Last Sunday, WWE brought us their 30th WrestleMania, which as you can guess, is kind of a big deal. It turned out to be a blast, unlike much of the last five years. WrestleMania 24 is my favorite, but the only one since that hasn’t been below average was WrestleMania 26, which wasn’t exactly spectacular. This year’s actually felt like something to be excited about going in. The writers did a great job of building up nearly all the matches, from John Cena fighting Bray Wyatt to a battle royal where the winner won a giant Andre the Giant trophy. Hell, that match had better build than this year’s Royal Rumble!

But the real story here was the undercard match of Daniel Bryan vs. Triple H where the winner got to be in the main event triple threat for the title against Randy Orton and Batista, ending in Bryan’s climactic double victory. On the surface of fiction, it’s a well-written storyline that’s been building since August. Hell, it’s one of the best main event builds we’ve seen for WrestleMania in a long time. The thing is, the real story of how this came to be is far more intriguing than what’s going on in front of the camera. This has been something built up for years between the wrestlers involved, the fans and some guys who wouldn’t be competing at WrestleMania 30.

Let’s break it up and look at some of the important players:

THE WRITERS WHO CAN’T BUILD NEW STARS

One of the major problems with WWE in the past few years is their inability to make new names. Writing isn’t long-term enough and Vince McMahon – having final say on everything – changes his mind every other minute. Wrestlers who seem like they’re catching steam all of the sudden get sidelined due to either bad storytelling or the need to feed them to John Cena. Cena is a wonderful performer and all-around good guy, but seeing him stapled to the top of the program at the expense of guys who could use a major win or two is what turns a lot of people off.

The best example is Ryback, who was getting pushed right up the card as an unstoppable and super popular face monster. They put him into the main event scene and had him compete for the title against CM Punk a few times, but they got cold feet. Sure, Ryback probably wasn’t ready to be champ, but WWE put themselves in a bad position by bringing him up so high so fast. So they had him lose. A lot. It kind of hurt his credibility, but he still had some juice. Then they turned him against John Cena, which got a great reaction from the crowd. They couldn’t have that, so they made him go out of his way to be an evil coward all of the sudden. Even though his character had a ton of legit reasoning for why he hated Cena, it was swept under the rug by Cena yelling a lot and by the end of the feud, Cena won decisively and removed what was left of Ryback’s momentum.

Last Sunday, Ryback was performing in a tag team during the PPV’s pre-show.

Other notable names to suffer from the start-stop booking style include Dolph Ziggler, Zack Ryder, Alberto Del Rio, the Miz, R-Truth, Wade Barrett, Cody Rhodes, Jack Swagger, Damien Sandow, John Morrison and Drew McIntyre.

RANDY ORTON

For a while, Randy Orton was the secondary, more intense John Cena. He wasn’t quite as popular, but he was still a major deal. Since at the time, WWE had split Raw and Smackdown into two sort of exclusive shows with their own top belts, that meant that they basically had their own “Cena” for each show. Edge was the top name on Smackdown, but he had to retire due to injury. At the following PPV, they had his best friend Christian face Edge’s previous challenger Alberto Del Rio for the vacated title. Christian won, which was well-deserved and seen by many hardcore wrestling fans as a long time coming.

They taped the next Smackdown two days later. In it, Orton, who had just joined the Smackdown roster, was granted an immediate title match against Christian and beat him. Yes, not only did Christian’s feel-good title reign last two whole days (five in terms of kayfabe, since the show aired on Friday instead of Tuesday), but we weren’t supposed to feel bad about it because Randy Orton! Yay! In turn, they eventually made Christian turn heel over this and get his ass handed to him for his troubles.

While Orton lacked the charisma of Cena, he at least was more likely to put people over, which made him more likeable at times. Then his star started to slowly fizzle over time and he was no longer really on Cena’s level. He was still fairly popular, but just kind of there. He won the big Money in the Bank PPV match that earned him a title shot whenever he wanted, which led to the events of Summerslam…

TRIPLE H

Triple H represents some of the worst parts of the wrestling business, but he might turn out to be the best thing for it in the end. He’s a brilliant man who has his finger more on the pulse than his father-in-law Vince McMahon (the Shield and the current NXT are his pet projects), but the moment he’s on camera, it all goes to shit. The man is infamously a major Mary Sue. Almost all of his feuds are about him being awesome and smarter and cooler than everyone and if somebody is getting super popular, Triple H will be there to steal the spotlight.

