Plot Hole Repair Job #1: Raising The Case
By Mathew ‘They Write
‘Em, We Right ‘Em!’ Sforcina
This is the debut edition of what I like (or at the very
least settled on) calling ‘Plot Hole Repair’. Professional Wrestling is a
unique storytelling medium, where stories are told across seconds, minutes,
hours, weeks, months and years. But, it also has the problem of those same
stories being ruined by poor acting, poor direction, poor timing, or just poor
luck.
And so, often, stories, angles, characters, they all have to
change or be altered suddenly, sometimes by design and sometimes by accident.
Often, these sudden shifts and alterations will be explained, or at least hand
waved.
And sometimes they aren’t, and plot holes are left.
That’s where this column comes in. If there’s a plot point
that is left unexplained, or an answer never given, or even just something that
happens in wrestling that makes no sense, ask about it, and I’ll try and do my
utmost to fix them.
We’ll start with the poster child of unexplained plot holes.
Plot Hole #1: Who
Raised the Briefcase At King Of The Ring 1999?
The Lead Up
In June 1999, Vince McMahon had gone from the lowest low to
the highest high and then to a low even he hadn’t thought possible. At Over The
Edge 1999, his (ridiculously circuitous) plan came to fruition, and Stone Cold
was no longer champ, with The Undertaker having defeated him for the belt in a
plan that had begun months earlier, before Austin had won the belt from The
Rock (but hey, one Plot Hole at a time here).
But after revealing himself as The Higher Power and feeling
pretty darn happy with himself, he and Shane had a nasty surprise when
Stephanie and Linda McMahon, unhappy with what the McMahon boys had done, had a
surprise of their own. They sold their stock to Stone Cold Steve Austin, and
Linda stepped down as CEO, after ensuring Austin
would take over her job instead.
After a week of Austin being, well, himself at Titan Towers,
the (Male) McMahons had enough, and laid out a challenge for Austin, a handicap
ladder match at King of the Ring 1999, Austin vs. Shane and Vince, with
whomever getting the briefcase hanging above the ring getting full control of
the WWF and the CEO position. Austin accepted and after Big Bossman lost a
match to Austin on the last Raw before the PPV, there was to be no Corporate
Ministry interference (had Bossman won, then the match would have been No Holds
Barred, Anything Goes, a.k.a The Corporate Ministry Get To Run A Train On
Austin Match). Neither Vince nor Shane were athletes of Austin’s
calibre, so it seemed like Austin
would have an easy night of it. And then…
The Plot Hole
The McMahons tried to get around the stipulations, but in
the end, they were forced into the match. And, naturally, they got their asses
handed to them. But then at a crucial moment, just as Austin
was set to win, the briefcase was raised by person or persons unknown. This
allowed the McMahons to stage a comeback, and after knocking Austin
to the ground, and with the briefcase lowered to boot, the McMahons won the
match and regained control of the WWF.
But the following night, and as they moved on, they never
actually mentioned. Who the hell raised the briefcase?
The Repair Job
As this column continues on, most times we’ll have to rely
on shoot interviews, backstage gossip, second and third hand reports and, if
need be, logical guesses and, worst case scenario, making stuff up. Sometimes
the answer will not be definitive, but rather a possible explanation of what
happened.
And certainly with storylines created by Vince Russo, a lot
of that will need to be done. But in this case, it’s not required, as the
answer was in fact given. You just had to pay really close attention and be
able to read Vince Russo’s mind.
See, I left out an important moment in the lead up. After he
lost the match against Austin,
Bossman was blamed for the loss and given a stern talking to and then an even
sterner beating. And then in the main event, The Undertaker and Triple H fought
each other after the two had let Rock earn a WWF Title shot at King of the Ring
the previous week. The Undertaker won by DQ when The Rock ran down and got
involved, and then the Ministry looked to get some, Bossman appeared with a
nightstick and scared them off, giving Rock time to strap Paul Bearer to a
giant Brahma Bull symbol, since Taker had done a similar thing to Austin.
This was all very popular for some reason.
Anyway, Bossman clearly had turned his back on the Corporate
Ministry. He was his own man, free and on the side of good and-
The night after King of the Ring, the Corporate Ministry was
celebrating in the ring, Bossman came out and then hugged the McMahons and was
welcomed back into the Corporate Ministry. And everyone moved on.
And that’s the problem. They didn’t actually come out and
say it, you had to join the dots yourself. Because Bossman lost, no Corporate
Ministry member could interfere. And then, almost immediately, Bossman ‘left’
them. He didn’t appear at KOTR where someone, someone who legally had to not be a member of the Corporate Ministry
interfered, and then the following night, he ‘rejoined’ the group.
So then, they did not actually say ‘Big Bossman raised the
briefcase’, but they sure as hell implied it as hard as they could. But because
they didn’t actually say it, and they quickly moved on with Austin
winning the WWF title later that night, no-one remembers it.
Certainly there’s a few things from that era I’d like to
forget…
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