Questions from a confused mark

[Guest Whatmaniac]

On this board, people frequently throw around terms such as "putting over" and being "held down" but it is unclear just what is meant by these terms.  

 

For example, last October during the Booker T/Undertaker feud, Undertaker jobbed twice to Booker T in tag team matches, and made Booker look very good in the PPV match, yet many people on this board criticized him for not putting over Booker T.  Does putting someone over mean jobbing cleanly to them on PPV, or are other factors involved? If so, what are they?  

 

Another example is the HHH/RVD conspiracy theory which states that the former is holding down the latter.  Yet RVD has been securely in the upper mid-card since September last year, has main-evented two PPVs, main events on TV realtively frequently for someone in his position, works with some of the top stars in the WWF, and is a two-time Intercontinental champion.  The top brass in the WWF thought highly enough of him to give him a phantom reign as WWF champion, which is treatment that is normally reserved for Jericho, Beniot, whoever else the WWF has pegged as the next big thing.  It should also be mentioned that RVD rarely jobs and when he does job, it is usually to a main eventer.  With a track record like that, it is difficult to see how RVD could possibly qualify as someone who is currently being held down.

 

Triple H, by contrast has had to endure some atrocious booking leading up to his big title match at Wrestlemania 18.  He was made to look foolish and inept leading up to the show and even more so afterwards.  He not only had to lose the title in his first PPV defense, but he had to do it to someone who was twice his age and who could hardly be considered a worthy challenger.  (I for one, could hardly believe my ears when HHH put Hogan over as a serious threat while keeping a straight face. How the heck was he to get over as a badass face when he has to act concerned that a senior citizen will defeat him?)  After losing the title, HHH saw his feud with Jericho hastily blown off at Judgement Day and he is now battling midcard heels in what is not even a semi-main event.  In these matches, the heels get in an extraordinary amount of offense in and the bulk of them have resulted in losses for The Game.  If this happened to anyone else,it would qualify as getting buried.  Why then, is this man still the victim of groundless accusations?

[Guest RicFlairGlory]

Does putting someone over mean jobbing cleanly to them on PPV, or are other factors involved?

(I for one, could hardly believe my ears when HHH put Hogan over as a serious threat while keeping a straight face. How the heck was he to get over as a badass face when he has to act concerned that a senior citizen will defeat him?)

 

Sounds like you at least kinda know what the fuck you're talking about

[Guest Goodear]

Your ideas interest me and I would to suscribe to your newsletter.  No really, you raise several intesting points here, and I would love to see them explained.  But since a lot of the Triple H-aters Club seem to be away from their desks at the moment, I guess it falls to me to address your questions.

 

On this board, people frequently throw around terms such as "putting over" and being "held down" but it is unclear just what is meant by these terms.

 

 To "put over" actually does not mean to do the job for someone, but to increase their value in the eyes of the fans as a credible threat.  For example, when Rock'n'Sock lost the tag titles to The Holly Cousins they did a job, but didn't put The Hollys over as threats.  This is because Mankind spent the majority of the match sitting on the ring steps, unwilling to make a tag to Rock.  So, although they lost, Rock'n'Sock did not make the Hollys look like legimate threats and ergo didn't put them over. You can even put someone over by beating them, but making it look like a tremendus challenge, the best example of that is the Bret Hart - Steve Austin series.

 

 To "hold someone down", is basically the reverse of putting them over.  You make the opponent look weak by cutting off their offence and dominating the majority of the match.  For example, I would say that Austin held down RVD even though he did a job for him on Smackdown during the InVasion storylines, because Steve didn't allow RVD to hit more than a move at a time and lost due to Angle distracting him.  So, he made RVD look like he couldn't really hang, and that he never would have won without help.  How Triple H manages to hold down RVD in this terminology without being in the ring with him is a mystery I don't quite follow.

