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WWE: Road to Wrestlemania
Saturday, March 4, 2006
WestpacTrust Stadium, Wellington
I enjoy professional wrestling. I say that so you know that I’m not writing as some trumped-up turtle neck-wearing wank who lowered himself to attending the WWE to write the best Evelyn Waugh knock off column my C+ average BA taught me how to (I assume this was your default assumption, based on the high-minded nature of our site). I enjoy it. The theatricality. The outsized characters. The athleticism. The cheating. And, yes, the fakeness. It’s like a demented soap opera with tag teams and steel chairs.
I am a pretty open about being a wrestling fan, and managed to guilt trip Jiggy into an early birthday present which also included her attendance. But I have heard that the matter of approaching potential attendees was a dilemma around Wellington. People didn’t want to send an email around the office for fear of ridicule. They didn’t want to bring it up at morning tea. As a result many stayed home. This is odd, because a lot of the people who talk about wrestling with a snooty tone deserving of a bloody nose will switch to gushing reverie if you bring up Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant. This anomaly is caused by people’s brains switching off sometime around 19-and-a-half and cruising on default “try-hard sophisticate” mode.
There are people who complain that they don’t know any of the wrestlers any more (that’s the sort of lazy attitude the has you spending $350 to see the Rolling Stones when you could see a decent band for $20 at a club). Or they complain that they don’t know any of the feuds. You see, to know the feuds and the wrestlers you have to actually watch the show. I have no idea how anyone expects to find this stuff out without a little effort. Do you go see Hamlet and say “I don’t know anything about Danish royal feuds”? Of course not. Or demand that all new action films star Douglas Fairbanks because you are far too busy to find out who The Rock is?
I can understand why people wouldn’t watch professional wrestling even after thinking with some rudimentary form of logic. I don’t think Jane Austen is an illiterate hack, but I couldn’t care less who marries Mr Darcy. But from conversations with non-wrestling fans the convergence of rudimentary logic and wrestling is rare. So for wrestling fans here is a guide to responses to some common anti-wrestling tatements.
Statement: “It’s all fake”
Response: “No shit fuck-knuckle. That’s not a real guy doing a flip, they just made a robot out of straw and microchips.”
Statement: “It’s not a real sport”
Response: “It’s called sports entertainment. Ever heard of Ice Skating, Gynmastics, and Synchronised Swimming. The scandal is that those planned routines get Olympic medals.”
Statement: “They’re just acting. Those guys don’t really hate each other.”
Response: “Impeach Shakespeare!!!!!”
Statement: “The costumes and characters are so silly”
Response: “Did you see Narnia. It had a kid riding a fucking unicorn.”
Statement: “It’s for kids.”
Response: “Blargh!!!!”
So on a night when a large chunk of my fellow Wellingtonians were trudging off to pretentious Arts Festival shows, Jiggy and I joined the hordes from the Greater Wellington Region to see some wrestling action at the unlikely venue of the WestpacTrust Stadium, usually the site of Rugby and Cricket.
There were around 20,000 people there. They were all more rugged up than Jiggy and I, probably knowledge gained from actual attending Rugby and Cricket. The ring was set up in the middle of the field with a huge lighting rig above it. Premium seats ($500 near the front, though with a take-home folding chair. Cheaper a bit further back) were on the grass. Jiggy and I were not so free-spending, and sat in the cheaper stands. The view was good, you could make out all the moves, but the big screens were required whenever someone got thrown out of the ring or applied a submission hold.
I don’t think the show started particularly late, but when they started off by showing ads for the wrestling shows on Sky 1 people started booing. First down to the ring was one of WWE’s divas (i.e. hot girls who sometimes get in fight where their clothes get ripped off), Kristal. She was greeted by a cheer, showing the crowds ability to change emotion on a dime (so important for being able to turn heroes into villains when the script demands). She was basically there to do get the crowd warmed up with the standard “I hear that New Zealand fans are the biggest WWE fans in the world”. Big cheer. She then introduced the first match, and was never seen again, being replaced by some guy as announcer.
The first match was a three-way (i.e. all-against-all) fight for the Cruiserweight Championship. The combatants didn’t seem that well known by the crowd. Kid Kash seemed to clearly be a villain. Gregory Helms and Jamie Noble were guys who got middling boos or cheers until the knowledgable section of fans gave the crowd guidance.
The fight was really well done, fighters cooperated and then turned on each other a second later. The defending champ, Gregory Helms, kept his title. The crowd loved it. Jiggy loved it. I loved it. I had some doubts about how enjoyable this would all be to watch, but after this match I was perfectly happy to cheer or hiss as the script required.
The second fight was pretty fun. A wacky Japanese wrestler versus a French Canadian model called Sylvan. Funaki was a lot smaller than Sylvan, but ended up a popular winner. However, I felt his moves were maybe not as out there as his wrestling personality would require and the fight was a little better in theory than practise.
