Wrestlemania XXVIII Preview: Will You Still Call Me Superman?

An entirely too lengthy dime-store psychoanalysis of the main event of the WWE's biggest show of the year (and some other stuff), following the jump.

On the first day of your first crappy minimum-wage job, your supervisor likely sat you down and told you to never forget that the customer is always right. The customer might be a boor, a lout, or a fool, but his or her patronage of the store or restaurant at which you worked allowed that establishment to stay in business and continue to pay you way too little to work way too hard. And since "some money" is quantitatively better than "no money," you swallowed your pride and learned how to say, "You're right...I'm sorry," convincingly enough that somehow, the Walgreens or McDonald's that employed you managed to do enough business to continue operating.

The reason the customer is always right is because in most businesses, there is competition, and that competition is more than happy to take business from you if you can't provide the experience that customers expect. But a business is not exempt from decorum if it is lucky enough to be operating in a field in which there is little or no competition, as there are very few products and services in this world that are so essential that a person's quality of life would suffer without them. If one company controlled all the water in the world, for example, people would be totally, unequivocally subject to its whims, because we need water to live.

But professional wrestling is not water, and as such, fans of the WWE—a company that has very, very little true competition within its milieu—should rightly expect a certain amount of customer service in return for their patronage.

Too bad. If you're a wrestling fan, WWE CEO Vince McMahon thinks you're an idiot. And at Wrestlemania XXVIII this Sunday, he's going to show you just how big an idiot he thinks you are.

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Vince McMahon is not an idiot. He's been involved in the wrestling business for most of his life, and for most of that time, he was a shrewd, canny promoter who took enormous risks and almost always came out on top. He did this by understanding that a key difference between a successful business and one that struggles is customer loyalty. McMahon created loyal customers by giving people what they wanted.

In 1983, he saw that Hulk Hogan was on the verge of becoming an enormous star for the AWA (a rival organization based in the midwest), and he also understood that AWA promoter Verne Gagne was hesitant to truly get behind Hogan because Gagne—at the age of 57, mind you—still perceived himself to be the AWA's biggest star. As soon as he could, McMahon signed Hogan away from Gagne and almost immediately pushed him to the top of the WWF, because that's what wrestling fans—his customers—wanted.

In 1995, McMahon began to push Shawn Michaels as his top star, despite the fact that Michaels was essentially everything that McMahon hates in a performer: vain, combative, and—most problematic of all, in McMahon's mind—short. However, he was also insanely talented and extremely charismatic, and he developed a profound connection with the majority of the WWF's audience. As such, McMahon allowed Michaels to carry the company for much of 1996, and likely would have continued to push him as a major star for several subsequent years if he hadn't been severely injured in early 1998.

In 1996, Steve Austin—a career midcard performer whose work was respected but who never quite caught a break—adopted a new persona in a last-ditch effort to avoid being released: "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. By the end of the year, Austin was one of the most popular performers in the WWF, despite being a heel (a "bad guy"). At Wrestlemania XIII in March of 1997, McMahon orchestrated a masterful "double turn" that made Austin a face (a "good guy"), which allowed the WWF's fans to cheer Austin without a trace of cognitive dissonance. And that, in turn, led to an unprecedented boom period that brought the company back from the brink of obsolescence, if not financial ruin. McMahon's customers were happy, and he made a fortune. Everyone won.

Unquestionably, part of the reason why McMahon opted to listen to his fan base on these occasions is the fact that his company was constantly facing strong—if not always overwhelming—competition. Throughout the '80s, the WWF was challenged by the NWA—a group of regional promotions that were institutions in the South. In the late '80s, the largest of these promotions—Jim Crockett Promotions—was purchased by Ted Turner and transformed into World Championship Wrestling (WCW), which vied with the WWF throughout the '90s. In fact, WCW was enormously successful from 1996 through 1998, and many of the fan-friendly decisions McMahon made during this time were born of his company's competition with WCW.

But in early 2001, WCW became a victim of a corporate restructuring. Protected for many years by Turner while part of Time Warner's corporate empire, WCW was, by that point, horribly mismanaged financially, losing tens of millions of dollars annually despite having a dedicated core of fans and drawing good TV ratings (relative to other basic-cable programming). After Time Warner was purchased by AOL (yes, that really happened) and Turner was cut out of the power structure, it was decided that WCW would be sold. For several months, it appeared that former WCW executive producer Eric Bischoff and a group of investors would purchase the promotion and continue to run it more or less as it was (though without the massive financial losses, ideally). Shortly before the deal was to be closed, however, it fell through because AOL Time Warner decided to cancel WCW's television programs, which lowered the the promotion's value to practically nothing. Shortly thereafter, McMahon purchased WCW for $3.5 million.