 

Another example is the HHH/RVD conspiracy theory which states that the former is holding down the latter.  Yet RVD has been securely in the upper mid-card since September last year, has main-evented two PPVs, main events on TV realtively frequently for someone in his position, works with some of the top stars in the WWF, and is a two-time Intercontinental champion.  The top brass in the WWF thought highly enough of him to give him a phantom reign as WWF champion, which is treatment that is normally reserved for Jericho, Beniot, whoever else the WWF has pegged as the next big thing.  It should also be mentioned that RVD rarely jobs and when he does job, it is usually to a main eventer.  With a track record like that, it is difficult to see how RVD could possibly qualify as someone who is currently being held down.

 

Basically, because people think that RVD should be at a higher level than he currently is.  Now, it could be that maybe the top brass just doesn't think RVD is a main event draw, or that they are taking a long-term approach to his push.   But people immediately assume that the top performers (especially Triple H because of his relationship with Steph) are very protective of their spots at the top of the card and are vindictively making sure that RVD does jobs and doesn't get to have main event feuds.  Of course, if he did get main event feuds like Jericho did and does, people will still complain if he doesn't win every match and hold onto their conspiracy theories.

 

Triple H, by contrast has had to endure some atrocious booking leading up to his big title match at Wrestlemania 18.  He was made to look foolish and inept leading up to the show and even more so afterwards.  He not only had to lose the title in his first PPV defense, but he had to do it to someone who was twice his age and who could hardly be considered a worthy challenger.  (I for one, could hardly believe my ears when HHH put Hogan over as a serious threat while keeping a straight face. How the heck was he to get over as a badass face when he has to act concerned that a senior citizen will defeat him?)  After losing the title, HHH saw his feud with Jericho hastily blown off at Judgement Day and he is now battling midcard heels in what is not even a semi-main event.  In these matches, the heels get in an extraordinary amount of offense in and the bulk of them have resulted in losses for The Game.  If this happened to anyone else,it would qualify as getting buried.  Why then, is this man still the victim of groundless accusations?  

 

Because although Triple H has done jobs for D-Von and Test, WWE has failed to use those jobs to propell those midcarders any higher up in the card.  So, although he did a job, he didn't put them over.  People also seem to assume that this is some part of Triple H's evil plans, and not the fault of the same poor writing that has marred every other part of WWE programming.  They also seem to believe that since Triple H "books everything", that he should take the blame for the poor build up to his matches.  They ignore the idea that guys like Jericho or Hogan have any say in angles and are partly to blame for poor angles they take part in.

 

So, there you go. Hope that clears it up for you.

[Guest TheyCallMeMark]

I'm not the king of HHHatism... But I can give you some info that might be useful.

 

The reasons for HHH conspiracy theories (holding down and stuff):

 

A). He was a booker, and a wrestler. It's not like these idea's are impossible.

B). He was booking during his championship reign... Honestly, it's not hard to think that he might make himself look good.

C). His wife is the head booker and oftentimes puts herself on T.V... Alot. Coincidentally or not her storylines always involve Hunter.

 

I'd say those are the main reasons he's used in conspiracy theories. Now, on to some of the theories and what supports them. I'll go with two recent ones so I don't forget too many details.

 

HHH v. Jericho. It was reported that when HHH came back - when Jericho's reign started - they hadn't built up alot fo credibilty for Jericho and he wasn't getting huge ratings. HHH/Steph decided to try to remedy the situation by completely giving up on Jericho and basing the whole angle on themselves. The big dispute is wether he did it to evelvate himself and bury Jericho or was honestly trying to save the product.

 

HHH v. Lesner. Lesner as you may know was getting "TKO" victories-having the ref stop the match because he was being too brutal. He was getting "Goldberg" chants and was being portrayed as a monster. HHH made his ref victories stop, supposedly to quell the Goldberg chants. The HHHate spin on this is that he didn't want anyone in the company looking that much stronger than him because he wants to protect his spot. Both ideas are reasonable.

 

Also The Rock, Austin and Foley have all at one point or another hinted towards HHH having alot of creative control/abusing his backstage power etc... It's just that with all the hoopla it's hard to really say what's wrong and what's right.

 

Now on to specific questions about HHH:

 

Triple H, by contrast has had to endure some atrocious booking leading up to his big title match at Wrestlemania 18.  He was made to look foolish and inept leading up to the show and even more so afterwards.  

