Disbelief: CM Punk vs The Rock

The main event of the 2013 Royal Rumble was a disappointment and a failure in story telling and I believe the blame belongs to the Rock. The Rock never made it believable that he could win that match and the way he won was not believable either. In fact, not once in the lead up to the very end did I feel that CM Punk was threatened in any way.

First, we will address the physical aspect of the match. The Rock cannot wrestle anymore. This was true last year against Cena and is true now. Let us look at a comparison of The Rock's spine busters.

Here is The Rock performing the classic spine buster. Notice how his right leg jiggles a bit when he picks up Kane and how he springs up instantly from the move like he is a spring. It is a beautiful move that he obviously put time and effort into perfecting.

Now look at how modern Rock does it.

There is no spring or fluidity to the move. It looks sloppy.

It can be argued that The Rock has bulked up since he last appearance and is sacrificing finesse for size. Maybe he cannot do what he used to because of his age and stress on his body. That may be the case.

However, it is more than just the spine buster that is the problem. The spine buster is just the most noticable representation of the issue. From the mid 90s to the mid 00s, The Rock was flashy and The Rock was fluid. These traits come from practice. The Rock has not wrestled since Wrestlemania and before that even longer. His ring rust shows and it is gross. The same happened to Brock Lesnar and The Undertaker. You cannot expect to wrestle like you used to if you only do it once a year. Training for a month in a warehouse will not cut it. You need to be in front of a crowd on TV practicing for a year to get back into the swing of things. It is insulting to the crowd to have all this build up and then wrestle a shitty match because you did not put the effort in to prepare.

This ring rust also manifested itself in the Rock's mic work. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what happened to The Rock's mic work and I finally figured out why it has failed. The Rock has become desperate to be a face and to try and hide the fact that he is a annual wrestler. It is in his best interest to make the crowd forget that he comes and goes as he pleases. In 2002, The Rock was supposed to wrestle Lesnar at SummerSam as a face. This during The Rock's big movie phase and he was often dropping the belt so he could film another movie. The crowd, tired of him coming and going, turned on him and at SummerSlam, The Rock was heckled and booed like a heel. The Rock used this to make his last heel run as Hollywood Rock.

Unlike in early the 2000s, The Rock does not have the luxury of being a heel; he needs to be a face. He is competing against the #1 heel in the company and the best person on the mic since The Rock. So when The Rock returns from Hollywood and he needs to convince the crowd that he is a person of the people which is why he spent so much time trying to relate to them and pandered super hard every time he was on the mic.

The Rock and pandering is a funny thing. When The Rock hit the scene in the 90s as Rocky Maivia, he tried desperately to be a face and to appeal to the fans. The crowd turned on him because he was trying too hard to be liked and the crowd began chanting "Die, Rocky! Die!" This same situation is happening again now with The Rock.

The Rock in his prime was born from a heel persona that did not want to be liked. He said what he wanted and often at the expense of the crowd but he did it with charisma. When he switched to a face, the crowd was already deeply invested in his character and catchphrases. In 2013, we have Dwayne Johnson in the ring forcing catchphrases like Cookie Puss and Fruity Pebble and is saying what he thinks the crowd wants to hear rather than speaking as the character.

Also, when on the mic, Dwayne was clearly out of practice. He was repeating himself a lot to stall for time, he had a nervous energy, and he was not saying anything of value. His pre-match promo for the Royal Rumble was nonsense pandering that no one cared about. I do not remember one thing he said in that promo.

Let us compare 2 promos.  Here is one from Smackdown! a couple of weeks ago.

Listen to how he is trying so hard to relate to the crowd. Listen to how he seems so eager to be liked. He is trying to show emotion and interest but it comes off as fake because he is not genuine in what he is saying.

Now let's look at a promo from 2000

This promo feels right. The crowd is eating it up because he is being The Rock. His insults are funny, his speech is natural and it seems like he is talking with his heart, not his brain.

Now you put an out of practice, desperate Dwayne Johnson against the greatest mouth in the WWE and he gets demonolished. Punk's "Boxing with God" promo was a nuclear bomb on the Rock's pitiful attempt to combat Punk on the mic. Don't believe me? Watch this and tell me who won.

So to review, leading into this match, you had a desperate Rock pandering super hard to the crowd, getting destroyed on the mic by Punk, and who has not wrestled on TV for a year. Does it seem reasonable to you that The Rock would beat the 400+ day champion who has wrestled every week for more than a couple of years and is the best in the company? Logically speaking, it would not make sense that The Rock would win especially after his piss poor display of wrestling at last year's Wrestlemania.

So we get to the actual match. Starts with some good emotion with Punk and The Rock trading punches. They quickly get outside of the ring where the crowd chants Punk's name the way the millions...and millions of Rock's fans used to. Now there was some funny parts with Punk. The match had typical back and forth where Punk was in control, then the Rock was in control. Nothing seemed to be really happening in the match. They traded submissions but they occurred so early in the match that there was no sense fear or suspense.

