Hey everyone, it’s been over a month since I’ve last wrote a
full article about wrestling. There are a few reasons for that, like focusing a
lot on the football (soccer) recently, wanting to do some music reviews
and paying homage to Guitar Hero. But
the most honest reason is that I had a bit of writers block when it came to
wrestling. That is partly my fault, but it’s also because wrestling had a big
high a few months back, and it’s kinda gone back to old ways recently. Or has
it?
Now this article isn’t about King Booker, or Booker T although I
really am enjoying his commentary, he’s got a really unauthentic style that
contrasts everyone else and I mean that positively. He’s started to develop his
own phrases (“DBry is in my Fav Five dawg”, “wut da hayel?!” and “oh my
goodness!”) This article is about the booking team. See what I did there with
the name of the article huh? Haha. Okay. Not so funny. Moving on…
Basically I want to start a round of applause for the
booking team in this article. Why? Because I think they’ve done a decent job
recently, that’s why! I read a lot of wrestling articles, mainly The John
Report, but some other sources too, and I can’t really say I’ve seen anyone
praising the booking team. Yes, they’re not perfect and they do things that
sometimes still make us scratch our heads, but for the most part they seem to
be more on alert recently and they’re paying a lot of attention to story
continuation. You still don’t think they deserve praise? If not, let me see if
I can convince you.
Now, when I say I’m praising the booking team it’s not
because they’re pushing my favourite wrestlers. That’s one thing that pisses me
off about the Internet Wrestling Community. They have their favourites, and if
they’re booked badly, it’s the booking team’s fault. “It’s bad booking!” This
isn’t what this article is about. I’m not going to get into the politics about
who deserves a push, or who is pushed up our asses and doesn’t deserve it. My
favourite wrestler might be someone you don’t like, and vice versa. While the
IWC tend to agree on certain wrestlers being better than others (like CM Punk
and Christian being great, and The Great Khali being awful), it doesn’t matter.
What this article is about is to raise the fact that the WWE think certain
wrestlers deserve a push, and others may not. And it’s obvious from the booking
recently, who these people are. That’s GOOD booking. Don’t get confused between
good and bad booking. If you want to see bad booking look at TNA, who for most
Impact shows can’t get through one episode without fucking it up.
The best example in terms of a certain period of time where
the booking was perfect was actually last week’s Raw (dated 26/9/11, or 9/26/11
for you weird North Americans who believe the month should be displayed before
the day), where the first 20 minutes was booked fantastically well. Don’t you
remember? Didn’t you notice? Well let me jog your memory.
The show stated with Triple H explaining his decision to
fire The Miz and R-Truth last week. Pause for a second. The hook ending of last
week was those two being fired. People wanted to know why they got fired, and
had to wait a week to find out. They then find out at the start of the episode.
Good booking.
Continuing on, he continues before Dolph Ziggler and Vicky
Guerrero interrupt, and raise their grievances over Hugh Jackman ‘breaking
Ziggler’s jaw’ last week. We then got further interruptions from Cody Rhodes,
who complained about his attack from Randy Orton on last week’s Smackdown, then
we got Christian complaining about Sheamus attacking him in the middle of his
match, ‘costing him the’ title.
Triple H sorts each person out individually, by telling
Dolph Ziggler he’ll defend his title against Zack Ryder, who beat him last
week. Pause. Good booking here too, Zack Ryder did indeed beat the champion
last week, and deserves his rematch. As Christian did his ‘one more match’
chant again, Triple H gave him ‘one more match’ against Sheamus at Hell in a Cell
instead. As for Cody Rhodes, he told him he can have the night off, before
Rhodes backchatted. In the end for his multiple interruptions it ended up with
Triple H putting Cody Rhodes in a 10 man over the top rope Battle Royal for the
Intercontinental Title.
The aftermath of this 10 man Battle Royal was Cody Rhodes
retaining the title. But it was more than that. This 10 man Battle Royal
continued many feuds and many storylines. Evil Sin Cara took out the original
Sin Cara in the match and replaced him, furthering their feud. Good booking.
Sheamus was in the match and Christian interfered to help him get eliminated,
furthering their feud. Good booking. And Cody retaining for me was a good move,
as he’s continuing to establish himself as a very good Intercontinental
champion.
This was around 20 minutes long in total. Not a long time,
but it was seamless, it answered questions that were left hanging from last
week and it raised some more questions that would be answered at Hell in a
Cell, like will Sheamus get his revenge against Christian, and pretty much the
same thing with the Sin Caras.
