I get the feeling I've written on this topic before. Strange. Anyway, here goes nothin'...When the match between the Miz and Evan Bourne ended last night, I came away with two feelings, one major, one minor. The minor feeling was that the booking was a bit off, that Bourne maybe should have gotten a sneaky win after Sheamus or Randy Orton momentarily distracted Miz, setting up a rematch at SummerSlam for the US Title. Again, it was minor, and not nearly as great as the major feelingm which was "DAMN, THAT WAS THE BEST MATCH ON RAW ALL YEAR!"
Yes, that was hyperbole. I cooled down and realized it probably wasn't, but it was still damn good. From jump, Bourne made Miz's offense look like a million bucks. Of course, Miz, one of the best offensive wrestlers in the company, didn't need a lot of help doing it, and he had the surprising backing of a hot, Sacramento crowd. He threw in a nice defensive move, countering one of Bourne's flying knees to the face with a mid-air leg sweep that would have been the spot of the match had it not been for the former Matt Sydal's aerial fireworks. Bourne had a counter of his own, weaseling out of Miz's suplex with knees to the head, and then he hit maybe the spot of the year, a leaping backwards hurricanrana that dropped my jaw halfway to the floor. The advantage was short-lived as Miz countered one of Bourne's strikes and bounded at him with a huge lariat before delivering the Skull-Crushing Finale for the pinfall victory.
It was an engrossing, engaging match that was the highlight of a very good RAW. I was shocked to see via the Torch that its runtime was only a little over 4 minutes. It felt like it was more fleshed out than it was. What I wasn't surprised to see, though, was reaction from the Internet like they had just watched a war crime because Evan Bourne was "buried" or because the match wasn't long enough to be good. It's a typical reaction from some Internet fans who don't want to admit that matches under 5 minutes can be considered good. Well, those reactions are wrong and are symptomatic of a very short-sighted way of looking at wrestling.
It's true, some of the best wrestling matches are these mat classics that go on for 15-60 minutes and have all kinds of ebbs and flows. My favorite matches of all-time, Savage/Steamboat and Hart/Austin, clocked in at 14:35 and 22:05 respectively, not exactly sprints. However, those were at WrestleMania, prominently placed on the card. They were supposed to go all that time because they were culminations of epic feuds and had a much richer story to tell.
What some people don't understand is that not every match dictates that kind of time or detail. Miz and Bourne really had nothing to do with each other before their match last night. Miz was already entangled in the festivities between Sheamus and Randy Orton, and unbeknownst to us at the time, he seemed to be headed towards joining Team WWE in the SummerSlam main event. It was a go-home show before a PPV, and Miz needed to look strong, so they trotted out Bourne, who had nothing going on, to help in that. Furthermore, they were probably only given four minutes to do their thing because of all the other build they had to put into the show cut into the time alotted for non-main event-type matches.
Now, you could argue that yes, Bourne should have something to do for SummerSlam because he's awesome. I'm always going to argue that because he's the fucking man and he should be pushed as such. However, that's not germane at all to the quality of the match at all. The booking and direction could have been better, but that had no impact on the efforts that both Bourne and Miz put in the ring. Also, you could argue that they could have cut out the pointless Divas bullshit with the swimsuit competition and stuff. No arguments from me on that, but again, that has NOTHING to do with how good the match one. Here's some real talk for you. Two consummate professionals got in the ring, took the time they had and they made the absolute most of it.
In today's wrestling landscape, that kind of attitude is required for a worker. They're not going to get 15 minutes or more to shine, so they need to make the best of a limited opportunity. Granted, back in the days of Attitude, when we first started getting non-squash matches between marquee superstars on a weekly televised basis, yes, the results were disastrous. Then again, that could have had more with Vince Russo's scatterbrained booking style of swerves, fuck finishes and wtf? moments at every turn. Regardless, the Monday Night Wars-style of short wrestling matches has lived on past the wars themselves, and the new crop of wrestlers as well as the vets have gotten used to the idea that they're not always going to get a ton of time to get their story over. Thus, we get guys working short gems on a weekly basis.
Additionally, matches such as the one last night can serve as trailers for future feuds. Miz isn't going anywhere, and Bourne has a future in the company once he's done taking his lumps (I have a feeling he's not just as of yet). What last night's match did was serve as a preview for the awesomeness that these two can produce in a prolonged setting, either as a TV main event or on PPV.
Now of course, I think these two would produce an epic match if given more time. That's obvious. What I'm trying to say, though, is not to take action like that for granted, no matter how long or short it is. Remember, some matches go on for way too long. I mean, how many times did Randy Orton and Triple H wrestle last year in prolonged matches? A lot. How many of them were good? By my count, only the Last Man Standing match on the commercial-free RAW. So yeah, be careful what you wish for.
The truth is, if you didn't like Miz/Bourne last night, you don't like good wrestling, period. Stop bitching about length of match and look at each match for what it is, because there's nothing lamer than a dude sitting in front of a TV screen with a stop-watch, timing how much wrestling is in his wrestling show.
Photo Credit: WWE.com
Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!
