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Daniel Bryan is injured and has been put on the shelf. Cesaro, who was touted as this year’s breakout star after WrestleMania 30 has been once again put on the backburner, while John Cena is your current WWE World Heavyweight champion. Not a lot of wrestling fans would be interested in watching the current product after reading the first three lines of this article, and there in should lie WWE’s problems in selling the tickets for their biggest PPV of the summer – SummerSlam. In no way am I bashing the other talents – the Dean Ambroses and Seth Rollins’. I am a huge fan of these superstars, but would WWE be willing to put them out as the marquee names for one of the top four PPVs of the year? A wise man would say “not so soon”.
So once again, WWE needed someone to step up and pull them out of the water. Once again, the number one sports entertainment organization in the world needed the help of a tactical mastermind, who could not only save them from this dilemma, but also sell the tickets for the PPV. They say when the chips are down, hand over the microphone to the one man who could make a non – smoker buy breath-mints and packs of nicotine gum. WWE once again put their faith and trust in one person who hasn’t let them down, and this one man managed to generate more interest in one evening than what WWE managed to do in the past few months.
The pitch
When the main event for last week’s RAW began, the all too familiar music of Orton hit as the challenger for Cena’s title at SummerSlam. But with Reigns taking him out of the picture, Triple H needed an alternative – an option C if you will. That was when the fans started a defiant, yet still premature “We want Lesnar” chant. But, when Paul Heyman nonchalantly strode to the entrance area, the crowd erupted, almost joyfully, for an otherwise dastardly character. The innovator of extreme laid down the pitch, which was met with a thunderous roar, as he proposed a match between the WWE World Heavyweight champion, John Cena and his client – the man who, as Heyman vehemently puts it, conquered The Undertaker’s undefeated streak at WrestleMania 30.
As Brock Lesnar’s music hit, the crowd went ballistic. It was evident that the WWE heard the fans requesting for a rematch between Lesnar and Cena, who last faced off two years ago. Cena, true to his character of “never giving up”, dug deep to find a way to beat Brock Lesnar couple of years ago, but not before taking a beating – a beating which will ensure Cena losing the coveted championship this time around if the same happens.
The genius of Heyman
Many of the greatest fighters sell the tickets not because of their physicality, or their ability to ‘talk inside the ring’, but because of the interest they manage to generate, and the number of eyeballs they manage to drag. You can take the example of Muhammad Ali, who preferred to speak his mind and generate buzz for his fights. The art of hyping is, unfortunately, a lost art. But the one man who can do it better than anyone else today is undoubtedly Paul Heyman, who once again managed to pander to the fans’ loyalty/hatred towards Cena, and make that the focal point of his opening statement.
But perhaps, ‘the man with the plan’ had other intentions, as he concentrated on Lesnar’s ability to dish out a beating to his opponents. As expected, a graphic of the beating The Undertaker received at the hands of the ‘beast incarnate’ was shown, and it was then proclaimed that the WWE World Heavyweight champion would suffer the same consequence at SummerSlam. Unlike his other adversaries, the 15 time World champion didn’t have the option of laying down, but had to face the inevitability of getting the beating of his life at the hands of the youngest WWE champion in the history of the company – a truth foretold by Heyman.
The final statement
“I pledge allegiance to the greatness of the conqueror who stands before me, and to his dominance, for which I stand, one CeNation – under John, now divisible with no more hustle, loyalty or respect for all”.
With that one statement, the master manipulator forced the sold – out crowd to appreciate his undeniable mastery of working the mic, and with that one line, he underlined the main event of SummerSlam. In mere words, Paul Heyman gave you a legitimate reason to buy the tickets for the biggest event of the summer.
A man’s brilliance is often over looked because of his consistency, but the man who revolutionized professional wrestling has, is and will always give you reasons to once again look at him in awe, and understand once again just why he is indeed the greatest manager in professional wrestling today.
