Summer Slam is here.
Two months from now, it will be time for Survivor Series ’05; as I begin this, I’m uncertain what will appear in this space between now and then. I’m leaning away from the long History of the Fake History pieces I did before Summer Slam, maybe instead just a listing of title changes throughout the Counterfactual. I think, most likely, I’ll get through at least half, and maybe even all of the set up in this piece.
What to do in the meantime? Well, I’m blogging again, albeit just a tiny bit as I work on the play re-write. We’re over at www.myspace.com/spoonmillionaires. You’ll note some of my “friends” are workers. Feel free to stop by; join up; spread the word about the play; about my myspace page; and as always, about the mighty counterfactual.
And so we begin the next build.
We have a number of changes to process before Survivor Series ’05.
Eddy, of course, is gone. Recall the conclusion of Summer Slam involved Eddy walking away after dropping to Rey. He never returns; that doesn’t impact most of this period; his death occurs two weeks out from Survivor Series.
So, the storylines will be storylines until that point – we’re then not going to run new programming on WWF TV those last two weeks before the PPV. Instead, they’ll run full Eddy matches from ECW, NWA, and WWF. If any of the workers want to sit in a roundtable format and discuss those matches, they can.
It costs money in that the tickets purchased for those two weeks of TV have to be refunded; so WWF is out that money. I don’t think it hurts the buys for Survivor Series at all; if anything, the curiosity factor of how we’ll handle the PPV might help.
How we’ll handle it, as will be explained at the top of the PPV is this: the top two matches which are the two singles titles, won’t be kayfabed. They’ll drop storyline entirely, they’ll shake hands, they’ll wrestle, they’ll hug, we’ll do a thing and go home.
The first six matches, however, will be completely within the storyline, entirely as they had been set up – it’s just a regular show, because that’s what they do.
And, after Survivor Series, that’s it. There will be a renaming of something to give tribute to Eddy, but he won’t be a part of any future storyline, exactly as was done with Counterfactual Owen.
So, that said – we’re gonna set up those two title matches first, as whatever storyline that exists during the fall won’t carry over into the actual show.
Rey’s defending the Undisputed Titles against Juvie.
Just as the LWO went after Eddy – they now go after Rey. If they need a mouthpiece – and they probably do to set things up – it’s gonna be Flair, who, recall, has never liked Steamboat’s favoring of Rey – and during the fall, he expresses strongly to Steamboat that Mysterio should not be the standardbearer for the company.
Rey used to be in the same place as Juvie and Psychosys – they were together in Mexico, in ECW, in Japan, in NWA. 10 years ago, in Philadelphia, Rey met Psycho at N2R and tore the building down. And no one said, “oh, Rey’s the greatest wrestler in the world and Psychosys is just a dude. And when Rey met Juvie for the US Title at Superbrawl ’97 it wasn’t “Rey” “Rey” “Rey” they were chanting in San Francisco – it was “lu-cha, li-bre”. But here we are now in 2005 – and Rey Mysterio is World Champ – and Rey Mysterio has the Triple Crown – and does he thank the LWO? Does he accept the t-shirt? Does he remember his rasa?
Hell no.
And so they do that, Rey against the 3 man LWO all fall. Rey/Juvie is the main at Survivor Series.
The Worldwide belts were set up at Summer Slam when Benoit and Angle won Flair’s mini-tournament. So, Flair’s in this thing too – giving as much credibility as possible to calling this match not only the definitive Angle v. Benoit, given their long, long history with each other than included main eventing two Wrestlemanias – and not only is this for the vacant Worldwide belts – and not only is this match for the Triple Crown – as the IC is the one WWF belt never held by Angle or Benoit – but when you put all of those things together – this is the match to determine which one of these two – Kurt Angle or Chris Benoit – is the real best wrestler of his generation.
Benoit is Benoit. Angle is roid rage Angle, with S$ in tow, growing increasingly angry and frustrated with carrying his boss’s bags. And at some point over the fall – Angle reveals that, again, Benjamin will not be allowed to wrestle on PPV, because he’s just not ready. And so we run that all fall.
Rey v. Juvie
Benoit v. Angle
We run those angles until Eddy dies – and at Survivor Series, they’ll just work straight, no storyline matches that will be called Tribute Matches.
