Championship Fraudulence

There are a lot of things that annoy me about pro wrestling logic, like corrupt authority figures continuing to act as the heels' deus ex machina despite the fact that they would have been fired by a real company after their first indiscretion (fodder for another post later). Or how the referees always seem to be on top of the face team trying to enter illegally but never seem to be able to do their job for the heels. Or how wrestlers divulge their plans in the locker room like there's no camera around when there's definitely a camera in their face.

The thing that annoys me most is when a match is set up so that the Champion can lose his/her/their title even if they don't get pinned or made to submit for it. When it happens once in a blue moon, maybe it could work. Even then, you'd have to give me a good reason to believe why Wrestler X should be stripped of his title when Jobber Y was the one who was not talented enough to get himself pinned. The WWE does this all the time. Their version of the Triple Threat match is the biggest example, since it's one fall for the three guys involved. With no title on the line, I can buy that. With a title on the line? Well, I can kinda buy that too, since the third guy usually doesn't have to tag himself in and has to be incapacitated for a pinfall not involving him to take place. I really do wish that all three-ways were elimination, so that the Champion's loss of title is fully legit, but at this point, I take what I can get.

What I can't take at all are these tag matches where the title is at stake, like the one booked by Vince McMahon at the beginning of RAW last night. It was set up as Legacy vs. the McMahon family in a six-man tag, and Vince professed that Randy Orton would never get a title shot ever again. Okay, I can buy that. But then later on in the show, Vickie Guerrero, the new full-time RAW GM, comes out and overrides Vince, putting the title on the line in a situation where Triple H could lose the title and Orton could win, if, say, Ted DiBiase, Jr. pinned Shane McMahon.

I'm sorry, but where's the fucking logic in that, especially since it's illegal to enter the ring in a tag match without getting tagged in? There is none, and the fact that the guy holding the title is Triple H raises a ton of red flags. Despite his reputation as a political terror waning over the years with supposed acts of good behavior, the fact remains that the last time he had to job his title, he did so in a three-way match where Jeff Hardy pinned Edge.

In fact, if HHH loses the title without being pinned in a six-man match, it wouldn't be the first time he evaded jobbing the belt without losing it himself. At King of the Ring 2000, the Rock won Trips' belt by pinning... Shane McMahon. Yep. History could be in the process of repeating itself.

Now, if it were anyone else, I'd be pissed but not aghast. But the fact that it's Triple H is infuriating because this is the guy who, as a heel, was the one who got over on face after face after face during the buildups of feuds, indicating that he'd be eating his comeuppance at the PPV. Yet, did it happen? No, not even for Kane, who had to job after the indignity of being saddled with the necrophilia of one Katie Vick. How much do you want to bet that the original plan for WM was to close with the Cena three way and having Orton win the title from Trips, but good ol' son-in-law had the main event changed by appealing to Papa Bear's and his offspring's massive sense of ego? And now he gets the chance to drop the title without eating a loss, thus refusing to put Orton over.

Yeah, I'm not buying it. Triple H wants so bad to be Hulk Hogan, but he doesn't have half the charisma that the Hulkster had, and he knows it. Or at least he should have known it now that he spent his second WrestleMania ending basking in the lukewarm reaction of a crowd that really didn't give a shit about him. All the politicizing in the world will only get him so far though. If it weren't for his connections, first with the Kliq and second by marrying Stephanie, there's no way he would be in the position he's in. Sure, he'd be a multiple-time Champion and a main eventer, but he'd have been totally outclassed in star power by Kurt Angle, Brock Lesnar, John Cena and others.

Now, I could be surprised. I do think there's a possibility that Orton does pin Triple H, or that Trips' team wins (Batista Bomb on Cody Rhodes sounds about right). However, just given Trips' track record, I have no faith in this match turning out as anything but a way for Orton to get strapped without Trips absorbing any heat by losing.

Really, regardless of who's in the match or who could win the title, I wish they'd stop coming up with these kinds of stips. It's lazy booking and I'm betting most fans don't buy it. And they shouldn't. No other sport, especially MMA, has contrived stipulations like that. Just because wrestling is staged doesn't mean it should be a farce.