And the instant that deal was finalized, Vince McMahon stopped caring about his customers.

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Vince McMahon seemed to view the purchase of WCW not as a transaction, but a mandate. He had won, so therefore he must be right. Almost immediately, McMahon began making curious decisions that alienated fans and hurt business.

At Wrestlemania X-Seven in April of 2001, McMahon ended the show by turning Austin heel. This was a questionable choice because a) the show was in Austin's home state of Texas, so ending it with such a turn left a bad taste in fans' mouths, b) Austin's allegiance with McMahon's villainous on-screen character made absolutely no sense, as the two had been feuding for over three years, and c) the company's other major star, The Rock (more on him later), was leaving for several months to shoot a movie, so the company had no proven faces to carry the promotion after Wrestlemania.

Almost immediately thereafter, McMahon botched an on-screen "invasion" of his company by wrestlers from WCW and ECW (a popular East Coast promotion that McMahon had secretly subsidized before it went out of business in early 2001) by refusing to sign WCW's top talent (Hogan, Bill Goldberg, Ric Flair, Kevin Nash, Sting, Scott Steiner, etc.) and making the "invaders" that he did bring in (Booker T, Diamond Dallas Page, Rob Van Dam, and a bunch of midcarders such as Lance Storm, Billy Kidman, and Chris Kanyon) look like total clowns who wouldn't have even posed a hint of a threat had they not allied with Austin. The story line, which was considered by experts to be the most potentially lucrative in the history of the business, died a quiet, stupid death in November of 2001, with the WWF's forces coming out on top (obviously).

The following year, McMahon booked The Rock to face the returning Hogan at Wrestlemania X-8 in March of 2002. Rock's popularity was waning due to overexposure, and Hogan—who hadn't been a presence on television for nearly two years—seemed fresh by comparison. Yet Hogan was positioned as a dastardly heel, so when he entered his contest with Rock at Wrestlemania to thunderous cheers, it reflected a certain disconnect between McMahon and the fans. (To his credit, McMahon recognized this, turned Hogan face at the end of the match, and immediately positioned him as one of the WWF's top attractions. When Hogan's freshness wore off, he was punted back down the card almost as quickly as he ascended it.)

Later in 2002, a wrestler named John Cena debuted in the WWE. And that's where our story really begins. (Finally, right?)

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Interlude

WWE business is down. The company is certainly not in any immediate financial trouble—it has lots of cash on hand and several revenue streams—but there can be no denying that it is hemorrhaging fans. Television ratings that would have been terrifying to observers five years ago are the norm today, and house-show attendance and non-Wrestlemania pay-per-view buyrates are generally abysmal.

When McMahon bought WCW, he had an expectation that professional wrestling was, to a degree, a zero-sum game—that most of the people who exclusively watched WCW programming would migrate over to WWF, because what choice did they have? Vince McMahon controls wrestling, and you, the fan, will bow down to him, because you need wrestling more than it needs you. Of course, that's silly, and the viewers who were tacitly told that they were stupid for liking WCW tuned out after—or, more likely, during—the invasion, and they haven't returned. The customer is always right. Right?

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Vince McMahon grew up in the 1950s, and certain notions that were common to that time are often reflected in his storytelling. African-Americans are scary. Jokes about homosexuals are never not funny. And Superman is the bees knees.

If you've ever read a comic book in your life, chances are it starred Superman. He's an utterly, unquestionably iconic character that some consider to be synonymous with American values. To little kids, he's the coolest, because he can do everything that they dream about doing. He's powerful, handsome, and apparently really smart—you'd kinda have to be to walk into a newspaper's offices and con your way into a high-profile reporter's job without any college or experience, right?

And yet, it is supremely difficult to create compelling drama around Superman. First of all, he's basically immortal, so it's very difficult to portray him in any sort of peril and have it mean anything. (In 1992, he was beaten to death over the course of like a half-dozen issues, basically just to prove that it could happen.) Also, he's awesome at everything. For example, he's raced The Flash on several occasions and rarely loses to him. Seriously. He's at least as fast, if not faster, than the guy whose gimmick is that he's fast. And finally, Superman is always going to do the right thing, so there's no real moral ambiguity in the decisions he makes or the way he acts. He's never done anything remotely shady and he never will, because he's Superman, and that's all the explanation you need. There are no shades of gray with Superman.

As a result of all this, Superman tends to become very boring after the novelty of seeing him do cool things wears off. And that's also true of Vince McMahon's Superman, John Cena.

Cena began his career as a bland underdog babyface who wasn't good enough in the ring to stand out and rarely got a chance to display his not-imperceptible charisma. As legend has it, he was about to be released when WWE head of creative Stephanie McMahon (Vince's daughter) noticed him doing a rapper gimmick backstage and decided to make that his character. As a rapping heel, Cena began to show some personality and rose up the card to become a legitimate contender. Eventually, he turned face, and the rap gimmick gradually disappeared. In 2005, he won his first world championship, he's been the WWE's featured star ever since.

