardy’s music to play at an appropriate moment, then laughing it off and promising to explain it to the priest later. And then Kane came up through the ring and destroyed the set and the minister in anger over… All that crap from before.

Hell, compared to all that, Near Death By Boner is easy to swallow.

Ahem.

Phase 9- Viagra’s a hell of a drug.

We had watched Smackdown GM Teddy Long woo young Krystal, we saw their love blossom and flower. It only seemed natural that his wedding would be on his show, Smackdown.

And all the stops were pulled out. Jillian Hall singing! The Godfather! Hornswoggle going into Krystal’s Dress! The Coach following him! And of course, the heart attack. Poor Teddy Long suffered a near fatal heart attack due to Viagra before he could say I Do, and was rushed to hospital. Krystal would then leave him (perhaps to shack up with Hornswoggle and/or Coach), thus proving that while it may take a couple of hours to kick in, always hold off on taking the uppers until AFTER the ceremony.

Conclusion.

So what do the WWE weddings show us? They started out fine, happy, then turned a little dark, then confusing, then all about power, then all about attention, and nowdays probably won’t last long.

Just like most marriages, huh?

Happy Valentine’s Day.