 

HHH's bad booking was his wife's and his own. And yes, it was indeed a poorly booked fued.

 

He not only had to lose the title in his first PPV defense, but he had to do it to someone who was twice his age and who could hardly be considered a worthy challenger.  (I for one, could hardly believe my ears when HHH put Hogan over as a serious threat while keeping a straight face. How the heck was he to get over as a badass face when he has to act concerned that a senior citizen will defeat him?)  

 

This is where the difference between "putting over" and not comes in. He lost to Hogan, but he didn't put him over. It was booked as a lucky victory and Hogan didn't go over clean. HHH didn't lose any credibility losing to Hogan. The reason he lost at his first defense is probably a conbonation of him not putting on exactly good matches and Vince was running (or had already ran out of) time to pull the trigger on a Hogan nostalgia reign's draw.

 

After losing the title, HHH saw his feud with Jericho hastily blown off at Judgement Day and he is now battling midcard heels in what is not even a semi-main event.  In these matches, the heels get in an extraordinary amount of offense in and the bulk of them have resulted in losses for The Game.

 

Once again, we come to jobbing but not putting someone over. He jobbed but the announcers completely credited it to him being from his injuries. The fans still know if he was fighting these guys full health he would competely waste them. If anything, he's burying the midcarders further. The fans knew Triple H was stronger already, this just made it look like they could barely beat him even when he was very, very weak, hence taking any credibility from the midcarder away if he was to fight another main eventer and was booked to look strong.

 

If this happened to anyone else,it would qualify as getting buried.  

 

True, he was pushed down the card. Still, he's portrayed as a complete badass who can beat the chit out of a midcarder even when his body is supposedly so bad he should be in the hospital. When they start jobbing him clean and when he's supposedly in tip top shape then you can call it burying.

 

Anyway I hope that helped (and made sense... and had few typing errors... and didn't make me look like an ass...).

[Guest notJames]

Goodear and TCMMark, I marvel at your eloquence and know-how, and your ability to see more than one side of an argument.

 

Well done.

[Guest Whatmaniac]

I'm not the king of HHHatism... But I can give you some info that might be useful.

 

The reasons for HHH conspiracy theories (holding down and stuff):

 

A). He was a booker, and a wrestler. It's not like these idea's

are impossible

B). He was booking during his championship reign... Honestly, it's not hard to think that he might make himself look good.

C). His wife is the head booker and oftentimes puts herself on T.V... Alot. Coincidentally or not her storylines always involve Hunter.

 

I'd say those are the main reasons he's used in conspiracy theories. Now, on to some of the theories and what supports them. I'll go with two recent ones so I don't forget too many details.

 

HHH v. Jericho. It was reported that when HHH came back - when Jericho's reign started - they hadn't built up alot fo credibilty for Jericho and he wasn't getting huge ratings. HHH/Steph decided to try to remedy the situation by completely giving up on Jericho and basing the whole angle on themselves. The big dispute is wether he did it to evelvate himself and bury Jericho or was honestly trying to save the product.

 

HHH v. Lesner. Lesner as you may know was getting "TKO" victories-having the ref stop the match because he was being too brutal. He was getting "Goldberg" chants and was being portrayed as a monster. HHH made his ref victories stop, supposedly to quell the Goldberg chants. The HHHate spin on this is that he didn't want anyone in the company looking that much stronger than him because he wants to protect his spot. Both ideas are reasonable.

 

Also The Rock, Austin and Foley have all at one point or another hinted towards HHH having alot of creative control/abusing his backstage power etc... It's just that with all the hoopla it's hard to really say what's wrong and what's right.

 

Now on to specific questions about HHH:

 

Triple H, by contrast has had to endure some atrocious booking leading up to his big title match at Wrestlemania 18.  He was made to look foolish and inept leading up to the show and even more so afterwards.  

 

HHH's bad booking was his wife's and his own. And yes, it was indeed a poorly booked fued.

