Being "Buried" By Big People

[AK2V8]

Today I thought about something. That usually when people like main event hopefuls such as Dolph Ziggler and Wade Barrett lose to big guys like Mark Henry, Vladimir Kozlov, Kane, Big Show or The Great Khali it usually automatically means your being "buried". But I thought about it and to be honest, it looks pretty realistic. Looking back to the short feud between Mark Henry and Sheamus a few months ago, Mark Henry beating Sheamus twice in a row looks pretty realistic to me. Yes he has developed a jobber tag over the years but to be honest a topdog like Sheamus losing to a big black guy who has supposedly "monster" strength tooks pretty damn realistic. So what I want to ask you is...

Do you think a main event hopeful losing to a "big guy" looks unrealistic?

 

[Ultra Awesome]

Before I go on to your question, I want to clarify the definition of "burry." To "burry" someone is to have that person constantly be beat and shoved right through the ground week after week, match after match, for a consistency of time and without said person showing any sign of relevance to the WWE whatsoever. Now, what happened to Sheamus a while back was in no way near close to being a "burry" or anything of the sort. Remember, Sheamus is a bad guy, so it's actually OKAY if he loses. You know, cause bad guys are supposed to lose to good guys. It's like the golden rule of everything.

Now as far as your question goes, of course it looks realistic. Big guys are intimidating. They are big, giant behemoths that will step on you if you don't watch where you're going. On top of that, their overall presence is felt every time they walk inside the squared circle. As under-used or over-emphasized as Mark Henry is made out to be, the fact of the matter is, the guy is one intimidating motherfucker. Realistically speaking, him getting multiple wins over a guy like Sheamus is pretty damn believable.

Even if wrestling is fake, when a big giant hippopotamus squashes you--don't matter who you are--you know for damn sure that was bound to happen and above all, realistic.

 

[brighamosity]

I wouldn't use the word "unrealistic", because of course it's realistic. But I'd like to think a cruiserweight main eventer could beat a giant jobber any day of the week, or at least put up a good fight. Obviously not in real life. But if I wanted to see real life fighting, I'd watch UFC. In WWE, it really gets on my nerves when the RAW GM or Teddy Long announce that someone's opponent is going to be Mark Henry, as if Henry has a chance at winning. (Not counting his recent push.) Look at Rey Mysterio, for example. He's pretty small by wrestling standards. But with his position on the card, he shouldn't be "squashed" by anyone. He loses all the time, but he still looks credible doing it.

Looking back, it feels silly. But there's one example that stands out to me. Remember about 6 months or so when Tyson Kidd brought in his new bodyguard? (I've honestly forgotten his name.) He came right out the gate looking like a monster. Then he went against Mark Henry, who at the time was being booked as a mid-card jobber. So I'm thinking Kidd's bodyguard is going to squash Mark Henry to put him and Tyson Kidd over. But it was the other way around. Losing to Mark Henry completely derailed this guy's push and I think we only saw him one time after that. Granted, they obviously didn't think he was ready if they sent him back to development. But my point is, jobbing to a guy like Mark Henry makes you look weak. Anytime an "enhancement talent" beats someone, whether large or not, it makes the other guy look weak in my opinion.

Does anyone remember when Bob Backlund beat Bret Hart for the title after Owen Hart threw in the towel? Bob Backlund lost the title a few days later in an 8 second squash to Kevin Nash. And he was out of the main event just like that.

 

[dizzle1119]

I wouldn't use the word "unrealistic", because of course it's realistic. But I'd like to think a cruiserweight main eventer could beat a giant jobber any day of the week, or at least put up a good fight. Obviously not in real life. But if I wanted to see real life fighting, I'd watch UFC. In WWE, it really gets on my nerves when the RAW GM or Teddy Long announce that someone's opponent is going to be Mark Henry, as if Henry has a chance at winning. (Not counting his recent push.) Look at Rey Mysterio, for example. He's pretty small by wrestling standards. But with his position on the card, he shouldn't be "squashed" by anyone. He loses all the time, but he still looks credible doing it.

Looking back, it feels silly. But there's one example that stands out to me. Remember about 6 months or so when Tyson Kidd brought in his new bodyguard? (I've honestly forgotten his name.) He came right out the gate looking like a monster. Then he went against Mark Henry, who at the time was being booked as a mid-card jobber. So I'm thinking Kidd's bodyguard is going to squash Mark Henry to put him and Tyson Kidd over. But it was the other way around. Losing to Mark Henry completely derailed this guy's push and I think we only saw him one time after that. Granted, they obviously didn't think he was ready if they sent him back to development. But my point is, jobbing to a guy like Mark Henry makes you look weak. Anytime an "enhancement talent" beats someone, whether large or not, it makes the other guy look weak in my opinion.

