Opinion
We Need Darth Reigns, Not the Prequel Ani Version of Him
RAW WARS – Episode I
“The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.” (Obi-Wan Kenobi, Episode IV – A New Hope)
In the world of entertainment, everything is tied together. There is no cultural phenomenon that does not refer to the works that came before or that cannot be linked to the works that came after. Such is the force of culture. This includes the world of sports entertainment. So, follow me on my weekly journey on RAW WARS, when I search for the binds that tie RAW and the universe of popular culture together.
We Need Darth Reigns, Not the Prequel Ani Version of Him
With Solo – A Star Wars Story hitting theatres, I have been reminiscing about the previous Star Wars movies in recent weeks. I was not born when the films of the original trilogy were released, but I do remember going to the cinema as a teen to see the prequel trilogy. I remember even more vividly the backlash that the movies, especially Episode II, caused. Much of this criticism focussed Hayden Christensen’s portrayal of Anakin Skywalker. Hailed as the chosen one throughout the prequels, Anakin Skywalker never lived up to the high expectations fans had because of the quasi mythical performance of Darth Vader in the original trilogies. Instead of being the charismatic and enigmatic badass that we loved from Episodes IV – VI, Anakin Skywalker presents himself to us as a whiny, pouty teenager. He holds awful monologues on the irritating coarseness of sand and on haunting kisses, while being upstaged by the more charismatic characters who are played by the veteran actors. In the moments when he does decide to act, he is not applauded for badassery, but criticised for ridiculous displays of strength and his mindless savagery, making the audience sympathise with his opponents.
Sounds familiar?
The WWE has been booking Roman Reigns in the exact same fashion for years now and just like with Anakin’s portrayal in the prequels, most of the fans do not like it one bit. Yet if the latest episode of Raw on 21 May is anything to go by, the WWE either does not listen to the chorus of boos every week or chooses to ignore the fans’ rejection of the gimmick and taunts us instead. I argue that the WWE executives in charge of Roman’s booking need to (re)watch the Star Wars trilogies to see why they are wrong in casting Roman in the prequel Anakin role and that they need to put Vader’s mask and cloak on the Big Dog asap.
Everything started so promising. As the enigmatic powerhouse of The Shield, Roman Reigns let actions speak for himself. His no nonsense attitude put him over with the fans, especially as indy veterans Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins were able to hide his weaknesses. Even after the June 2014 version of the ‘chair shot heard around the world’, fans were still invested in him. They wanted to see Roman confront Seth and vanquish the turncoat. And then Roman’s own version of Anakin’s sand monologue happened: the Sufferin’ Succotash debacle. Fans did not fully turn on Roman then, but this promo did nothing to endear him to the audience. Neither did the many promos that followed this one. But Roman was still a badass, so the relationship between the chosen one and the fans was still amicable.
Until Roman stopped being a badass and became a distorted version of a superhero. Remember that scene from Episode II when Anakin jumps from his floating vehicle on Coruscant to follow the assassin? Or when he effortlessly beats Count Dooku in Episode III, which he could not do prior? I ranted about Anakin being portrayed as some kind of Superman, overcoming all odds. Braun Strowman survived several finishers and signatures moves during the 2018 Elimination Chamber main event, but then suddenly fell victim to a few Superman punches and spears by Reigns. Roman also kicked out of five (!) F5s at Wrestlemania 34, when in the months prior no one even kicked out of a single F5. I can only suspend my disbelief so much. In his current feud with the Modern Day Maharaja, his attacks are too brutal and unjustified (and ultimately pointless), so that the audience grows sympathetic towards Jinder Mahal.
Well, at least he lost the match against Lesnar then, right? And his clean loss was awarded with another title shot at Greatest Royal Rumble, which he also lost (he really did as one foot remained entangled in the apron cover). But, to improve his mood, he was awarded a spot in the main event match at Backlash, despite several titles being on the line on that PPV. He won that, admittedly, but he lost the respect of the fans even further, who could not wait to get home as soon as Roman had successfully pinned Samoa Joe. He then lost the qualifying match for the Money in the Bank ladder match, which leads us the recent RAW episode. Roman came out to confront Stephanie McMahon on how management did not want him anywhere near the Universal title. At that point I got a horrible flashback from Episode II, when Anakin throws a cup against the wall, claiming that Obi-Wan Kenobi is holding him back. This did not endear Anakin to the fans, nor will Roman whining about management help getting him over. This segment on Raw only accomplished one thing for me: it made me resent Roman.
