Road to SummerSlam 2008 - 3

We continue our Road to SummerSlam 2008. In Parts 1 and 2 we set up the top of the card:

WWF Title: Punk v. Matt
IC Title: MVP v. Jeff
Tag Title: Leviathan/Cena v. Edge/Hunter
Opening Tag: Matt/Punk v. Jeff/MVP

The other half of the show comes from only two programs.

The first part of 2008 saw us rev up the ECW machine again. Tommy Dreamer and Taz were the color analysts for GDI and WWF respectively (Taz had been the analyst forever), while Bradshaw was the NWA analyst. Bradshaw, as heavyduty NWA mouthpiece had strongly cut anti WWF promos – and eventually as all of the broadcast teams started to do PPVs together, the crosstalk and insults built into threats.
That heat escalated into an ECW v. Bradshaw heat on the back of Stevie Richards’ retirement angle; at the Rumble all the analysts brawled, which cost them all their broadcast jobs under Steamboat’s “no physical acts” policy. That built to two Mania matches, a Bradshaw/Dreamer garbage match (Bradshaw won) and a Stevie/Yakuza match (Stevie won and retired).

The first half of the summer sees Bradshaw (actually, BIG, an acronym for Bradshaw International Group) take out the ECW guys. Dreamer, Guido, Super Crazy all job their way out of the company. Taz isn’t part of the angle after Mania, he spends the rest of 2008 in Tampa running developmental (WWFU – World Wrestling Federation University, which you can see as a reality show on the counterfactual.com)
As does Cactus Jack, whose leaving is a bigger deal, since he’s a Triple Crown winner – he does a job to Bradshaw aided by the debut of the Great Khali – who does nothing except enter, look big, and hit a chokeslam.

Just a chokeslam. Please. He can scream too. That would be fine.

The ECW program transitions into the new program – BIG (get it, they’re an international group) consists of Bradshaw, Yakuza (the gentleman from the Pacific Rim), Mark Henry (whose ancestors proudly hailed from sub-Saharan Africa), and Khali (the Indian bigger than the Sun) is heavily tied into the economic collapse.
Bradshaw’s catchphrase is that this is the wrestling stable too big to fail.

He does a turn on the DiBiase bit, he’ll bring a fan into the ring, have him do something demeaning, and then demand that the fan pay him a hundred dollars. That would be a fun bit.

Because the Bradshaw International Group needs a bailout, see. They’re down to 3 Gulfstreams. They only have 7 homes among the 4 of them. They only made an average of 360x what an American worker makes, down from 430x, and that’s unacceptable. And when he says 360x, that’s an average American worker, not a wrestling fan, everyone knows wrestling fans don’t have jobs.

They’ll take financial terms for the names of the maneuvers. The Bailout is the new name for the Clothesline from Hell, the Credit Default Swap will be the name for a tag team move.

This will all play out on Fight Night, which is still being run by Dusty even though it’s no longer affiliated with the NWA. Eventually, all of the ripping of the average worker will bring a response from Dusty, who will hit his everyman populist appeal button as hard as he can.

And eventually, that’s gonna lead to the end of Dusty – he gets buried by BIG.

That leads to a response by Cody Rhodes, which really kicks us into the build to SummerSlam. Rhodes is extragreen, we’ve seen him before, Dusty used him as the 5th member of the losing Team NWA in the last War Games match – which drew much criticism from Bradshaw in his analyst’s role.
Cody does the green babyface thing – he’s extra scrappy – he loses singles, and loses in an ugly way, to the members of BIG – but week after week keeps coming back until finally the next week he’s challenged to a 4 on 2, all 4 members of BIG against Cody and anyone he can get to stand with him in a handicap match against the stable to BIG to fail.

Who will he get? Who? Who?

He gets the Undertaker, the 7 time Legends Champion.
Taker gets all the superman stuff, but eventually Khali tags in, hits the chokeslam and they get the fall.

We’ve got 3 BIG matches at SummerSlam.

