Bray Wyatt just taunts Dean Ambrose, interrupting his Hell in a Cell match with Seth Rollins Sunday night. Photo/WWE
[dropcap]C[/dropcap]ontrary to popular belief, there is more than one style of wrestling promotion.
Before we had a bevy of independent promotions at our disposal, professional wrestling had something called “territories”, all of which are long since gone. The Southern territories had a distinct booking style all their own, emphasized much in part by the slow burn storyline, the sort of angles where the babyface is always the underdog, facing obstacle after obstacle, coming just mere centimeters of getting his hands on his foe but never quite getting justice he so deserves and you’re itching to see the heel get his comeuppance.
But when it finally happens, the wrap of the story is just that much sweeter. It’s a style that permeated WWE throughout much of the golden era of WWE all the way through to the Ruthless Aggression Era.
Over the past few years, as the attention span of the WWE universe has waned and the number of the talent on the main roster has grown, angles have grown shorter, lest the fans become bored and the angle become stale. When you’ve got more variables to consider than 20 odd years ago, or even a decade earlier, you’ve got to keep the wheel turning, keep the fights fresh, and suddenly there’s no longer room for an older booking style.
Enter Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins, two of the most promising talents this new generation has to offer. Clearly, both are being bred for main event status.
Rollins is being pushed as a classic heel; win by any means necessary, with plenty of tricks up his sleeve and seemingly always manages to get away with his antics, usually at the expense of others. It’s a type of character we haven’t seen in a long time. He thrives in this role, and it’s beautiful to watch.
Ambrose, the one we all thought would take the heel turn when The Shield ended, has shown that he has just as much pull as a face as he does a heel, if not more. I’m sure the response he’s drawn from the crowds is far more than what anyone anticipated. His moveset is vastly different from anyone on the main roster, he’s gold on the mic and clearly WWE sees the long term potential in him if they’re allowing him to integrate parts of his indy persona, Jon Moxley, into his current characterization. He’s a character the fans can kind of relate to; the wildcard lashing out against the man and refusing to step down.
The man is money and quite frankly, is a breath of fresh air in a roster left stale in the fact that it has many talents but most are often showcased in the same storylines repeatedly.
Their ongoing feud, having started in June with Rollins’ betrayal of his brothers has been the hottest angle WWE has produced this year. The way that WWE has been writing and marketing this story is genius; make sure you give them what they want, but leave them wanting more. Battleground was a great example of that.
Their match was the most anticipated match of the night, but we didn’t know how badly we wanted it until they called off the match and the brawl started. If you re-watch that segment, you can clearly hear the entire crowd chanting “Let them fight!” They actually made a lumberjack match, arguably one of the worst gimmick matches ever created, work like a charm.
Ambrose being written out for a month and Reigns taking the helm for the angle did little to dampen it; the angle became even hotter than before. By the time Hell In A Cell finally rolled around, we were all frothing at the mouth just as much as Ambrose was to see justice finally get served.
When suddenly, a wild Bray Wyatt appears! It’s super effective!
Now, we have one of those most polarizing PPV endings of the year; one that’s taking an ending and splitting it off into two new angles. Either fans are legitimately ticked off at the Russo-esque ending or they’re calling it a stroke of pure genius. Someone in the back was thinking old school when they started this angle, and frankly, they need a raise.
We’re so used to angles wrapping and moving on so quickly in the WWE universe that we’ve forgotten about the slow burn. When in reality, we were just exposed to it and saw how successful it was. Don’t believe me? Look at the Daniel Bryan/Authority storyline from August last year until Wrestlemania and a little after – it dominated the company. It hit some bumps here and there and ultimately had to end, but we survived it. That was the experiment, we were the control group and it passed. We NEED angles like these more often.
I’m behind the HIAC ending and the progression of these two new storylines. It’s hearkening back to when I first started watching wrestling, in 1994. It’s forcing fans to wait it out instead of giving in to their “now now now” mentality. You’re ticked at the ending? You’re mad at Wyatt for interfering? GOOD! That’s the point.
This slow burning angle has to progress in the manner it is for three reasons:
- We need a break from Rollins/Ambrose. They can’t let it go on continuously or we’ll get burned out. This gives the fanbase a cooling off period, because this is far from over. WWE knows this angle is money, honey, and they’re going to milk it for all it’s worth. HIAC, as well received as it was, is a gimmick match and a gimmick PPV. It’s still a throwaway. Why would you have one of the most productive storylines in recent years end at a throwaway? You end angles like this during one of the Big Four and most likely, we’re going to see a culmination of this at Royal Rumble or Wrestlemania. Can you imagine seeing this angle end on The Grandest Stage of Them All?
- We have two new angles being brought to life now: Ambrose/Wyatt and Rollins/Orton. The latter two have done an amazing job of kicking their angle off. We were expecting a face turn out of Randy, given the tension between the two, but Rollins delivery of a Curb Stomp to Orton at closing of the go-home edition of Raw was unexpected, as Rollins is wont to do, and brilliant. Orton pretty much opening the post HIAC edition of Raw with an RKO to Rollins solidified his face turn and the start of the angle. Again, smart booking. Orton’s character has been heel for two years now, he needs that turn, it’s time for him to freshen up his character.
- They’ve been trying to push Wyatt as a mega heel for the past year but have been going about it the wrong way. Kane ended up being a throwaway. Bryan was too over and too involved with the Authority angle. Cena draws a lot of ire from the fanbase despite being a face. Jericho wasn’t organic enough and there was no history there. Wyatt has a history with Ambrose, he’s cost him before, in the qualifying match for Elimination Chamber. What better way to ensure that a talent you want as a heel gets over as the monster he’s supposed to be than to go after the guy who is arguably the most well received face in the company right now? Bray Wyatt is the eater of worlds. He’s manipulative, cunning. He speaks like a preacher mad in his faith, and is hellbent on breaking and saving Ambrose like he did to Luke Harper and Eric Rowan. He desperately needs this angle to legitimize himself. Ambrose makes all his opponents look like a million bucks. The promos alone are going to be the stuff of legends.
Like it or hate it, the slow burn storylines are starting to make a comeback, and we need them, more than ever. With the limited way they’re utilizing talent, they need to create and draw the storylines out and make them worth the time spent on them. We need to be forced out of our instant gratification mentality. We need to remember what it was like to be embroiled in an angle with that babyface for months on end, breathlessly hanging on ever word and every turn.
Is it going to be torture? Yes. But the payoff will make everything worth it in the end.