I usually like Roman. A lot. He is one of my top 5 wrestlers, but with each passing week of this awful booking I have to ask myself: how can I justify giving him this spot in my personal favourite list? Which leads me to ask the WWE how Roman is still perceived as the top babyface in the company? Hayden Christensen had the misfortune of having to perform with more seasoned actors who upstaged him quite a bit. Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi for instance. Watching the prequels, I became less and less interested with Anakin’s story, as I grew more attached to Obi-Wan’s story. Roman is currently upstaged by at least two babyfaces on the RAW roster. No matter whether you pick the Monster Among Men Braun Strowman or Red-Hot Seth Rollins, who burns it down every week, you cannot go wrong with either of these men as your pick for top babyface of the company. Alas, the way that booking presents itself, Roman is still the WWE’s chosen one. Braun and Seth do not have multi-facetted storylines, quite the contrary: for the most part Braun is stuck in tag team matches and Seth was even used as a sidekick to advance Roman’s feud on RAW last Monday.
The Solution is Simple
This means: we are stuck with Roman as the top guy of WWE, just as we were stuck with whiny, pouting Anakin during the prequels. Yet, if Star Wars has taught us something, then that there is always hope. Between the most insufferable moments of Anakin in Episode II and his tear-jerking death in Episode VI, something profound happens. Anakin Skywalker turns heel. The chosen one who is supposed to bring the force into balance and fight as a Jedi allies himself with the Emperor and becomes known as Darth Vader. Roman needs to do the same, or the WWE risks angering their fans to the point they stop caring for the entire product. It also would solve so many issues that RAW currently suffers from. Roman Reigns could be the top-level heel that the company so desperately needs and his feuds against the top babyfaces, especially Seth Rollins, would make for some compelling story telling. Roman’s position on the roster would finally match the reactions he gets. Imagine him embracing all that hate! I cannot wait to see that. And as we know from watching Episode VI, it would make his eventual face turn all the more powerful and fans would be likely to embrace Roman as a top babyface in the far future. Anakin Skywalker is at his best during Episode V, which is widely received as the best of all Star Wars episodes. If the WWE finally stops booking Roman in the prequel Anakin Skywalker role and turns him heel, RAW is indeed destined for greatness. Then and only then, I would cheer for him again and enjoy watching how the Roman Empire strikes back.
What do you think? Leave a comment below or message me on Twitter @KirstinHerzog1.
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Opinion
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Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY – Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
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About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
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WEDNESDAY - The Greg DeMarco Show (wrestling)
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Opinion
AJ’s Top 3 Favorite SummerSlams
AJ is back with his annual opinion article, and this time the SummerSlam buzz got him wondering about his personal Top 3.
It’s been a while since I have done any form of writing and SummerSlam is this Saturday. Of all the SummerSlams I’ve seen over the years; which ones are my favorites? While it’s not a revolutionary idea, I figured everyone loves to debate favorites of well, anything. Don’t worry though because this isn’t just going to be pure recency bias. I’ve watched the majority of them so with the ones I put on the list, it hit me more in some way shape or form whether it was story, a really good match or it just felt like a solid event.
At least this proves WWE is trending in a good direction for me, when it gets the ol’ brain juices flowing just because a show is around the corner!
#3: 2022 (Ol’ Brock Lesnar Has A Farm)
Starting off the show, we get Bianca looking for a rematch against Becky from last years SummerSlam and it was better than the 21 second affair that everyone claims was a squash. This time Bianca holds her own and beats the Man in a fairly decent match, good way to get the event started. Next up is the heat seeking missile, Logan Paul against the former heat seeking missile because, well he wasn’t cut out for it and wasn’t a guy in everyone’s eyes, The Miz. After they had their blow off at Mania with Logan coming out on top which… isn’t awful, I just don’t like Logan Paul because he has that dude bro aura and swagger to make him more hateable than any other person on the card. Which I suppose is his gimmick…so…kudos?