 

He not only had to lose the title in his first PPV defense, but he had to do it to someone who was twice his age and who could hardly be considered a worthy challenger.  (I for one, could hardly believe my ears when HHH put Hogan over as a serious threat while keeping a straight face. How the heck was he to get over as a badass face when he has to act concerned that a senior citizen will defeat him?)  

 

This is where the difference between "putting over" and not comes in. He lost to Hogan, but he didn't put him over. It was booked as a lucky victory and Hogan didn't go over clean. HHH didn't lose any credibility losing to Hogan. The reason he lost at his first defense is probably a conbonation of him not putting on exactly good matches and Vince was running (or had already ran out of) time to pull the trigger on a Hogan nostalgia reign's draw.

 

After losing the title, HHH saw his feud with Jericho hastily blown off at Judgement Day and he is now battling midcard heels in what is not even a semi-main event.  In these matches, the heels get in an extraordinary amount of offense in and the bulk of them have resulted in losses for The Game.

 

Once again, we come to jobbing but not putting someone over. He jobbed but the announcers completely credited it to him being from his injuries. The fans still know if he was fighting these guys full health he would competely waste them. If anything, he's burying the midcarders further. The fans knew Triple H was stronger already, this just made it look like they could barely beat him even when he was very, very weak, hence taking any credibility from the midcarder away if he was to fight another main eventer and was booked to look strong.

 

If this happened to anyone else,it would qualify as getting buried.  

 

True, he was pushed down the card. Still, he's portrayed as a complete badass who can beat the chit out of a midcarder even when his body is supposedly so bad he should be in the hospital. When they start jobbing him clean and when he's supposedly in tip top shape then you can call it burying.

 

Anyway I hope that helped (and made sense... and had few typing errors... and didn't make me look like an ass...).

I'm not the king of HHHatism... But I can give you some info that might be useful.

 

The reasons for HHH conspiracy theories (holding down and stuff):

 

A). He was a booker, and a wrestler. It's not like these idea's

are impossible

 

Since when has HHH ever held the title of booker?

 

 

 

B). He was booking during his championship reign... Honestly, it's not hard to think that he might make himself look good.

 

Again, since when has he officially been a booker?

 

 

C). His wife is the head booker and oftentimes puts herself on T.V... Alot. Coincidentally or not her storylines always involve Hunter.

 

Technically, they are not married in real life and the extent of the influence Triple HHH has as a result of his relationship with Stephanie can not be precisely determined.

 

 

I'd say those are the main reasons he's used in conspiracy theories. Now, on to some of the theories and what supports them. I'll go with two recent ones so I don't forget too many details.

 

HHH v. Jericho. It was reported that when HHH came back - when Jericho's reign started - they hadn't built up alot fo credibilty for Jericho and he wasn't getting huge ratings. HHH/Steph decided to try to remedy the situation by completely giving up on Jericho and basing the whole angle on themselves. The big dispute is wether he did it to evelvate himself and bury Jericho or was honestly trying to save the product.

 

 

There are two problems with this line of thinking.  One is that it does not benefit Triple HHH to go into Wrestlemania facing a lame duck champion.  If anything, he would have an interest in making Jericho as strong as possible so that his title win would mean more.  The second problem is that Jericho's push was problematic even before he won the WWF title, so his failure is more likely the fault of inept booking rather than a political aganda.  

 

HHH v. Lesner. Lesner as you may know was getting "TKO" victories-having the ref stop the match because he was being too brutal. He was getting "Goldberg" chants and was being portrayed as a monster. HHH made his ref victories stop, supposedly to quell the Goldberg chants. The HHHate spin on this is that he didn't want anyone in the company looking that much stronger than him because he wants to protect his spot. Both ideas are reasonable.

 

Brock Lesnar is not a threat to Triple H's spot regardless of how strong he looks.  He is just too green to get a main event push.  It will probably take 3-5 years before Brock is ready for the main event, assuming he ever reaches that point.  Triple H has nothing to fear from him.  Besides, the Goldberg chants started after the TKO victories stopped.

