Why Is It So Hard To Book Pro Wrestling?
LOOKING BACK AT SUMMERSLAM 18 YEARS AGO TODAY
by The Solomonster (thesolomonster@gmail.com)
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Whenever Vince McMahon likens WWE to a movie or TV show rather than sports, some fans tend to get up in arms. After all, are wrestlers not athletes? Do they not put their bodies on the line year-round and suffer serious injuries? Of course they do. But the more you stop and think about it, the man has a point. One key element pro wrestling has over sports like baseball, football and MMA is the ability to book its own finishes. Just like in any Hollywood film, the director (or promoter in this case) can script out a finale that both makes sense and satisfies the audience’s expectations. The “game” can’t be called due to bad weather. The “fight” won’t end on a swift, 10-second knockout. They have the power to give the people their money’s worth.
So why then is it seemingly so difficult for pro wrestling to get it right?
Visit any news site or discussion forum and you’re likely to drown in a sea of negativity. Welcome to the internet, folks. But when it comes to wrestling, this seems especially prevalent. ‘Oh great, so-and-so lost his match so he’s obviously being buried,’ or ‘man, what a crappy show that was. I’m never watching again!’ (as if). We’re all guilty of it in some form or fashion, so let’s just get that out of the way. Got it? Good. Now the flip side. Truth be told, we’ve seen our fair share of bad TV shows in the last couple of years. We’ve seen some horrendous booking decisions and godawful main event finishes that have nearly made our heads explode. But enough about Vince Russo… the fact is this. You can’t ALWAYS give fans what they want to see. Not every match is going to have a perfectly logical conclusion. Often times, injuries and suspensions can spoil whatever long-term plans a promoter may have mapped out, and for that, I sympathize. And while you can argue that CM Punk has cooled off a bit since his title win over John Cena in Chicago, that PPV was a great example of what happens when wrestling gets it right.
Still, why do these people make such dumb decisions? Why must the hometown hero lose in their hometown 95% of the time? Why must someone who is getting over with the crowd be booked on a losing streak, thus killing whatever momentum they may have? I bring all of this up because A) it’s a relevant question to ask, and B) I wanted to use it as a segue to talk about one of the all-time great blunders in PPV finishes that occurred 18 years ago today. A finish, mind you, that Vince McMahon, a man that some people credit as being a genius, actually thought was a good idea.
August 30, 1993. The site was the Palace of Auburn Hills in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It was WWE’s second biggest event of the year, Summerslam, and it boasted an impressive lineup for that time. Shawn Michaels and Mr. Perfect for the Intercontinental title was like a wet dream for fans of technical wrestling. Bret Hart and Jerry “The King” Lawler were set to finally lock horns after Bret had been viciously attacked following his KOTR victory. And in the main event, Yokozuna, the evil foreigner, would defend his championship against the newly-minted All-American hero, Lex Luger. Now before I go any further, I must point out that the original booking plan for the show had Hulk Hogan putting over Bret Hart for the title, which would have cemented Bret as a main event player much sooner. However, Hogan balked at the idea and decided he would rather drop the title to Yokozuna and flee the company than put over teeny-tiny Bret Hart, forcing a change in plans. That said, there’s still no excuse for their Plan B.
When Hogan left, it left a void at top babyface for the company. They tried Bret Hart in that role already and he didn’t exactly light their business on fire, so he wasn’t the answer. So they decided to turn Luger, who had been a heel since his debut about six months earlier, and transform him into a modern day version of Hogan (only better, you see, because he had a steel plate in his arm!). To their credit, they went all the way with it. The Fourth of July chopper landing on the Intrepid when Luger slammed Yokozuna was a great piece of marketing. Then they had Luger travel cross-country on a bus called “The Lex Express” straight through to Summerslam. I mean, you would have thought the guy was running for political office the way he spent over a month on that bus, shaking hands and kissing babies. To cap it off, Jim Cornette, serving as the champ’s American spokesperson, forced Luger to agree to the stipulation that if he didn’t win the title at the PPV, he would never get another title shot. The stage had been set for an epic championship victory for Luger and the United States, right? Right? Well, not exactly.
Lex Luger would not have been my first choice to lead the company if I had the book. But I didn’t. Hell, I wasn’t even old enough to vote at the time. But you know what? Vince McMahon had a vision and you can tell he was hell-bent on seeing it through. At least he wasn’t half-assing it with the guy. Summerslam arrived and the arena was decked out in red, white and blue. They paraded country singer Aaron Neville out there to sing the national anthem. Out comes Luger to a pretty good response from the crowd (and a new haircut) and we’re off to the races. I’m not going to spend time breaking down this match other than to say it was every American vs. foreigner WWE main event you’ve ever seen, including the dreaded NERVE HOLD OF DOOM. Luger rallies from certain defeat, Cornette tries to interfere, Mr. Fuji tries to interfere, all to no avail. Then comes the big climax – Luger fires off the ropes and clobbers Yokozuna with his loaded forearm, knocking the big guy out to the floor in a heap. The Palace is going crazy. As a fan watching at home on TV, I can recall thinking to myself, ‘boy, he better get Yoko back inside before the referee counts to ten.’ I waited and waited until I saw something rather odd. Luger was making no attempt whatsoever to bring him back inside and seemed perfectly content to leave him laying. In fact, it appeared he was COUNTING ALONG with the referee!
‘Is this guy a moron?’ I wondered. ‘You can’t win the title on a count out. Get him back inside! What’s wrong with you?!’
He never did bring him back inside. The referee counted to ten and called for the bell. And with that, Lex Luger would forever become the poster-child for ignorant, dumb babyfaces. Yet, there was Vince McMahon on commentary going orgasmic over what we had just witnessed. Out came other equally dumb babyfaces like Randy Savage, Tatanka and the Steiner Brothers to celebrate and hoist Luger up onto their shoulders as balloons and confetti rained down from the ceiling. These days, Vince loves to have his announcers throw the term “Bizzaroland” around whenever the Canadian fans cheer for the heels and boo the faces, but back at that very moment, I thought I was living in “Bizzaroland” myself. You spent all of that time and effort to get Luger over to the masses, only to have him fail the fans and make him look stupid? I didn’t get it 18 years ago, and all these years later, it’s just as mind-boggling.
Luger was never the same after that. He was still positioned as the top babyface and got nice reactions, but by the Royal Rumble, it was obvious the fans wanted Bret Hart in that role. Perhaps if they had gone all the way with him at Summerslam, things might have turned out differently. It’s been said the reason for the finish is that at the last minute, Vince McMahon decided that he wanted Luger to win the title at WrestleMania X instead. Of course, that never happened. Instead, at WM11 the following year, Luger was curtain-jerking in a tag match against the Blu Brothers. Talk about a fall from grace.
Pro wrestling shouldn’t be this hard. You control your own destiny. How an intelligent person like Vince McMahon could have thought it was a wise move to book that main event finish, we may never know for sure. But on this day 18 years ago, it wasn’t the first time and damn sure would not be the last time we would see a promoter do such a thing and it begs the question, why is it so hard to book pro wrestling?
The answer is, it’s not. It’s just easier to screw it all up.