Does anyone remember when Bob Backlund beat Bret Hart for the title after Owen Hart threw in the towel? Bob Backlund lost the title a few days later in an 8 second squash to Kevin Nash. And he was out of the main event just like that.

Losing to a bonafide monster of a man, like Henry or Big Show, doesn't make one look weak. It only focuses on the fact that guys like Show and Henry are extremely powerful, larger than life personas. I'd actually argue that beating guys like Henry and Show legitimately, even for the top draws in the company, should feel like an "against all odds" situation. Men like Henry and Show only come along once in a great while, and they should definitely be booked as constant threats to anyone who steps into the ring with them.

How is it believable, in any way, for a competitor like Rey or Evan Bourne to "stun" a monster like Mark Henry with something like a splash from the top turnbuckle and pin his shoulders to the mat for a 3 count? I'll answer that for you. It isn't.

 

[harrythem]

But the point is that Henry has been so stop-start with his career that, at this point, it's hard to take him seriously as a monster....

I still remember when WCW, for some reason, thought it'd be a good idea to have a few of their top cruiserweights go against Scott Steiner all at once...It was a squash with Steiner pinning them all at once...Really took away the momentum that those Cruiserweights had been building and didn't make Steiner look any more impressive...

 

[ultramattman]

The whole point of giants is that they can win at any time. They can be beaten, because they're slow and because 'the bigger they are, the harder they fall'. But if they manage to get their hands on you, you're done. Big Show's right hand is booked as the most powerful move in WWE. Even Cena can be put down in an instant by Show's punch. But that doesn't mean Show is going to win every match, because he's not always able to connect.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I don't see it as unrealistic. After all, when you see a guy get into a "fight" with someone that's nearly a foot taller and 100 pounds or more heavier, it's realistic to expect the bigger guy to get the best of things. As human beings, we rely a helluva lot on our sense of sight. When we see two people go at it and one is considerably larger, our perception stears us towards the larger guy as winning. Doesn't always happen that way of course but it's a very, very common and age old conception.

In wrestling matches, it's also "realistic" to see someone like Big Show toss someone like Dolph Ziggler across the ring. Pro wrestlers are larger than life and it's common for attributes of a near superhuman nature be afforded to some guys, especially big guys like Show. It sometimes makes for less than enjoyable matches, however. For instance, seeing Ziggler stand toe to toe with Show in a slugfest just doesn't have that ring of realism about it. Could he actually do it? It's possible, but it doesn't fit into the David vs. Goliath theme.

When it comes to being buried, the IWC often blows things out of proportion. In this day and age, if a guy loses a match, you almost always have someone who starts a thread saying or asking if said wrestler is getting buried. It's absurd. Everybody can't win every match everytime. There have to be winners and losers and losing a couple of matches isn't an indicaton that a wrestler is being buried.

 

[vthokie8]

I agree with the masses I wouldn't call getting beat by Mark Henry, Big Show, Kane or even Khali getting "buried" by any means. In fact I think anybody who is in an angle with them and overcomes the beatings comes out looking stronger. Take for instance say Mark Henry comes out and kicks Sin Cara's ass three weeks in a row and then Sin Cara beats him at the PPV to end the fued, Sin Cara may have went 1-3 with him, but he comes out looking stronger and probably gains a great deal of "respect" from it. I know you threw Wade Barrett in the mix of people being "buried" but Barrett is by no means a small man, he just happens to be in a fued where someone is bigger than him, and he has to get beat to lose the IC title and move up to main event status, look at The Miz with Daniel Bryan last year. If you want to see the definition of "buried" look no further than Drew McIntyre he goes from being Vince McMahon's "chosen one" and the IC champ and the guy people were talking was going to be World champion within the next year or so to jobbing to Zack Ryder and Chris Masters on Superstars and hardly if ever being used on Raw. MVP, Chris Masters, Carlito and Matt Hardy are all examples of people you can argue have been "buried" ove the past couple of years all of them were either in main event slots or almost there then just jobbed on the big shows and wasted away on Superstars. Kozlov in my opinion is being "buried" right now and you can argue Khali was until this Jinder Mahal angle came along.