Far from being my usual stream of seamless erudition (have I ever read one of my own columns?) this post will be more of a mess than you are used to, but I feel the need to mouth off about a few things. You can take from it what you want.
The obvious anger amongst WWE fans over the firing of several superstars during the week passed me by quite dispassionately, primarily because I felt no affinity with the departing wrestlers. Rhyno had been so underused that he had virtually been absent from WWE since his arrival and Matt Hardy’s departure, albeit in crappy circumstances, wasn’t much of a surprise to anyone who’d been paying attention to recent developments. Aaron Aguilera wasn’t around long enough to form a lasting impression with the audience and Chilly Willy wasn’t that good in ECW so his potential WWE run was on shaky ground to begin with and I feel no sense of great loss that he never made it up to the full roster. Add to that the termination of Paul Bearer’s services and you have seven days of big announcements but nothing that made me sit up and take notice. That all changed on Tuesday night when Molly Holly asked for and received her contract release.
I appreciate that there is a big difference between being fired and quitting but the sense of disappointment at losing a performer that you like is the same, and I liked Molly Holly. In an era where a woman can (quite rightly) stroll around in a bikini for our entertainment and claim that she is being a feminist by exercising her right to use her sexuality to get what she wants out of life, Molly went about creating a career for herself founded in hard work and dedication to a ‘sport’ for which she obviously has a lot of respect. It must have been an awkward tightrope to walk doing what she felt was right with regard to her religious beliefs (which are completely alien to me) and the company to which she was employed and she seemed to do it very well. She always performed with the greatest of enthusiasm and never shirked her responsibilities to the business or the more marketable female superstars who overtook her on their way up to the title. Dipping my toe into the ‘shallow’ end for a moment, I personally found Molly to be very attractive in terms of both appearance and personality and it bothered me that the only disguise the WWE felt necessary to transform her into a frumpy plain-Jane was a pair of giant grannypants. It is also a shame to note that the moment she looked her best was just prior to the hair match at Wrestlemania XX, certainly better than after it, but it took guts to do it even though it guaranteed her work for the following four months doing the ‘wig’ routine.
So this is the point where I join in the complaining about cuts, right? One of my favourites has gone so I now choose to express my disappointment just like a lot of you? No. Regardless of broken flowerpots, jilted ex-lovers or asked-for contract releases, the bottom line is that these three performers have been in the WWE for a while, achieved varying degrees of mediocre success and there’s very little else the company could do with them to kick-start a major singles push. The WWE would be far better off pushing a new talent who doesn’t carry the same perceived baggage and could ride the popular wave of a promising debut. I’m also hearing a lot of people amazed that Heidenreich and Snitsky are still there when they are obviously worse than the ones who received their marching orders. Whilst it is true that the best place for these two is anywhere other than my television screen, to connect their continued employment to the recent firings is a construct to aide your sense of dismay and, to ensure good reason, should be looked at as individual situations. Remember what Austin said, “you take one of the cogs out, replace it with another and the machine keeps working”.
In my Raw column on Tuesday I made some remarks at the expense of Hulk Hogan. The reason for my comments was because I felt that the decision to give him a match at Backlash was a joke and I felt like reciprocating with humour at his expense. Now that the joke has worn off I can address this subject with a more analytical style and talk about it sensibly (though I stand by my insults and there’ll probably be more to come in the next few weeks). To realise what is wrong with Hogan, you need to look at what’s right with Ric Flair. Flair and Hogan are roughly the same age and have both retained the fundamentals of what ability they had in their respective primes but it’s the suggestion that Hogan can not only compete with, but dominate today’s superstars that sticks in my throat. The WWE would never aver that Flair could wrestle Batista or whoever on an equal footing and he usually jobs to them either in terms of standing or result. The only time Ric gets the upper-hand in a contest is when he ‘thumbs to the eye’ or does a low-blow and he never gets the victory unless his feet are on the ropes or he’s benefited from some outside interference. This idea that heels are frightened of Hogan as a fighter or that his shockingly weak looking offence can do any damage is an insult to any wrestler who considers themselves to be a legitimate worker and any fan who wants to see a convincing performance. One of the major reasons I respect Flair for what the business has meant to him is the recent angles he’s been running where his confidence has gone and he needs reminding of what it meant to be the ‘Nature boy’ (wooo). A few scenes of age-induced doubt like this from Hogan would go some way to repairing the damage his over-confident narcissism has done over the last several years.
Although I started watching WWE in 1991 when Hogan and Warrior were starting to make way for performers like HBK and Hart, I rapidly bought almost the entire back catalogue of WWF PPV’s on video and got my induction into the world of Hogan in retrospect. You don’t get pushed as hard or for as long as Hogan did without having the thing that people want to see but it was always apparent that he would rely on two things to cover for his lack of wrestling talent; good opponents and charisma. Some of the best wrestlers in America (and King Kong Bundy) were drafted in from the regional territories and fed to Hogan to prove that he was the best in the world and anyone who believes in the capitalist mentality understands that this was the right thing to do; the fans demanded Hogan and the WWF supplied him to them. No one, not Austin, HHH or Rock, carried the WWE like Hogan did and the opportunities that the company now takes for granted were built on the back of Hogan’s heart and strong work ethic. In WCW Hogan saw a chance to reinvent himself by aligning with the NWO and tapping into the disdain a lot of wrestling fans were having for the “say your prayers, eat your vitamins” ethos so it’s difficult to understand why the red and yellow is popular again. If it’s a sepia-toned farewell tour you want then great, I was totally in favour of suspending belief for one night and allowing Hogan to chase off Hassan and Daivari at Wrestlemania but suggesting that Hogan is still relevant and active enough to be a challenge, never mind be victorious, is a stretch of my imagination too far.
“But how come he’s so popular with the fans?” I hear you ask (join in or I’m just talking to myself here). I’ve pondered this question for a while and I can come up with no conclusive answer. Maybe it’s something to do with the post 9/11 rejuvenation in pro-nationalistic sentiment in America or the subconscious desire for a more wholesome social leader as a backlash to the Austin anti-hero era. Maybe we’re all worried that if Cena and Batista fail as champions then the WWE has nowhere else to go right now and we’re trying to revive a superstar that unquestionably excelled in a prosperous time. Maybe it’s easier to cheer for the rose-tinted nostalgia that Hogan brings rather than investing in today’s performers. I don’t know. What I do know is that if we keep looking backwards then we can’t be looking to the future and, like it or not, that’s what’s coming up folks and we need to embrace it.
And finally, a word about TNA’s Jeff Jarrett. Twat.
Oh all right, I can’t resist one more. Hogan’s trying to get a table at a restaurant but he’s not succeeding. “Have you any idea who I am?” he cries at the manager. “Why yes”, says the manager “you’re Hulk Hogan”. Hogan replies “Thanks, I’d forgotten for a minute there”. And then he pisses himself. Again.
I know, don’t give up my day job.
Lee
