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Through The Ropes
Part of you wants to offer Hard-core Holly a pat on the back. The rest of you wouldn’t lose any sleep greeting him with a forearm shiver to the throat. Holly is quite the enigma. He has recovered from two major injuries (a broken arm after taking a moonsault from Kurt Angle and a broken neck after a powerbomb from Brock Lesnar went wrong), earning respect for his resiliency. But backstage, he is about as beloved as a tax collector due to his callous attitude. No one will forget the cowardly beating he delivered to trainee Matt on Tough Enough III. He and others on the cast, in an attempt to bring unreality to a reality show, claimed that the assault was the kind of break-ing-in a grappling apprentice must endure in order to advance in the industry. But even the toughest-of-the-toughest respected trainers, like Tazz and the late Stu Hart, never "took liberties" with their charges like that. After the beating, several in the locker room would have stood in line to deliver a similar thrashing to Holly. Not only did he misrepresent the business on a program that was supposed to show what the business was really like, but he had never achieved more than mid-card status himself. And yet, he was anointing himself one of the elder statesmen of the company; he was The Rock, Austin and Undertaker, all rolled up into one. Delusions of grandeur? Try wild understatement. But somebody with some stroke (Vincent K. McMahon, chairman/ar-rogant demagogue, World Wrestling Entertainment) decided to play Mr. Destiny to meet Holly’s fancy, and now revisionist history is at work as Holly engages in a WWE Title feud with Lesnar. If you just started watch-ing Smackdown!, you’d actually think that Holly was something special be-fore Lesnar crunched his cranium. The truth is that Holly has spent 95 percent of his career filling four minutes of space before the bra-and-panties match. He usually worked so early in the show that he could have been back at the hotel, jammies on and teeth brushed, before any of the real stars even went to the mike for the first time. But remember that McMahon’s on- air cries for "ruthless aggression" from his boys are not just for storyline purposes. He has a not-so-grudging respect for those who are willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead – even if it involves ethics consistent with that of a pimp. That pummeling of a green rook may have put a knot in most people’s stomachs, but it put a twinkle in Mc-Mahon’s eye. Before, Holly might have been tabbed to make a run to Wendy’s for the big boys’ takeout orders. Now, he’s going to be a big deal at a pay-per-view, when his previous role would have been to warm up the crowd during Sunday Night Heat, where nobody cares and the matches are free. Nice guys finish last? An oft-used cliché has never been so fresh. The next so-so wrestler wanting a shot may want to hit a trainee with a pickup truck. Or a semi. All the better. Want to get ahead for next Christ-mas with a gift for a beginning wrestler? Try something in Kevlar. You can contact Josh Stewart at throughtheropes1@cs.com.
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