Matt Dawgs
The Matt Dawgs Column of ... Specialness?
By Matt Dawgs
Nov 7, 2005, 16:50

For those of you who haven’t seen the movie the Incredibles, the main villain of the movie, Syndrome, makes an excellent point when describing his plan to take over the world. A point so valid that it actually transcends into the world of professional wrestling. Vincent Kennedy McMahon is the owner of World Wrestling Entertainment. Since he began promoting wrestling, he has had a vision. A vision that he blindly follows. A vision that consumes him so much, it actually hurts his product at times and causes such harm that fans are turned off to the product in droves. His vision is that each and every wrestler has to be either larger than life physically or such an over the top character that it is hard to believe. That has always been the case dating back to the larger than life superhero of Hulk Hogan. Hogan was never a technical genius when it came to wrestling. He had a very limited move set. He wasn’t all that agile or quick. He didn’t even do anything “devastating” in the ring. But he was larger than life. A mountain of a man who oozed charisma and whose promos were so over the top that young children actually believed he was “IMMORTAL”. Those traits made him special to fans. Those same traits are what McMahon felt the wrestling audience wanted.

However that is where Vince McMahon went overboard. He saw the success that Hogan brought and decided to make all of his heroes and villains parodies of themselves and of Hogan. From Doink the Clown, an evil clown to The Red Rooster to Saba Simba to Papa Shango, McMahon has always felt that these “characters” can draw money. When WCW began competing head to head with WWE, McMahon still had some “gimmicks” that he thought fans would want to see. WCW star “Stunning” Steve Austin became “The Ringmaster”. Former WCW Champion Ron Simmons became “Roman Gladiator Farooq Aasad”. Hardcore hero Cactus Jack became “The freak Mankind”. For some unknown reason, McMahon felt that he was in touch with his audience and his characters were so special that the fans would automatically become attached to them.

It was only when McMahon saw WCW putting on hot athletic contests featuring non gimmicked wrestlers like Dean Malenko, Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio Jr. Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, etc that McMahon knew what he had to do. He was already featuring Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart as his top two stars in the company. But that wasn’t enough. It was then when McMahon decided to make his characters more “human”. He had Jim Ross conduct sit down interviews with Mankind to try to get inside his head and give him a personality. It was then when he decided to turn the “Ringmaster” into “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. No longer was Farooq Aasad the roman gladiator, instead he was just Farooq, African American Militant. McMahon shied away from making his “superstars” into characters. They became humanized, stories became more real and true to life. Gone were the days of voodoo curses, snake bites, and even good vs. bad. The Attitude era was upon us and WWE was going to compete and win the wrestling war with some good old fashioned ass kicking, cursing, beer drinking, adult humor, adult content and violence (with a little marketing of toys to kids who watched the weekend shows).

Lo and behold, WWE’s change in “Attitude” turned the company around and ended up putting their number one competitor out of business. So what happens 5 years later? WWE realizes that they no longer have competition and decide that they need to make their “superstars” special again. They decide that BIGGER is BETTER. They bring in several stars over the past five years. Such new “SPECIAL” stars include Nathan Jones, Gene Snisky, Chris Masters, John Heidenreich, Mordecai, Matt Morgan, The Boogeyman, & Kenzo Suzuki. The main thing these men all have in common is that WWE went back to the drawing board. All of the above men are “LARGER THAN LIFE”. All of these men are HUGE, MOUNTAINS of MEN. And all of the above men would not be able to wrestle their way out of a wet paper bag. They more than likely can’t tell you the difference between a wrist lock and a wrist watch. But in McMahon’s eyes, they are “SPECIAL”.

Instead of promoting a feud between two men that means something and has a back-story to it, WWE is back to promoting toilet humor. Vince McMahon pulling junk out of a replica of Jim Ross’s ass isn’t funny, entertaining or serving a purpose. The premise of the feud however has possibilities of bringing back that lost magic. Longtime fan hero “Stone Cold” Steve Austin was to come back, fight on behalf of his friend J.R.'s honor and would help him get revenge on the McMahon family and help him get his job back. Unfortunately that wasn’t in the cards. McMahon didn’t want Austin winning on behalf of JR so Austin went home, not wanting to take part of the garbage.

The only semblance of a back-story was given a few months back between Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio. Problem is, even though they had a heated rivalry and feud, Eddie Guerrero who was the heel in that feud is back to being a face in his very first feud since then. Lack of continuity? You betcha. But to WWE, it doesn’t matter. Just as long as their stars are “SPECIAL”. As long as their storylines and skits involving bad taste, poor judgment and lack of continuity are “SPECIAL” and “cutting edge” then WWE is happy. The only problem is, I guess WWE didn’t see the Incredibles. Syndrome’s quote was:

"When everyone is special… no one is."

And that applies to WWE as well. Because their programming hasn’t been special in a long long time.

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