-Undertaker (w/Cody) v. Bradshaw (w/Yakuza) – this is specifically a non garbage match. Oh yeah, BIG is a garbage stable; they got a taste for the plunder in the ECW angle, Bradshaw used to decry the use of glass light tubes, but now everyone seems to constantly swing one. There’s barbed wire and broken glass all over the place.

But for this match Bradshaw says he doesn’t want any part of the glass, he wants to destroy the Undertaker man on man – he has been in the WWF almost as long as the dead man – and he always knew if he got the opportunity, he’d show he was a better man.

-Khali v. PAUL – Khali does nothing but be big and hit chokeslams – after he destroys Cactus and then chokeslams the Undertaker – Bradshaw does the full run about Khali being the largest man in the history of wrestling, the only true giant in the history of wrestling. The ‘Taker says he has a friend who would disagree.

PAUL’s been gone, what, two years now, he was taken apart by Lashley during his run of dominance. He’s not going to come back until the PPV, so there’s that.
The stip is this is a 5 minute time limit match – these two monsters are going to go as hard as possible for 5 minutes – each trying to hit that chokeslam! Who will win?? Who?? Who?

-Mark Henry v. Frank Neely, yes, that’s Bam, no, there’s no reason to call him Frank except that that’s what we’re gonna do. Neely’s gonna be one of the “fans” who gets called to the ring to give BIG money – he’ll refuse – he’ll stand up to Bradshaw – he’ll slap Mark Henry – it’s the regular guy standing up to BIG!

So he’ll take him on at SummerSlam.

Boom, boom, boom. 3 matches.

One more match, it’s Kingston v. Santino – but we’ll hold that off.

In Part 4, which probably won’t come until July (there will be a TNA post after real world Slammiversary) we’ll set up that last match, plus, talk about all of the programs going on which aren’t represented at SummerSlam.

7 matches down – the 3 title matches, perejas increibles, and now the 3 BIG matches. One more match left, then the programs that aren’t making SummerSlam but are nonetheless significant to our new season and our long run to WM Silver.  We continue.

Road to SummerSlam 2008 - 2

In Part 1 (click the label at the bottom) we set up the two singles title matches at the top of the card (the advertising push twins them – it’s Hardys Go For Titles at SummerSlam ’08) and the opening tag.

The other tag match – the tag title match – is also pretty high profile.

Shawn and Hunter – heels – largely doing the same act that makes them babyfaces in real world WWF (like they’ve lived on scholarship their whole lives, Shawn’s “jesus loves me and so it’s okay that I was a dick” act is the same, Hunter’s “I’m married to the Princess so I own this whole place” act is the same) but in Counterfactual WWF, they’re booed.

I mean, you don’t have to boo. I’m booing.

Anyway – they took the straps at Survivor Series (their second time as a team) from Cade/Murdoch (the Superstar and the Sidekick, such a good gimmick “That_Just Happened” was the name for the flip piledriver – TNA can have that one if they like) kept that the Rumble but lost at XXIV to WMD: John Cena and Leviathan (Batista).

Each of them have had a previous run (Cena with Orton, Leviathan with Flair) WMD is doing an 80s musclehead thing – all oil and steroids (allegedly) and no selling. They’re managed by Arn, Flair was the guest referee at Mania and wound up turning on the Clique to aid WMD in taking the straps.

Hunter gets the rematch at Summer Slam, but he’ll be doing it with Edge.

Edge got maybe his biggest ever (maybe second biggest) singles win at 24, beating Jericho.

Edge is essentially real world Edge at this point. He’s amoral. He and Christian joined the Clique back at WM15, turning on their friends, the Hardys, now almost 10 years ago. Following that long collision feud, Edge went down for a year and a half with the neck surgery, returning as a babyface at XX in the big Clique babyface reformation (Michaels, Christian, London) that came on the heels of Michaels beating Hunter and Christian losing to heel Jericho in the second ever Cell match.

