Another wrestling-related idea of mine. This could be an interesting experiment for me if I can come up with other matches to do this with, but hey, there's plenty of material to work with in the wrestling world.
So I set myself a little challenge: Re-book any wrestling match from 2016. Goal is to make all participants in the match look good coming out of it. No burials here.
Some ground-rules:
(1) No changing the result. Whoever wins, still wins.
(2) No additions to the match or changes of stipulation.
(3) Adjust the build-up to the match and/or the booking of the match itself to tell a better story.
I enjoyed the idea, and my first offering is re-booking Dean Ambrose vs Brock Lesnar from Wrestlemania 32.
How It Originally Happened:
Triple H was the World Heavyweight Champion after winning the Royal Rumble match in January. So at Fastlane, there was a triple threat match to determine who would face him for the title at WM32. The men in that match were Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose, and Brock Lesnar. Lesnar was (and still is) booked to be a nigh-unstoppable monster, and it was thanks to a chair shot from Ambrose that Lesnar was incapacitated enough for Reigns to pin Ambrose to win the match and the title shot.
So the next night on Raw, Lesnar attacked Ambrose as he arrived at the arena and sent him to the hospital in an ambulance. Lesnar and his advocate Paul Heyman (one of the best talkers in the business right now) came out later that night to challenge anyone on the roster to a match at Wrestlemania. Who should show up but Ambrose, still beat up, driving out in the ambulance. He challenged Lesnar to a No Holds Barred Street Fight at Mania, which Heyman and Lesnar accepted, albeit showing more scorn and contempt for Ambrose.
From there, the build was largely about Ambrose's toughness, about how he could take a massive beating and he would not give up and he would keep fighting. And, to be fair, this is a good summary of Ambrose's character-- he has little regard for his own well-being, he exhibits no fear toward anyone, and he refuses to give up and goes down fighting. Much of the establishment of this aspect to Ambrose's character was done in the build-up to Fastlane, where he begged Ambrose to take him to "Suplex City." Ambrose also prepared for the match by talking with hardcore wrestling legends Mick Foley and Terry Funk, who both bequeathed him a weapon-- Foley's barbed-wire baseball bat "Barbie," and Funk's chainsaw.
In the match itself, however, Ambrose barely made Lesnar break a sweat. Ambrose tried to use chairs and kendo sticks on Lesnar, to no avail, and Lesnar just suplexed Ambrose around the ring like a ragdoll. The chainsaw never got used, which anyone could have predicted, and was shown to not start. Barbie got brought into the ring, but never got swung. In the end, Ambrose threw a bunch of chairs in the ring, and Lesnar hit his finisher, the F-5, onto the pile of chairs to finish him off.
Now, the scuttlebutt was that Lesnar was saving himself for his upcoming fight at UFC 200, and didn't want to take any unnecessary risks, which obviously sucks, as it meant that it couldn't be as mean and spiteful as a No Holds Barred Street Fight should be. There was also no blood, meaning that Barbie couldn't get used as she should have, given WWE's persistence in PG ratings. The match result didn't do Ambrose any favors, and it continued Ambrose's streak of "cannot get a big win" booking.
Later that summer, however, Ambrose would win Money in the Bank, and cash it in to win the World Heavyweight Championship off his nemesis Seth Rollins, and he'd be booked much more strongly in the summer out of that win.
The Re-Booking:
To start with, I'll leave the set-up to the match the same. A pissed-off Lesnar sends Ambrose off in the ambulance, and he and Heyman demand a worthy challenger at Wrestlemania. Ambrose still shows up in the ambulance, and drags himself to the ring the same way. All that still happens, and Ambrose looking for the blessings of hardcore legends Foley and Funk still happens, but Funk doesn't bequeath the chainsaw. The reason for this is simple: we all knew the chainsaw could not be used in the match, because it's very hard to gimmick a chainsaw to be used in a wrestling match like that. Foley, however, still gives Ambrose "Barbie" to use in the match itself. Ambrose still spends the intervening weeks between the challenge and Mania collecting weapons to use, and talking up the things he can do with them.
Lesnar and Heyman, meanwhile, have little more to say to Ambrose. Lesnar thinks Ambrose isn't in his league, and he's proved that already. Heyman, meanwhile, acknowledges Ambrose's toughness, but then says that Lesnar is on a completely different level. "You can get all the chairs, all the kendo sticks, all the baseball bats, all the barbed wire you want. Bring all the weapons you want, Dean Ambrose, because you're the one who needs them, not Brock Lesnar. Brock Lesnar doesn't need to bring any weapons to Wrestlemania. Brock Lesnar IS the weapon." (Or words to that effect. Heyman is a master of his craft, he can come up with words as good or better than what I'm putting down here.)
