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| Guest Columns | Dan Doomsday |
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THE DEVICE OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WHAT A RUSH!!!! You know, that's the first L.O.D. reference I've ever used since I started writing this column? Oh well, this is the most electrifying column in sports entertainment today, the Device, and I am Dan Doomsday, the Pride of 2Dope, the World's Most Dangerous Columnist, and one bad mamma jamma. I'm in the process of wrapping up another Device Exclusive Interview, and that should be up very very soon. In the meantime, I have this week's Device, which is damn good in its own right, and I'll get to that after a little extraneous bullshit. DOOMSDAY ON MOVIES: This week's video pick is Rudy. I can't stand to watch college football, but I love this movie. Sean Asten is great as Rudy, and the story is excellent. Good stuff all around. DOOMSDAY ON MUSIC: I must say that the new Limp Bizkit song, "Rearranged," is damn good. I didn't really like "Nookie" (it was ok), but "Rearranged" is a great song, and it shows off Fred Durst's ability to flat-out sing. It just might get me to buy Significant Other. DOOMSDAY ON TV: Really looking forward to the season premeire of Star Trek: Voyager. I'm a big fan of the series, and an even bigger fan of Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine...what a woman!). I'm eager to see what this season holds for Voyager's crew. DOOMSDAY ON FOOTBALL: OK, Rome wasn't built in a day. I'll consider the Jets' loss to Buffalo a minor setback. We'll turn this thing around for sure. J, E, T, S! JETS, JETS, JETS, JETS! OK, it's time for this week's Device. This week, I'll take a look at one of the most important wrestlers of the 90's. Why is he so important? You may think you know, but you probably don't. Well, I'll enlighten you, and tell you... Why Bret Hart Matters 5 times WWF champ, 2 times Intercontinental Champ, 2 Times WWF Tag Champ, 2 Times WCW U.S. Champ, and the 1993 King of the Ring. Those are the career highlights for Bret Hart that I can think of just off the top of my head. (If you feel so inclined, e-mail me and tell me what I left out.) But all those titles don't come close to telling the whole story when it comes to Bret Hart. These days, when wrestling fans think of Bret Hart, they think of the wrestler whose right-wing views and unwillingness to job propelled the World Wrestling Federation to new heights, as he himself headed towards midcard mediocrity in WCW. Or, they think of him as the great technical wrestler and loyal employee who was screwed by the WWF, then mishandled by WCW, and may never recapture his previous greatness. For the record, the truth is probably somewhere inbetween, but that's neither here nor there. The fact of the matter is, Bret Hart is one of the 3 most important wrestlers of the 90's (the other two being Hulk Hogan and Steve Austin). Not because he's one of the greatest technical wrestlers in North America, although he is. Not because he unwittingly launched the WWF into the stratosphere, although he probably did. Bret Hart is important to wrestling in the 90's because he changed the way professional wrestling is presented on television, more so than Hogan, and more so than Austin. When I started watching wrestling in the late 1980's and early 90's, WWF television consisted mainly of four programs: Superstars of Wrestling, All American Wrestling Challenge, and Prime Time Wrestling. Superstars, All American, and Challenge, oddly enough, rarely featured any "superstars." Rather, they featured midcarders who were rarely "challenged" by their jobber opponents, with the exception of one "main event" per show, which pitted one midcarder against another midcarder. Prime Time Wrestling was more of same, just with fewer jobber matches and more midcard matchups. The WWF's biggest stars were saved for pay-per-view, and you could just about forget about seeing title matches on free TV. This was actually more true of faces than heels, as the bigger heels made more regular TV appearances, but the only thing big faces did on TV was an interview. Bret Hart was no different at first. Teamed with Jim Neidhart as the Hart Foundation, Bret became a co-holder of the WWF tag team titles at Summerslam '90, as the Hart Foundation bested Demolition. Thereafter, Bret was never on free TV except to cut a promo. At Wrestlemania 7, the Hart Foundation defended the tag team titles against the Nasty Boys, losing the belts thanks to Jimmy Hart's trusty microphone. Soon after, Bret Hart turned to singles wrestling. Little did he know that he would change sports entertaniment forever. At Summerslam '91, Bret Hart defeated Curt Hennig for the Intercontinental title, in what is widely considered to be one of the best IC title matches of all time. My inital expectation was that Bret would disappear from WWF TV, as he would be "too big" to be shown for free. However, that wasn't what happened. Bret was on a WWF show almost every single week. Everyone and his brother was getting a shot at the Intercontinental title. Bret was part of a series of excellent 40-man battle royals on WWF TV. He had a solid feud with Jaques "Mountie" Rogeau. Things were happening. Life was good for wrestling fans, but it would get better. At Summeslam '92, Bret battled his brother-in-law, Davey-Boy-Smith, in what is probably the best Intercontinental Title Match ever that didn't involve a ladder. Bret lost the title, but would see his star rise even higher a few weeks later. Ric Flair was the WWF champion, and the higher-ups at Titan were planning to have the Ultimate Warrior win the title from Flair. However, thanks to another mysterious disappearance from the Warrior, the WWF had to change its plan, and Bret defeated Ric Flair for the WWF title on October 20, 1992, on what I believe was Canada's Thanksgiving. The WWF title would surely keep Bret from appearing on free TV, right? Wrong. Bret's first World Title regin coincided with the debut of Monday Night Raw. Uncut, uncensored, and uncooked, Raw was unhampered by previous ideas about WWF programming. Bret defended the WWF Title left and right on RAW until he finally lost it to Yokozuna at Wrestlemania IX. After winnning the King of the Ring, Bret's feud with Jerry Lawler took center stage, and Bret, still the WWF's top babyface, continued to wrestle on RAW. Bret was the first big WWF face to wrestle regularly on free TV (Sting had been doing it for a couple of years in WCW). When Eric Bischoff launched WCW Nitro in September 1994 to oppose RAW, he copied the WWF's new Bret-influenced programming style. Hulk Hogan, who had almost never worked on free TV in the WWF, was a staple of Nitro programming, as were all of WCW's other top stars. Each week on Nitro, the main event featured some combination of Hogan, Sting, Flair, Arn Anderson, Kevin "Taskmaster" Sullivan, and Ed Leslie. The WWF would continue to integrate its top stars into the free TV, and jobbers soon all but disappeared from television. This leads us to today. Bret may no longer be the star he once was, but largely because of his influence, wrestling programming has become more exciting than ever before. The only question is, where do we go from here? Dan Doomsday 2dope Mail the Author Visit 2dope |
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