You could literally write a book of all the people Triple H has buried. Chris Jericho made a name for himself by becoming the first Undisputed Champion? How about tossing him into a third wheel position so that Triple H can feud with Stephanie McMahon at WrestleMania while Jericho cleans up dog shit? Sheamus loses to Triple H at WrestleMania but beats him at the next PPV and puts him on the shelf? Triple H told him in advance that only the WrestleMania match mattered and then buried him even harder upon coming back. Booker T is catching steam and is challenging for the belt at WrestleMania? Triple H builds up a feud based on “black people can’t be champion” and then WINS! SUPER DECISIVELY! Booker T never truly recovered from that.

Triple H turned heel at the most recent Summerslam and for a while still showed signs of his hated self in that he rarely acted like a heel. He’d still do face things and stuff that would get him cheers, meaning that he’d rather be seen as this cool, likeable boss character than someone who should be booed.

THE BIG-NAME PART-TIMERS

WWE created quite a band-aid on their dwindling business when they brought back the Rock. Since their own roster wasn’t strong enough, they had Rock host WrestleMania XXVII and overshadow the main event, then headline the following two WrestleManias against Cena. While this did cause irreparable damage to the careers of Miz and R-Truth, Rock’s run was ultimately great for business. Even though some complained that he was stealing a spot that should have gone to a lesser and full-time wrestler, he still brought in a lot of PPV buys on his name alone and vindicated his appearance.

Not only that, but he gave a shit. He trained for months to get into ring shape.

Similarly, the Undertaker reached the point of his career where he’d only show up around WrestleMania season for his annual “somebody tries to break the Undertaker’s undefeated streak” match. It’s become a tentpole for WrestleMania, so it’s hard to argue against Undertaker’s relaxed schedule.

Unfortunately, Rock and Undertaker have opened the door to other part-timer workers (oh god, now I have Stevie Wonder’s “Part-Time Lover” stuck in my head). Brock Lesnar showed up with a relaxed schedule and millions in his contract, but due to either the wonky booking or the fans simply not caring, his name didn’t bring as much magnetism as they hoped. Having him lose his first match back probably wasn’t the best decision. He just won a major match against Undertaker, which is meant to rocket him as the ominous top heel ready to get a title shot in the future, so we’ll see how that plays out.

Then Triple H kept getting into the mix a bunch, mainly feuding with Lesnar, and the whole thing started to get more and more diluted. Rumors had been swirling for a while that Sting was going to be getting in one of those kinds of deals and still may. Each and every time one of these part-timer matches would happen, it would get sketchier and sketchier compared to the way the rest of the roster has been used.

Which would bring us to the return of Batista, but we’ll get to him in a sec.

DANIEL BRYAN

Daniel Bryan set the world on fire under his real name of Bryan Danielson, becoming a big deal in the indies. He got signed with WWE and of course they looked down on him for being a popular indy wrestling name. Because they’re assholes. It’s like making fun of someone for having a college education.

Regardless, Bryan proved to be a model employee and did the best with what they gave him, even becoming a vegan strictly for health reasons so he could continue his dream. He was on the first season of NXT, where he lost every single match they put him in while Michael Cole verbally railed on how worthless he was whenever given the chance. That was due to Vince McMahon’s constant orders to dress him down as much as possible.

When the NXT competitors banded together as the Nexus, they made their debut destroying the ring on Raw and beating everyone up, including John Cena. Bryan got in a ton of trouble for choking ring announcer Justin Roberts with a tie without clearing his actions with the brass. Someone important wasn’t enthusiastic about the violent act and in order to smooth things over, Vince “soft fired” him. Bryan was gone from the company and free to compete in the indies again, but he’d be back once it all blew over.

The fans who followed stuff online knew what was going on and were outraged. One of the PPVs ended with the crowd chanting, “DANIEL BRYAN!” out of rebellion. The casual fans, on the other hand, didn’t quite get it. In terms of kayfabe, Bryan was kicked out of the Nexus off-camera and that was it. They didn’t know the real story, so there was no reason for it to catch fire.