He's good on the mic, but his promos often come off as unnatural and overly scripted, and to say that he's average in the ring is to be fairly generous. By all accounts, he's a wonderful, wonderful human being—he works tirelessly for the WWE and is known to give an enormous amount of time and effort to charity, particularly to the the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

In character, he rarely loses, and when he does, it's the result of cheating or a slip-on-a-banana-peel-type fluke. The WWE's broadcasters are quick to remind viewers that he's awesome at everything he does. And his character has explicitly stated, on several occasions, that he's never going to be anything other than totally virtuous. In other words, he's Superman, and like Superman, he's been boring for a long, long time. And this wouldn't be so bad if Cena hadn't been the focus of most of the television that the WWE has produced in the past seven-plus years. But he has, and many fans—customers—are tired of it. They have been for a while. Cena has been heavily booed by a vocal segment of the fan base since 2006. The sum total of the evolution that Cena's character has undergone since then is as follows: He switched from wearing jean shorts to camo shorts in late 2011. Other than that, it is precisely the same character that longtime fans tired of six years ago.

Vince doesn't care. Vince likes Superman, and he thinks you should too. And if you don't, you're an idiot, and you're about to see what an idiot you are. Sunday. Wrestlemania.

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Longtime WWE fans have seen the Superman character before. In late 1996, it was introduced as Rocky Maivia, the first third-generation wrestler in the company and, golly gee, isn't he just so talented and smart and handsome and virile and humble and punctual and powerful and well-spoken and funny and dexterous and...

The Rocky Maivia character was, at its time, the purest presentation of McMahon's notion of the ideal babyface. It was also utterly insufferable—moreso than Cena has ever been—and as a result, fans turned on it much more quickly than they did Cena. In less than six months, fans were chanting "die Rocky die" and "Rocky sucks," despite—or, more to the point, because of—the fact that he was being pushed as the babiest of all faces upon a fan base that just really, really wanted to see Steve Austin beat up Bret Hart. And as it was 1997 and the WWF was getting roundly thumped in the Monday night ratings week in and week out by the red-hot WCW, McMahon decided to cool it with the Superman stuff and turned Maivia heel. Maivia developed his heel character as an exaggeration of his own personality: He began referring to himself as "The Rock," and he displayed a striking, unique charisma that was utterly absent in the McMahon-created Rocky Maivia character.

The rest, of course, is history. The Rock became immensely popular—both as a heel and a face—and earned McMahon truckloads of money. Despite his relatively brief in-ring career—about seven years—The Rock is considered to be one of the very brightest stars in the industry's history (along with Austin and Hogan). Casting agents recognized that his particular charisma would play on the big screen, and as a result, he has become unquestionably the biggest movie star that wrestling has ever produced. His has had a boffo, knockout success of a career; there can be no argument about this.

But as preposterous as it sounds, Vince McMahon feels that The Rock represents one of his greatest failures.

You see, The Rock became famous on his own terms, not McMahon's. The Rocky Maivia character—Vince's creation—was an abject failure; "The Rock"—largely the performer's creation—was an enormous success. The Rock's film career came about without McMahon's influence; McMahon's executive producer credits on The Scorpion King, The Rundown, and Walking Tall were the products of contractual obligations—nothing more. And after said obligations had been fulfilled and The Rock was free and clear from the WWE, he committed what McMahon must have viewed as a grave offense: He changed his stage name to his given name—Dwayne Johnson. Vince McMahon had no professional association with Dwayne Johnson...only The Rock.

Of course, this is utterly preposterous. Johnson has never been outwardly ashamed of his origins as a wrestler and would likely cite McMahon's support as a key to his success. What's more, he made several appearances for the WWE after his departure, including one at at the 2009 WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremony, where he inducted his father and grandfather. According to sources, Johnson had to "move heaven and earth" to get to the event while filming Tooth Fairy, but McMahon still made a point of having his broadcasters mention Johnson's absence during the presentation of the inductees at the next day's Wrestlemania XXV event. Johnson certainly didn't need to return to work the program with Cena that will (probably) culminate at Wrestlemania on Sunday; he did it out of loyalty to McMahon and to the business. Regardless, McMahon clearly still feels that Johnson is an outsider. The other.

Cena, on the other hand, is everything McMahon wants in a superstar. Genial. Easygoing. Agreeable. Indefatigable. Cena sees his time in the WWE as the pinnacle of his achievement. He's been more than happy to leave his movie career in McMahon's hands (and given the box-office fates of the films in which he's starred, that career will likely be very short). His fame is completely, inextricably linked to Vince McMahon. To McMahon, Cena is the perfect man. Hogan without the attitude. Austin without the demons. Rock without the ambition.

