
WRITERS
COURT: CASE OF THE POLITICAL ASSASSIN, PART 1






CASE STUDY #6: HHH vs. Scott
Steiner (2003). The Facts: In the waning
months of WCW, Steiner's nickname might as well have
been "Jockitch," because he was the last guy to catch
fire down south. The formula was ridiculously simple.
Fans bought "Big Crotch-Rot Pump" as a legit tough guy
who said he was gonna kick somebody's ass, then did it.
Following in the footsteps of Stone Cold, Scotty was an
anti-authority badass who once even went so far as to
tell Nitro viewers to "change the channel and watch
Raw." Oh yeah, and the more he berated his "freaks"
(i.e., female companions), the more they wanted him. When Vince bought WCW in 2001,
most of the big names were tied up in Time Warner
contracts that were as fat and juicy as the many
platters of spare ribs that Stephanie eats for breakfast
every morning. Hogan, Sting, Goldberg, all of 'em were
sitting on their guaranteed money for months on end.
Vince didnt wanna crack open the piggy bank to buy them
out. (Note: Offers WERE made to buy certain guys out for
pennies on the dollar, but the only one who bit was DDP.
His reward was being pinned on TV by The
Undertaker.................'s wife, Sara.) Steiner was
under such a contract until it expired. After months of
negotiations, Steiner was finally inked and made his
debut at Survivor Series 2002 with a profanity-laced
promo that popped even the cynical MSG crowd. The guy
was OVER. Not bothering with any of that
"build" stuff, Steiner was immediately herded into a
feud with World champion HHH as 2002 became 2003. I kid,
I kid. HHH vs. BPP had a surprisingly strong build in
and of itself as Steiner was pushed hard as the only man
who could physically match up against The Great And
Powerful Schnozz. HHH challenged BPP to many feats of
strength and manliness (arm-wrestling, posedowns,
push-up contests, etc). Steiner outclassed The Game at
every turn, and they were really pushing that Hunter's
gold was in double jeopardy. Now check out the timeline: Royal Rumble (January 2003):
Steiner-HHH went to a DQ finish in a match so bad, it
got booed out of the building. No Way Out (February 2003):
HHH beat Steiner with a mercy-squelching. This rematch
was arguably even worse than the previous months, and
got even more boos, not because the heel won, either. Wrestlemania 19 (March 2003):
Steiner's stock had fallen so far with management, he
wasn't even booked on the show. As for HHH's match, well
get to that, momentarily. The Prosecution: Had they
properly built Scotty before the big World Title
match..ah, who am I shitting? Steiner sucks. The Defense: The Defense LIKES
this case. Steiner was absolutely freakin HORRIBLE in
those matches, blowing more spots than some freak with a
leopard fetish. It's rare that a babyface is so bad, the
crowd totally turns against him in mid-match, but that's
what happened TWICE! It's hard to believe that
this is the same guy who was tearing up the world with
his brother Rick when they were the best tag team under
the sun in the early 90s. In a bizarre way, hotshotting
Steiner into a World Title match right away was a smart
move, because it drew curiosity buys before people
realized how badly he had come to suck. So in closing,
Sucky Scott Steiner sucks. CASE STUDY #7: HHH vs. Booker
T (2003). The Facts: After the Steiner
experiment turned out to be the equivalent of two trains
crashing into a nuclear power plant, HHH needed a new
victim on the biggest stage of 'em all in Seattle.
Booker T was the best pick at the time, as Book-HHH was
a fresh match and fans had really gotten behind the
Bookerman after months of solid matches and camptastic
skits with Goldust. Book won a battle royal on Raw to
earn the WM title shot, eliminating no less than The
Rock to start his road to WM. Everything was going great
until Book's first angle with HHH. HHH played the race card,
stopping just short of trying to get over "Your name-AH
is Kunta-AH Kinte-AH" as his new catchphrase. HHH did
say stuff like "People like YOU exist only to entertain
me" and did such great WM-level angles as attempting to
tip Booker T upon encountering him in a mens room (!).
Not enough for ya? Well, they trotted out the mug shot
of a young Booker who legit did time for robbing a
Wendy's in his misspent youth. Needless to say, HHH pedigreed
and pinned Booker at the big dance. At least there was
no actual, factual dog crap involved this year. The Prosecution: Triple-H?