First Championship match is for the US Championship and it’s as expected that in Theory, he should never beat someone to the caliber of Bobby Lashley which is no surprise. Dominik and Rey still back when Dom wanted the good fight against the Judgement Day before joining them later. The former Colts players, which they hammered it dahn in this match up showed that the canal swimming, trash talkin’, podcastin’, current RAW Color Commentatin’ goofball we all love, Pat McAfee came out on top again Bum Ass Corbin.
Usos putting the Street Profits on lockdown in the penitentiary since I believe this was peak Bloodline with the belt collecting and running all of WWE. Liv beat Ronda Rousey which isn’t astonishing but it’s not something people had on their bingo cards for anything with WWE so it was a nice little shock factor. The most memorable part of the night is obviously the Main Event, Lesnar brings the tractor, Roman catching the Microphone and Brock stands on top of the vehicle. Damn good match that showed off what they do in the ring since Roman caught his stride as the main bad guy and Brock… liked people after all of this? That is still a weird statement in my head. Brock being a good guy people person. If Liv wasn’t on bingo cards for wrestling, that is not on bingo cards in any aspect of life really.
That is more of the event that had solid matches and story going for it. No weird double count out, multiple people involved, 5 tag matches on the card. Things made sense and weren’t convoluted, had shocking moments that were great to see like Liv actually getting a title defense and there were the results we all expected at the time like Theory losing in 4 minutes to Bobby Lashley.
#2: 2009 (Are You Ready for The Return?)
This event wasn’t that strong. It was strong with the star power involved in 2009 with guys like Rey Mysterio as Intercontinental Champion, Orton and Cena for the WWE Championship as it was becoming as stale as month old chips and CM Punk was facing Jeff Hardy before he ultimately returned to TNA at the beginning of 2010 after this PPV. For me, it’s not so much of the show itself, it was more of the memories because the Balai as our friends Chris Platt and Rey Cash like to call my brother and I, we were just coming back into wrestling and we were TNA Fans. We didn’t watch WWE that much really, it was just what came on after another channel had old ROH shows before they moved to three hours and swallowed the 8pm Eastern Slot. No, the reason why this has so many memories for me is three main reasons. First, Orton and Cena. They have had their rivalry since the beginning it seems, being each others foils like Hogan and Piper before them and there had to be a stipulation where if Randy was Counted Out or DQ’d, he’d lose the championship regardless. This was prime Viper Randy and the obvious joke we had of Super Cena where he very rarely lost, unless it was SummerSlam surprisingly enough.
Number two reason was CM Punk and Jeff Hardy. Hardys known for the Ladder and TLC matches in the past and this being the penultimate match for this feud and it was a banger of a match. If you didn’t know Punk before, it was a great introduction to his wrestling. I used to like Punk a lot because of this match because he could talk, wrestle… and not insanely personal with things in wrestling. In all seriousness, this was a great match. Ultimate risks, high reward for Punk grabbing the World Heavyweight Championship and he was given his next feud because of the final boss of SmackDown at that time. Thanks, Teddy Long.
The main and final reason though why this match gave me the memories flowing back is more of the fact that one of my closest and longest termed friends of 23 years, also loves wrestling. Back when we were younger, he’d do MoCap videos on YouTube with his figures. We’d have friends come over for parties at his house and we’d do the one thing WWE always told us not to do and that was try it at home. He was always stronger than me, I was always more charismatic. He had the power aspect and did things with brute force, I could talk my way out of trouble with parents if we did something wrong. There was always one thing that our respective mother’s always called us though… it’s on the tip of my tongue… oh right, ‘Degenerates’.
As soon as we were called that, we kind of parodied the DX line. I was limber enough to do the HBK pose and do a Superkick before it became the new DDT and he would just Spinebuster people and knew how to do the water spit. So what do you think was the main reason we even ordered this PPV for his 13th Birthday? I think the two guys we were pretending to be were set to return on a tank and toss out some glow sticks. The return of DX, Shawn Michaels coming back after Mania with Triple H to deal with the Legacy problem was an amazing return for them and made everything so much fun.
So we have the solid card and this one has a personal story… what’s my number one SummerSlam? Is it personal? Well yes but not going into that. Is it a good card? To me, it was a phenomenal card! Is it memorable? Seeing how wrestling fans still mention at least three matches to this day.
#1: 2005 (Octopus in the Washer, Lover’s Quarrel and Where the F%#$ is Vickie?)