 

Also The Rock, Austin and Foley have all at one point or another hinted towards HHH having alot of creative control/abusing his backstage power etc... It's just that with all the hoopla it's hard to really say what's wrong and what's right.

 

Now on to specific questions about HHH:

 

Triple H, by contrast has had to endure some atrocious booking leading up to his big title match at Wrestlemania 18.  He was made to look foolish and inept leading up to the show and even more so afterwards.  

 

HHH's bad booking was his wife's and his own. And yes, it was indeed a poorly booked fued.

 

He not only had to lose the title in his first PPV defense, but he had to do it to someone who was twice his age and who could hardly be considered a worthy challenger.  (I for one, could hardly believe my ears when HHH put Hogan over as a serious threat while keeping a straight face. How the heck was he to get over as a badass face when he has to act concerned that a senior citizen will defeat him?)  

 

This is where the difference between "putting over" and not comes in. He lost to Hogan, but he didn't put him over. It was booked as a lucky victory and Hogan didn't go over clean. HHH didn't lose any credibility losing to Hogan. The reason he lost at his first defense is probably a conbonation of him not putting on exactly good matches and Vince was running (or had already ran out of) time to pull the trigger on a Hogan nostalgia reign's draw.

 

When was the last time a title match had a clean finish?  Furthermore, wouldn't a clean loss to the Orange Goblin totally kill HHH's career in the same way that Tank Abott lost all his credibility by jobbing to David Arquette?

 

 

After losing the title, HHH saw his feud with Jericho hastily blown off at Judgement Day and he is now battling midcard heels in what is not even a semi-main event.  In these matches, the heels get in an extraordinary amount of offense in and the bulk of them have resulted in losses for The Game.

 

Once again, we come to jobbing but not putting someone over. He jobbed but the announcers completely credited it to him being from his injuries. The fans still know if he was fighting these guys full health he would competely waste them. If anything, he's burying the midcarders further. The fans knew Triple H was stronger already, this just made it look like they could barely beat him even when he was very, very weak, hence taking any credibility from the midcarder away if he was to fight another main eventer and was booked to look strong.

 

 

The announcers totally put over the win by D-Von and the performance of Lance Storm in those matches.  The fact that they got in so much offense is also notable.  Furthermore, most of the people he has fought have enjoyed greater pushes as a result.  It would make no sense to have HHH go out there and job to the midcarders with no build up.  If anything it puts more heat on the heels for attacking an injured man and it makes HHH look more heroic for competing while injured.

 

If this happened to anyone else,it would qualify as getting buried.  

 

True, he was pushed down the card. Still, he's portrayed as a complete badass who can beat the chit out of a midcarder even when his body is supposedly so bad he should be in the hospital. When they start jobbing him clean and when he's supposedly in tip top shape then you can call it burying.

 

Putting aside the fact that main-event babyfaces almost never job cleanly these days, I would have to say that a clean job out of nowhere to a midcarder would not make any sense and would if anything make Triple H look bad rather than make the midcarder look good.  Triple H and most other main eventers have been portrayed as an elite in wrestiling that is head and shoulders above the rest of the roster for a long time.  The job must occur in the right context in order to maintain plausibility. Otherwise, you will only suceed in hurting a valuable main eventer.

 

Anyway I hope that helped (and made sense... and had few typing errors... and didn't make me look like an ass...).

 

I think that you should check the reliability of your sources.  Some the claims you made seem quite dubious to me.

[Guest TheyCallMeMark]

My sources are good. I promise.

 

But there are a few things you have incorrectly, and I will point them out.

 

Since when has HHH ever held the title of booker?

 

I don't have exact dates on him being a booker; but I know he was a booker up to and including Wrestlemania this year. The fact that HHH was booking is common knowledge; anyone could tell you. It's something that has been known for a long time so it would be difficult to point out a specific article where it was mentioned.

 

Technically, they are not married in real life and the extent of the influence Triple HHH has as a result of his relationship with Stephanie can not be precisely determined.

 

They're married. I promise.

