10 Wrestling Storylines That Don't Get Enough Love
3. We're Gonna Need A Montage
Ahead of SummerSlam 2002, The Rock largely dispensed with his fallback sh*t-talking mode. Brock Lesnar represented a far greater threat than most - if not all, the Next Big Thing was pushed with that much conviction - and the SmackDown brand had veered into a more serious realm. The Rock sold the opponent and the context brilliantly on the go-home show.
"Tonight: No just bring its. No stick-it-up-your-candyasses. No smell what The Rock is cookin'. And quite frankly, Brock Lesnar, since you flat-out refuse to bring it to The Rock - well The Rock will just have to bring it to you."
Prior to that stripped-back promo, WWE screened training montages of both champion and challenger. The Rock was always a man of effortless cool. He sold himself as if he did not need to break a sweat to achieve greatness; it simply oozed out of him. Meanwhile, Lesnar conquered jobbers and greats alike with an unprecedented ease. He was built for destruction: no updates required.
All of which underscored the importance behind those vignettes in conveying the stakes of their match. This wasn't a mere blowoff to a soap opera storyline; The Rock pushed himself to his physical limit in feats of athletic achievement that looked impossible to the layman, deftly edited between in-ring leap frogs to highlight the intensity required to get in the ring. The sight of Lesnar effortlessly lifting a gigantic log underscored both his brute strength and the sadistic contempt to which he viewed his opponents as mere objects to destroy.
Sports entertainment, all too often, is corny, contrived fluff. This was no frills wrestling powered by megastars taking the sport with the utmost seriousness.