Triple-K is more like it. HHH finally books himself in a
feud with a guy who can hold up his end of the promos
and what does he focus on? The fact that Booker is
black. Gamecocks may say that Hunter was just playing
the "Million Dollar Man" type prickish heel who treats
everyone like a servant, but the fact remains that he
pulled this crap with THE ONLY OVER BLACK SINGLES
WRESTLER ON THE WHOLE GODDAMN ROSTER. Calling attention
to Booker's legit criminal past buried the guy, too.
Were not condoning armed robbery, but the guy paid his
debt to society and worked his ass off to better
himself, both in his personal and professional life.
Speaking as a fan, it was downright offensive to watch. The Defense: Didn't HHH job to
Booker in a tag match during the WM build? I'm not being
smarmy here; I think he did, but I can't remember.
Anyway, Booker should have thought about all of this
before he robbed a Wendy's. Hunter was fighting for the
honor of Dave Thomas. Um, yeah. CASE STUDY #8: HHH vs. Kevin
Nash (2003). The Facts: Nash benefited from
the Mark Henry philosophy of booking, in that Vince said
to himself, "We're paying this guy main-event money, so
we might as well give him a main-event push to justify
it." The result was four PPV's worth of Nash vs. HHH in
some capacity. Their matches were terrible, their promos
were terrible, even their pyro was terrible. You heard
me. The Prosecution: The
Prosecution throws its hands up on this one, but it
would like to point out that for the record, HHH is a
cockspit for making us sit through a HHH-Nash feud in
the first place. The Defense: Nash was past his
prime three contracts ago. No way should Hunter have
laid down for him. Besides, if nothing else, we got a
great promo from Mick Foley during the build to the
worst non-Bossman "Hell In A Cell" match of all time. CASE STUDY #9: HHH vs. Kane
(2003). The Facts: If at first you
dont succeed, suck, suck again. Kane refused to play
dodgeball because he was sad. The Big Red Machine wasn't
quite himself, so Steve Austin did what any responsible
co-GM would do; He gave Kane a stunner. This relit
Kane's pilot light and he went on a chokeslamming spree.
Then out of nowhere, HHH invited Kane to join Evolution
for some stupid "Stephanie wrote this crap" reason. Kane
responded to HHH's offer with another goozle massage.
This turned into one of those stupid
retarded-kids-playing-chess angles where Austin made a
title match, but co-GM Eric Bischoff insisted that Kanes
mask be at stake, as well. Figure Four Weekly editor
Bryan Alvarez put it best when he said, "After all these
years, theyre going to unmask Kane on free TV with no
build." And so they did. Evolution helped HHH get the
win, after which Kane unmasked, revealing him to be not
the brother of The Undertaker, but rather the identical
twin of The Missing Link. Understandably embarrassed,
Kane forsook the ways of the babyface and returned to
his roots as a chokeslamming Heelenstein. But at least there was no
fucking necrophilia this time. The Prosecution: Okay, I'm not
even gonna mention that something this monumental should
have been built for a PPV. If youre gonna de-mask your
biggest masked wrestler, the guy who did the de-masking
should have at least gotten some momentum out of the
deal. Remember when Foley made HHH? HHH crowed about it
for, Well, he's still crowing about it. But THAT'S how
you do it. At the very least, Kane's downfall should
have been funneled into Randy Orton's "legend killer"
gimmick. But it wasn't. And another thing: Make the Big
Red Machine into a deranged monster heel, sure, but
shouldn't he have been just the slightest bit annoyed
with Hunter and Evolution for unmasking him? I can even
buy the fact that Kane started his rampage against RVD
because it was Rob (his former tag partner) who pushed
him into the mask-vs.-belt match in the first place. But
still; at some point, Kane should have gone after HHH
and his dancing bears for revenge. The Defense: Kane was more
stale than French bread, which is stale by nature
anyway. Why the fuck does anyone eat that crap, anyway?
Ahem, the Defense digresses. Kane needed a change, and
if he was going to lose the mask, why would risk it
against anything less than the World Title? And for what
it's worth, the unmasking DID give a noticeable bump up
to the ratings at a time when the company desperately
needed it. CASE STUDY #10: HHH vs.
