OO Column: The Obtuse Angle by Jeb Lund (Pro Wrestling News, Analysis, and Commentary... WWE, WWF, WCW, ECW, The Rock, Brock Lesnar, Triple H, Rob Van Dam, Hulk Hogan, Undertaker, Trish Stratus, Lita, Stacy Keibler, Divas, RAW, SmackDown, WrestleMania, S

THE OBTUSE ANGLE
How Many More Times, Mick?
February 9, 2006

by Jeb Tennyson Lund
OnlineOnslaught.com/CitizenScholar.net

The most recent WrestleMania rumor is that Mick Foley will challenge Edge to a match, as a result of recent disparaging comments Edge has made. Two people made me a wrestling fan: my college buddy Rocky, who wouldn't shut up about storylines and wrestler bios; and Mick Foley. Have a Nice Day pretty much cemented my fandom. Even so, I hope this rumored match is the last of its type.
I wish he would come back for a stint of several months, with more than one expected feud. I love Foley. I like his books, his matches, his promos — everything about the guy. But as time goes on, the impact of his special appearances and matches against one performer diminishes a little bit more. We know he can't win. Worse, seeing him for dribs and drabs can
be a little depressing. If the suggested match between Edge and him happens, I can't say that I'm optimistic about what will come of it. Everything would be different if there were a ghost of a chance of Mick winning. But most of us admit that he can't. It makes no sense. For instance, I do not hesitate to be critical of Randy Orton. Seeing Foley get spit on, kicked down stairs and eventually pinned by Orton raised my hackles. "That jumped-up metrosexual doesn't deserve to pin Foley!" I thought. "Foley can lose to Austin, or Taker, or the Rock, or Triple H, but he does not lose to green prettyboys!" Regardless, I still conceded that Foley's loss made perfect sense. My problem was with the quality of his opponent, not with Foley's job — in both senses of the word. Put simply, it would be a very stupid investment for WWE to bring Foley back for any special feud and have him defeat the wrestler in question. Foley might make ten appearances on WWE TV in a given year, but the other guy is there every week. A Foley victory only undermines and delegitimizes the guy he beats. On the other hand, a Foley loss is worth its weight in gold or t-shirt sales for the other guy. His appearances are automatically "special" and rare, and the feud and ultimate victory over him thus have a marquee status. Moreover, he brings an intensity to his promos and a savagery to his matches that instantly lends enormous credibility to whomever defeats him. This is why he was the perfect opponent for Triple H at the beginning of his defining championship reign. Triple H already had the physique and the air of slickness. What he needed was an iconic demonstration of his viciousness and power. Going over a guy who was known for never surrendering and needing an almost inhuman level of punishment just to get him to lie still was what made Triple H "The Game" instead of just a pretty, preening champion. It worked so well that WWE basically Xeroxed that playbook and had Orton and Foley replay it in order to make Orton look "hard" and "unstoppable." Unfortunately, I think the feud and payoff with Orton was diminished. First, it was very obviously part of Project Orton. There was a certain air of artificiality to it that seemed obviously contrived even by pro-wrestling standards. The commitment to making Orton a main-event big-shot was so hasty and so inorganic as to make part of that very entertaining feud appear forced or coercive. We weren't wondering if we'd see Orton rise to the occasion and display a tenacity and ruthlessness sufficient to beat Foley; instead, we were just waiting for it. Second — and more importantly — we knew Foley couldn't win. It was clearly bad business sense to have Foley go over a guy who would actually wrestle every week and had such a long future with the company. It always will be bad business sense. Even if Foley gets a pay-per-view win or two, he still has to lose the final match. Here we see the biggest effect of diminished expectations and payoff. Because we already know Foley must lose, seeing him lose becomes less must-see. Worse, it makes the man who beats him less must-see as well. Without an air of uncertainty or desperation, the eventual victor seems less a man who triumphed over daunting odds and more someone who managed not to fuck up the inevitable. What diminishes all of this even further is how many times Foley's managed to lose over the last five years. Granted, he cuts brilliant promos and puts on good-to-excellent matches, but he's now more than ever the archetype of the guy who gives his all and chokes at the last second. What makes Foley's promos so impressive is that he manages to instill in the audience the tantalizing hope that he might actually win. But even that Foley magic is wearing off with each successive feud. The last time any of us honestly expected him to win the "big match" was WrestleMania 2000. At this point, Foley is the guy who comes out of retirement to give someone the opportunity to retire him again. I'm not even sure how many times Triple H has retired Foley by now. My mind's probably playing tricks on me, because it seems like it has to be a couple of times. I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone told me that Triple H just routinely retires Foley, in his own home, at different times of the year. The doorbell rings, Foley answers, Triple H kicks him in the gut, pedigrees him, pins him, then says, "You're retired AGAIN, Muppet! By the way, here's some of your mail. I got it out of the box on the way to the door. You got two things from Netflix, and a credit card company wants to give a free platinum express card to a 'Mack Farley.' Stay retired, dude. Game." At this point, half of the interest in these rare Foley matches derives from the level of bloodshed and mayhem. We tend to watch not to see if the opponent will win, but by how much they will win. We want to see if the new guy can hang with the level of