Then the Rock tried to Rock Bottom Punk through  the Spanish announce table and it collapsed under their weight so he just did it on the outside. I know that was not in their control but it just furthered the mediocre feeling of the match. They made it back into the ring eventually and The Shield interfered before the People's Elbow by slamming The Rock through a table. Punk won. Vinny restarted the match. Punk continued to beat the shit out of the Rock and yet The Rock wins with a Spine Buster and People's Elbow. Match over.

What was wrong with this match?
1. It was by the numbers. It was nothing but a long RAW caliber match. There was not much drama in the match and there were not many (if any) nearfalls. Typically you have finishing moves done multiple times in matches like that but that was not the case here.

2. The Rock wins with just a Spine Buster and People's Elbow AFTER the Rock was beat up, could not answer the 3 count, and beat up some more. It made Punk look weak.  Stone Cold took 3 Rock Bottoms at Wrestlemania before being pinned. Punk got 1 that was not even for a pin. It would be like John Cena beating The Rock with the a backbody drop and the 5 Knuckle Shuffle. A Spine Buster + PE should not finish Punk off that quickly.

3. The story at the very end (The Rock winning) did not agree with what was happening leading up to the match and what happened in the match. Leading up to the match, Punk was hands down the better the wrestler. In the match, both men seemed to be on the same level and at the end, Punk clearly had the upper hand. At the end of the match, Rock gets brutalized by the Shield, gets pinned, gets beat up again, magically no sells these beatings, literally Hulks up and and wins out of nowhere.

And to add insult to injury this all so Cena can win the title at Wrestlemania from The Rock so The Rock can return to Hollywood and so Cena can rule WWE again. I got the feeling that WWE stepped over Punk for this. It made Punk look bad. Between The Shield's interfence these past few months and this weird finish, management has deligitimized Punk's reign by making him look weak. HHH often used DX to interfere in his matches but I do not remember being made to look this bad.

Top 10 Pop Punk Songs of My Life

This is a subjective list and all opinion based. I was originally going to get into why these songs are my favorite but this is not the place to tell the tale of my dark angsty emo teenage years. Each song is linked for your listening enjoyment.

10. "Alex in Wonderland" by This Time Next Year

9. "Getting Kicked in the Face Has Never Been So Much Fun" by Veara

8. "You're Not Salinger. Get Over It" by The Wonder Years

7. "Coffee Shop Soundtrack" by All Time Low

6. "Fat Lip" by Sum 41

5."What's My Age Again" by blink-182

4. "Hit or Miss" by New Found Glory

3. "Save Your Breath" by Hit The Lights

2. "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More 'Touch Me'" by Fall Out Boy

1. "Sugar We're Going Down" by Fall Out Boy

Kentucky Route Zero

Kentucky Route Zero (KRZ) is a text adventure at its core. You play as an antiques salesman making a delivery to a customer. The only way to reach the customer is through the mysterious Route Zero and the game starts with you asking a man how to get to this Route Zero. The crux of the game play involves you driving along the Kentucky high way stopping at places of interests. Places not germane to the main story line are played out as a traditional text adventure with text choices for movement, actions, and dialogue. Stops that are important to the main story are played out in beautiful cell shaded scenes and animation with scene transitions that will leave your jaw on the floor. The game the audio uses in these scenes and on the high way map are spot on. The sounds at the gas station reminded me of the days of my family’s annual road trip the southwest. The way the developer managed to capture the feel of the open road in sound is magical.

It would be an understatement to say that KRZ is immersive. I literally cannot find the words to describe how this game feels. This game made me feel the spectrum of emotions from happiness to dread but no matter what happened, the illusion was never broken.  I played the entire Act 1 on a plane and within 5 minutes, I was no longer in an airplane; I was at Equus Gas talking to the old man about poetry and I stayed in Kentucky until Act 1 was over and I was kicked to my desktop. The striking visuals and authentic audio created an atmosphere and game experience that has a taste you can’t find anywhere else.

Now I could go on and on about the cool things that occur in this game but I feel like that this happens too much in game reviews and discussion as ways to entice people into playing the game. While these “teases” do make games more appealing, I feel they do more harm than good. KRZ is amazing because of what you discover and notice that could easily be passed up by other people. It’s like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout in that way; it is a personal experience. While the audio and visuals are impressive, the Fallout moments of this game are what finally sold me on the game.

Perhaps the most important part of KRZ for me is how it made me think about story telling. In my teenage years I was fascinated with JRPGs. JRPGs are popular for one reason: story.  JRPGs traditionally have piss poor combat. I loved the idea of playng JRPGs more than I liked playing them. The combat always felt like it got in the way. Maybe this is why I have such a fond memory for Final Fantasy X, a game I never played but ingested through story summaries and video. I got everything I wanted without the annoying middle man.

KRZ is essentially my Final Fantasy X experience in a unified medium that still allowed me to actually interact with the story. While I like books and movies, they are a passive way to tell a story. You simply sit there and the creator tells you everything. Video games provide a way to have active stories where you are participating which gives you more investment in characters and the story as a whole.

This game is not for everyone but the $7 price is not asking too much and I believe that it is well worth that $7.

Where to buy: http://kentuckyroutezero.com/