Body-slammin’ good time

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This article was published 14/08/2023 (845 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The action may have been scripted. The results pre-determined. But there was nothing fake about the excitement inside Canada Life Centre on Monday night, where the latest chapter of sport’s No. 1 soap opera played out on a massive international stage.

With nearly 10,000 amped-up fans looking on from inside the downtown arena — and tens of millions of viewers tuning in from approximately 180 countries around the world — World Wrestling Entertainment took the rare step of bringing its flagship Raw TV program to town.

This was officially the 1,577th episode of the three-hour show, dating all the way back to its debut in January 1993. That makes it the longest-running weekly program in history with no reruns. Only a handful of those have ever come this way, with non-televised “arena shows” the more typical route.

Winnipeg is a terrific wrestling market, with a rich history that dates back to the days of the Minnesota-based American Wrestling Association in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. As Monday proved once again, getting locals to pay to see the product is not a problem. Nearly every available seat was sold, and a stroll through the concourse showed a truly diverse crowd that ranged from children to seniors, many of them sporting merchandise and homemade signs. WWE said Monday marked the highest-grossing show ever held here.

It doesn’t hurt that several famous grapplers have come from the city, including the late “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and current stars such as Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega. Those two lace up their boots for the upstart All Elite Wrestling promotion, which is trying to compete with WWE but remains a distant second in that department.

Indeed, Vince McMahon’s creation is still king, and is enjoying a resurgence of sorts in recent years. Ratings are surging for both Raw and Smackdown (which airs Fridays and involves the other half of the roster), and revenues keep setting records. The global reach of the product is bigger than ever, including sold-out pay-per-view events held this year in non-traditional venues such as Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia and England. There have also been huge football stadium events in the United States including two nights of Wrestlemania in Los Angeles and, earlier this month, SummerSlam in Detroit.

All of which has led to a pending blockbuster, US$9.3-billion merger between WWE and Endeavor-owned UFC that will create a separate, publicly traded company.

One thing hasn’t changed over the years: The pitting of “good” versus “evil” in the middle of the squared circle. Plenty of that was on display Monday, which essentially picked up where Raw ended off a week earlier when it was held at the Target Center in Minneapolis.

Case in point: The villainous faction known as Judgment Day, which includes the hulking Damien Priest, the cunning Finn Balor, the obnoxious Dominic Mysterio and the powerful women’s champion, Rhea Ripley. They kicked off the show by rehashing a bit of internal miscommunication — another classic wrestling staple — that’s been going on lately while vowing to get back on the same page.

Enter good guy Sami Zayn, the wildly popular pride of Montreal who came out to avenge the recent butt-kicking given to his tag-team champion partner, Kevin Owens (also from La Belle Province) which has left him on the sidelines nursing an injury. (Owens is legitimately hurt, so his ailment was written into the show to allow him time to recover).

That led to a bit of a brouhaha in which another aspiring “heel” in JD McDonagh came out to try and impress Judgment Day by ambushing Zayn. All of which set up the night’s first match, with Zayn ultimately scoring the pinfall over McDonagh to the delight of the raucous crowd.

The next segment turned the tables in that regard thanks to intercontinental champion Gunther and his henchmen, Giovanni Vinci and Ludwig Kaiser, who look and act like they’re right out of Bond movie central casting. Gunther, who hails from Austria, made sure to take some classic digs at the crowd when he began the segment by saying how “as a European, I’m always looking forward to coming to Canada. But after walking around today and seeing all your faces, I really understand why they call this place the armpit of Canada.”

Talk about a low blow!

Other highlights of “As The Wrestling World Turns” on Monday included:

• An odd couple tag-team forming between perpetual stoner Matt Riddle and Scottish Warrior Drew McIntyre (they called themselves the “Glasbros”), who won their debut match against the mighty Viking Raiders and looked like they stepped right out of some ancient cave. One gets the sense it won’t take get long for McIntyre to tire of Riddle’s act and turn on him.

• Shinsuke Nakamura hilariously explaining in Japanese why he betrayed heavyweight champion Seth Rollins a week earlier by kicking him in the head after their tag-team match, setting up a new feud. That led to Rollins coming out to great fanfare, challenging him to a future showdown, offering him a handshake — and once again getting kicked in the head. Will some people never learn?

• A memorable grudge match between two of the best women’s wrestlers of all-time in Trish Status (a native of Toronto) and Becky Lynch (who is married to Rollins in real life). This one went completely off the rails, spilling into the stands and eventually the concourse of the arena — in a carefully orchestrated way, of course — and ending in a double countout. Lynch ultimately got the worst of it as Stratus, sporting a comical face mask to play up a months-long nose injury she’s been faking, got some help from her protege, Zoey Stark, who arrived on scene.

• One of the company’s most popular performers, Cody Rhodes (son of the late, great Dusty Rhodes), taking on Balor in the main event, which included all kinds of Judgment Day interference and shenanigans that backfired. However, the bad guys ultimately came together and delivered a post-match beatdown to Rhodes and Zayn (who tried to even out the numbers game and ended up getting thrown through the announcer table by Priest) to ultimately stand tall.

Turns out good doesn’t always triumph over evil. At least, not right away on television. What fun would that be?

Once the cameras had stopped rolling and the show was off the air, Rhodes and Zayn made a quick recovery and sent everyone home happy by dusting themselves off, grabbing the microphone and saying some very nice words about Winnipeg to a roar of approval.

“I know this sounds like something we’d say in every town, but I love Winnipeg,” said Zayn, who thanked fans for spending their money and called it “an honour to be able to perform for you.” “I love this city. It’s a hard-working city, it’s an honest city, an unpretentious city, and what you see is what you get.”

It’s easy to see that, whether it’s in living rooms around the globe or in packed arenas such as Canada Life Centre, the WWE clearly has its enormous audience right where it wants them — and constantly coming back for more.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg