McMahon’s illegitimate son storyline comes up ‘short’
It’s actually wrong on many levels. First it’s demeaning to little people as I’m sure the WWE will be trying to get laughs in the next few weeks by parading the diminutive wrestler around like McMahon’s Mini-Me, using the reigning Cruiserweight champion (Yes, Hornswaggle is wearing the Cruiserweight strap further killing that entire division) as nothing more than a joke.
Second, there were many marginal fans who tuned in to the revelation Monday night, hoping to see something interesting. It was a chance for the WWE to reclaim some of its old fans who had drifted away over the years, but as per normal, they blew it big time.
One of my friends, who hasn’t watched wrestling since the Chris Benoit murders, tuned in only to be disgusted with the entire payoff, and, like other marginal fans, will likely not tune in to WWE for a long time.
Third, and my pet peeve was that they missed a golden opportunity to build a storyline that could have lasted through Wrestlemania 24. Had they chosen a heel like Ken Kennedy, now suspended for a month over the Signature Pharmacies deal, they could have given him a big push and used him to feud with the rest of the McMahon family over the family fortune. Actually, this could have worked with any heel who has potential for main event status, and, there was no need to hurry the announcement as folks, like a soap opera, would have kept tuning in hoping to get more clues as to the son’s identity.
But hey, it’s all out the door now. Once again, something that had promise has hit the cutting-room floor.
Of course WWE isn’t the only company scrapping the bottom of the storyline barrel. In case you haven’t heard, Pacman Jones and his partner Ron (The Truth) Killings are now TNA tag team champions after beating Kurt Angle and Sting at the pay-per-view Sunday night. This, despite the fact Jones is contractually barred from actually wrestling.
For those who don’t know, Angle got mad at Sting during the match and gave him an Angle Slam, allowing Pacman to jump in the ring for a quick cover. The only thing that stinks more than that is the debut of Rikiski on TNA, as the former WWE star and brother of Umaga will be giving stink faces now in the six-sided ring at TNA.
But, even as far as we’ve gone just this past week in stinking up storylines, we are nowhere near hitting the complete bottom. That achievement happened April 26, 2000 when the hallowed Heavyweight Championship of the World, held by the likes of Buddy Rogers, Bruno Sammartino, Superstar Billy Graham, Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Bret Hart and Ric Flair was slapped around the waist of mediocre movie star David Arquette in a pathetic attempt by a desperate Eric Bischoff to get publicity from the mainstream media given Arquette’s starring in a wrestling movie which shall remain nameless.
That was likely the incident which put the final nail in the coffin for WCW which folded the next year, something I can attest to seeing I was one of the last WCW fans around and that night made me permanently turn the channel over to WWE. I still, to this day, won’t watch a movie with an Arquette in it nor will I watch ‘Friends’ since he is married to Courtney Cox who is in the cast. Oh yeah, I’m that hardcore.
For those wondering, the guy who plays Hornswaggle is Dylan Mark Postl, 21, an accomplished wrestler who lives just down the road from where RAW was held in Green Bay, Wis., and yes, prior to coming to WWE, Postl competed in NWA Wisconsin just like Ken Kennedy and C.M. Punk. As a bit of trivia, Postl is not only the smallest and lightest Cruiserweight champion of all time, but he is also the youngest.