Ridiculously Unbelievable Storylines

[The Brain]

As wrestling fans we are used to suspending our disbelief to be entertained by the show. A lot of storylines are unbelievable even by wrestling standards, but most of the time we’re ok with it. For example, Triple H breaks into Randy Orton’s house and attacks him with no consequences. A little far fetched, but we can look past that. There are however some storylines that are so ridiculously unbelievable that even wrestling fans have to question them. Typically these are storylines that supposedly affect a wrestler’s life away from the ring. Here are a few examples:

Brian Pillman vs. Goldust, Ground Zero 1997: If Pillman wins he gets Marlena’s “services” for 30 days. Attitude was just starting so you decide what "services" means. She is basically his slave. So we are to believe that Marlena, who is married to Goldust and has a child with him, is going to be away from her family for 30 days to work for Pillman? On a Wednesday afternoon instead of being with her daughter Marlena is doing Pillman’s laundry or something? I guess we’re supposed to think these people only exist on Monday, Friday, and the occasional Sunday.

Matt Hardy vs. Kane, SummerSlam 2004: The winner gets married to Lita. That seems like a pretty major decision to be decided by a wrestling match doesn’t it? Damn all it takes it someone to score a fluke sunset flip to affect your whole life. I guess I could see Kane and Lita’s marriage as some sort of Munster’s spin off. Paul Bearer would make a great Grandpa Munster don’t you think?

Believe me I can come up with plenty more examples, but this may be the most ridiculous of all:

Rey Mysterio vs. Eddie Guerrero, SummerSlam 2005: Winner gets custody of Dominick. I have known people who have gone through a lot of time and money in the court system to determine custody of a child. Had I known this could have been solved by running up a ladder and grabbing a briefcase I could have saved these people a lot of aggravation. When I first heard of the ladder match years ago I didn’t care for the idea. I thought a title should be decided by pinfall or submission, not by who could climb a ladder and grab the belt. Damn I didn’t think a title should be on the line, here we had a kid on the line. Good thing they had the briefcase instead of just strapping poor Dominick up there.

So what’s my point? Do you think these over the top storylines are good for the show? Of course my first instinct is to say no, but something happened that changed my mind a little. It happened on the night of SummerSlam 2005. I had a girl friend (not girlfriend) who was a total girly girl. She was a good looking girl who loved clothes, shoes, make up, going to the mall, all the stereotypical girly girl things. Through our friendship she became a casual wrestling fan. She was coming over for SummerSlam that year, but was going to be very late. When she finally arrived the first thing out of her mouth was “who got custody of Dominck?” She didn’t care about how the match went. She didn’t care about Hogan vs. Michaels. She wanted to know about Dominick. So while we may think these kinds of storylines are completely absurd, there is an audience out there that does enjoy them. I thought about that match. I got to enjoy a good ladder match between two great athletes and my friend got to enjoy a dramatic, though far fetched, storyline. So are these storylines good for the show? Did my SummerSlam story change your mind? We may roll our eyes at them, but these stories do have the potential to draw more viewers.

Thread within a thread: What other unbelievable storylines can you think of. Here’s a couple more:

Matt Hardy does a hit and run on Jeff with no consequences.
Kane kidnaps Ranjin Singh and holds him hostage for a week.
Undertaker tries to impale Steve Austin.

I’m sure there are plenty more. What do ya got?

 

[Billie Jean]

Yeah sometimes WWE comes up with some ridicuously nuts storylines sometimes. I renember the Rey Mysterio, Kane feud last year. Kane kindnapped Myserio and kept him for weeks and Rey was more worried about his mask? Pretty ridiculous.BUt some of them i can look past. Its wrestling, its scripted so i tend to look past it, i just look at it like a movie.

The most rediculous one i can think of is the one with Eddie and Rey, a kid on the line. I think it was just a LITTLE far fetched.

 

[Ambiguous Turd]

I used to raise eyebrows over the over-the-top storylines. However, I have since taken a different approach and once you tell yourself that you are just watching a show ... and that it is all simply entertainment, I think people will relax a little.

So many people associate wrestling and judge it by real-life scenarios, but that really isn't how one should look at it. Are the movies necessarily "real life"? Are TV shows necessarily "real life"? Is Batman very realistic? Is Jack Bauer and 24 realistic?

Wrestling should be viewed in an alternative universe. It is an "escape" of sorts from the real world. We shouldn't judge the business by real-life standards, because just like TV and the Movies, wrestling simply is not real.

Who ran over Austin didn't bother me.

I actually enjoyed the Sexual Chocolate Mark Henry and Mae Young storyline. I thought it was entertaining and very intriguing seeing a huge Black Man dating a Senior Citizen White Woman ... and having a baby together nonetheless. The end of the story was a huge letdown, but it kept my interests each week where they were going with it.

Who killed Mr. McMahon didn't bother me.

Who was Mr. McMahon's Illegitimate Son bothered me once it was determined to be Hornswoggle. Personally, I would have rather it been Triple H. There would have been a ton of possibilities with that scenario.

But if you view wrestling in the context of it being just a TV show and Entertainment, it should allow you to suspend disbelief. There definitely is an art form to shaping the product, as even in the Alternative Universe I refer to, there are still standards involved. For example, the bit with Papa Shango in the Hogan Era, I was vehemently against. I think they could do a modern day Papa Shango gimmick, however he obviously can't have any sort of power. He would just have to be portrayed as a dark witch doctor-type character and perhaps show some rituals in a few segments to give some depth to him ... but no supernatural powers or anything.

 

[Phoenix]

Well I think one I would place about all of the above. Al Snow vs. Big Bossman. BBM stole Al Snow's dog Pepper (which he claimed talked to him) and after winning Pepper back in a match. Bossman refuses and then invites Al Snow over for dinner to discuss terms, to which he finds out that he's been served his own dog as food, which led to the infamous Kennel from Hell match! I mean seriously?

The Katie Vick Storyline? Had they not done that, I seriously would have thought that Kane would have won that feud. But also at the same time, that story messed up the whole plot of Kane being disfigured and forced to hide all of his life. God they forgot what they did before sometimes.

Perry Saturn choosing Moppy over Terri, seriously that can only be given at WTF? and left at that.

Mae Young giving birth to a hand? Yeah, much like Sidious said, everything else was ok with it, but the hand thing.

Mark Henry dating Chyna's friend Sammi who was really a man! Whilst again it started it off fine, but it was more how Mark looked stupid after it.

 

[Mustang Sally]

However, I have since taken a different approach and once you tell yourself that you are just watching a show ... and that it is all simply entertainment, I think people will relax a little.

That makes sense. I keep thinking that most episodic TV shows have one hour a week of new programming and the writers only have to come up with 22 shows a year.....and some of them are pretty bad.

On the other hand, WWE has 5 hours a week of original storylines to produce.....and they do it for about 50 weeks a year. There are bound to be some stinkers in there, but there are some really great ideas, too.

Overall, I think they do a great job.