Schroedinger!

Tonight is the “Night of Champions” PPV. (I’ve gotta say: I prefer the over-the-top eschatological PPV names than the bland meritocratic ones… this PPV used to be called “Vengeance” and, prior to that, it was called “Armageddon”. If you’re going to have a participatory melodrama, give it a melodramatic name!)

There are a handful of interesting matchups that I won’t mind sitting through… Cody Rhodes (son of The American Dream) is fighting Ted DiBiase (son of The Million Dollar Man) for the Intercontinental Belt, Mark Henry is fighting Randy Orton for the World Heavyweight Championship, Alberto del Rio is fighting John Cena for the WWE Championship… but that’s not what made me say “Dude, you wanna go to that?” when I saw that it was this Sunday.

It was the fight between CM Punk and HHH.

A bit of background first, I’m sure we remember the Stone Cold vs. Vince McMahon feud, right?

Well, CM Punk and HHH are updating that somewhat. The same dynamic is there insofar as HHH is wearing a suit and CM Punk is the plucky, cocky, jerky wrestler challenging his authority (and who doesn’t like that?) but they’ve made this their own somewhat.

HHH is a former top tier wrestler (he held the WWE championship 8 times and the World Championship 5 times… there was even discussion as to whether he’d try to beat Ric Flair’s number) and he also has an office at the WWE Corporate HQ as an “Executive Senior Advisor” (for reals) and plays the WWE’s COO on the television. It may or may not be of interest to know that HHH is married to Stephanie McMahon and they have three children.

CM Punk, by contrast, is an “internet darling”. He wrestled in ROH and ECW and the hardcore fans (specifically the ones on the internets) *LOVE* that sort of thing. He’s smaller than most wrestlers but has a lot of wrestling skill and, most importantly, is a very charismatic speaker. He speaks intelligently and coherently and, in recent months, has utilized that most effective technique that heels have at their disposal: Telling the truth.

Now, there’s another background dynamic at work here: Vince McMahon is six-foot-two. This has historically had a weird effect on talent relations. He likes guys who are taller than him more than he likes guys who are shorter than him. All other things being equal, the bigger guys tended to get more and longer pushes than the guys who were smaller. If you were shorter than Vince but had bigger muscles, that tended to work in your favor as well… which means that, in the WWF, the tendency is to hire bigger guys who have bigger muscles over the smaller guys who are faster or jump from the top rope or have superior wrestling technique (the wrestling styles favored by Mexico or Japan or ROH, for example). This has amounted to there being very much a “WWE Style” (and this style is typically only abandoned when there is some sort of crisis… say a steroids trial or the death of a wrestler for “wellness” issues).

Well, the interesting thing going on between CM Punk and HHH is that CM Punk is specifically making reference to such things as HHH’s marriage to Stephanie McMahon and HHH saying such things as “I just don’t think he’s got what it takes…” in their before falling asleep in bed chats and to the WWE Style. HHH, of course, is playing the corporate executive who explains that, hey, you get over with the fans, you can write your own ticket. Sure, HHH has input on who gets a push and who doesn’t… but everybody knows that he might think that this guy is great and he doesn’t come close to getting over and he might think that that other guy has what it takes and he turns out to be John Cena.

The dynamic is one not of between Everyman and The Man the way it was with Stone Cold and Vince, but one of The Wrestler Who Doesn’t Fit The Corporate Idea and The Wrestling Corporate Office.

Which brings us to the match at Night of Champions.

There are three potential finishes and the first two communicate something fairly strongly and the third one communicates little, if anything.

The first finish: HHH beats CM Punk relatively cleanly.

What it means: There very much is a WWE Style and CM Punk, as much as the internet loves him, is not putting the butts in the seats that he needs to in order to have enough stroke to talk about Stephanie McMahon as anything but “the boss” and in anything but glowing terms if her name is to ever come up… which it won’t, not for a few years. HHH is still one of the lions of the WWE and don’t you (as in you, the reader) ever forget it. The best case scenario for where to go from here is that it kicks off a longer-term subversive undercutting of the boss revenge angle for CM Punk. The worst case scenario is that CM Punk gets kicked back downstairs to the midcard and he has exciting matches with the other vanilla midgets.

This is the finish that I am dreading.

The second finish: CM Punk defeats HHH relatively cleanly.

What it means: it means that the WWE has some longer-term plans for CM Punk as a top-tier player and the best way to give him credibility is to have him beat one of the older lions. It’s kind of a passing of the torch, kind of. The best-case scenario from this is that it starts a much longer “you’ve won the battle but not the war” kinda “you’ve only forestalled the inevitable!” kinda feud between CM Punk and Corporate.

This is the finish I am hoping for.

The third ending: Some weird kinda schmozz that has one or the other winning… but not really. Sure, maybe this guy got the pin, but the other guy is the moral victor because so-and-so ran in and the ref didn’t see it. (I can see Kevin Nash running in, say, and kicking Punk in the face while the ref is recovering from an accidental bump and HHH is groggy outside of the ring… or, oh god, Kevin Nash helping CM Punk and then starting a Punk Sexy tag team or something).

What it means: not much. They wanted both guys to walk away being able to say “well, technically, *I* got the better half of that deal” and the fans to be able to argue that as well.

This is the finish I am expecting.

In any case, I will leave a comment tonight after the show explaining what happened and what I suspect it will mean. Until then… they’re both winners. And losers.

Edit: Oh, there are also two additional dynamics at work in tonight’s match to telegraph what the finish might be. The first is that HHH has changed this match to be a “No Disqualification” match. The second is that CM Punk said that if he wins, he wants HHH to resign as COO (I don’t know how much legal force this last stipulation has, though).