the wwe pays tribute to a murderer

i remember the night of benoit's death and even before the facts became known everything about the tribute show was really unsettling and off especially when compared to tribute shows like owen hart's or guerrero's the year prior. during the live airing (EST) it still wasn't known but i couldn't help but find it odd that vince opened the show standing in the center of the ring in an empty arena and not having every member of the roster on the ramp in a packed house of mourners. the whole tone of the show was just strange.

then came the PST airing at which point it was announced that it was benoit who murdered his family before killing himself....while the tribute show was only halfway complete. the episode wasn't pulled and it continued to completion paying tribute to the perpetrator of a murder-suicide.

subsequent airings of that day's raw iirc were john cena highlight reels, but the decision to run a tribute show for benoit was even more baffling once the circumstances were made public. even JBL apparently asked cole during a break while they were filming raw if he believed benoit did it, and the wwe was suspicious enough of benoit's odd behavior leading up to the day to send police to his home (where the bodies were found). the wwe suspected enough that benoit could have done this and instead of waiting until the facts were known ran this tribute show anyway with one foot out the door just in case. a pretty WOAT moment

During the end of 2002 into 2003, Smackdown was an incredible wrestling show. It had Eddie, Rey, Angle, Taker, Brock, Cena, the World's Greatest Tag Team, and some great storylines to go along with it. They aren't who we're going to focus on here though. We're going to focus on two less memorable people: Dawn Marie and Torrie Wilson.


My pick is: Dawn Marie seduces and then kills Torrie Wilson's Dad

I want to clarify at the start of this that their feud lasts MONTHS. I'm finding things from as early at October 2002 and see them fighting well into 2003. That means that there were many, many more segments than what I am going to show you. Again, keep in mind that this is also being shown alongside some of the best wrestling the world has ever seen, so it came off even worse than I can make it out to be.

So here's how this went down. Torrie Wilson and Dawn Marie were feuding. Torrie had Dawn's number and Dawn was trying to find a way to get one over on Torrie. If she couldn't beat her in the ring, she'd just have to discover a way to get the upper hand another way. At some point, Dawn Marie devises her ultimate plan to do so: seducing Torrie's father Al.

So we fast forward to October 17th, 2002. Torrie is focused on her match and excitedly invites her dad to the show. He shows up with flowers and Torrie heads out to the ring.





She is victorious and comes back to celebrate with her dad. The problem is 1. The flowers weren't for her and 2. her dad is already celebrating with her nemesis DAWN MARIE.






Torrie of course is DISTRAUGHT heading into the next smackdown. Her dad arrives and tries to explain himself as just being lonely, but promises to do something about it tonight. So Al strolls down to the ring and calls out Dawn Marie. What does he do? Well he tells Dawn Marie that this is unacceptable because his daughter does not approve, thanks her for their time together, and lets her know they can't do that again. Er, oops. Actually, he proposes to her and she says yes.





In the most shocking thing in wrestling history, a wedding goes off without a hitch. There's no interruption. No angry Torrie. No breaking it up. Nope, the two happy people strip down in the ring for some reason and have a wedding.







At this point, this storyline is already terrible. It's terrible acting, it's terrible content, the matches are terrible, it's a terrible idea, it's just. Well. Terrible. BUT WE ARE NOT DONE YET. You see, after the wedding comes the honeymoon. And we get a private look into it.






Yes, you see that correctly. Dawn Marie in kayfabe has ****ed Torrie Wilson's father so well that the guy has a heart attack. And dies. RIP AL. Dawn now has the ultimate heat on our good guy Torrie! She seduced, married, ****ed, and murdered her father. So it's time for the blowoff right?!



Not quite. You see, after a wedding comes a honeymoon. After a death comes a funeral. We still have the funeral of Al to go through!











They then fight or something and Torrie wins.










This entire angle was atrocious. I am happy to get to draft it here.

RIP AL.

This angle started out promising, but got extremely stale after lasting WAY too long with no point. The payoff occurred a year later after everyone had forgotten about it in what I maintain is the worst segment in Raw history.

In the summer of 2010, Vince McMahon introduced the Anonymous Raw GM in the form of a laptop computer.

After the sounds and light flickering, Michael Cole would come to the microphone and say "I've just received an email from the Anonymous Raw General Manager. And I quote....". I'm getting flashbacks already. This went on for OVER A YEAR. Seriously.

The whole angle would just be forgotten about in favor of BIG JOHNNY and PEOPLE POWER. Despite dropping hints that it might be certain wrestlers, there was no payoff at all. Even though nobody cared anymore, we didn't found out who was behind the emails.

Until another year later, and the aforementioned worst segment in WWE history.

First we had a Michael Cole vs Jerry Lawler match. Then we were treated to this...



****ing Hornswoggle. The go-to character whenever an angle needs to be exponentially ****tier.

Here is a sampling of the comments in this forum when Lawler and Santino dragged out Hornswoggle:

http://network.wwe.com/video/v31660335
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1w...n-part-5_sport

Hulk Hogan, who had crossed over to the dark side (meaning that he had switched color schemes from red & yellow to all black, but otherwise was the same), was embroiled in a feud with The Giant. At Halloween Havoc '95, they agreed to meet in two separate battles: first, they would engage in a monster truck match on the roof of Cobo Hall, located near the arena for Havoc…then, later, they would have a wrestling match.

As planned, they got into their respective monster trucks and collided a few times. They were operating under sumo rules it appears, with each truck trying to push the other out of a circle. Hogan's truck prevailed in pushing the Giant's out of the circle. The Giant was not going to take this defeat lying down, however. He bailed out of his truck, Hogan had gotten out of his as well, and The Giant stalked toward Hogan, catching up to him in a position perilously close to the edge of the roof. They choked each other. Giant forced Hogan to step back up onto the ledge, and then Giant followed him up. As they fought and jostled for position, Eric Bischoff and Bobby Heenan showed increasing fear about what a dangerous thing we were watching...



...and then their fears came to fruition, as Hogan shoved Giant loose of him and caused Giant to lose his balance and fall backward off the edge of the building. Bischoff helplessly screamed, "NO! NO! NO!" A guest monster truck expert chimed in with hilarious monotony in matter-of-factly saying, "That wasn't supposed to happen."

Bischoff is listening in trying to get word from the back. Heenan asks, "Which side did he fall off? The water side, the street side, or what?" Bischoff dismissively replies, "Well, you've got a parking lot and you've got a river, what difference does it make?" Heenan facepalms hard on the desk.



After a couple of minutes of acting panicked about the death we just witnessed, they shrug and throw it back to the ring for more action, a match between Lex Luger and Randy Savage.

Bischoff does leave the announce table to give way to Tony Schiavone, who is just not going to sell this stupid angle at all. I mean, he says the words "we're stunned," but he isn't nearly trying to put over the mood of having just watched a dude fall to his demise. He says he's hoping to hear word, and says, "Are we gonna have a match or not?" Heenan tries to be the pro here and acts like he's having a hard time calling the next match, but Tony basically keeps telling him to calm down and snap out of it.

Once that match is in the books, it's time for our scheduled main event of Hulk Hogan vs. The Giant. Hogan comes to the ring, grabs a mic, and begins to apologize for what happened earlier. He is interrupted by the Dungeon of Doom music, and a grand total of SIXTEEN AND A HALF MINUTES after he fell off the roof of the ****ing building…



…the Giant emerges through the curtain totally unscathed and now in his wrestling gear, ready to go.



Tony Schiavone, with only mild surprise in his voice, says, "He's risen from the dead."
Bobby Heenan adds, "I do not understand anything. … No one could survive a fall off a five-story rooftop. Something has happened here."

And with that, The Giant marches into the ring and commences his main event match on schedule. There is never an explanation as to what he fell on, how he could possibly be okay, nothing. Nor is there seemingly any sort of story advancement to be found in him falling off of the roof…even if you suspend disbelief, you can't find a reason for them doing the roof fall. The whole thing will forever remain an absurdity that I cannot process.

My selection is Giant Suffers Surely Fatal Fall, Wrestles Less than 20 Minutes Later

Vince McMahon dies in a tragic limo explosion.

I have no idea how the CEO of a publicly traded company expected to maintain the illusion that he was dead, or for how long, because we will never know what the rest of the angle would have been thanks to Chris Benoit's real life death that brought it to a premature halt. Still, it's hard to imagine it going anywhere good given how poorly it started.

Katie Vick, Death of Mr. McMahon