Quite possibly some of the best matches I’ve seen and one that was just the most hilarious moments of overselling in wrestling history, I know why I love this SummerSlam but it’s also a really good card at the same time. Redacted beats Orlando Jordan in 25 seconds for the US Title and they made jokes about it like, he can make a coffee faster than he beat Orlando and stuff like that, it’s pretty funny. Angle getting sick of Eugene’s antics for his Gold Medal was also a great bit they had play up, the Year long feud of Randy Orton and Undertaker was still going on where Orton comes out on top this time around to get the win back from Mania, Jericho returning for the match with Cena in a whole promotional thing for each other’s groups, Fozzy for Jericho and the Chain Gang doing Bad, Bad Man for Cena leading up to a match for the WWE Championship. JBL won a 20 man battle royal on SmackDown to win the Championship…… Opportunity to face the newest member of SmackDown, Batista but the three main matches that a lot of people talk about to this day; Edge vs Matt Hardy, Rey vs Eddie for Dominik and Hogan vs HBK in the Main Event.
I have reasons to enjoy the Hardy/Edge match but it looked like a real fight, it really made us believe that Matt Hardy was going to kill Edge because real names were dropped during this tirade from Hardy. It wasn’t Edge and Lita, it was Adam and Amy. Matt was so dead set on beating the hell out of Edge that they made a situation into gold and it was a great moment for this match to happen, I believe it was also an Unsanctioned Match too which added the intensity until matt got concussed and knocked senseless that it looked like he couldn’t fight for anything but the build up was what made it seem like a marque match. It made it feel real, it made it feel awesome and it made it feel personal.
Eddie kept tormenting Rey Mysterio about Dominik not being Rey’s but Eddie’s for the summer. That’s all you heard from Eddie being the weasel he was is hanging out with Dominik, making the world believe it’s his son and what not (Let’s not do a fast forward to today where he has the mullet, mustache and everything like Eddie) but they settle this in a Ladder Match where the top of it is a document for the custody of Dominik and my god, this match is better than it should have been. I expect nothing else from Eddie because the man hated having a bad match, Dom got involved and stopped Eddie, Vickie was late and stopped Eddie. The whole match was good it was just very weird with the premise but was a great match. I wonder if Rey regrets his decision to win the match now…
Octopus in a Washing Machine… those five words have resonated with Shawn Michaels’ performance in this match, forever. It was supposed to be an amazing match up between Hogan and Michaels, Icon vs Icon it said and suddenly Hogan’s back gives out, can’t do a trilogy of matches so we can only do the one and then pull out of everything after. This match was set up to be a classic and instead turned into the most unbelievable sell fest ever. A Hogan big boot caused Shawn to tumble 3 or 4 times, getting crotched on the ropes had HBK bouncing higher than he should have, being tossed out of the ring made it look like Shawn never broke his back in 1998 from how much he flopped and flipped around like crazy. It’s bad… or maybe even good that a lot of current wrestlers watched this match that went, “I can sell like that, I want to be a wrestler” and did. So good or bad, I don’t know but for some reason this PPV has always had a place in my heart for how memorable it was.
Those are my top three SummerSlams so far but who knows, 2024 has potential to maybe bump something or at least get me to consider a shift. Should be fun to see how the show plays out! What are some of your favorite SummerSlams?
About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
TUESDAY - Musical Chairs (music) / Hockey Talk (NHL)
WEDNESDAY - The Greg DeMarco Show (wrestling)
THURSDAY - Keeping the news ridiculous... The Oddity / Chairshot NFL (NFL)
FRIDAY - DWI Podcast (Drunk Wrestling Intellect)
SATURDAY - The Mindless Wrestling Podcast
SUNDAY - The Front and Center Sports Podcast
CHAIRSHOT RADIO NETWORK PODCAST SPECIALS
Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE's PPV/PLE history)
TheChairshot.com PRESENTS...IMMEDIATE POST WWE PLE REACTIONS w/ DJ(Mindless), Tunney(DWI) & Friends
Patrick O'Dowd's 5X5
Classic POD is WAR
Chairshot Radio Network Your home for the hardest hitting podcasts... Sports, Entertainment and Sports Entertainment!
Powered by RedCircle
Let us know what you think on social media @ChairshotMedia and always remember to use the hashtag #UseYourHead!
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