The Art Of Leaving Well Enough Alone
One of the most appealing things about a professional wrestling show is the variety that you get on any given night. In a well put together wrestling show, you are going to have all kinds of stuff going around and can pick between a variety of options. You might get comedy, action, drama, romance and more, all with wrestling action taking place at the same time. However, like most good things, it has to come to an end at some point and that is what we’re looking at this week.
While there are a lot of great things in wrestling, one constant that they all have is that they will eventually run out of steam. No matter how hot someone or something gets, they all have an expiration date where there is nothing left that can be done with them and it is time to move on. This has been the case forever in wrestling and it still is to this day. Today we’re going to look at some cases of this happening, with some versions that were well done and some that were nothing short of a disaster.
WCW Never Knew When To Stop The NWO Angle
We’ll start with the bad and, shockingly enough, we’re going back to the 1990s. In July 1996, the New World Organization of wrestling was formed, with Hulk Hogan going full on Hollywood (the power of Santa With Muscles compels you) and becoming one of the greatest wrestling villains of all time. To say this was a bombshell of a moment in wrestling would be an understatement, as the NWO was instantly the hottest thing in the industry. The group even became somewhat mainstream for a bit as the whole thing just got so big so fast. It was incredible, but like any other angle, it did have a peak.
And as you probably know, WCW ignored that peak and ran in the other direction, doubling down on the NWO and starting their civil war, with the NWO Wolfpac emerging. This story dominated 1998 and then to start 1999, the teams (mostly) merged back together to start the whole thing over again. It had been a white hot story for a long time but it was time to move, which is where WCW dropped the whole thing.
It Was Time To Move On To WCW's Next Chapter: Goldberg
Shockingly enough, the fans weren’t thrilled, because they were ready to move on. WCW had presented a very NWO-centric show for about two and a half years. It was long past time for someone new to step up and that seemed to be Goldberg. He won the World Title in July and, well no he didn’t main event with it very often because Hogan had to main event with celebrities over the second half of the summer, but he was awesome and popular and the next big thing.
That brought us to Starrcade 1998 where Kevin Nash beat Goldberg to end his undefeated streak (with help from Scott Hall). Honestly, that’s not a terrible idea. Goldberg had to lose at some point and while you can argue that it should have happened at a certain time, Nash beating him (with help) was hardly some big stretch. The problem is something else happened and then it went downhill.
Rather complicated story short (stalking, a soda machine, and Goldberg’s gym were involved), Nash laid down for Hogan eight days later and the NWO was unified again, with Hogan as World Champion. It was like we were right back in the fall of 1996 all over again, with Goldberg vanquished and Hogan as the big centerpiece.
Now, as ridiculous as this might sound, Hogan winning the title and holding it for a few months while Goldberg ran through the NWO and winning the title back, sat at Bash At The Beach, wasn’t a terrible idea. It’s a logical story and makes Goldberg look like a major star in the end (see also Daniel Bryan vs. the Authority in 2013/14, which worked pretty well). That could have worked.
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But no, not only did Goldberg never win the title back, but Hogan wound up being a good guy all over again, with fans being asked to cheer for him just a few months after he stole the World Title. What fun, with the NWO fading away but then COMING BACK AGAIN the following year to even worse results, as WCW was falling apart at the seams and would be out of business just over a year later.
It’s a case where the promotion would not recognize the obvious and move on, with the results diminishing every time. The fans simply wanted something new and found it in the WWF instead of with WCW. The NWO stayed on for so long and lost its appeal, which the promotion did not accept/fix. It worked for a time but when that time passed, WCW didn’t do anything different and you saw what happened.
WWE Broke Up Damian Priest & R-Truth At The Right Time
Now, while that’s a worst case scenario, there are also times where it works to near perfection, which is what we have seen in recent months (and what got me thinking about this in the first place). Back in March, R-Truth and Damian Priest were put together as an oddball tag team on SmackDown and quickly won the show’s Tag Team Titles. The look on Priest’s face when they won the belts basically said “well that’s not what I was expecting but I’ll take it”, which summed up the team perfectly. They weren’t what people normally cheered for but they oddly worked.
The team went on to hold the titles for about five months, regularly escaping with the belts as R-Truth would do something goofy yet still pull his weight while Priest would do most of the heavy lifting. It’s an idea that has worked for a pretty long time in wrestling and it was working again for them, even up to the point when they lost the titles to the MFT’s in August. Then last week on SmackDown, the team lost a match to the War Raiders, with R-Truth taking the pin. Following the match, Priest turned on him, officially turning heel and ending the team for good.
That right there is a great example of an act that ended when it should have. There was no reason to believe that the team was going to be the next big thing or some kind of team that went on for years. They had a nice run of about five months, gave the fans some entertaining moments, and won/lost the titles with a good little reign. Then Priest moved on to do something else, with the fans being sad to see him turn on his fan friendly partner. It’s an idea that has worked forever in wrestling and it is working again here.
And really, that’s all there should be to it. There was nothing left for Priest and R-Truth to do and WWE wrapped the story up. Odds are they’ll have a singles match where Priest will destroy him again and R-Truth can move on to something else. It won’t be some big chapter in either of their histories, but it gave us a useful and entertaining story for about six months. Sometimes, that’s all it needs to be.
Wrestling Storylines Just Can't Last Forever
Like many other forms of media (movies and TV shows for sure), there are times when stories in wrestling just need to wrap up and let everyone else move on. When things go right, it can be a perfectly nice use of the wrestlers’ time and talents.
When it goes badly though, it can do all kinds of damage to the wrestlers or even the promotion (with the NWO’s continued existence being a big part of why WCW fell apart so fast). Promotions need to get this stuff right because it can make all the difference in the world if an angle isn’t wrapped up at the right time.
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