Bryan came back and returned to his status of having great matches while Michael Cole verbally buried him. He started to win more and eventually became United States Champion. Later on, when Sheamus was the US champ, Bryan challenged him at WrestleMania XXVII. While not the most hyped, it promised to be a pretty watchable match. So of course it got knocked onto the pre-show, only viewable by the live audience. Not only did Bryan lose, but the match somehow became a battle royal that neither man won.

A few months later, they gave Bryan a would-be boon by having him win a Money in the Bank match, thereby nearly promising him a world title reign. Instead of attacking the champion when he least expected it, Bryan insisted that he’d cash it in at WrestleMania XXVIII. The stage was set for a Rocky Balboa-style storyline where Bryan would get constantly outclassed by unstoppable champion Mark Henry, up until taking him down at WrestleMania and becoming the champion. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen due to Henry getting injured. Panicking, WWE had Bryan cash in his briefcase against Big Show after he won the title. Bryan cheaply became the World Heavyweight Champion and acted way too excited about it.

This is when he went from being over for smarks to being over for everyone, as he became a total jerk with his enthusiastic “YES!” chant and tendency to use his girlfriend AJ as a human shield. He’d constantly squeak away from matches as champion, leading to a rematch against Sheamus at WrestleMania XXVIII. Sheamus was the obvious winner, but at least it would be an awesome match, right?

Instead, the Royal Rumble winner Sheamus took on Bryan at the very beginning of the show for what is, on paper at least, a big deal title belt. Sheamus won in 18 seconds, pissing off the smark-filled crowd for the rest of the night. They and the fans at home felt cheated at seeing Bryan fucked over. Due to it being an open stadium, the crowd noise wasn’t very loud, but the following night on Raw, the crowd was very loud and clear. They were pissed and they let it be known for the entire show, jeering Sheamus and letting loose with plenty of “YES!” chants.

Again, it didn’t really matter because Bryan was a heel and the casual fans had no reason to see what was wrong. He was a bad guy and he got his comeuppance. Why were people mad? It died down a bit and he was able to remain a heel against those fans who continued the chants by claiming that they were making fun of him.

Over time, he fell out of the title hunt and was thrown into a comedy storyline where he and Kane were forced to take anger management together. Thankfully, this was after an intended celebrity feud with Charlie Sheen fell through. This should have killed his career, but everyone involved made it work. Bryan, Kane and the writers spun it into gold and they became a tag team of two guys who outright hated each other but got along via hugging it out.

While they did split up, it was after Bryan led the trio the Shield into their first major defeat after months and months against being unstoppable against all the top names. Bryan had gotten over huge due to his partnership with Kane and everyone was into the whole “YES!” chant business. He had a match against Randy Orton on Raw that he was meant to win, but he hit his head on a barrier a bit too hard and had a stinger. They decided to end the match due to his injury, which caused him to get in Triple H’s face backstage (legit and not filmed) and shout at him for doing that. Things calmed down and it all worked out, since Triple H and Vince McMahon seem to love it when dudes stand up for themselves. A week or so later, Bryan did indeed get his big win over Orton.

Bryan was chosen by WWE Champion John Cena to be the challenger at Summerslam with Bryan gaining more and more momentum. Originally, Cena was supposed to win, once again proving that WWE couldn’t pull the trigger on would-be stars. They nixed that because Cena had some serious wear and tear on his body. His elbow had a growth the size of a golf ball and he needed to take time off. Not only did he lose to Bryan, but he lost cleanly and decisively. It was a real shocker, as Bryan knocked him out with a debuting running knee attack.

Bryan celebrated until guest referee Triple H attacked him, delivered a Pedigree and allowed Randy Orton to cash in his Money in the Bank briefcase and win the belt for himself. That started a storyline where Triple H backed Randy Orton as the “face of the WWE” and dressed down Bryan as being nothing but a B+ at best. Fantastic concept for a feud, but they didn’t let it work right.

