Monday, June 24, 2019

The Failson and the Championships Won

Look, he's red just talking on the mic, and I'm to believe HE'S Championship material?
Photo Credit: WWE.com
If you haven't been paying attention to WWE in the last year or so, and I can't blame you for whatever reason, Shane McMahon has been a major part of the programming, even more than when he was at his peak as an in-ring competitor nearly 20 years ago. He won a "best in the world" tournament at the Fed's second Saudi Blood/Fuck Money show, Crown Jewel, one he wasn't a part of until getting a bye to the finals. He and the Miz won the Smackdown Tag Team Championships, and when they lost the belts, he turned on Miz setting up a match of theirs at WrestleMania... which he won. He segued from that feud without ever really giving Miz resolution into a feud with Roman Reigns, against whom he got a victory at the latest Saudi Blood/Fuck Money show, Super Showdown.

Of course, judging by booking alone, this pattern has all the telltale signs of protecting a top star. It's both abhorrent but also majorly on-brand for WWE that the failson of the chairman is the guy with the biggest push. I mean, he couldn't even do the job for Reigns himself; he had to send Drew McIntyre to take the heat! History has a way of repeating itself for those who don't learn from it, and in addition to allowing corporate bloat to strangle the main roster the way it suffocated World Championship Wrestling 20 years ago, it also is learning the wrong lessons from the dying days of the American Wrestling Association. Verne Gagne pushed his son Greg so hard despite having none of his father's talent or charisma. The fans revolted as part of a decade-long slide that led the AWA into ruin and then death. Granted, Gagne never put the World Championship on his son's waist, and WWE hasn't done that with Shane McMahon...

...yet.

Popular Twitter account that seems to have a connection to someone high-up in WWE, @WrestleVotes, launched some speculation that WWE *might* put the WWE World Heavyweight Championship on McMahon sooner rather than later.
A lone source's speculation set fire to Wrestling Twitter, because while it was a completely offhand statement that could not be verified as concrete, it makes way too much goddamn sense. I've heard on Twitter that that one tweet has turned into "major rumors" that McMahon would be the one to dethrone Kingston at SummerSlam. I'll believe it when I see the match announced, not because I can't believe it, but because I don't want to believe it. WWE has done a strangely commendable job protecting Kingston's title reign that it almost raises so much suspicion that it's about to end in a mushroom cloud so intense that it might rival the outcry in chatrooms and message boards from the turn of this century. The company that has only entrusted four Black people with one or both of its top titles in its 50+ year history does not get the benefit of the doubt for how that title reign will end.

The fact that WWE would even think about putting the title on Shane McMahon rings with an insane amount of tone-deafness, even more than when Vince McMahon strapped himself in 1999. Granted, while I am not defending the decision in retrospect, the decision was defensible at the time. Vince hadn't spent the last year building himself up as an ubermensch wrestler despite turning bright shades of red by the sheer act of exiting Gorilla. It was a fuck finish in a sea of fuck finishes that defined a short but intensely compressed era of wrestling. Putting the title on himself so that he'd be mentioned in the same breadth as guys like Bruno Sammartino and Andre the Giant is an unforgivable move of pure ego. That being said, it wasn't a narrative lie that a bloated baloney man who's only back in wrestling because his venture into telecommunications in China failed harder than WWE's attempt at anything outside of wrestling could hang with guys like Crossfit-addict Seth Rollins or a man chiseled out of marble who also does the best tope con hilo in his weight class, Roman Reigns.

And yet WWE currently has set camp at that untenable position on the map, like planning a major metropolis at the northern tip of Baffin Island in 1920. Of course, with the way climate change is wreaking havoc on the planet, Baffin Island might be subtropical before long, but that's a post for a political blog. McMahon is already the most protected wrestler on the roster; even Brock Lesnar lost clean as a whistle at WrestleMania to Rollins. It has such an impact on WWE's Kirby-suction approach on recruitment. WWE is still out here wanting to set up NXT seeds in every country that has wrestling in addition to signing everyone they can get their hands on. Apparently, the company even approached the Beer City Bruiser. Nothing against him as a wrestler, but he's a guy who does not have the look WWE wants, and he's a low-card guy in Ring of Honor. If he's on WWE's radar, who is not? Just the guys the company already jettisoned like Enzo Amore, Colin Cassady, and TJP?

But now, imagine you're a pro wrestler and WWE comes to you with an offer. You look at the main roster right now and see McMahon on the fast track to winning one of the two top titles. Do you take the NXT starvation wage contract in hopes that one day, you'll make it to RAW or Smackdown and stand in the background as the real stars of the show, the McMahons, are the focus? Do you go there realizing that not content with hogging up the spotlight that they now have a taste for winning the belts again? Is the gambit worth the risk? Sadly, for a huge chunk of wrestlers, they will not be deterred. All Elite Wrestling can't hire everyone, but WWE seems like they're willing and able to do so. The allure of headlining WrestleMania and the money and fame that come with it can be strong enough, but at the end of the day, when will they get a chance to eclipse the McMahon family?

And for anyone who thinks this is still too farfetched, a McMahon family member in management recently put a title on himself. Paul "Triple H" Levesque had been far retired from active full-time in-ring competition when he won the 2016 Royal Rumble and had already been named the company Chief Operating Officer. It doesn't matter if he had already been a Champion prior to that singular occurrence. He was management at that point, management by almost exclusive virtue that he had married into the McMahon family. WWE has done this before, and I wouldn't put it past them to do it again. Vince McMahon thinks he's above the law, or at least above criticism. Any other person sees a crowd that doesn't react to what gets put out, or reacts adversely to it out of revolt and not "heel heat," and they make decisions to tweak things, especially in the face of lower and lower fan engagement. Revenue is one thing, but getting bank for diminishing returns on attendance and television viewing seems like those revenue streams are unsustainable.

But maybe it's a good thing that WWE is considering putting the title on its orange failson. The company probably needs to die for wrestling to live. As long as Titan Sports remains at the vanguard of American wrestling, American wrestling will have a poor public image, and wrestlers will be treated as cattle instead of people. Perhaps the company needs to die like the AWA and WCW did in order for wrestling to continue to survive. Look, I'm not thrilled that AEW only exists because it has corporate billionaire backing, because wrestling, like all industries, should exist as worker-run collectives where the revenue taken after expenses is spread around to all workers, in-ring or out, equally. However, I will take Tony Khan as the big swinging dick in the industry over Vince McMahon anyday.