Rediscovering the Fun of Wrestling – A Trip To Summerslam

Rediscovering the Fun of Wrestling – A Trip To Summerslam

I use this blog to talk about any form of entertainment I deem worthy to write about. Usually I will discuss movies, televison, and books; but sometimes other forms of entertainment will come along and I decide that they just need to be written about.  With that said, yesterday I went down to Staples Center to watch WWE’s 2014 Summerslam.  I am no longer a casual viewer of wrestling, in fact the last time I watched anything in this forum was 3 years ago when I went to my last Summerslam. Outside of attending these 2 live events my knowledge of this world all lies within my time as an avid viewer from my early childhood to the early 2000’s. I grew up watching the WWE with my father and brothers as we all cheered for our favorites (my brothers and I will always have a soft spot for the Repo Man) and were devastated when they lost.  We live in a world where we all know wrestling is fake in terms of its outcome but as children no one knew better. I do not remember why I stopped watching, it may be due to going off to college- I just did not have time to spare to watch 3+ hours of television on wrestling anymore and I just never picked up on it again. I wonder sometimes though if the WWE still has the ability to deliver the type of shows I remember. The type that involved throwing grown men off steel cages, being shocked when Hulk Hogan turned heel, or having a character’s catch phrase just unite a crowd because “Stone Cold Said So”. As a man in television ratings I know the WWE is still popular but my question was- is it good? What I found out Sunday was that while the WWE may not be able to deliver 100% the goods I think it is capable of,  it can still get very close.

Let me begin with what I think the WWE is doing that is very wrong and needs to be fixed before they lose people. At the start of the show last night the crowd went wild with a surprise appearance of the Hulk Hogan. This man is legendary and his popularity exists way beyond the realm of wrestling. Why was he here, everyone wondered; would this man be involved in a match in some way? Would Hulk Hogan maybe be the special guest referee in a flag match between America and Russia? The answers to these questions were a resounding “No”. As it turns out Hulk Hogan was there to just spread the word that the WWE Network was only $9.99 a month. This information was something everyone in the audience already knew so I am not sure who he was pitching this.  On top of that Hulk Hogan never even entered the ring. He just walked out, pitched the network, and went away. This was a very much wasted opportunity for the company. For a company to be so successful it always boggles my mind when such poor decisions are made.  

Let me get to what I think really impressed me now.  I knew absolutely nothing going into last night except that Chris Jericho was going to wrestle. Chris Jericho, for those who do not know, has been in the game for 15 years and was at the top when I was still watching. He is one of the few people I still know  and am amazed their bodies allow them to take this type of damage for so long. Remember the outcomes are fake, but not the physical damage the guys sustain. The producers of the show did a great job setting up every match with the right amount of clips to even engage someone who never watches wrestling into the match they are about to see.  This concept really worked and made the show that much more fun. 

Outside of set-ups, the WWE knows just how to deliver the fun and is never afraid to go for it. In the course of 3 hours I watched Stephanie McMahon (one of the owners of WWE) get manhandled in the ring, to fights that left the ring and went right into the audience, to hearing the Russian national anthem as the is flag was raised.  To me, one of the greater moments that prove the WWE still has 'It' was the flag match. This was a contest between All American Jack Swagger vs. Russian and Vladimir Putin lover Rusev.  Whoever won this match would get to see their countries flag raised in their honor. This was old school WWE, harking back to the days when one of the biggest villains around was the Iron Sheik.  Creating a Russian wrestler is just a stroke of genius. Here is a guy that instantly will unite any crowd against him and get your blood pumping. That’s the point of entertainment. A even bigger stroke of genius by the WWE was to have the Russian win. Never in a million years did I think the WWE would let the Russian win, especially with what is actually going on in the real world. Yet, now they have set up future stories with this character and when his eventual demise comes, the fans will be that much happier. That type of long form planning is what keeps a company successful that has been around for decades.

The second biggest surprise of the show was that John Cena (the man all over cereal boxes and USA promos) lost his championship belt to a hulk of a man by the name of Brock Lesner. I know from my friends and from his short feud with the Rock that Cena is in fact not well liked by adults but adored  by kids. This is quite obvious when hearing all the kids in the stadium scream “Let’s Go Cena” which is replied to with adults yelling “Cena Sucks”. It is not the fact that Cena lost that caught me off guard, but how it went down. The match lasted about 20 minutes and for 20 minutes I watched Brock Lesener just throw Cena around the ring. This was a one sided contest the minute the bell rung.  This is surprising for a couple of reasons: I was sure with such domination taking place that Cena was going to win in the end somehow, and that Cena played such a good company man allowing himself to look very week. The fact that Cena lost shows that the WWE always likes to keep its fans guessing. This match also showed me the passion that this company can have on so many. All the anti-Cena fans were screaming with such joy when he lost while all his young fans had faces of utter disbelief. It truly looked to me like  they just heard Santa Claus is not real.  The ability of any form of entertainment whether it be books, movies, or  television is for its viewers to buy into what it is trying to sell and be entertained, that is something the WWE does so well. I forgot after so long what it's like being around other wrestling fans rooting for something that we all know is fake but couldn't care less.

Some people will continue to write of wrestling as trashy, fake and not worth consideration. What wrestling truly is though, when done right like last night, is expert story telling. Is it any different rooting for Brock Lesner to beat John Cena then it is to root for “The Guardians of The Galaxy”? I assume everyone knows a talking raccoon and tree are not real. Also, wrestling today is all around us whether people like to admit or not. We have the Rock starring in action movies, John Cena constantly appears in television, and now everyone’s favorite new literal good guy Drax is played by former wrestler Batista.  Wrestling may not be art, but it's damn fun entertainment.  