That version of the Clique had a long feud with Team Angle; Edge took the IC from Jericho – Edge then turned heel, lying to everyone, including his brother, in the Lita program – beating Christian in a Loser Leaves Town, Edge beat Michaels at XXII – then built for a year to the Cell Main Event at XXIII – he lost to Matt, then appeared to turn face in the postmatch beatdown from GDI.

Edge returned to save the Anvil’s daughter Natty at Survivor Series, he and a returning Jericho aligned to face the Clique at the Rumble – in a touching, historically important scene Jericho presented Edge with his own pink and black Hart Foundation hockey jersey (#10).

Edge then turned on Jericho in the match, having set him (and the fans) up all along. Edge then beat Jericho clean and in the middle at Mania.

So – here Hunter and Edge are.

This storyline isn’t much about WMD, largely they just do their act. The summer here is about the Clique.
Hunter and Edge continue to establish they don’t like each other. That’s always been clear, clear for years. Edge thinks Hunter’s bloated and self important and only has his spot because he bangs the Princess. Hell, maybe one day, when Hunter’s out of town, Edge might pay the Princess a visit.

Hunter thinks Edge is a bitch who only got out of the midcard by doing Matt Hardys tranny girlfriend.
They don’t like each other.

But the Clique is bigger than that. You think anyone likes Scott Hall? Hell no. But they’d lay down their life for him, ‘cause 4-Life isn’t just a catchphrase (buy the shirt) it is a blood oath.

And of course the fans don’t understand. And Joey Styles doesn’t understand. They’re losers. Like Chris Jericho.

They do lots of Jericho talk over the summer – ‘cause Jericho is gone without a trace. And there’s lots of talk about how wrecked he must be (Jericho has a fragile psychological history) that he’s crawled into a bottle someplace, that he’s been found in a back alley with a needle in his arm. They’ll talk about people spotting Jericho in the Arizona desert weighing 400 pounds and covered in melted cheese, or say that he and Perry Saturn have moved to Vermont to make it official.

So, Hunter’s HHH-M. And Edge has just ended Chris Jericho.

What about Shawn?

Shawn appears once on TV, soon after Mania, to cut a new variation on his “Don’t you people know who I am” promo.

Shawn says although you wouldn’t know it by watching WWF television, when he and Hunter won the tag titles last year – he became the first 10 time champion in WWF history.

2 time Heavyweight Champ.

A record 4 time Intercontinental Champ

4 time tag champ.

10 times.

Not Sammartino. Not Hogan. Not Steamboat or Savage or Hennig or Flair or Austin or Cactus or Mysterio or any one of the Harts – any damn one of them.

Me. Shawn Michaels. And none of you are smart enough to appreciate that what you are seeing in front of you is the greatest professional wrestler who ever lived.

A 10 time champion. Shawn Michaels.

So it’s time to educate you people on just who it is I am.

Shawn says one day Jesus will return to earth. But not everyone will be saved. Only the people who recognize him as their lord will be saved. That’s why they need to educate themselves.

You have to know Jesus when you see him.

Shawn says “I am not Jesus, that would be blasphemy – but I am as close as most of you are ever going to get – and you will recognize that in this ring – I am your Lord!”

So, what we get, not just over the summer, but all the way until 2009 – are clip packages of Shawn’s ten title wins. They are positioned in a way to put Shawn over as hard as possible – slow motion, music – narration, it is designed to in a full on way portray Shawn as more than a man.

The Clique’s in charge, after all. Hunter’s a McMahon. Shawn Michaels is Shawn Michaels. Edge is Edge.

They are entitled.

The ten Michaels title wins are shown in clip vignettes, interspersed with biblical verses all summer long, hell, make it all year long, all the way to 2009. They end with flashes of white light and the phrase.

He Will Rise Again.

That’s the tag title match. WMD defending against Edge and Hunter.

4 down. 4 to go. Plus all of the other stuff that while not being part of Summer Slam is nonetheless going on in the summer of ’08. We continue.