Hello Once again Xtreme fans and Welcome to the Xtreme world of yours truly known to the IWC as X Marks the Spot. Oh....did I forget to mention that this is the Official Column of the "We want an Extension of DX after Summer Slam" campaign. For those of you who are expecting the next installment of the Perfection series, I'm sorry, don't worry the series is going nowhere and will be back (Probably next week) but for now a concept has been bugging me for weeks now and I just have to get it off my chest this week..
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME
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Many of my readers must've heard this phrase at least a million times (OK maybe not a million times, but you get the point), recently I found out that this phrase applies more to wrestling then we think and when I started looking, I found a bunch of evidence which further proved me right. So this week you and I are going to take a look at how the constantly changing world of professional wrestling is a 'not so constantly' changing world. Confused? Maybe a few examples will help...
My first example is pretty straight forward, because it involves the Number 1 and Number 2 wrestling promotion in North America. To some people these are two completely different entities...or are they? Things aren't what they seem and this seems to be true for their tag team divisions. TNA's current (reigning and defending) Tag team champions are two guys who are both X-Division Stars (Cruiserweights in WWE slang), both were stuck in some pretty dead end storylines before becoming the Tag champs and both have performed before an ROH crowd at one time or another. Sounds familiar? It should because the same is true for Smack Down's tag team champions, both are Cruiser weight stars, just like their TNA counterparts were stuck in some pretty dead end individual storylines and co-incidentally both have performed in front of a ROH crowd before.
The point I'm trying to make here is that even though WWE and TNA are completely different it is quite ironic that they have so much in common between their tag team champions.
My second example is about the Phenom, who at this current moment is busy with a feud against The Great Khali. Both have locked horns a couple of times and somehow someway the Great Khali, the Unstoppable force pitted against the Phenom, comes out on top. Looks like there's no stopping this freak, who made his debut after this year's Wrestle mania. Sound's familiar? C'mon think harder.
Flashback 10 years and the Undertaker is locked in a bitter feud against a freak who he just can't seem to beat, name of the freak he can't beat....a new comer who made his debut just after that year's Wrestle mania, Mankind. Mankind's feud with the Dead man kept him busy the entire year (1996), with a few matches against Mankind's ally Goldust. Just like the Great Khali, Mankind had a ruthless manager in Paul Bearer, a man who used to be in the Undertaker's corner.
In the span of these 10 years it seems like nothing has changed for the Undertaker (Except for the fact that he's a little older and perhaps a little wiser, and he was an American Bad ass for 4 years). The Fans used to cheer the loudest for him then and the fans cheer the loudest for him now, he was 'The Phenom' with a flawless Wrestle mania record then and he's 'The Phenom' with a flawless Wrestle mania record now, he had the Gongs then and he has the Gongs now. And as I mention n the previous paragraph, his competition hasn’t changed much either.
Let see what else is there? Oh yes, how about Monsters? Yeah you heard (Or in this case read) me right, monsters. Unstoppable monsters have always a big part of WWE both in terms of physical numbers as well as TV time. It doesn't matter if the year is 1992, 1996 or 2000; we've always had an abundance of freaks who seem like unbeatable at the time. In 1993 we had the Late Yokozuna, a mammoth who's enormous size was enough to scare the baddest of all bad asses. In 1994 we had Diesel who, along with HBK wreaked havoc and made the year 1994 'The Year of Diesel' by winning all 3 championships in that same year. In 1996 we had Vader, appropriately nicknamed 'The Mastodon' Vader seemed unstoppable especially after he took out Yokozuna. In 1997 we had Kane, an unstoppable Big Red Machine who was out to destroy his big brother and anyone else who had the guts to stop him. In 1999 we had the Big Show, the right hand man of Vince McMahon. In 2002, Brock Lesnar debuted and the rest is history I don't even need to tell. In 2003/2004 Kane was reintroduced as the monster after talking off the mask he wore for a good 6 years in the WWE.
Finally, we come to 2006 and still 'Monsters' seem to be the keyword with guys like The Great Khali and Umaga trying to put the entire roster (Both red and blue) out of action. Moral of the Story, of you're watching a show ran by a McMahon you can expect a whole lotta monsters to show up and beat people up for no reason. This pattern hasn't changed much in the past decade and it won't change in the future.
Much like the prominent place of monsters has stayed the same over the years so has the place for Underdogs, take for example 1993 when all wrestling fans got together on one platform and decided to stand firmly behind a small sized wrestler who they named the 123 Kid. It was really hard to see a 123 Kid match and not hear comments from the commentators like 'That kid's got a lot of heart' or 'this kid just won't give up'. 123 kid went onto become the biggest and most popular underdog of all time (Until now, that is), until he turned his back on the fans and joined the million dollar team he was the ultimate baby face. Even after his return in 1998, the 123 kid (Now known as X-Pac) was given the same gimmick (The Underdog).
Coming back to the present age and we have a new Underdog to call our own by the name of Rey Mysterio. One huge difference between 123 Kid and Mysterio is the Mysterio broke the glass ceiling that didn't allow any small wrestler to be world heavyweight champion. But that's besides the point, World title or no world title we've always had underdogs to cheer for.
Next let’s take you back to the Monday Night Wars era, an era many fans call the golden era of wrestling. Vince's WWE is tied in a bitter war with Bischoff's WCW. Picking on one another's companies through direct shots like spoiling RAW's results or indirect shots like the characters of Gillberg, Oklahoma, Creative control amongst others are fairly common. A wrestler switching from one company to another was commonplace as well. Majoring of fans, like yours truly, switched from being pro-WWE to pro-WCW and back to pro-WWE and then back to pro-WCW again numerous times. It was a crazy time, yet the best one to be a wrestling fan. Unfortunately, like all good things it came to an end and Vince won.
Cut back to modern times and much like the Monday Night war era we've got the WWE and TNA at each other's throats (Not at a scale as big as 1998 though). Direct and Indirect shots from both sides continue as TNA brought in a goofy looking Vince and an even worse looking son-in-law at their PPV, Cornette making direct comments at the way Vince does business, Vince threatening to sue TNA if they show footage from Universal studios, Angle challenging anyone from a 4, 6 or 8 sided ring and Rhino's shoot comments towards the new ECW amongst other. Wrestlers like Shanoon Moore, Zach Gowen and Christian Cage are switching from one company to another. And Fans are switching from being pro-WWE to pro-TNA to back where they were. It looks like we've still got a war going on, whether we want to admit it or not.
I just found these example more funny than ironic, as we constantly hear about people telling you about the good 'ol days or the difference between WWE and the other promotions. But looking at instances like these one wonders it really it's the times that have changed or just our perspective as wrestling fans.
FINAL WORD
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That it from my Xtreme side, this column was a little different from my conventional columns so I hope it went well with every one. Please sent all feedback to somairpk@yahoo.com
