Through The Ropes
By Josh Stewart

"I think I’ll slap Hawk."

It was the ’80s, and "Nature Boy" Ric Flair could do anything he wanted. So why not get on the mike and crow about paint-brushing the lead half of the Road Warriors, even though the two had no beef up to that point?

Soon after, Flair was giving some Johnny-come-lately a wrestling clinic on TBS’s World Championship Wrestl-ing program when Black Sabbath’s "Ironman" hit, meaning the L.O.D. wasn’t far behind. Hawk charged the ring, Flair delivered a couple of chops that made Hawk laugh, Hawk pressed Flair over his head and sent him crash-ing to the canvas.

Now, if Flair fought fair, you could have mailed what was left of him home in an envelope. But soon the rest of the Four Horsemen hit the ring, finally overpowered Hawk, then delivered a pile driver to his partner, Animal, on the concrete floor outside when he came to help. A badly dazed Hawk was held by the other Horsemen in the middle of the ring as Flair kept his promise, slapping Hawk silly.

Fast-forward to the 4/5 edition of RAW. Triple-H had been humiliated the previous week by upstart Shelton Benjamin and wanted revenge. But beating him fair-and-square would have been so boring. So, with Flair as guest ring announcer, Batista as guest timekeeper and Randy Orton as the "trainer," he set out to make Benjamin pay for his initiative.

The fact that Benjamin won again, by countout, meant nothing after the four men delivered a beating that in the end had a bloody Benjamin looking less like an All-American and more like road kill.

For this, Triple-H gets a thumbs-up. In the past month, he has been more interested in delivering a good story than putting himself over. He tapped to Chris Benoit at WrestleMa-nia and has jobbed twice to a relative novice in Benjamin, someone he would have balked at going down to before.

He’s always said that he considered Flair an idol, and now it appears that he is finally following Flair’s lead as far as storytelling. Flair would often let folks like Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat strip him down from a $2,000 suit to jockey shorts, right in the middle of the ring. He’d do so because it built major heat, and he would often get the best of things in the end – usually because his boys were there to offer a helping hand, or chair.

"Evolution" as a whole is a lot less disjointed, which makes the group re-mind me more of the Horsemen. For too long, it’s been Triple-H doing his thing, with others showing up from time to time to give a quick assist. The 4/5 RAW established Evolution as a cohesive unit, as they delivered not one, but two beatdowns to show that they are rowing this boat.

The four-on-three pummeling Evolution gave Mick Foley, Shawn Michaels and Benoit at the end was so reminiscent of a Horsemen production, I strained my eyes. Was that Arn Anderson delivering that spinebuster? Did Tully Blanchard throw that chair in the ring?

No on both counts. But although the old characters weren’t there, the old feeling was. And that’s more than good enough for me.

You can contact Josh Stewart at throughtheropes1@cs.com.

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