 

There are two problems with this line of thinking.  One is that it does not benefit Triple HHH to go into Wrestlemania facing a lame duck champion.  If anything, he would have an interest in making Jericho as strong as possible so that his title win would mean more.  The second problem is that Jericho's push was problematic even before he won the WWF title, so his failure is more likely the fault of inept booking rather than a political aganda.

 

Indeed; this is one side of the argument. I'm not necsessarily arguing one way or the other but I will give you the counter argument:

 

Triple HHH came back and realized, quickly, that he wasn't able to garner as much heat as he needed to to be more over than Jericho. Jericho was very well going to be more over than he was so he went into panic mode and just did whatever he could to shift all the attention off of Jericho so Jericho's drawing power wouldn't be better than his so that he could legitamately win Wrestlemania. This line of reasoning works because Jericho was not really over enough to deserve the shot at Wrestlemania, even though his heat had been growing rapidly before HHH switched the booking (which he did).

 

Brock Lesnar is not a threat to Triple H's spot regardless of how strong he looks.  He is just too green to get a main event push.  It will probably take 3-5 years before Brock is ready for the main event, assuming he ever reaches that point.  Triple H has nothing to fear from him.  Besides, the Goldberg chants started after the TKO victories stopped.

 

Anyone can be a threat. Threats are anyone who are looking as strong as he is or are as over as he is. Being ready for the main event doesn't mean anything. Skill has little to nothing to do with it. The second you can draw you have become a main event level player and will be in the main event regardless of skill level.

 

And besides, if the Goldberg chants started after the TKO victories were ceased by Triple H it just proves that HHH's booking had a negative effect on Godlberg and didn't help his heat any.

 

When was the last time a title match had a clean finish?  Furthermore, wouldn't a clean loss to the Orange Goblin totally kill HHH's career in the same way that Tank Abott lost all his credibility by jobbing to David Arquette?

 

I'm not saying Hogan should have won clean. Hogan shouldn't have won at all. Vince was desperate for a boost in buisness and he was apparently praying that Hogan's nostalgia reign would draw. I completely agree that if Hogan won cleanly it would have killed HHH's credability, that's why Hogan didn't.

 

I believe when HHH beat Jericho it was clean; and I think when UT beat Hogan it was clean. I'm not positive.

 

HHH's drawing power wasn't hurt significantly by losing to Hogan because Hogan didn't win fairly and would've lost to HHH normally and it was stated plainly that that was the case.

 

The announcers totally put over the win by D-Von and the performance of Lance Storm in those matches.  The fact that they got in so much offense is also notable.  Furthermore, most of the people he has fought have enjoyed greater pushes as a result.  It would make no sense to have HHH go out there and job to the midcarders with no build up.  If anything it puts more heat on the heels for attacking an injured man and it makes HHH look more heroic for competing while injured.

 

Yes, the announcers put over the wrestlers; HHH did not. He made it look like he was really injured, and moved around real slow (not that he's exactly Speed Racer anyway, but I digress). He acted hurt and lame... The fans at home say "Well they did good beating HHH I guess but HHH was just in HIAC! The most dangerous match EVER!!! They couldn't beat him if not! I HOPE HE KICKS THEIR ASS!". Storm is getting a push now it seems; but really I think it's just a Test push in disguise.

 

Putting aside the fact that main-event babyfaces almost never job cleanly these days, I would have to say that a clean job out of nowhere to a midcarder would not make any sense and would if anything make Triple H look bad rather than make the midcarder look good.  Triple H and most other main eventers have been portrayed as an elite in wrestiling that is head and shoulders above the rest of the roster for a long time.  The job must occur in the right context in order to maintain plausibility. Otherwise, you will only suceed in hurting a valuable main eventer.

 

Nope it wouldn't make any sense! Yes it would just make HHH look bad. Yes HHH is portrayed as elite. The job should definatly occur in context. I definatly think it would only hurt him. I completely agree with everything you said in your paragraph.

 

The job against D-Von and Storm were indeed clean... But they were in context. The context was that HHH was beat to shit and he shouldn't even be fighting; and even in this condition he could still compete with upper-midcarders.

 

I just said that they're not burying him, I'm not encouraging that they do so!