Instant Feedback: Born of a Broken Era

Show thinking that he doesn't have to do the illogical thing
Photo Credit: WWE.com

When Big Show reemerged from the back to face off against Triple H and The Shield, I thought I smelled shenanigans. After all, I was weaned on swerves, and coming back out after being fired or dissed or what have you was a clear sign that something fishy was afoot. That trope was a signature of the Attitude Era, and it lasted as far as last year. The last time RAW was in Pittsburgh, Show was fired by John Laurinaitis (missin u, Big Johnny), and when he reappeared at Over the Limit, it was by the side of the man who fired him.

Tonight though, WWE misdirected the audience by adhering to Occam's Razor, a logical truism that states the most likely thing to happen is the one with the fewest assumptions, i.e. the most likely thing to happen is what will happen most of the time. Of all the razors one might find in a wrestling company until tonight, Occam's wouldn't make the board on Family Feud. Razor Ramon and Ric Flair's razor definitely would though.

Why would Big Show walk out to the ring? Because he just lost his job, and in wrestling, when a malady befalls you, whether simple as losing a match clean (explaining why R-Truth would rush to CM Punk's aid) or being jerked around by abusive employers to the point where they fire you, you get a chance to take a pound of flesh before you leave. Show was looking for his payback. He had nothing left to lose.

Wrestling promoters are assumed to overthink stories because the empirical evidence supports that hypothesis. Logical fallacy was on overdrive in 1998, but because wrestling was so popular and because it consumed at least my consciousness to a large degree then, my gut fears and emotions are manipulated by those formative years. Lasting tag teams and friendships were a foreign concept to me until recently, much like expecting the least harebrained result tonight. In Vince Russo's America, things were made to be broken - friendships, logic, tables, bones, continuity... all of it.

The duration of Show's arc on RAW tonight also informed Battleground to an extent. Absences were explained, consequences were doled out, story was progressed. Maybe WWE is foolish or haughty for wanting people to pay for the right to experience some parts of a story as they happen, but then again, the pitfalls of wanting both long term storytelling and resolution at every paid event reeks of cognitive dissonance. Should WWE have this many pay-per-views in rapid succession? From a story density standpoint, probably not, but you and I both know the driving factor will always be profit.

But for now, at least from my perspective, the narrative from SummerSlam until the end of RAW tonight has worked, even if at times it felt rickety. Then again, would WWE be WWE if they went smoothly week to week? Some things from the Attitude Era will never change, but at least they're getting away from some of the most illogical parts of how they conducted business 15 years ago.