Although Bryan would have his rematches against Orton on PPVs, he was constantly cheated out of them in ways that just weren’t good storylines. Mainly because they made Triple H seem too overpowered in his authority to the point that he could strip him of the title for whatever reason necessary. They spent months saying that Bryan wasn’t good enough, never let him get a big win, made it obvious that every PPV would be a screwjob and the company was SHOCKED that their PPV numbers were in the shitter. Rather than blame, say, Randy Orton, they decided that Bryan shouldn’t be in the main event anymore. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There were brief mutterings of a possible Daniel Bryan/Shawn Michaels match at WrestleMania, but nothing came of that.

Big Show was the secondary hero in Bryan’s feud, so they pushed him into the main event to challenge Orton at Survivor Series. They even had Big Show do the “YES!” chant in hopes of distancing it from Bryan and making it something every face can do. Big Show vs. Orton main evented Survivor Series and did some of the worst numbers in that PPV’s history. This time, it couldn’t be blamed on Bryan.

Still, they didn’t want him to be at the top of the card, although he was protected well enough in terms of story. I mean, champ or not, Randy Orton was looking like a joke week in and week out, but Bryan rarely ever lost without shenanigans. Bryan was moved into a team with CM Punk as they fought against the Shield and the Wyatt Family, stuck in a 2-on-6 situation.

Bryan did a storyline where he wanted a piece of Wyatt Family leader Bray Wyatt, but couldn’t get through his two goons. Eventually, they broke him and he chose to join their little cult because he simply couldn’t win against the machine. They adopted him into the family and brutalized him on a regular basis, bringing him out in coveralls as the newest member. The plan was to keep it going until WrestleMania, where they’d lose a big tag match and blame it on him. Or something like that.

Only Bryan’s chant was starting to get mainstream attention, showing up at big basketball games and stuff. They couldn’t capitalize with Bryan as a brainwashed flunky, so they broke him away by making it look like it was an elaborate plan to get at Bray Wyatt without his henchmen interfering. Despite suffering a concussion during the incident, it was a huge, career-defining moment with the crowd completely in the palm of his hand.

That set the stage for Bryan vs. Wyatt at the Royal Rumble. It opened the show and Bryan lost in a seriously great match. It made sense for Wyatt to win and move on.

Later that night, they would have the Royal Rumble match with the winner getting a shot at the champion at WrestleMania (by this point the WWE Championship and World Heavyweight Championship had been unified). Said champion looked to be Randy Orton. They never made it clear one way or another if Bryan was going to be in the Rumble match, as there’s a long history of people competing on the undercard and then being in the Rumble match itself. Either way, the people in Pittsburgh were ready for him to win, as it was one of the few options that made sense.

BATISTA

After leaving for four years, Batista made his return on Raw with the announcement that he would be in the Royal Rumble. Batista was a major player in his day, but new viewers had no idea what made this guy so special. Still, his return brought big ratings to Raw.

Batista showed up in the Rumble – his first match back – towards the end. As they got later into the match with fewer and fewer contestants left, the fans started going crazy for the hypothetical Daniel Bryan entrance. After #29 was out there, the place chanted his name as well as, “YES!” The fans were electric.

Then at #30, fan favorite Rey Mysterio ran out and everyone was pissed. The fans booed him into oblivion and then proceeded to shit on the rest of the match. It was obvious that WWE was going to have Batista win and nobody there wanted it. They continued to chant for Daniel Bryan and yell “NO!” at the finalists. When it reached the end, they got behind heel Roman Reigns simply because he wasn’t Batista. Batista defeated him anyway and was already exhausted despite only having been in there for a few minutes. The show ended with would-be mega-star Batista completely out of breath and fuming as the entire place booed him relentlessly. The commentators told us to, “Deal with it!”

It looked like they were trying to give Batista the same treatment as the Rock, with him being a movie star making his big return to wrestling and being rocketed straight into the main event of WrestleMania. To his credit, Batista is back for real and isn’t doing a handful of special appearances with half a dozen matches to his name. But other than that, Batista’s situation doesn’t compare to the Rock’s.

– Batista isn’t nearly as big a star as Rock and all the negative aspects of the Rock’s return were vindicated by him doing outstanding business..
– Batista isn’t as charismatic.
– While Rock wasn’t a spring chicken, at least he had better in-ring training beforehand to bring up his stamina.
– Rock vs. Cena was a dream match while Batista vs. Orton is a tired feud that few wanted to see revisited.