Goldberg (2003). The Facts: After abortions
like the InVasion, the NWOs return, and Scott Steiner's
resurgence, one of the last "sure things" out there was
a nice Jewish boy named Bill Goldberg. Goldberg set the
world on fire back in 1998 as the unstoppable
spear-chucking, hammer-jacking irresistible force who
plowed through WCW, culminating with a World Title win
over Hulk Hogan in the Georgia Dome, which was arguably
the last true mark-out moment in WCW history. The day after WM19 saw
Goldberg's much-anticipated Raw debut. Goldberg
immediately went into a hot feud with The Rock. While
their match at Backlash was a commercial and critical
flop, fans still wanted to pop for Goldberg, and things
were moving in the right direction as Goldy subsequently
moved into a better-booked and better-wrestled PPV match
against Jericho at Bad Blood. Then it was time for the big
money dream match: Goldberg vs. HHH for the strap. It
was on for SummerSlam 03, then it wasn't. For some
reason, SummerSlam was remixed into a six-man
Elimination Chamber with HHH and Berg being joined by
Jericho (good), Shawn Michaels (good), Randy Orton
(why?), and Nash (shoot me now). Hunter beat Goldberg to
win the EC match, which took the wind out of everyone's
sails, heat-wise. HHH then lost the strap to
Goldy the following month at Unforgiven in a match that
served as a backdrop to the bullshit storyline of Jim
Ross and Jerry Lawler "calling their last match" after
they lost a stip match to Coach & Al Snow earlier in the
show. After a spirited but ultimately unsatisfying
"bounty" angle (the payoff was the return of Batista,
for fuck's sake), HHH lost to Goldberg again at Survivor
Series 03. This time, their match was hotshotted onto
the card with less of a build going into the PPV than
any other match on the show (yes, even less of a build
than Guerreros-Bashams). Finally, the feud ended up in a
triple-threat with Goldberg vs. HHH vs. Kane at
Armageddon 03. This is where HHH got his belt back by
icing the Berg one last time. (And for those of you
playing along at home, despite being in a World Title
PPV main event against the guy, Kane STILL didnt seem
too upset with HHH for taking his mask. Sigh.) The Prosecution: The
Elimination Chamber quickly turned from the best-booked
match of the year to the worst booked match of the year
as Goldberg mowed through RKO, HBK, and Y2J before HHH
pinned him to end both the match and any semblance of
momentum the guy had. And yeah, we know, we know.
Goldberg is an unprofessional whiny bitch who throws
temper tantrums when things dont go his way. Bruce
Mitchell of the Pro Wrestling Torch put it best when he
said, "This business is about making money, and once
again, the WWE (left) money on the table." Vince used to
be all about protecting a guy's weaknesses. If he could
do it with guys like Warrior and Sid, there's no excuse
for exposing Goldberg's shame to a world not quite ready
for it. The Defense: Goldberg is an
unprofessional whiny Um, right. Ah, ol whisker-biscuit
was past his prime, anyway. Besides, Hunter DID lose to
him. Twice! Thats twice more than most of the other guys
HHH has worked with. WEIGHING IN ON THE SCALES OF
JUSTICE AT WRITERS COURT: 10 Case Studies Guilty = 7 Not Guilty = 3 FINAL VERDICT: This Court
finds HHH guilty as charged. No surprise here. For his
punishment, I can think of none more fitting than this:
Paul Levesque, I sentence you to a legacy of political
backstabbing that FAR overshadows any of your
accomplishments inside the ring. Ironically, you
yourself are one of the biggest "hardcore" wrestling
fans in the world, yet there is not one other "hardcore"
fan out there who thinks that you're anything less than
an overrated, overpushed, injury-prone, son-in-law.
Telling Jim Ross to say "Harley Race" every time you
drop a knee ain't gonna cut it, buster. When fans sit
around talking about the greats in the game, your name
will never come up. You will be forgotten, or worse,
remembered for who you really are. Live with it. However, this is a merciful
Court. To that end, I would suggest that Paul and his
loyal Gamecocks can take solace in the fact that HHH
isn't ALWAYS in the wrong; just 70% of the time. So remember, if there are
doin's afoot in the rasslin biz and no one has the
power, the brains, or the balls to call a spade a spade
(figure of speech; not to be confused with HHHs
"elevation" of Booker T), don't just run to your
father-in-law and tell him "This guy cant work WWF
style." No, you take it to court. WRITER'S COURT. Today's Court is adjourned. -HDS-
The Verdict: Not Guilty.