It was almost perfect, the only bad thing I can say really
was the ‘on the spot’ booking of Cody Rhodes at both Raw and Hell in a Cell. He
had just come out a match with Ted DiBiase only a week ago and Ted DiBiase
could have had more of a chance to continue that feud by maybe being left as
the last man standing, only to lose to Rhodes last minute. They then could have
had a match at HIAC. That would be better booking than DiBiase basically being
ignored in the Battle Royal, and the ‘spontaneous’ decision to make John
Morrison be the #1 contender on the actual PPV and lose was used instead. That
wasn’t the best booking decision, but nearly everything else was perfect.
Now that was a long winded example of what booking a
wrestling should be like, in my opinion. It’s not about your favourite guys
getting (or not getting) the right push that makes the booking bad. That’s just
personal taste. What makes booking bad or good is creating storylines and
continuing them until they lose steam. It’s about creating interest and then
maintaining it. And for the most part, the WWE booking has been just that.
I’m not going to go in too much depth now but they pretty
much continued that streak at Hell in a Cell, and then on Raw last night. At
Hell in a Cell, for the most part, the booking was top notch. Starting the show
with The Miz and R-Truth as fans at ringside with tickets, and then getting
kicked out was good. They then tried to get backstage and got kicked out. In
the end of the PPV they came through the crowd and slid under the ring while
the cell lowered and beat the crap into all the main eventers and referees. The
cage was down, and all the ‘employed’ wrestlers tried and failed to break into
the cage to get them out. Eventually the cage was broken by bolt cutters and
then they got arrested. Not only visually was it a great scene, but it
continued the storyline further about what those two are going to do next. What
are the WWE going to do? It was fantastic booking.
Now going into the main event I just talked about, I didn’t
expect Alberto Del Rio to come out victorious. But in an interview before the
match, Del Rio told everyone that we’ll see a different side of him tonight.
And good booking was that he delivered. Tactically using Ricardo Rodriguez to
take the keys from the referee and for them both to assist in getting Cena out
of the cage, locked, was indeed that ‘different side’ we were told to look out
for. But more emphatically, was his display in the match. He was fucking
aggressive. One of the main criticisms of Del Rio was that he was talented in
the ring and on the mic, but if you’re to be a world champion you need a
certain level of aggression. He lacked that. But on Sunday, he really was
vicious. They booked him very strong in the match, equal to Cena and Punk. And
that was a first. He always looked to be one step behind the other two
competitors, on both a verbal and physical battle. But he stuck it to them, and
beat Punk clean with the use of an iron pipe. It was great booking.
I could go on about the other matches but this article is
getting a bit long now, but they’ve continued the ‘chaotic’ ending of the PPV
onto Raw last night. In fact the cliffhanger for Raw was excellent, and I can’t
remember any visual like that being done ever in the WWE. For weeks and months
Triple H has slowly been losing the trust of the locker room, with multiple
heels complaining of unjustice and faces being beaten up by the heels. Mark
Henry’s excellent dominance and brutal beatings on certain wrestlers has also
contributed to this. So Triple H was put on the spot for the fact that he
wasn’t controlling these chaotic scenes; the ending of the PPV, Mark Henry, and
just the general dissatisfaction of the job the COO has been doing. So they all
vote ‘no confidence’ about Triple H’s job, and then one by one everyone leaves.
Not just the wrestlers, EVERYONE. The cameramen went, the commentators went,
and the rest of the staff went. Everyone. The only people left in theory were
the fans, the main cameraman and Triple H in the ring. It was excellent. And
it’s great booking. It’s great booking because this story has unfolded other a
matter of months and it came to a brilliant climax last night. It also leaves
people wondering what on earth can happen next week on Raw, when there could
potentially be no staff to help Triple H run the show. People are going to tune
into this broadcast next week. It’s just incredible booking.
I don’t want to kiss the booking team’s ass too much. The
booking has been bad in parts. But it’s better than it has been long term in
the past, and it’s more consistently positive. What’s the bad booking then?
Well for me, the bad booking of late really was in Beth Phoenix looking
dominant against Kelly Kelly for weeks and weeks, only to lose every time they
were wrestling for the title. That was bad booking, but it may be rectified now
that Beth Phoenix won on Sunday. That being said, for Natalya to interfere in
the match still made Phoenix look a little weaker than she should have been.
The other big piece of bad booking is Daniel Bryan’s continued losing streak,
despite pretty much being a certainty to wrestle in the main event at
Wrestlemania. That for me is bad booking.
So next time you criticise the booking team and are unhappy
with a certain push or a lack of push from a certain wrestler, think about the
bigger picture. Think about the fact that basically, the booking team is given
a blueprint to work to, to get a certain wrestler over. It may not be your
favourite, but it doesn’t matter. And this wrestler has to be streamlined
through a storyline that will keep audiences intrigued about its climax and
finale. In many cases recently, the booking team have done just that. Thanks
for your time.
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