WIRTB Review: TWINSIES!

So nice, they had to do it twice.

Hello and welcome to WIRTB Review, the review segment created to (sometimes chronologically) critique pay-per-views (and more) and determine were they really as bad as advertised. Now that the OSW Review riff's out the way, let's get into it. The WWF has a habit of revisiting storylines in an effort to make them "fresh." For instance, Vince vs. Stone Cold became Daniel Bryan vs. Triple H. The WCW Invasion became the ECW Invasion and the NXT/Nexus Invasion. But, that's wrestling in general (see the multiple nWo offshoots and reboots).

However, one thing that should always be left entirely the fuck alone is impostor angles. It's hokey and makes people's belief-suspension capabilities go kaput. But, the WWE has done several of these. Two of which we're going to talk about today.

First, let's look at Taker vs. Taker. We go all the way back to 1994 where Undertaker was, apparently, the WWF version of Jesus Christ. Seriously, go look it up or look at Taker's "ascension" to the heavens.

I know that we, as wrestling fans, are asked to suspend reality a lot. But, for fuck's sake! When your angle starts off with someone being WWF Jesus (and this is even before Taker's obsession with crucifying people), you're in for some stupidity. As time went on (and Taker legit recovered from an injury), Ted DiBiase (the guy who originally introduced Taker back in 1990), never the guy to shy away from money, introduced a NEW Undertaker.

Brian Lee, a man who's at least three inches shorter than The Undertaker.

After some back and forths, we're given a match at SummerSlam 1994 to determine the "real" Undertaker. This match was built up as being a battle of giants. A big fucking deal. And what does WWE do for us, the loving fans--and The "Underfaker?"

We get an eight-minute match where Taker delivers several Tombstone Piledrivers and wins the match. That's pretty much all that happened. Now remember: this match was the main event of SummerSlam 1994. Over Bret vs. Owen for the championship. Y'know, the match that was a five-star match?!

Fast forward about twelve years, and we get a similar dose of stupidity.

Kane, in 2006, was slated to appear in the movie See No Evil. As part of this angle, Kane went around going batshit crazy on anyone who mentioned "May 19th." There was additional backstory added to Kane's character--but, if WWE doesn't care, you shouldn't either, most the time, I guess. I mean, with Kane, he's almost always retconned anyway. So, who gives a shit?

Around the end of May 2006, an "impostor Kane" appeared and chokeslammed real Kane.

They brawled with each other. This is possibly because "impostor Kane" was the "manifestation of Kane's broken psyche" or something. It could also be just because reasons and WWE wants to take up valuable time with nothing-ass feuds that make no logical sense. Eventually, after Vengeance--and impostor Kane's win--Kane Kane ripped his mask off the impostor and tossed him out the arena, thus ending the feud with no real payoff. And who was Impostor Kane, you ask?

It was Doc Gallows. Doc fuckin' Gallows. Doc has nothing in common with Kane other than the fact that they can both do a chokeslam. Gallows' wig looked like someone gathered up all the pubes from a porno set, glued them together, and stuffed it inside the Kane mask in a last-ditch effort to relive the Attitude Era.

But, from this, Gallows got more training time in OVW and then returned as Festus, the GAWD gimmick (even though, it's pretty much a riff on Of Mice and Men meets PTSD triggers). Out of Jesse and Festus, we at least got some fun moments in that weird transitional phase between Ruthless Aggression and full-on "PG." We also got the GOAT theme of "Biscuits and Gravy."