There was a real “Emperor’s New Clothes” feel to it all. It was so blatant that for once, all the fans caught onto the idea that this was dumb. When they heard Pittsburgh shit on Batista, they understood why. Dude came back out of nowhere and was thrown into the main event of the biggest show of the year for the sake of pushing his new movie, all while more deserving guys that the fans were invested in were thrown to the wayside, especially Daniel Bryan.

It was like watching the Nolan Batman trilogy and after all that lead-up, Batman is never able to get a transport back to Gotham, so instead Superman shows up out of nowhere and saves the day in the last ten minutes.

The negative reaction to Batista remained for the next few weeks and it wasn’t like Cena’s infamous “controversial reaction.” With Cena, the crowd is split between love and hate. With Batista, it was hate and indifference. They had no choice but to turn him heel, meaning they were hyping up a heel vs. heel main event for the title. No way were they really going to do that. …Right?

Then we come to the final player in all of this.

CM PUNK

One of the men who truly put this in motion is the man who hasn’t been seen in months and may not be seen for a long, long time.

Punk, like Bryan, was a big name from the independents who came to the WWE, where he was treated like trash for being a big name from the independents. Through great ring work, promo skill and popularity from certain areas, he slowly overcame the company’s distaste for him over his past accomplishments and stature. He only reached the top level of being a heel once or twice and as time continued, his star was dimming more and more. He wasn’t very happy.

Punk’s contract was coming up and they decided to have him job out to champion Cena in 2011 on the way out. They turned his leaving into an angle where he gave a planned, but from the heart, speech about how he hated the company’s direction and how he was going to win the title and take off. The title match was in his hometown of Chicago, so nobody knew what was going to happen. In the end, Punk did indeed resign due to the great word of mouth that the story was getting and won the belt before skipping town.

It was a beautiful situation. The champion had left the company. WWE responded by holding a tournament to crown a new champion while Punk was off taking photos of his belt in the fridge and getting all sorts of notoriety. Then WWE fucked up everything by speeding up the story at double time and bringing Punk back far sooner than they really should have. Also, Rey Mysterio won the title tournament and was thrown into a match against a fresh Cena later that night, where he lost. At no point did anyone on-air bring up that this was so completely unfair and a total dick move by Cena.

It was champ vs. champ at Summerslam and Triple H interjected himself into the storyline because he’s Triple H. It was a disaster as even though Punk won the match, Kevin Nash of all people showed up afterwards to powerbomb him and let Alberto Del Rio show up to cash in his Money in the Bank briefcase. This amazing storyline they had with CM Punk was cooled off over the next couple months as not only did he lose to Triple H at a future PPV, but he never even got his revenge on Kevin Nash. Nash only wrestled one major match in his return and that was against, you guessed it, Triple H. All the while, there was a completely incomprehensible storyline in there about who texted Nash to attack Punk at Summerslam.

At least Punk started to feud with John Laurinaitis. While Triple H was this hip, cool authority figure and was a face, Laurinaitis was a gigantic, wooden dork. He was a perfect foil for Punk, so of course he finally got his just desserts at the hands of John Cena.

Punk regained the WWE Championship, but the damage to his brand was done. They gave him a lengthy reign on top, but it didn’t mean much because they refused to really make him the top guy. For the next year, CM Punk would defend the title at PPVs, only for John Cena to be in the main event. It was really annoying because when he finally called the company out on it, he was a heel and Cena explained that if you wanted the top spot, you had to be the best.

If only there was some kind of measuring stick on who was considered “the best” in the company. Like some kind of trinket they could compete for. Some kind of belt, maybe…

After holding the belt for an insanely long time, Punk eventually dropped it to the Rock. Once he was officially out of the title hunt to make way for Rock vs. Cena, Punk challenged the Undertaker and got one of the better matches at WrestleMania 29. Punk was pretty banged up from his busy schedule of wrestling so damn much that he took a break for two months before coming back as a face to take on Chris Jericho.