A Pair Of B+ Summer Action Movies

“Purge Anarchy” & “Snowpiercer”  - A Night For B+ Solid Action

“Purge Anarchy” is a movie that takes place during the one night of the year in which America all kinds of crimes are legal, including murder. “Snowpiercer” is a film that is set in the near future where the last surviving humans live on a never-ending train to stay alive and keep warm while outside the earth is in a new ice age. In the “Purge” we follow some unlucky citizens who are caught outside and fight to out-live the night while in “Snowpiercer” we watch as the citizens regulated in the poor tail section the train fight to get the upper hand against the lucky people who live in the fancy front section. It seems then that these two films have nothing in common; however I would say there is one small fact that links them both, corruption by the rich. In both movies are protagonists are poor people who due to the machinations of the rich are kept in place by laws and rules they do not control. During both movies we root for our heroes to finally get the upper hand and change the status quo.  “Snowpiercer” is more of a thoughtful look at this issue while “Purge” is more of an absurd take. At the end of the day for different reasons I found both of these films to be solid B+ action movies full of entertainment. That is why I decided to review them within the same post.

Purge Anarchy

Let me begin by stating this movie takes the kernel of a promising idea from the first movie and expands that into some amazing entertainment.  The plot of this film centers around a lone man who is known only as Sergeant (an excellent Frank Grillo) who wants to use this lawless night as a way to get revenge on a man who killed his son while he was driving while drunk. Along the way to seek his revenge Sergeant cannot stop himself from helping four helpless souls (a mother and her daughter and a bickering married couple) from getting killed as they all found themselves without shelter during the purge.  There is not much more to this plot and really for a movie like this there shouldn’t be. People such as me went into this movie just to see chaos rain throughout the purge and that’s what this film delivered where the first film failed.

Throughout the movie we see snipers taking out un-suspecting people on the streets, rich families paying poor people to sacrifice themselves for the purge, while other high society minded folk’s auction off people to kill in a “Running Man” type arena. Sure we see our protagonist’s band together and get through this ordeal and dialogue was also spoken but I just didn’t care. The only noteworthy performance was that of Frank Grillo as his Sergeant was the perfect badass hero we all love. Frank Grillo played his Sergeant with such gravitas he earned himself a new fan and I hope to see him in more future action roles.  

What I loved was the mindless violence of this movie and the sheer lunacy that in some alternate universe a night like this could even happen. The whole idea behind the purge is ludicrous as is the fact that for some reason the American people elected “New Founding Fathers” to the United States.  I mean, what the hell is a “New Founding Father?”  I also enjoyed all the background aspects of this movie that’s sheer purpose was to open doors  for future films in the franchise. We discovered in this movie that the American government is using this night to go out and murder poor people to help keep that population dwindling and at bay. By murdering innocent poor people, the government gets to state poverty is down since the annual Purge has begun. That type of idea just goes to show the absurdness of this movie. This film went for broke and we all benefitted.  

*On a side note the young married couple both deserved to die because if you are not locked in a house hours before the purge begins you are asking for death. The silliest aspect of the movie is that in the 6^th year of the purge people are still walking around outside hours before murder becomes legal. I am sorry but if this was a real occurrence I would be camping out in my house all day with the supplies I bought a whole night before.

Snowpiercer

Here is a movie that is truly coherent and full of thought provoking messages. This is extraordinary since the plot is truly absurd.  In this movie we learn that a new man made ice age has been going on for 18 years and the last few survivors all live on a train that never stops and travels the earth every year. At the front of the train are the former rich class and the further back you go on the train, the poorer its occupants are.  Our hero’s all live in the tail end of the train and their daily lives are a living hell.  These tail end citizens pretty much live in what seems like a Jewish Death Camp. Every day they are given rations of what is called a “protein bar”, they have no windows, they all sleep on stacked beds, they are murdered when the train’s population gets too big, and their children are taken forcefully from them for reasons unknown.  

The leader of this poor group is Gilliam (John Hurt) who is slowly ceding control to his second hand man Curtis (Chris Evans).  Over the course of the movie we see Curtis rally his people as they try and move through the train and eventually take over the control room at the frontoperated by the mysterious inventor Wilford.  The brilliance and beauty of this movie is seeing all the fun and different types of train cars that exist and that are used to keep the train operational. Of course the overall message of this movie is told to us by Mason (Tilda Swinton) a government employee. While she is held prisoner by Curtis she explains that while life may not seem fair to the people in the tail end, it is what is needed to keep society going; basically society needs balance to function.   Of course Curtis declares “that is easy to say when you were dealt a good life at the front”.

This movie just has so much going for it. From the amazing performances, to watching all the interesting ways the action was shot when confined to small train cars. To me the movie is worth it just for the scene that takes place in one of the classrooms. Here we see just how kids who were born in the front are taught about their society and the great Wilford and why those in the back are to be looked down upon. This scene is just wall-to-wall crazy.  

The reason I gave this movie a B+ is because even with its thoughtful message on how societies are built to be unfair, the movie does not go further.  I went in not really caring to learn more about the world this train takes place in. I just accepted that the last few humans live together in this society and that it is corrupt. However, the film could have been an A with a little more world building and answering questions. It would have been cool to see how people got on the train in the first place, or was there a chance Wilford could have helped cause this ice disaster.  Who chose the people who got to be on the train, were all world leaders barred from this miracle?  Also, I know the people at the front of the train are rich and well taken care over, but surely they all cannot just be mindless assholes; someone most kind of care that they treat others as slaves.

In the end this was a fun ride and Chris Evans once again nails another performance.