Notes From The Nose Bleeds #4
March 14, 2009
By: Matt O’Brien of WrestleView.com
?Hero-worship exists, has existed, and will forever exist, universally among Mankind.?
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?We can’t all be heroes, because somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by.?
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Thousands of people chant their names. Children are inspired, grown men and women soak with envy, and the hero breathes it all in. Standing in the middle of the arena on their stage, the hero captivates, wows, and awes the crowd with every ounce of being within them. There are so many heroes in the history of professional wrestling and so many different types, but perhaps the most legendary is the epic hero.
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The epic hero can be described in two words: Hulk Hogan. Hogan was a mythical god in his prime back in the 1980s. He was completely intangible the way he stood larger than life, lifted Andre the Giant into the air, and made his superman comebacks after the bad guy had executed his finisher upon the Hulkster. We all thought he would be down for the count, but he would kick out with every last one of us behind him as he thundered away with his punches, raised the big boot and dropped the leg. I remember how scared I was at eight years old when the Undertaker knocked Hogan out in an interview segment and ripped the cross necklace off of Hogan’s neck. After the 1991 Survivor Series when Taker beat Hogan for the championship, I remember feeling so sad that my hero had fallen. Of course, as a kid it took me a while to catch on that Hogan always came back no matter what and got his man. Hogan made us believe that in the end, good would always triumph.
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There are great heroes in myth that Hogan echoes such as Hercules and Achilles. These were figures whose names survived because of their reputation and their heroic actions. They are legends regardless of their fictional existence. Hulk Hogan himself is not a real man, but a character. The actual man is Terry, the fictional figure is the Hulkster and he is what a legendary hero is made of.
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Achilles is a legendary hero in myth because of his great fighting ability. On the flip side of the coin was Odysseus, whom, while a great fighter, was more known for his knowledge than his ability handling weapons. If he were matched up against Achilles, he would not be able to overpower him, but he could outsmart him. So which hero is more admirable between Achilles and Odysseus? Opinions will differ. Yet a hybrid of these two great figures is truly supreme to both. The list of heroes in wrestling who can claim this hybrid status is short, but there is one name that comes to mind: Batista. I am not about to go through every aspect of Batista’s career to show this to you because I only need to give you one of his opponents to prove this. Triple H’s program in 2005 was what gave Batista this hybrid standing. The build to their Wrestlemania 21 match begin ever so subtly in late 2004, then slowly escalated to an all-out war that brought out the best in Batista. Batista had a very mythical climb to the top. After joining Evolution as the background character to Ric Flair, Randy Orton, and Triple H, Batista began to show how well he had learned from the experience of the legendary Flair, the cunning of Triple H, and how to avoid the mistakes that Orton made when he rose to the top too quickly and was betrayed by his teammates. Batista could have been the big dumb animal that Achilles was and relied only on his strength, but Batista separated himself from the normal big man and became the hybrid dream hero.
That will do for this week. I know there is a lot more to cover so please join me next week for part II of this series. Feel free to send me your list of epic heroes and how they affected you as a child or how they do now as an adult and how you see some of your childhood favorites now as opposed to how you saw them back then. Obviously, there are too many to go into great detail in one column so there are definitely many that were left out. You can email me at obrien.matt@live.com. Don?t slip on those drops of blood on your way out.
Thanks for reading!
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Blood drops
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Quote of the Week: ??Try not to kill yourself. Alright?? (The Crusher to Jake after Crusher informs Jake he will be involved in a battle royal in this week’s Rise & Fall of an Underdog. You can read AJ Pearce’s full column at this link.
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Blunder of the Week: Kaleb O?Neal is released from WWE after getting unauthorized tattoos. It was also revealed Saylor James was let go for the same reason. Perhaps they should have shaved their eyebrows and had their teeth yellowed like Snitsky? Oh wait?he’s gone too.
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Get Well Soon Card of the Week: Hulk Hogan, we hope your recovery from back surgery goes well!