Story Time Corner: Volume 1 – WWE Money In The Bank Edition by Jake Draper

Imagine, if you will, me in a red, silk robe, smoking a corn cob pipe, and sitting in front of a crackling fire in my expensive upholstery chair with a thick book in my lap and my hair slicked over like I just climbed out of a shower. You know damn well I smell awesome. My face is smooth like a freshly polished car interior. I look sophisticated. This, friends, is how I imagine myself while I get ready to take you a journey into the wacky and wild world of World Wrestling Entertainment.

Many of you were children once and you can surely relate to my dilemma with the WWE’s storylines. The odds are, when you were younger, your parents changed the bedtime stories they were reading you as they went. Mostly because they sucked and you deserved better. I mean, I doubt all parents do this, I just know I’ve done it with every story I’ve ever told a child. Point is, I do that when I watch wrestling as well. Between storyline continuity errors and character development/motivational issues, I feel like the current landscape could benefit from a little bit of common sense.

*opens book on lap*

Ah, yes. Let us begin with…

The Money in the Bank Ladder Match

Oh, by George. Where do we even begin? The story of this match is meant to push some younger talent to the next level. We have guys like Edge, CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Dolph Ziggler, and Seth Rollins who have used that briefcase to get to the main event. On the other hand, the storylines that come from it aren’t always great. This year there are two possibilities that make sense.

The first is the likely victory by Roman Reigns. See, my issue with this is that Roman Reigns doesn’t need the MITB contract, now does he? Hasn’t the dude had like 40 WWE title matches this year? We are really going to waste our once-per-year push on a guy who is already pushed to the moon? But why? I mean, that’s like throwing a sparkler into the sun. What was the point? Because it eventually gives us a Shield triple threat match for the WWE title? I guess. Whatever. Cool concept, but lack of foresight has this plan based around Reigns winning yet another match and never needing to climb any sort of mountain ever.

The second is Kane. Don’t shoot me yet. Just listen. Kane is the guy who has been on Rollins’ side, but can’t actually turn on him because it could cost him his job. So, every time we think we are about to see his face turn it’s another swerve and he is just going to get all worked up, then do some deep-breathing exercises that he learned in Anger Management a few years ago, and he’s fine. If he won the MITB then he could turn on Rollins, take his belt, and do a face turn and we would all jump for joy! Haha. I’m hilarious when I say the opposite of what we would do. But really, we then run into the problem of wasting the yearly push on the oldest guy on the roster.

How do we fix this dilemma? We don’t. It’s too late. WWE booked themselves into a corner. What should they have done? A combination of the two possible outcomes, plus giving the push to someone more deserving. Am I mad? Have I lost my mind? Yes. But that’s not even relevant to the situation at-hand.

Let’s just say Doc Brown and I are very good friends (we are), and he’s like, “Bro, you can take my time machine back and fix this nonsense.” What would I do? Well, I would go back and tell McMahon right to his smug face (I wouldn’t) that he needs to not make Kane director of operations, and instead give that role to…*drum roll please* …Dean Ambrose. That’s right. They should have had Ambrose turn heel when he realized how right Rollins was, then play the role that Kane has done all this time where he puts up with Rollins’ shit and, over time, grows more and more resentful. Every time he teases that face turn the crowd goes nuts because we genuinely want this man to snap and take his career into his own hands. Fast forward to Money in the Bank and put Ambrose in there. He wins. He gets the push he deserves (because in this alternate reality he didn’t feud with Rollins yet). He cashes on Rollins who is in a match with Roman Reigns, popping the crowd HUGE for his face turn, bringing his character full-circle, and setting up the potential Shield triple threat when Reigns feels like he was robbed.

Who won in this scenario? You won. I won. Ambrose won. The main character of Ghost Whisperer won. Jennifer Love Hewitt. Cuz she likes wrestling. Maybe. I don’t know.

In the annals of history I will tell this story to my children this way, and then alter the Wikipedia page so that I can be sure they find out I wasn’t lying when they look it up. I’m pretty much a diabolical genius. Alter a Wiki page…alter time itself.

The Divas Division

Let’s just get this out of the way: What the f*** are you even doing with the Divas, WWE?

Are you actually allowing basic bitch high school girls to write your Divas division? You know, the ones who overpay for coffee, wear glasses they don’t actually need because they think they’re cute, wear Ugg boots and scarves regardless of the weather, can’t take a picture unless their tongue is hanging out, love taking pictures of their legs on the beach/at the pool for some reason, and own tiny dogs that they think are so funny because they humiliate them with stupid sweaters. You know those girls. Those are the same girls who go to dinner and see that they have a cute waitress and say, “I don’t like her,” on absolutely no basis except the fact that she’s another female. THAT is who writes for the Divas division.

The thing is, the world is so uppity about sexism that it’s not even reasonable. Do you know who the most sexist people on earth are? The ones who keep finding reasons that shit is sexist. Every movie, television show, album, bumper sticker, and the yellow lines painted on the road are all sexist if you look hard enough. There needs to be less divide between the divisions. I, personally, do not enjoy seeing Lucha Underground put the males and females against one-another because it’s uncomfortable. But, I also don’t get why all of the Divas come out and make stupid jokes about their opponent’s tan or hair color or clothing or weight and then that’s a feud somehow.

The girls in NXT have our attention because they, quite frankly, don’t give a damn that they’re even female. It’s not important. They go out there and they do everything they can to put on a good match. They have the charisma. They have the athletic ability. They have every bit as much talent as their male counterparts. The Divas on the main roster are neutered. I doubt Nikki Bella actually thinks her promos are good, since no one else does. Stop making them all into Sassypants McSassyton and just let them have some f***ing personality. There’s no reason for anything going on in that section of the roster to even be going on. Do you know why Nikki Bella is STILL the Divas Champion? Not because she’s good or because it’s a good story, but because they need to make sure AJ Lee doesn’t hold the record for longest Divas Champion reign. That’s politics. Honestly, we don’t give a shit about it. It’s petty and all of us are being punished for backstage nonsense.

What do we do to fix it? Simple. We pretty much keep Paige where she is and switch all the rest of them out with the NXT women competitors. Paige is basically a big fish in a glass of water right now. She’s got more to give us, but it’s not exactly easy to make bricks out of clumps of shit. I like that metaphor because you could do it…but it would stink and it’s easier just to trade the shit in for clay. That’s right, I patted myself on the back.

–

This is, by far, not all of the thoughts I had on the lack of planning and direction in WWE. They clearly write the shows on a napkin the day of. If Smackdown was live on Thursday night then you’d have a hard time convincing me that they even knew what was going to happen yet. They definitely don’t know what they’re going to do on Monday yet. In the case involving Kane, a little planning would have went a long way. We, as fans, don’t have a heavy investment in the character as a main event player because he’s past his prime and we have new people that deserve that spot. With advanced planning and careful execution, his story could have been given to someone who needed his story and we all could have been rewarded. Of course, the writers didn’t think that far ahead and now we are left giving Kane 40% of the cheers we should be giving to someone else instead.

I intend to follow this article up in the future, hence the “Volume 1” in the title. It won’t be weekly because the stories don’t move far enough in a week to make a difference, so maybe every month or two I’ll have something to work with.

Follow me on Twitter so you can see the picture of the turtle I found on the bike trail yesterday. I made a reference to The Grapes of Wrath when I tweeted it and I then realized that most of my followers probably have no idea why. Do you know why? Well, go tell me @JakobDraper so you can prove to me that you’re not some uncultured swine.