6 more matches and multiple storylines.
Orton and Cena are now full blown heels. Any remaining goodwill toward them as lovable comedy wrestlers who fluked into the titles should be gone, as they got full of themselves, and talk as if they are the greatest wrestlers alive, big timing everyone.
GHB, who continually moves from partner to partner in an effort to find someone with whom he can win the tag belts, now moves…..to Booker.
And that’s a tough sell, with Bradshaw’s archconservative politics – Booker, at some point, hits the line “GHB doesn’t care about black people.” And that should explain where this angle is.
Eventually, Bradshaw wears him down. Book doesn’t turn – effectively, Bradshaw drops the gimmick for a moment – talks to him in a shootlike manner – says he’s been in the WWF forever – Book’s been since the NWA died. And in that time, neither of them has ever held a belt.
And here comes these two punks and they’ve been tag champs since Mania.
Bradshaw says “look – for one night, we’ll forget the NeoCon stuff – we’ll forget the “I gots to get paid” stuff – and we’ll just be two guys from the same locker room who go out to the ring and get the belts they deserve.”
And that’s the rap that does it. So, the third title match at Survivor Series is Orton/Cena against Booker/Bradshaw.
The opening tag is MNM, who we’ve briefly met before, they’re doing their act – against the now babyface PAUL and Kane, who both wear the Taue t-shirts and do a veteran likable tag team thing.
We’re using Carlito and Masters. Masters is the crappy bodybuilder. Carlito is Razor Ramon. Carlito will be scheduled to work against Nova. Masters will be fodder for the debut of Executioner Lashley.
Here’s how he’s debuting. We’re gonna do the Bigelow entrance – with every manager in the company, every retired manager we can find vying for his services, as he debuts at the PPV. He’s all monster – and called the Executioner because he wears a cowl with giant X’s on his chest and back.
The announce (Taz, Paul E for part of the fall – we’ll get to that, and, for the fall, Josh Matthews as PBP) puts the clips of Lashley hard. Taz says he’s seen the guy fight in bars or cages or Thailand – that he’s a beast – and unstoppable force – we’ve never seen anything like this guy before – whomever the manager is who signs this guy is looking at controlling the biggest thing….
…you get it.
Lashley’s gonna debut against Masters.
So, that’s 6 matches.
The other two deal with Flair.
Like Hogan’s retirement match was at S Slam (and it was, he’s gone, I don’t need to use him next year) Flair’s retirement match is set for Survivor Series.
Flair goes to Steamboat and sells that, with HHH-M and his 2% control (see Summer Slam) lurking in the background – they need to stick together. Steamboat agrees. Flair says what he’s willing to do, to show his solidarity with Ricky is permanently retire – having his last match at the PPV (because HHH-M promised that he would walk out of XXII with a belt and to start that quest wants a particular match at Survivor Series) so, the plot hatched by Flair and Steamboat is that they’ll pass a rule that anyone who holds creative control can’t wrestle anymore.
So, that will keep HHH-M out of the ring.
But, to do that, that means Flair can’t wrestle – and Flair wants a going away match.
So, HHH-M will get his match at SSeries. Flair will get his. And then after, using their 98% control – Flair and Steamboat will say that no one with control can ever wrestle – meaning HHH-M either has to retire or give up his 2%.
See?
So, Flair gets a retirement match – and the opponent he picks to leave against is Leviathan, his old Horsemen mate, his protégée, his former tag partner.
Leviathan is now with Arn – Arn says he should do it, it’s an honor – they have promos with the three men – Leviathan is touched – Flair does lots of “passing the torch” promos.
So, that’s the 7th match – and that’s where we’ll stop for this piece.
We have the two singles titles. The tag title. The opening tag, the debut of Lashley, Carlito, and Flair’s retirement match, which is all part of the Flair/Stemaboat plan to save the company from the nefarious HHH-M.
In part two – we’ll set up Hunter’s match, what’s gonna happen to take Paul E out of the announce, the training team of Fit Finlay and…Dean Malenko….
And of course – what’s going on with big angle. Edge. Matt. And the end of Christian’s WWF career.
The build continues
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