Am I missing something?
Since when did good guys run from bad guys in the world of professional wrestling?
That’s been the story lately in WWE, with the top top baby faces in the company — Daniel Bryan and John Cena — running away from their enemies on a consistent basis.
It started with the WWE World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan, a baby face who is supposed to be the best wrestler in the world as the champion of WWE, and as a good guy, should be willing to accept any and all challenges and challengers that come his way. Instead, the very first opponent who poses a threat to Bryan after his title victory at WrestleMania XXX causes the champion to run away in fear.
That’s right folks, the champion of the whole world is afraid of a fight. A guy goes from a pompous corporate ass-kisser to the scariest person on the planet as soon as he puts an old mask on.
You gotta love pro wrestling.
I’m a fan of wrestling, and as a fan, I can roll with all of that. A guy is a well-spoken corporate “Director of Operations” one week and a scary, sub-human masked-demon the next. I’m with it. What I can’t roll with is the champion of the company being too afraid to stand up to him.
That’s not the pro wrestling I know and love. The wrestling I know and love would feature things going the exact opposite direction. In the pro wrestling I know and love, Kane — scary monster or not — runs away from the good guy. Bryan goes after Kane and “The Big Red Machine” runs away.
That’s how it should be — but it isn’t. Nope. Not these days.
These days Bryan and his wife run and scream, scrambling to get to their car and drive as far away from the scary challenger as they possibly can. Well, until the car won’t start and Kane sits up in the back seat.
By the way, no one noticed a seven-foot tall masked pro wrestler laying down in the back seat when they got into the car in the first place?
Fast-forward to this week’s RAW, which took place on Monday afternoon at the O2 Arena in London, England, as part of WWE’s current European tour.
On RAW this week, Bray Wyatt cut an excellent Wyatt-style promo to kick off the show. Luke Harper and Erick Rowan accompanied him as he told the tale of a school teacher who didn’t believe in him. Ultimately, the segment built to a John Cena run-in, which saw the leader of the “Ce-Nation” appear in the ring and lay out big Bray. When Harper and Rowan go after Cena, he sprints out of the ring, turns his back and starts quickly running up the ramp to get away from the big, scary challengers.
In this instance, I guess the idea is that the baby face Cena “out-smarted” The Wyatt Family. Regardless, it goes against some simple old-school wrestling rules.
First and foremost, the heel sneak-attacks from behind, not the baby face. Secondly, as the entire theme of this editorial points out — the heel runs away from the baby face, not the other way in around. In this case, Cena attacked Bray from behind and then ran like a coward when confronted face-to-face by Harper and Rowan. Numbers game aside, the old style of wrestling would see Cena get the better of Harper and Rowan until they, as heels, would turn into cowards and run away, hoping to get the better of Cena — likely from behind — on another day.
That’s how it should be — but it isn’t. Nope. Not these days.
These days Cena attacks from behind and runs as fast as his basketball sneakers will allow him. These days the WWE World Heavyweight Champion runs when a scary challenger might be on the prowl. And these days WWE is having trouble establishing true top-tier baby face acts.
Gee, I wonder why?!
What do you guys think? Leave your feedback in the “Comments” section below. You can also touch-base with me on Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBooneWZR and/or follow me on Twitter @MBoone420.
