WWE Money in the Bank, London, England
The Bloodline Saga is not the pinnacle of wrestling storytelling for me. For a person like me, it has had its ups and downs. There’s a lot I’ve really loved about it, though, even if it grates my sensibilities a little bit, in part because it’s just not exactly what I most want out of wrestling, as a person aging out of being very important at all as a “consumer.”
So what I’ve tried to do in recent months especially, with the stakes and tension ramped up, is think of it as a WWE version of — and man, I don’t mean to do a “cinema” thing here — something like the 1956 film Giant, or the 1958 film The Big Country. These big, sweeping Hollywood epics. Flawed. Rambling and at times a little repetitive in simply filling time. Wildly melodramatic. And I am drawn to their grandiose vision, to the scale of what everyone was trying to achieve.
For wrestling, it’s all come about as close to achieving that vision as anything’s gonna. What they’ve done, I think, is take fanfiction-type ideas and distilled them into something that can actually be put on TV, without requiring an accompanying reference book. (So like Bray Wyatt’s last couple runs of horseshit but less fucking stupid.)
Family drama with a couple of loyal outsiders (Heyman and, for a time, Zayn) and a revolving cast of rivals trying to take down an empire. And now we are at the family’s Civil War, an implosion from within.
(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)
Continue reading “Roman Reigns & Solo Sikoa vs The Usos (WWE, 7-1-2023)”
Tape Machines Are Rolling 