Effective immediately, I’m not going to be writing my “Canton’s Corner” columns on Saturdays anymore. It was fun while it lasted, but in the interest of evolving as a writer I felt that it was time to move on from it. Instead, I’ll be writing shorter magazine style articles like this one and the Randy Orton column I wrote on Thursday. This means in addition to the Raw Deal every week as well as the monthly WWE PPV previews & reviews (including Summerslam next week) I’ll be writing these shorter articles whenever the ideas come to me. My hope is to do three or four them per week. Some of them won’t be on this site, but rather as exclusives to TJRWrestling.com.
I’ll also write some other “major” articles on a monthly basis as well like “Twenty WWE Ideas” in August and then my annual WWE Roster Evaluation in September. There will likely be some more “career tribute” columns as well. I won’t be writing less. As you’ll see in the weeks ahead it will end up being more.
For now here’s a column on the Brock Lesnar/Triple H story that now involves Shawn Michaels.
This past Monday on Raw, during the latest segment of the Brock Lesnar-Triple H story, there was an interesting twist added to their match at SummerSlam.
We found out that WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels, who is, in my opinion, the greatest in-ring performer in company history, will be in the corner of Triple H for his match against Lesnar.
My immediate reaction to that was joy because Michaels is my favorite wrestler ever. I think he makes everybody around him better whether he’s in the ring competing, working as the special referee or, in this case, standing by at ringside to support his buddy.
As usual, Lesnar didn’t say much during his in-ring appearance with Paul Heyman by his side while Michaels and Triple H were across the ring. However, he did say something that caught my attention.
Lesnar pointed to Triple H: “I’ll see you at SummerSlam.”
Lesnar pointed to Michaels: “And you, yeah you, I’ll see you before then.”
What could that possibly mean? I think most of us expected Lesnar to go after Michaels at some point as a way to add more heat to the story. The idea is very simple. If Lesnar goes after Triple H’s retired best friend as a way to get in Triple H’s head, that does a lot in terms of making people hate Lesnar that much more.
I liked it because they are smart to have Lesnar speak in small doses. Heyman is an all-time great talker who should be on the microphone as much as possible. Lesnar, quite honestly, is a below-average talker and I think even he’d admit to that. Then again, Lesnar has a ridiculously large ego, so I doubt he would admit that.
My expectation for the Lesnar/Triple H match is a wild brawl that ends in a Lesnar victory. If Hunter continues to be a part-timer, what point is there to have him go over?
The difference between this and the Lesnar/Cena feud is that Cena is a full-timer who is on every show, while Lesnar went away for three months. In the short term, Cena’s win made people upset because it made Lesnar look weak. Long term, it made more sense because if you put over the guy who went away for three months, then it hurts the full-timer who is in the main event of every PPV.
Lesnar will be involved in storylines going forward on a more regular basis than Triple H. It’s more important to focus on Lesnar as a key player at major events like Survivor Series, Royal Rumble and WrestleMania, assuming he’s taking part in all of them.
As far as Michaels goes, he would have been an incredible opponent for Lesnar. The key words there are “would have been.” Michaels retired in grand style at WrestleMania 26 and I don’t see any reason for him to ever wrestle again. His retirement is one I actually believe.
The key to any interesting storyline in wrestling is the ability to keep the viewer interested by making them ask, “What’s going to happen next?”
In the case of this storyline, we have an idea that Lesnar is going to attack Michaels as a way to get under the skin of Triple H. The questions of when, where and how will likely be answered next week on Raw. We think. We don’t know that for sure.
The key to wrestling promos is not always about what you say, but how you say it.
In one simple sentence, Lesnar’s threat toward Michaels will make fans tune in next week to see what happens next.
Congratulations guys, you have my full attention. What’s next?
John Canton – [email protected]
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