violence, take the thumbtacks or do a sickening spot. We didn't think Orton would lose; instead, we wanted to see if he'd step up, or just do the minimum number of bumps needed to not come off as a total pussy. In the hypothetical match with Edge, most "smart" fans will probably be doing mental calculus to figure out if he's "hardcore enough." But even in this regard, the outlook is limited. For one, Foley has no interest in nearly killing himself for a limited engagement. For another, the recent spate of wrestler deaths and horrible injuries should give WWE pause in promoting a deathmatch-type confrontation. If they aren't going to regularly promote those types of hardcore matches, there can be little point in giving a wrestler the notoriety for being a death-defying hardcore artist. That wrestler will not wrestle like that for the other 51 weeks of the year, and the risk of debilitating injury for one night severely outweighs the potential rewards for the rest of the year. All of this informs my hesitation about this proposed match with Edge. I cannot imagine Edge not winning, and I wonder why we need to have the match at all. If a win is inevitable, why not increase the anticipation and uncertainty by having Edge wrestle someone else? If making Edge appear "hardcore enough" is the goal, then there are surely ten other wrestlers on either roster who'd gladly agree to a Hell in a Cell gore-fest at WrestleMania. Better still, a high-profile match like that elevates two people, instead of giving a slight rub to one guy while merely confirming the career legacy of another. No matter how I break it down, I cannot shake the feeling that this feud and match will be unnecessary. Edge already has his career in TLC matches to demonstrate his ability to give and receive horrible punishment. Similarly, Foley and he have hours of banter and promos, between themselves and others, to confirm that both can be intense and entertaining on the mic. What can the two prove together that they haven't already proved together or separately? Instead of putting my ass in a seat to see their blow-off, I fear that this feud will only depress me. Partly, it's sad to see that WWE can't find a spot for Edge to have an amazing match at WrestleMania without figuratively digging in the vault for an opponent. What does that say about their current roster and booking? It's on this last point that I'll probably be most depressed. Like I said, I love Foley, and it's great to see him. But every time he shows up, I get a little sad. Some of that derives from my missing seeing him every week. But most of it comes from the stark contrast between Foley and the active roster. He was always a master of making people care. Even when desperately overmatched and doomed to fail, he somehow managed to invest his matches with an irresistibly human clutching at hope. Some of his promos leading to WrestleMania 2000 brought me to the verge of tears because they applied drama and grandiosity to something so quintessentially honest. Mick Foley could probably make me care about his struggle to make it to a movie theater after all the Coke ads and theater-chain announcements but before the good previews. At this point, Mick is less a vehicle for putting over current wrestlers and more a living testament to how well-intentioned, good-hearted, intelligent and committed to craft wrestling can be. The moment he picks his prone body off the mat and walks to the back for another multi-month vacation is the moment that most of those qualities vanish from the WWE, leaving us with the detritus of most of the shows and the few straggling adherents and practitioners of excellence still on the roster (because of their stubbornness or WWE's contractual commitments, slipshod pretensions to quality, or benign neglect). The moment Foley walks away again is the moment the rest of it becomes — in sharp contrast — enervating again. All this created by a man who loses on the biggest stages imaginable. There aren't many alternatives to the script Foley acted out with Triple H and Orton, and likely will again, with Edge. Perhaps the easiest solution would be to bring him back for a few months and let him have his requisite losing feud with one wrestler, which then leads to a sudden feud and victory over another. Even a win over a midcarder — however inexplicable and seemingly spontaneously created from an offhand comment in the other feud — would do wonders for the Foley character. Because he could win. No viewer could deny the possibility. This meager step would help Foley. More importantly, it would help him help others. If there were just the tiniest tincture of doubt about his opponent's chances of winning, that win would mean so much more. It would seem an act of personal destiny, rather than the rote workings of two men following an established and familiar script. Unfortunately for Edge, the latter option belongs to him. His company doesn't seem to have confidence in him nor long-term plans for him. As a sop to his ambitions and (possibly) demands, he can defeat a real-life friend to gain a rub that many of his fans already think he has. Pitting him against a human punishment absorber distracts from the fact that he already has a commendable record in TLC matches, and that he could be given a greater role in the world title hunt. But what the hell? It's Foley. It should be fun. I still wonder why it needs to be this feud and this route. And I wonder how many more times Mick can do this before the payoff becomes less than the process leading to it. At this point, the anticipation and the drama Foley creates in his stunning promos dangerously outstrip not only the talents of the current roster, but also the fatalistic expectation that, despite his best efforts to entertain and to win, he can't help but lose.

E-MAIL JEB LUND
BROWSE JEB'S ARCHIVE

Jeb Tennyson Lund is the Pope of Online Onslaught. If you want to read his sadly less wrestling-oriented columns, go to www.citizenscholar.net.

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