And that's the story of the match itself. Ambrose still fights and refuses to stay down, and Lesnar overpowers him at every turn. Ambrose uses the chairs and kendo sticks when he can, but just as often, Lesnar gets his hands on them and breaks them-- smashes the chair to pieces, breaks the kendo sticks over his knee-- and uses his bare hands, pummeling Ambrose and suplexing him around the ring. But every time he tries to pin him, Ambrose kicks out.
Lesnar gets more and more frustrated as the match goes on, typical "why won't you die?!" anger. Ambrose finally does get some licks in with a kendo stick, but Lesnar catches it under his arm after a few whacks, then hurls Ambrose into the ropes, and Ambrose rebounds off them with the Lunatic Lariat. This just staggers Lesnar, but does not knock him down. Ambrose lays in a few more shots before Lesnar shoves him back again, and Ambrose rebounds off the ropes again, but this time he instead hits a running dropkick, not the lariat, and sends Lesnar into the opposite ropes, where Lesnar's arms get trapped, Andre the Giant-style.
Ambrose laughs at this, a sort of "oh, we're gonna have some fun now" reaction, and he goes under the ring to bring out Barbie, sending Heyman into a panic. Ambrose tries to bring Barbie to bear on Lesnar, but Heyman pleads for mercy. Ambrose takes a swing at him, at which point Lesnar gets free and exacts vengeance. He picks up Ambrose, and hits him with the F-5, covers, but Ambrose kicks out at two. Lesnar is incensed at this, picking him up and throwing him around ringside, pummeling him with fists and knees and elbows, even suplexing him on the floor. Lesnar starts throwing chairs into the ring, but when Ambrose tries to fight back on the floor, Lesnar hauls him up and hits the F-5 through one of the announce tables at ringside.
By this point, Ambrose should be bleeding. I know this isn't PG, but I maintain that a little "color" in big matches (but not all big matches) can enhance a match. Having refs and officials stop a match so they can try to stop the bleeding of a wrestler just detracts from it and interrupts the flow of the match. Granted, if a wrestler is gushing buckets like Eddie Guerrero or the Great Muta, that's absolutely something that should get addressed immediately. But a little trickle to be smeared across the face to make the "crimson mask?" Let it bleed.
So Ambrose is bleeding, and Lesnar drags him from the wreckage and into the ring, but Ambrose kicks out at one. Lesnar and Heyman are shocked, and Ambrose now sees his own blood and he's feeding off it. Cackling, punching or slapping himself in the head and face, and daring Lesnar to bring it on. Ambrose gets a few more big hits in, tries to go for Dirty Deeds, but Lesnar hauls him up for another F-5. As he delivers it, however, Ambrose lands on his feet, then drops down and hits a low-blow, in a call-back to Lesnar's feud in 2015 with The Undertaker. This stuns Lesnar enough for Ambrose to hit Dirty Deeds, but only for a two-count as Lesnar grabs the ropes.
Ambrose pulls him up for another Dirty Deeds, but Lesnar hurls him off and into the corner, and just unloads with pure fury and rage. When Ambrose won't go down, Lesnar grabs one of the chairs and just tees off on him, blasting him with chair shots to the back. Finally, Lesnar hits the F-5 onto the pile of chairs for the victory, same as in the original match. As Lesnar leaves, however, Dean Ambrose crawls out of the pile and is staring up the aisle to the departing Lesnar with a sick grin on his face. An expression that says "that was fun, we should do it again some time."
And like that, we have a finish that I think works better than "lol Ambrose stood no chance," as we got in the original match. Lesnar still looks like a beast and a dangerous monster, but the story that comes out of the match was that Lesnar, "who needs no weapon," had to use a weapon to beat Ambrose. Ambrose comes across as being unbelievably tough, since it took many suplexes and chair-shots and three F-5's to put him down for the three-count. And both Lesnar and Ambrose come out looking stronger for it.
Your thoughts?
Liked my re-booking of this match? Let me know in the comments, or you can reach me on the Twitter machine or let me know on Facebook.
Have a match you'd like to see me re-book? Let me know, and I'll do my best. Same ground rules will always apply.
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