FanPost

WWE's history mystery




In a few weeks at SummerSlam John Cena and Brock Lesnar will tangle for Cena's world title. It will be the rematch from their classic 2012 encounter at Extreme Rules. It will be the second time ever that Cena and Lesnar have met on pay-per-view.

"Hey WWE..."

"Yes Boxingnut?"

"If this is only the second time Cena and Brock have wrestled on PPV then what the hell do you call this? If you can't explain that how about you explain this."

The first link takes you back to Backlash 2003 when Cena challenged Lesnar for the WWE title. The second link takes us even further back, to a Smackdown match the two had two months prior*.

*As an aside take a half hour and watch the matches. Both are fun, easy watches. Also John...that hat man. Not cool*

(WWE waves its hand at me like a Jedi mind trick) "Whatever do you mean? Those 'matches' never happened; they are just very, VERY intense fever dreams you and millions of other people had over a decade ago."

Am I the only one who gets pissed off when WWE constantly re-writes its own history? It is insulting to the fan not just on a surface level, but it also completely invalidates former exciting moments simply because someone left the company to wrestle elsewhere or did something the company didn't like*.

*There is a Benoit exception here for obvious reasons, but aside from him all the other re-writings of history have been completely bullshit.*

A notable example of recent history being re-written involved Rob Van Dam. When RVD signed with TNA in 2010 he was instantly removed from all of WWE's history. It wasn't like there were no fans around who remembered his 2009 Rumble return or his multiple championship reigns with the company. Poof. He was gone.

So when Cena announced to CM Punk announced on RAW 1000 that he would cash in his Money in the Bank contract that night for a match against CM Punk the announce declared the "historic first announced cash in of the briefcase ever."

Uh.......

*There has never, nor will there ever be, a crowd as hot and violently angry as the crowd that night at the Hammerstein. Remember, that "If Cena wins we Riot" sign comes from this crowd. And they would have burnt the barn down too if Cena had won.*

So that match, one of the great WRESTLING moments of the 21st century, is blown out because one of the competitors took his talents elsewhere? Rob Van Dam announced in the lead-up to One Night Stand that he wash cashing in. That was a Stone Cold (Steve Austin) Fact. It's insulting to act like it never happened, and then once RVD returned last year the match, and storyline, magically re-materialized back into the WWE ether.

The retconning of history is one of my biggest issues with WWE. As the company begins to act more like a professional sports organization (i.e. announcing legit talent injuries on their website, stories profiling wrestlers' rise through indy promotions) they need to look at their own history as one long strand, warts and all.

I would love to hear Cole drop in a nugget like "This isn't the first time Bryan and Rollins have gone at it. The duo had an intense rivalry back in their Ring of Honor days in 2006." It's a small thing, but it would acknowledge the history those two have and tip the hat to the fact that wrestling exists outside of WWE.

I watch wrestling to be (sports) entertained. I don't want to be insulted. Did the Boston Red Sox erase Johnny Damon from history when he signed with the New York Yankees? Did Manchester United scrub their heritage clean when Cristiano Ronaldo bolted for Real Madrid? The answer to both is no because sports embraces its history no matter what the wounds of the past are. It's time WWE did the same.

The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Cageside Seats readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cageside Seats editors or staff.