In Monday Night Raw, Edge – Sunday’s 47 year old winner Royal Rumble– came to the ring to discuss his future. His victory guaranteed him a championship match in WrestleMania on March 28, against WWE champion Drew McIntyre or Universal champion Roman Reigns. Here, he found himself in front of the Crude title holder, McIntyre, and instead of the usual champion versus potential challenger interaction – bravado and punches in some combination – Drew praised him. Edge called out, “I appreciate the compliments, yes. And Drew, I really like you and I’ve been your mentor, so I have to be frank with you. What is wrong with you? … Instead of kicking my head when I passed those ropes, you’re filling me with compliments. ”
Edge was right, but you can excuse Drew for falling into his fandom. He was 13 when Edge made his WWE debut in 1998. And he was in a nostalgic mood, having just kept the title the night before against none other than Goldberg, the icon of the Monday Night Wars, which somehow still seems the part. Goldberg has fought a handful of times since he didn’t retire in 2016, and if his ring skills have worsened, it’s hard to say; he was always more of a phenomenon than a technician.
If Drew goes through the whole range WrestleMania, he will have defeated 54-year-old Goldberg, 48-year-old Edge (who, after almost a decade of retirement due to a degenerative neck disease, returned to the ring a year ago) and his former companion Sheamus, who is 43 and has been a WWE veteran for 12 years. And Goldberg and Edge were not the only mummies discovered on Sunday. Men Royal Rumble The match included appearances by Carlito (who debuted in WWE in 2004 and left in 2010), Christian (who is 47, debuted in 1998 and retired in 2014), Kane (53, debuted in 1995) and Hurricane Helms (46 , launched in 2010). The women Bang introduced Jillian Hall (left WWE in 2010), Alicia Fox (2019), Torrie Wilson (2008), Victoria (2009) and Mickie James. James debuted in 2005, left in 2010, returned in 2016 and was on the active WWE squad last fall; she went perfectly to living-legend-dom. James is not alone in this division: Jeff Hardy, Randy Orton and Rey Mysterio are all icons of past ages that are still advancing. (Mysterio’s son Dominik, who made his first on-screen appearance as a child in 2003, is now a full-time fighter.)
Wrestling fans are trained to believe in immortality: if Hulk Hogan’s nickname hasn’t convinced them that stardom is eternal, perhaps his 40-year career in the ring has done so. But even with that in mind, Sunday’s Ponce de Leóns powerlifting parade does away with credulity. It was a great victory for sentimentality – and for injections of HGH and testosterone – but one must ask whether there is a limit to the charms of nostalgia. Edge, Kane, Goldberg, Victoria … I would be crazy if I found that group of dolls at a garage sale. But like mine WrestleMania headliners in 2021?
To be fair, the wrestling legends that populate the top card are nothing new at this time of year. Complaints about theft of part-time employees WrestleMania seats of supporters of the main lineup are a chorus every spring. The Rock, Undertaker, Triple H, Goldberg – they all made money WrestleMania paychecks while fighters in their prime sat in the locker room. WWE took the practice to a new level with Brock Lesnar’s six-year championship, which returned from his UFC career in 2012 and was only occasionally present at WWE events. The part-time legend is the new archetype.
There is a kind of business logic to this. Values are down, and the sea of fans that propelled Attitude Era to new levels of pop culture relevance has moved on to greener pastures. Those wishing to experience Rock or Stone Cold Steve Austin in 2021 can turn to movies, podcasts or highlights from YouTube. WWE’s own streaming service, the WWE Network, has been a modest success so far, but it hasn’t brought back the crowd of time-wasting fans. And if you needed more evidence that that was the goal, look no further than last week’s news that WWE is shutting down after selling it to NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service.
As a result, every wrestling fan who spent $ 10 a month on PPVs and the WWE library will now get the full catalog of The office most importantly, conventional viewers who pay to broadcast The office, Yellowstone, and the Saved by the gong the reboot will have WWE at your fingertips. NBCU is making a big bet on its future-oriented channel, playing to the nostalgia of viewers with old programs, old actors and restarted versions of old programs. At the time of writing, Peacock’s home page featured a “Best of WWE” series squeezed between Charmed and Frasier—Which, not coincidentally, is on its way to a reboot in competitor Paramount +. It is no wonder that WWE is going back to the 90s for real. Looking back is apparently the way to the future.
And it’s no wonder that current stars like McIntyre are paying tribute to their ancestors in the ring with such urgency. There was a time, not long ago, when the returning legend, dragged back to the ring for one last attempt, was considered the lost one. Now, after Undertaker’s decade of Mania moments and reigns of the post-career title of Goldberg, Triple H and the Rock – the real underdog is the complete timer. No matter what kind of shape the stars of the new age are in, they can never surpass the power of the stars of someone whose peak was in an era of greater audience.
This is the luxury and curse of a fake sport. If the NBA could have timed The last dance had he appeared as a 57-year-old Michael Jordan and won another championship, the league would have done so – or at least his PR department and network partners would have been in favor of the idea. In WWE, this type of inanity is normal. And for a world that thinks (at best) of the early 2000s when it thinks about professional wrestling, the old guard is the institution, the money and the gods of Q-rating. If Drew McIntyre – or, hell, even Roman Reigns – will ever rise to the level of his predecessors, it will literally be defeating them. There’s a reason why Reigns versus the Rock is on Vince McMahon’s dream wall, and why John Cena WrestleMania availability is a constant source of speculation.
Just a few weeks ago, WWE turned Crude on a “Night of Legends” to try greedy assessments. It didn’t bring back the millions of fans who watched it in the 90s, but it was a teaser of what was to come. WWE will debut at Peacock in time for WrestleMania this year, and everyone who is streaming reruns of their old favorite series will suddenly have a chance to see some of their old favorite fighters trying to reinvigorate the WWE product. That’s asking a lot from a bunch of fighters who are stomping their feet in bundles of highlights and “Best of” box sets, but everything is possible within the square circle, in the land of tattooed demigods and baby oil. At the height of WWE, when Steve Austin chased Mr. McMahon across the arena in a beer truck to the delight of millions, it was common to say that he appealed to all the people who would like to kill his boss one day. McMahon turned the figurative into literal to the delight of fans. Well, never forget that WWE likes to call WrestleMania the “showcase of immortals”. “Very literal” is not in McMahon’s vocabulary.