Last night's RAW was a perfect example of what NOT to do with a rising star within the company. For those who didn't watch, Randy Orton came out to celebrate his title win over Triple H that came a month too late, in my opinion, and he basically said that RAW was his show and everyone answered to him. MVP came out and refuted that, cutting the best face promo I've seen in 2009 thus far. Vickie Guerrero then made the match, MVP vs. Orton. The match was great. The crowd was really into it, and they were into MVP specifically. Orton was selling fantastically for MVP as well, and again, the improvements in his wrestling showed again, as this was a great match...
...a great match until Orton dumped MVP over the top rope, never to be seen again during the affair, and Shane McMahon came out to shake his graying hair and flab all over the ring like he thought he was 20 years younger.
My angst towards the McMahon family and their spotlight hogging aside, there were two huge, gaping problems with that scenario last night. The first one was similar to the complaint I had with Jericho/Cena last week on RAW, when Edge ran out and caused a cheap DQ finish after a magnificent almost 15 minute match. To end a great match like that with the Pillsbury Doughboy coming in to get his revenge on Orton is like giving the entire viewing audience blue balls.
The biggest problem though is the way they handled MVP. They virtually buried him. It's one thing to lose the match. It's another thing to lose the match via DQ and not be seen at all during the post-match after not even figuring into the decision at all. This isn't a new problem with the WWE though.
Last year, they had Triple H and Kennedy take on the entire ECW roster as punishment for crossing then-GM William Regal. It was competitive, but in the end, Kennedy ate a frogsplash and a pinfall from Chavo Guerrero. That would have been fine if they left it there, but Kennedy rolled out of the ring, never to be seen again, while Triple H just shit on the entire ECW roster, destroying everyone by himself except Kane, only succumbing to Orton. Again, aside from the obvious problems of the WWE only caring about the tippy-top of stars here, they missed out on an opportunity to put Kennedy hugely over by having him help Trips at the end. The even better finish and post-match would have been Kennedy eating the fall, Trips and Kennedy fending off ECW but ultimately succumbing to numbers, and then Orton coming out and rubbing salt in Trips' wounds like the vulture he was.
The same thing could have applied to MVP here in a different application. How hard would it have been to have MVP job clean after a very, very hard fought battle with the kayfabe best in the company? I'm telling you right now that it wouldn't have hurt MVP one bit. Why? Because the concept of the "warrior's death" comes into play here. No, it's not a reference to the theory that there were multiple Ultimate Warriors because they kept dying (although some may wish Jim Hellwig would just die already... that's tangential though).
Basically, the concept refers to a face battling hard against all odds, be it numbers, talent, whatever. He/she fights and fights and fights some more, and at some point, it looks like he/she is going to win the match. However, something causes their undoing, be it cheating, numbers, a fatal flaw, whatever, and they end up losing admirably, with honor and in a way that endears them to the crowd and gives the person losing a rub. In movies, the direct correlation is with 300. In wrestling, the two best examples I can think of are WrestleMania XIII, where Bret Hart beat Steve Austin, but Austin got a huge rub from the crowd because he never gave up and fought til the end, and at the Royal Rumble 2003, when Kurt Angle defeated Chris Benoit in one of the hardest fought and best matches in the 'E of the decade, and the crowd gave Benoit a standing O after the loss.
That's what they could have and should have done with MVP. They laid the ground work during the match. He definitely had control of the affair enough to be able to hit his "Ballin'" spot, and he hit Orton with a few of his signature moves, most notably that sick-ass yakuza kick that he does in the corner. The better finish to me would have been MVP going for his finisher, but Orton flash countering it with the RKO and getting the win. Then, for MVP's insolence, Orton lines up a punt when all of a sudden, Shane McMahon makes the save. Priceless comes out and then you have Legacy brawling with both MVP and the Pillsbury Doughboy.
Now tell me, wouldn't that have been an insanely more satisfying end to the match than what happened?
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