And that's why Cena will almost certainly win at Wrestlemania on Sunday. To prove that the people who chant "Cena sucks" at every WWE event are idiots for daring to question the almighty will of Vincent Kennedy McMahon. To prove that Johnson is an ingrate for daring to leave the agonizing but occasionally rewarding grind of the WWE for a life of glitz and glamour in Hollywood. And to prove to the world that when you leave your career to McMahon, you're worth more to him than some guy who only made him lots and lots of money. Loyalty, you guys. Vince McMahon demands it.

But he's not that jazzed about keeping up his end of the bargain. Not anymore.

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As for the other matches...

The Undertaker vs. Triple H [Hell in a Cell; Guest Referee: Shawn Michaels]: First of all, what's the point of having a guest referee in a Cell match? It's intrinsically a no-disqualification match, and any ref would only be in there to count a pinfall. Michaels ought to simply cut the pretense and wear a shirt that says "I'm here to add drama to a match that might need it because both of these guys are old and move in slow motion." Regardless, this should be an entertaining match, although the whole "kicking out of finishers and then laying around for several minutes before going right to the next finisher sequence" thing is getting old. Undertaker wins, of course.

C.M. Punk vs. Chris Jericho [WWE Championship]: Hey, look...a heel! An actual, no-foolin' pro wrestling heel! And he's a heel who hasn't been made to look foolish since his return! Ooh...you'd better take a picture, you guys, because Vince isn't going to let this stand for long. In his world, heels are cowards and losers who only win when they cheat or the other guy slips on a banana peel. Strong heels don't really exist in the WWE anymore, which is why Undertaker has been wrestling faces at Wrestlemania for four years in a row. It's also a big part of the reason why WWE has to get retired guys (Rock) and semi-retired guys (Triple H, Undertaker) to glam up the card at Wrestlemania. It's unbelievably short-sighted and reductive, but when you've got a guy in charge who doesn't seem to understand that strong heels give rise to strong faces, this is the situation you find yourself in. Anyway, I wouldn't be shocked if Jericho wins, if only because a) there's no way this is going on last, and b) Vince will almost certainly want to put the belt back on Cena in short order, and he isn't going to want Cena to face off with Punk again, as last summer's Cena/Punk feud illustrated the Cena problem in a stark way.

Daniel Bryan vs. Sheamus [World Championship]: McMahon's vision of a heel, Exhibit A: Daniel Bryan. He's an awesome performer, but who doesn't have any credibility with fans because he hasn't convincingly won a single important match against anyone other than Santino Marella (WWE's resident clown) since winning the title in December. Every little bit of Bryan's overness is attributable to his personal charisma—and make no mistake, he's done an excellent job of making people hate him. But the fact that he's not allowed to be a competent pro wrestler all of a sudden is mind-boggling. I could actually still see Bryan winning this, since he's really the only main event-level heel on the Smackdown side, although my realistic side still expects Sheamus to walk away with the belt. Given some time, this should be another good match.

Cody Rhodes vs. The Big Show [Intercontinental Championship]: If the WWE wants to start a Rhodes world title push after Wrestlemania, I could see him losing the belt here. Big Show has always been considered to be "above" this title, but you'd have to expect that his career is beginning to wind down, so perhaps it's time to make him the king of the midcarders. Still, Rhodes probably needs this win more, regardless of the company's future plans for him. I say Rhodes wins.

Randy Orton vs. Kane: Orton wins, obviously. As consolation prizes for being injured for several months go, a match with Kane at Wrestlemania is particularly rotten.

Santino Marella, R-Truth, Kofi Kingston, Zack Ryder, The Great Khali, and Booker T vs. David Otunga, Mark Henry, Dolph Ziggler, Jack Swagger, The Miz, and Drew McIntyre: The Otunga team is a wasteland of talented guys who've gotten halfhearted main-event heel pushes in which they weren't allowed to display any actual competence or—heaven forbid—beat any of Vince's precious babyfaces. And look where they are now. I assume the faces will win, probably with Marella hitting his stupid "cobra" finisher on all six heels and then urinating on their prone, useless forms.

Kelly Kelly and Maria Menounos vs. Beth Phoenix and Eve Torres: God, who could possibly care. The faces win, I guess.

Epico and Primo vs. The Usos vs. Tyson Kidd and Justin Gabriel [Tag Team Championship, Preshow Match]: I assume the Usos will win, since they're inducting Yokozuna into the Hall of Fame the night before and can have an "emotional" moment with the belts. And that's fine. The state of tag team wrestling in the WWE is a sore point for me, but I'll save my rant on it for another time.