Punk spent the next nine month as a face, but things were never quite the same. He had a couple great matches against Brock Lesnar and the Shield as a whole, but he definitely looked like he had lost a step. Maybe he just didn’t get enough time to heal himself up or maybe he just wasn’t feeling it in general. Either way, he did an interview independent of WWE where he mentioned that when his contract comes up in July, he probably won’t be re-signing.

For months, the plan was that Punk was going to win the Royal Rumble and then face Orton for the title at WrestleMania. Punk’s main goal was to be #1, either as face or heel, and main event at least one WrestleMania. When Batista came back and they changed plans, Punk likely didn’t take it so well. He competed at the Rumble and drew #1, lasting towards near the end, but barely doing anything in the ring during most of it. He ended up being pulled out of the ring by Kane and was shoved through a table.

That would be Punk’s final WWE appearance. The next night, he met with Vince McMahon a half hour before the show to say that he was going home and that was that. Speculation suggests many different things, all of which may be true. Perhaps he just wanted to rest up more. Perhaps he was super pissed about not being put in the main event or being used right after he made a name for himself back in 2011 as the man who was going to bring change. It’s just as likely that he was pissed about how he was going to be given a match against Triple H at WrestleMania and would probably lose it due to being on the way out. Reportedly, Triple H was very insulted that Punk thought a match against him wasn’t good enough.

Fan reaction has varied. Some admire Punk for it. Others hate him. Some feel he owes his coworkers and fans and that he’s a big crybaby who didn’t get his way. Others feel that he doesn’t owe anybody anything and has earned the right to leave if he doesn’t like how the company is treating him. Besides, it’s WWE. Fuck them. There’s still the feel that this is all some kind of huge work and that Punk will be back before you know it. Week by week, that’s become less likely.

It seemed likely at first, though. They immediately shifted Daniel Bryan into the Triple H feud. After the Elimination Chamber PPV, the main event of Batista vs. Orton was solidified. Thing is, Batista kept getting booed no matter what show he was on, so they had no choice but to make him heel. A heel vs. heel main event at WrestleMania XXX that nobody really wanted to watch anyway. No way was this going to stand.

Raw was going to be in Punk’s hometown of Chicago, so it made sense that he’d come back and get himself inserted into that match. Only he didn’t. The crowd chanted for him all night long, but nothing came of it. Were they going to just screw with the fans by delaying his return a week later? That wasn’t the case either.

One of the arguments going on in wrestling fandom was who Bryan’s WrestleMania victory should be against. Triple H has been his true enemy this entire time, but he needs to get that big title win. Which is the better storyline arc? What vindicates him better?

Bryan ended up negotiating a match against a reluctant Triple H, which was a fun enough segment, but reached another level when he gave a smug look and said, “That’s not ALL I want.” If Bryan could beat Triple H, he’d be inserted into the main event of WrestleMania. That fixed the heel vs. heel problem and made Punk a non-factor. While he’d still get chants from the crowd every now and then, he was no longer needed for the show to work.

Triple H did give some subtle jabs at him, like saying that Bryan’s stuck to his guns while a lesser man would have walked away. Also, back in 2011, Punk coined the idea of calling current WWE the Reality Era. Recently, Triple H has started using that term and acting like he was the one who created it.

Despite all the shit I say about the guy, Triple H played the rest of this storyline leading into WrestleMania brilliantly. He played off how the internet sees him and talked about how he was going to “bury” Bryan at WrestleMania. He showed a video of him taking out all sorts of wrestlers over the years (ie. Booker T, Kurt Angle, Goldberg, Jericho) as a gigantic troll.

When the time came, Triple H jobbed cleanly to Bryan to open WrestleMania and then Bryan proceeded to win the main event. He’s started to help the ratings now that they’ve treated him as a top star. John Cena’s unrelated midcard feud has been relegated to the midcard. Batista is a charismatic heel who just needs to work on his cardio. The WWE has become exciting and the main event angle of WrestleMania came out to be a completely solid slab of storytelling.

And it all happened because of so many different behind-the-scenes factors. The crowd’s reaction actually changed the course of the company, meaning Punk inadvertently martyred himself in a fashion and got what he wanted, only with someone else in his spot.

To think, they were even talking about having Bryan vs. Sheamus III happen last week.

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Posted in Wrestlecomics by Gavok |