You Say "Yes," I Say "No, No, No"

***WARNING: YOU ARE NOW ENTERING A WRESTLING NERD DISCUSSION ZONE *** PLEASE KEEP EYES AND EARS INSIDE OF KAYFABE AT ALL TIMES *** In this week’s podcast episode, Andy and I watched last week’s episode of Raw. We paid specific attention to the #OccupyRaw segment that almost singlehandedly turned Daniel Bryan vs. Triple H from a match that people who don’t hate Triple H were interested in, into a match that anyone worth their wrestling fan card was dying to pay 9.99 a month to see. And in doing so, they helped simultaneously make the match matter and turn H from “cool dad who occasionally harshed people’s totally chill vibes” into “evil cartoon character who is angry he’s finally getting his comeuppance”, which is the Platonic ideal of any professional wrestling heel. What was most remarkable about the segment, though, was the way in which the crowd began to organically respond to things that “The Authority” said.

Some of this was obvious call and response type stuff, which while awesome, isn’t particularly “important”. But as the segment went on, the responses — the YESses, the NOs and the Dan-YELL-Bry-ANs — became part of the natural conversation between H, Daniel and Steph (beautiful, wonderful, Steph,) turning the entire thing into a meta-discussion where the crowd both literally and figuratively had their say. And, because of that, much like what happened early in the feud between “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Vince McMahon, the crowd went from “picking sides” — which most crowds, especially postmodern ones, are wont to do — in a story, to well, absolutely hating one of the people involved.

Getting people to genuinely hate you, especially when your job well, is a lot harder than it looks. Gone are the days were you could get actual heat just by virtue of being mean to Hulk Hogan. The change in crowd dynamic from a group of people who believed everything they were seeing and interpreting it as real to a group of people of who are now fully aware of they are watching a TV show has made being an actively unlikable and not also bad at whatever it is you are trying to do almost impossible. But, for the first time in a long time, last week’s #OccupyRaw segment managed to allow Steph and H to do exactly that.

And then, they did what they did this week, and well, they’ve turned  turn H from “cool dad who occasionally harshed people’s totally chill vibes” into “evil cartoon character who is angry he’s finally getting his comeuppance” to “bad person we don’t like”.

It wasn’t the “lying” to Daniel Bryan’s face about respecting him — speaking of which, it was fun to see how excited they both are to be in an angle like this, especially in the wake of CM Punk leaving — or even that they feigned dissent between Steph and H to lull him into, if not a false sense of “security”, a false sense of what he was about to step in that made the segment, though. It was, more than anything, the line that revealed the plan: “They aren’t even real cops.”

Which, while seemingly inconsequential,  turned the whole thing into what could best be described as “some crazy next level shit”. Beyond the implying the sheer magnitude of the trickery — that he not only has the power/money to get ten guys to roughup Daniel Bryan, but the time and energy dedicated to it to buy them fake police gear — it called into question every single thing that happened before it.

The hilarious ineptitude of the two security guards they tried to use to break up last week’s shmoz, everything that had happened between Triple H and Daniel Bryan from SummerSlam on, was crystallized in that moment. The possibility that, quite frankly, this entire last eight months has had less to do with what Triple H thought was “best for business” and more with him wanting to put himself in the best possible position on the WrestleMania card and using the most popular new star to do it, became very real to those inclined to actually believe it.

By revealing that, at least for the night, that this — meaning Daniel Bryan, helplessly handcuffed while everyone in back is afraid to do anything for fear of losing their jobs — was the plan all along completely rejiggers what we can now assume about the entirety of the story line.  Instead of playing the reluctant authority figure doing what he has to for business, it’s now implied that he did all of this, not in spite of his personal feelings towards Daniel Bryan, but because of his feelings towards him and everyone else from the #YesMovement to “technically gifted guys who are so screwed up in the head they need me to hold their hand” to “Hollywood stars who think they can tell me how to run this business”.

Triple H has always been all about Triple H in the eyes of fans, and that’s why they’ve hated him. Despite his top-notch in-ring work and his flair for the dramatic, Triple H has always been disliked by a certain segment of the fan because they perceive that he’s being forced down their throats, something that those fans never like, no matter how delicious what’s being served might be. By playing on the needs of wrestling fans to feel like they can pick their own favorite performers and that those performers will become stars just by virtue of them being liked, they’ve managed to create a character that people aren’t just against, but actively afraid of what HHH might do from kayfabe and real-life perspective because he thinks he “knows better”. In two months, they’ve managed to solidify their new biggest star as the new people’s champion, and given him an adversary worthy of that: the status quo. Not bad for 9.99 a month. *** YOU ARE NOW EXITING A WRESTLING NERD DISCUSSION ZONE *** PLEASE ENJOY YOUR COMPLIMENTARY SONIC CHILI CHEESE PRETZEL DOG ON THE WAY OUT ***

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