A match for the World Tag Team Championship, which I have trouble recalling anything notable from except that MNM had an amusingly skanky Diva called Melina. Of course, the Championship wasn’t going to change hands in Wellington. And of course, the despised MNM won in dubious circumstances. Matt Hardy has returned, apparently. He’s one of those wrestlers who became famous when I wasn’t watching. His match with Road Warrior Animal seemed to go down well. I can’t remember much about it except that Hardy pretended to be limping.
Bobby Lashley is an insanely buff hero. Finlay is a great villain. All he needed to stamp himself is a villain is that he’s Irish. When he enters, before his Irish entry music starts, there’s the simple statement “My name’s Finlay, and I like to fight”.
Finlay did the classic villain’s bit where he gets out of the ring to confront someone holding up and anti-Finlay sign. It was pretty funny because the woman he confronted looked crazy. It was like she really wanted Finlay to take a stab at her so she'd have an excuse to jump the fence. It was hard to tell, but I think Finlay nearly broke character and laughed.
Our hero Bobby Lashley won, and the crowd was happy. I was happy to see Finlay get beaten, he’s one of the great villains you just love hating. In fact, I was so impressed that I officially declare Finlay to be Karate Party’s favourite wrestler. Congratulations Finlay, I’m sure you’re thrilled.
But be warned Finlay, if Paul Burchill’s swashbuckler makeover takes off, you may be replaced. What better reason to have a feud than over the affections of Karate Party?
What followed this was one of those bits were a wrestler comes out and taunts the crowd. I thought we’d get a lot more of from watching on TV, but this was the only one. JBL, a brash Texan wrestler, columnist for TheStreet.com, and conservative radio host came out and mocked New Zealand. It was hilarious. He called the crowd a bunch of “sheep-loving wanna-be Aussies” and said “You all came here just to see me, I’ve never paid to see a Kiwi do anything”. The crowd played along, booing as loudly as possible, especially during his rendition of “God Bless America”.
If professional wrestling is one thing, it is diverse in its genre coverage. Following this humorous skit the lights suddenly dimmed and got a reddish glow. A face that’s a freakier version of Darth Maul appeared on screen eating worms and holding up a big clock. The Boogeyman. He made his way down to the ring, as the worm eating video keeping looping around in an unwelcome manner.
The entry was really effective, but the effect was lost when the lights went up and you could see he was just a wrestler. Then Orlando Jordan slid in, with no announcement and the fight started. I could tell that not everyone was quite sure who Orlando Jordan was, or if there was a rivalry between them. The crowd went a bit cold.The fight was so-so. I would have liked to see the whole thing take place under the reddish lighting.
But the Boogeyman did have the most disgusting post-victory ritual since the Rude Awakening. He chewed up some filthy looking offal and let it drip on to his prone opponent. And cue intermission so the ring can get cleaned up.
This was a fight for the consolation-sounding United States Championship. Booker T, the challenger, did the same bit as Finlay, going to the crowd to rip up a fan’s sign. This time it was a guy who acted like he wanted to fight, but I think he was joking.
The fight was good, Booker T’s manager/companion/eye candy Sharmell interfered and got the crowd and Jiggy angry. Benoit eventually triumphed and, again, no Championship changed hands.
I was glad when this fight got started, mainly so the kids sitting right by my ear would stop yelling out “619” (referring to Mysterio’s finishing move).
This was a great match up of a swaggering, condescending bad guy (Orton) against the plucky good guy. Rey Mysterio seemed extra plucky by being about half Orton’s size. Luckily Mysterio won, as I was worried that there’d be a riot down in the front rows having seen some of the people on the big screen.
After the match Mysterio paid tribute to his long-time friend and ex-tag team partner Eddie Guerrero, who died of heart failure last year. He got Eddie Guerrero signs from the crowd which he laid out in the ring as clips of Guerrero played accompanied by his entry music. I understand that at first your response to this may be that this is somehow in bad taste. But you have to keep in mind that Guerrero was a life-long wrestler from a large wrestling family. So to say that the tribute was in bad taste is to say his whole life was in bad taste.
The Main Event - World Championship Match
One unintended effect of the opening match was that it made this one seem a little slow and familiar to me. This was another three man all-against-all fight, this one between Kurt Angle (Olympic Gold Medallist), Mark Henry (The World’s Strongest Man, but not the most exciting wrestler) and The Undertaker (well, he’s spooky-looking).
Mark Henry is certainly big, but he’s slow. The Undertaker is cool, but like Boogeyman his entrance is great but the lights have to be turned on eventually. The whole fight just didn’t get me going, plus I was getting cold and it was late. And I knew the Championship wouldn’t be changing hands before Wrestlemania.
But hey, who hasn’t been to a movie they’d have left happily twenty minutes earlier. WWE: Road to Wrestlemania was great entertainment. Jiggy got into it so much, she even demanded to watch on TV the next night. Everyone should go see some wrestling in person at least once, just to experience a unique piece of our culture. You’re not well rounded without it, no matter how many Arts Festival shows you go to.
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