Steiner sucks. In fact Steiner sucked so bad, he even
out-sucked Hunter's inherent suckiness. And baby, thats
a whole lotta suck.
The Verdict: Guilty,
sucka. (Just like a certain sports-entertainer who once
knocked over a Wendy's!) It's a borderline case, but if
Cripple-H was going to go "super heel" with the racial
crap, he should have done the right thing in the end
(i.e., a "job") to justify it. TWF mascot Booker Bear is
still pissed about this. Cant blame the little guy.
The Verdict: Not Guilty.
Come on, it's Kevin Fucking Nash. Arguably, the one
"main eventer" more banged-up, washed-up, used-up, and
just plain fucked-up than HHH himself. If theres one guy
who was less deserving of a World Title run than HHH,
its Oz.
The Verdict: Guilty. No
follow-up with the guy who unmasked him? Then no defense
holds up. Ironically, Kane kinda IS the indestructible
monster that he plays on TV. No matter how many times a
McMahon (or McMahon-in-law) kicks him into that
proverbial firepit, he just keeps coming back without a
scratch on him. Losing the mask is DEATH for a guy's
cred, yet the BRM evolved and is still a great,
effective character to this day. No one has an unkind
word to say about Kane behind the scenes, where he is
regarded as a consummate professional who has paid his
dues, but still works as hard as anyone. Kind of the
Anti-Hunter. Thats it, I'm buying a Kane t-shirt just on
GP.
The Verdict: Guiltyberg.
It was the damn Chamber. I dont care how many times HHH
laid down for Berg (and theres a big difference between
"laying down" and "putting someone over"); HHH torpedoed
Goldberg at a crucial point in the guy's push and Goldy
never fully recovered. Thats our Hunter!

TWF FLASHBACK
November 2006
SATIRE: DISCONTINUED WWE XMAS PRODUCTS!
With Christmas just around the corner, what better way to spend your few remaining dollars (left over after the seemingly infinite line-up of fucking pay-per-views ) then on the following "quality WWE merchandise!" After all, if they don't move this stuff, and fast, stockholders just might get time to figure out what "plummeting domestic buyrates" means!... and well, I don't think they need to tell you what that means! (Seriously. They're not telling you. Everything is fine! Ahem.).
POPULAR UPDATES
Broken News: Revenge of the Shit; WWE building Death Star?
DVD Review: End Game, Starring Kurt Angle
Broken News: Pro Wrestler Reveals He's Actually a Robot from the Future
50+ Random Star Wars Lines You Can Use In The Middle Of Sex To Hilarious Results
Stephen Rivera's 4th Fall: Introduction
Stephen Rivera's 4th Fall: Abercrombie
Stephen Rivera's 4th Fall: Dawn Patrol
Stephen Rivera's 4th Fall: Swing Circle
Stephen Rivera's 4th Fall: Rocket Scientist
Stephen Rivera's 4th Fall: Albatross
Stephen Rivera's 4th Fall: Sanctuaries
Stephen Rivera's 4th Fall: Past Modern
Stephen Rivera's 4th Fall: Blue Kingdom
Stephen Rivera's 4th Fall: Lighthouse
Stephen Rivera's 4th Fall: Zebra
Stephen Rivera's 4th Fall: Damage Control
Stephen Rivera's 4th Fall: Fourteen
Stephen Rivera's 4th Fall: Magdalena
Stephen Rivera's 4th Fall: Anti-Gravity
Stephen Rivera's 4th Fall: Dimensions
Broken News: U.S. Hero with Golden Trunks Becomes Homeless Man
When Wrestling Merchandise Goes Bad: WWE Finger Rings
Broken News: WWE Pro Grappling "Gentle Giant" Reunited with Estranged Son
When Wrestling Merchandise Goes Bad: WTF Apparel
The WWE Developmental Rookie Name Generator
Wacky TV Recapitation: Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling
BACON'S BIGTIME PPV REPORT OF NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS & SUCH.
VIDEO SATIRE: 'Til Death Do Us Part!
Sean Carless's WRESTLING WITH MANIA
CLASSIC SATIRE: RAW is STAR WARS!
DEADFACE WALKING! (Apr. 02, 2010)




