Too Much Risk, Too Soon
The highlight of Raw -- tonight, definitely; this year, probably -- was the Mark Henry retirement angle. Everyone loved the speech. Everyone loved the swerve.
The speech was beloved because it was real. Henry may not have had time to recap his dark days of bag craps and storyline fetishes, but he really does have a career to be proud of. Many thought the 10 year deal he signed in 1996 would be his last. Few thought he had potential after he spent the first half of the deal in sputtered starts. Yet he became a reliable performer who at times elevated himself into being one of the more entertaining wrestlers in the promotion.
Cena being swerved was also well done. Cena's skepticism kept him from playing the impotent babyface. It made sense for Cena. He kept his guard up until Henry had the audience duped. Keep the babyface in step with the audience and the babyface keeps from looking dumb.
There was one problem with the turn: it didn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense from Henry's perspective.
What did Henry want? He wanted a title shot and he wanted to attack and embarrass Cena.
How could he go about it? He could attack Cena from behind. He could challenge Cena face to face. He could insult Cena to goad him into the match. There are myraid options that do not involve invoking his kids and wife.
In the end it was another example of WWE Creative's lack of basic story understanding under the reign of Stephanie McMahon. Bad guys invoke children and wives in order to manipulate people. But they do it only when other options have been exhausted. In "Heat", Al Pacino doesn't start his conversation with Robert DeNiro by telling a maudlin tale about the stress his job as a cop puts on his relationship with his third wife and only daughter. That topic is broached only when Pacino needs to reach for a way to convince DeNiro that thieves will never find safe harbor in Los Angeles.
A fundamental tenet of storytelling is that characters should put themselves at risk (in this case the risk being Henry's willingness to expose his family) only when less risky options don't work. Henry skipped the less risky options and it made the angle have less emotion than it could have.
Compare Henry's attack on Cena with Terry Funk's attack on Ric Flair in 1989. Funk, like Henry, was the heel. But Funk put almost nothing at risk to begin the angle. He just offered a challenge to Flair. It was only after the low risk path failed that Funk took the higher risk of attacking Flair and piledriving him through a table.
Had the segment on Raw started with Henry's retirement speech and added Cena later, the psychology from Henry's perspective would have made more sense. From Henry's point of view he would have just been giving a speech, but the arrogant Cena would have ended up insulting Henry by refusing a challenge and hogging the spotlight.
The decision to run the retirement angle the way it was run is justifiable and overall the segment was enjoyable, but it shows the problems with the way WWE is currently structured. WWE puts too high a priority on getting pay-per-view matches announced early, and they are afraid to open top-of-the-hour segments with guys at Henry's level. Raw was an entertaining show with an angle that got people talking, but they still should avoid letting their entrenched structures have priority over solid story fundamentals.
The speech was beloved because it was real. Henry may not have had time to recap his dark days of bag craps and storyline fetishes, but he really does have a career to be proud of. Many thought the 10 year deal he signed in 1996 would be his last. Few thought he had potential after he spent the first half of the deal in sputtered starts. Yet he became a reliable performer who at times elevated himself into being one of the more entertaining wrestlers in the promotion.
Cena being swerved was also well done. Cena's skepticism kept him from playing the impotent babyface. It made sense for Cena. He kept his guard up until Henry had the audience duped. Keep the babyface in step with the audience and the babyface keeps from looking dumb.
There was one problem with the turn: it didn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense from Henry's perspective.
What did Henry want? He wanted a title shot and he wanted to attack and embarrass Cena.
How could he go about it? He could attack Cena from behind. He could challenge Cena face to face. He could insult Cena to goad him into the match. There are myraid options that do not involve invoking his kids and wife.
In the end it was another example of WWE Creative's lack of basic story understanding under the reign of Stephanie McMahon. Bad guys invoke children and wives in order to manipulate people. But they do it only when other options have been exhausted. In "Heat", Al Pacino doesn't start his conversation with Robert DeNiro by telling a maudlin tale about the stress his job as a cop puts on his relationship with his third wife and only daughter. That topic is broached only when Pacino needs to reach for a way to convince DeNiro that thieves will never find safe harbor in Los Angeles.
A fundamental tenet of storytelling is that characters should put themselves at risk (in this case the risk being Henry's willingness to expose his family) only when less risky options don't work. Henry skipped the less risky options and it made the angle have less emotion than it could have.
Compare Henry's attack on Cena with Terry Funk's attack on Ric Flair in 1989. Funk, like Henry, was the heel. But Funk put almost nothing at risk to begin the angle. He just offered a challenge to Flair. It was only after the low risk path failed that Funk took the higher risk of attacking Flair and piledriving him through a table.
Had the segment on Raw started with Henry's retirement speech and added Cena later, the psychology from Henry's perspective would have made more sense. From Henry's point of view he would have just been giving a speech, but the arrogant Cena would have ended up insulting Henry by refusing a challenge and hogging the spotlight.
The decision to run the retirement angle the way it was run is justifiable and overall the segment was enjoyable, but it shows the problems with the way WWE is currently structured. WWE puts too high a priority on getting pay-per-view matches announced early, and they are afraid to open top-of-the-hour segments with guys at Henry's level. Raw was an entertaining show with an angle that got people talking, but they still should avoid letting their entrenched structures have priority over solid story fundamentals.
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