Sunday night on Pay Per View, WWE presented Hell in a Cell to a mixed reaction by 11PM EST. Randy Orton was the new WWE Champion after Special Guest Referee Shawn Michaels fed Sweet Chin Music to Daniel Bryan, after Bryan caused an inadvertent referee bump to Michaels and kicked COO Triple H in the face. Michaels claimed on the Raw afterwards that he did it to defend his friend. He was given a Yes Lock for his efforts.
What was interesting about the finish wasn’t the finish itself. The finish was a Thomas the Tank Engine trainwreck of embarrassing proportions. The Heartbreak Kid made a career out of his ability to bump but when asked to make a simple referee bump in his time retired, he not only delayed his reaction but executed a bump worthy of Linda McMahon. When HHH went to check on Michaels afterwards, he tossed number one contender Bryan out of the corner like a tissue in a receptacle weighed down by snot. Even with such strength, it took only one kick to the head to dummy HHH to the ground. Once again, Randy Orton was not WWE Champion through his own finish but by the finisher of another. Once by a Pedigree and now by Sweet Chin Music. As I said, it was pretty bad.
What was interesting was a hot, boisterous crowd chanting for absolutely everything turned silent by the finish. Bodies quickly exited Miami. There was very little booing. The crowd was absolutely deflated.
It’s no surprise as to why. The WWE has been delaying a major win by Bryan for months now. So much in fact that the Internet was in a complete uproar. On Internet message board Something Awful, their “Punchsport Pagoda” section included several proclamations of giving up WWE forever. Despite the name of their Hell in a Cell thread being, “No Chance in Hell of a Satisfying Ending”, folks were outraged of being denied the heroic babyface becoming WWE Champion for another time. Twitter was even louder. Frustration, rage and vitriol spilled through tweets. Just look up Twitter hashtag #HellInACell for yourself.
While one could point out that the WWE has taken too long to reach a blow off in the Bryan/Orton storyline, it’s what else is being said. For many, this PPV was proof the WWE has no confidence in Daniel Bryan in the main event. He’s likely to return to the midcard since Vince prefers his big muscle men and clearly this was all a way to put fans and supporters of Daniel Bryan in their place. Over and over on the Internet were proclamations that the WWE doesn’t believe in Daniel Bryan.
What all of this reminds me of is a famous promo by the Loose Cannon Brian Pillman at Extreme Championship Wrestling’s Cyberslam 96. Pillman first took the adoration of ECW fans by ripping on Eric Bischoff and using vulgarity that he never could in World Championship Wrestling. He then turned the promo against ECW fans for being “smart marks”. For those who don’t understand pro wrestling carny terminology, a “mark” is someone who doesn’t understand the fix in pro wrestling of pre-determined results. They are being “kayfabed” without knowing it. A “smart mark” was a phrase coined for wrestling fans who knew that wrestling was fake and took an interest to the backstage storylines just as much as the storylines presented in ring. Today, smart marks are the majority of wrestling fans. Especially independent wrestling fans. The ones who watched Ring of Honor before CM Punk and “Bryan Danielson” wrestled in the WWE.
The reason this situation reminds me of that Pillman promo is because Pillman was pointing out that a “mark” is a derogatory term; it’s to make fun of someone who isn’t in the know. ECW fans, and a majority of the vocal Internet wrestling fans today, prefer to believe that they know it’s a fix, they are “smart” about it, so they are above such an insult. However, every person who expressed such anger towards the Daniel Bryan finish to go as far as to think the WWE doesn’t believe in Bryan isn’t smart. They bought into the show. They are a mark.
You see, the Daniel Bryan storyline since Triple H and Stephanie McMahon returned as authority figures is that the company doesn’t believe in him. That he’s too small and doesn’t have what it takes to be the face of the company. This is all in-storyline material. The truth of the matter is that Daniel Bryan has been in the main event of five straight WWE Pay Per Views, including dozens of Monday Night Raw episodes. He’s certainly received more television time than any other wrestler, probably for the entire 2013 calendar year. More than Cena. More than Punk. More than Orton. While it goes without saying that the WWE is absolutely terrible at properly handling babyface pushes, it’s no question that Bryan is now one of the biggest stars in the company. Well, unless you’re a mark.
Sunday night, thousands of wrestling fans outed themselves into being completely wrapped up in the storyline being told by Triple H and the WWE. They bought hook, line and sinker into the company not actually believing in Daniel Bryan. So when HBK superkicked Bryan and cost him the WWE Championship, they weren’t angry because it was a poor finish as much as they were angry of being convinced that “this was the night” and it wasn’t. Even though they know pro wrestling is predetermined, they got swept into their own paranoia and the paranoia that the WWE played upon in the story. Remember, Daniel Bryan beat John Cena clean for the WWE Championship. Yet that doesn’t matter after being screwed out of the title at Hell in a Cell.
As Brian Pillman said at Cyberslam 96, “A mark believes OJ didn’t do it”. For the new marks, they believe Daniel Bryan is truly out of favour with the WWE. They truly believe what they are told and not what they know. That isn’t smart. That’s being kayfabed. Feel free to pay for another game of ring toss.
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