There’s a pretty good chance you have played a classic Sonic the Hedgehog game. Maybe you played something more modern, which is fine. In the classic Sonic the Hedgehog, it was important to get the brass rings. Brass rings were survival. Without a brass ring, any enemy could easily kill you. With a brass ring, you could survive a hit. You of course lost that ring, but you at least didn’t have to use up a continue. Sonic could collect hundreds of brass rings, but if he got hit while hoarding them? He’d end up dropping them. Rings all over the place. Getting the rings wasn’t the way to victory, but it was the way of survival.
My insatiable urge to find some connection between videogames and the rest of the world aside, I think about this when I hear the one on one interview between Vince McMahon and Stone Cold Steve Austin from the WWE Network. In the eyes of Vince McMahon, nobody has really grabbed the mythical brass ring since John Cena. It’s a statement that deserves a lot of thought.
What is the brass ring?
“I have grabbed so many of Vincent K. McMahon’s imaginary brass rings, that it’s finally dawned on me that it’s just that, they are completely imaginary. The only thing that’s real is me.”
– CM Punk
The metaphor of the brass ring has existed for a while, but I used to always hear a different metaphor, that of the football. Wrestlers were “handed the football” to see if they would drop it or run with it. Lex Luger was handed the football in 1993 when he bodyslammed Yokozuna and began the Lex Express. He dropped it at the 1994 Royal Rumble and it was picked up by Bret “The Hitman” Hart. Randy Orton was handed the football when he defeated Chris Benoit at the 2003 SummerSlam but dropped it, eventually picked up by Batista when he won the 2004 Royal Rumble and defeated Triple H in the main event of WrestleMania 21. The idea was that some wrestlers take what they are given and run with it.
In time, things changed apparently. No longer was it that anyone was handed the football. Instead, nothing was handed to them. They had to take it. And taking it became the brass ring. Like a gymnast, the wrestler was given the area to compete in but they had to be the ones to reach and grab that brass ring. In talking with Austin, McMahon said the last wrestler to grab it was John Cena. That would mean that back in 2003, back when Cena was still a mouthy rapper gaining the support of the fans, that was the last time someone made Vince McMahon recognize that he didn’t have to hand the football to someone. They were ready to just take it. And Cena did. He deserves being the biggest star in the company for the past decade.
What’s interesting is that by Vince McMahon and the Brass Ring ’s definition, all of the wrestlers following Cena never grabbed a brass ring. Whether it be CM Punk in the Pipe Bomb, Daniel Bryan with the “YES!” chant and subsequent run to the main event of WrestleMania or even Randy Orton’s career since he dropped the football after SummerSlam, nobody has grabbed that brass ring. It’s worth noting that I’m talking about main eventers. What about the midcard?
Over and over, Triple H and Vince McMahon have given the brass ring speech to everyone on the roster. It’s concerning that in the eyes of McMahon, someone like AJ Lee becoming the most over female wrestler on the roster isn’t considered a brass ring grab. Zack Ryder using YouTube to gain significant momentum as a midcard talent wasn’t grabbing a brass ring. Husky Harris transforming himself into Bray Wyatt wasn’t grabbing a brass ring. Only one brass ring has been grabbed and it was John Cena.
Is there only one brass ring?
It makes me wonder if the metaphor should be taken further. If only one person has grabbed it since 2003, is there only one ring to grab? Surely the careers of Steve Austin and The Rock were considered to be two brass rings grabbed, or is it? Maybe there’s one brass ring and then there’s the football. A guy like Triple H received a main event push before he was actually ready for the main event in 1999 and it wasn’t until later he came into his own. Was HHH grabbing the brass ring or the football? Was Rock the brass ring, breaking out of The Nation and his own negative stock to become the most electrifying man in entertainment? What about guys like Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho? Edge and Rey Mysterio? Brock Lesnar and Batista? Were none of them holding the imaginary brass ring when they climbed to the main event? Were they merely handed a football to run into the endzone, i.e. the World title?
It’s all speculation over a simple comment, but it’s a worrisome one. If Cesaro is looked upon to not have “IT”, or even “IT” yet, what can he do to grab the brass ring? And if there’s only one ring to grab, does that mean one has to wait for John Cena to let it go? After all, he has the last one grabbed. Is Cesaro even worried about the brass ring when nobody has handed him the football?
It’s a pretty significant metaphor to try and examine and understand what Vince McMahon means (and what his son-in-law means as well) when they ask fans to accept certain wrestlers or certain wrestlers fall into the WWE’s massive shade.
The Millennial Dilemma
In the mind of Vince, the talent is full of millennials that don’t have the same drive and ambition, and acceptance to fail that Austin’s generation X had.
The response came from Austin asking if wrestlers had a tougher time making it because they couldn’t piss people off like in his day. When a wrestler in the late 90s pissed Vince off, they still had other employment options in North America. WCW could pay them as much as the WWF or maybe more. ECW might not pay them the same but it would still be exceptional exposure. Today, TNA doesn’t pay like the WWE does. ROH is questionable to even pay their wrestlers enough to force them to stop taking independent bookings. There are only so many spots for North Americans in Japan or Mexico. Vince’s answer was just to not piss them off, followed by his rant about millennials and their ambition.
It’s this sort of baby boomer privilege we’ve seen from McMahon in the past. It goes without saying that Vince took incredible risks to build his empire and at many times in his life, he could crash and burn with failure. He has crashed and burned with failure and still came out to survive from it. But Vince also got to find out later in life his real father was a wealthy pro wrestling promoter willing to give him a job. The idea he had no safety net is about as real as the brass ring. Vince received more opportunities than he’ll ever admit to. It was with those opportunities, those footballs handed to run with, that Vince had the confidence to go ahead and reach for his own brass ring. Nobody sees their own privilege. They only see the hard work they themselves put in.
It’s because of this that I wonder if the WWE needs to lay back on so much talk of a brass ring only one man has grabbed in a decade and think more about the times they hand talent the football to run with. The opportunities are becoming more and more scarce as WWE relies on part-time performers like The Rock, Brock Lesnar and Sting to come in and cause a stir instead of creating a stir with their full-time performers. It’s pretty clear from the talk with Austin that if John Cena was out of commission or quit to never return again, the WWE would be at a complete loss for what their future would entail. Vince McMahon is so stuck on waiting for someone to “grab the brass ring” and become a star as big as Cena he’s forgetting about the times people have taken the football, ran with it to the end zone and said, “Where’s the brass ring?”.
And it shows in the booking for the past decade. The WWE product has revolved around Cena to sometimes embarrassing extents. John Cena wasn’t Vince McMahon’s first choice but he is certainly the guy Vince has leaned his entire product’s existence upon. It’s incredible that Cena to this point hasn’t crumbled like many of his contemporaries, or looked to other avenues. That said, at some point in time, Vince McMahon has to realize it isn’t about someone reaching and grabbing the brass ring. It’s about the WWE letting someone else put their hands on it.
We might not see that until John Cena lets it go.
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