In the Wake of a Dream Match

Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar.

It’s a dream match that I personally have wanted to see since Brock Lesnar made the WWE Championship disputed once again in 2002 by declaring himself and the title the exclusive property of Smackdown rather than defending the title against Triple H, who was subsequently awarded the reinstated World Heavyweight Championship.

Had that happened and had those two titans first met in the ring ten years ago, who knows what implications that would have had on the WWE history books.  And that’s something that we can never really know.  All we can do is speculate.

But we don’t have to speculate about what would happen when those two titans of the ring finally collided any longer because last night at SummerSlam, it finally happened.  The match would have no doubt been a much larger draw for die-hard fans 10 years ago when Triple H was still in his prime instead of wrestling his current 2 or 3 Pay Per View matches per year.  However, since then, Brock has gained notoriety on a much larger scale as a result of his time in the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), assuredly drawing more outsiders to purchase a SummerSlam ticket or buy the Pay Per View than might have without getting the rub from the top-of-the-line legitimate fighting organization.

Looking back at the match, it had a large portion of the same elements as Triple H’s last match against the Undertaker at Wrestlemania XXVIII.  Triple H was once again put in the ring with the supposed “unstoppable force”.  If you take away the allure of Wrestlemania, you take away the mark-out high points of the year like a Hell in a Cell Match and Undertaker’s streak going up another notch, you take away one or two extra false finishes and the Special Referee and what you’re left with are two matches being sold as brutally physical and bringing lots of striking and brawling and very little “wrestling”.

I was at Wrestlemania XXVIII live in Miami and I didn’t hear a single person in my section saying anything about the the End of an Era match that didn’t equate to that match alone being worth the price of their ticket and their travel expenses.  And this dream match between Triple H and Brock Lesnar that we witnessed last night came as close to that match as it possibly could have in my opinion.  There was no way of generating the euphoria that the fans have when Undertaker wins at Wrestlemania for this match.

This match did not fall short of expectations at all.  However, for some reason, I still feel unfulfilled despite having watched the dream match that topped my list of potential dream matches that had a possibility of occurring.

A lot of people would say the dream matches at the top of their list included the likes of Shawn Michaels vs. The Rock or Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. CM Punk or Sting vs. The Undertaker.  However, each of those matches have intense philosophical or physical issues preventing them from ever occurring.  I don’t see Shawn Michaels ever going back on his word and coming out of retirement like Ric Flair did (yet again – why were we surprised?) when he went to TNA and wrestled that godawful match against Jay Lethal where he flopped around and got stripped out of his street clothes.  Stone Cold’s knee injuries have prevented him from having the capability to wrestle an intense wrestling match and his pride won’t allow him to wrestle at anything less than his peak and I give him all of the respect in the world for that.  And of course, when it comes to Sting, rumors have swirled around on three different occasions that I can remember since the downfall of WCW that Sting was close to signing a deal with the WWE, but something always comes up to turn Sting away – be it the WWE’s exhaustive schedule or their treatment of his WCW co-workers during the Invasion angle.

However, when it came to Brock Lesnar vs. Triple H, even when Brock had left the company and was thought to never be coming back, I never really lost hope that that match could someday happen.  Nobody can realistically fight in the UFC forever and even most of the big names of the sport are only around for 4-5 years, if they are incredibly lucky, with the elite exceptions of guys like Randy Couture or Anderson Silva.  And once his fighting career was over, Brock was likely going to need something to keep the money coming in and it wasn’t long at all after he announced his retirement after losing to Alistair Overeem back in December that rumors started swirling about a WWE return and barely four months later it was a reality and Brock Lesnar was walking back out onto the set of Monday Night Raw once again.  From then on, it was only a matter of time before we finally got that huge dream match.

And while I can’t say that I feel fulfilled as a wrestling fan by what I witnessed last night during SummerSlam, I can’t honestly sit here and tell you that Triple H and Brock Lesnar failed to deliver.  That was one of two matches the entire night that held my undivided attention throughout (the other being Jericho vs. Ziggler) and while I keep expecting Triple H to go out with a bang and hang up his boots after these huge matches against Undertaker and against Lesnar, you can go ahead and sign me up to witness a rematch should one ever come to pass.

That’s one dream match off the top of my list that can be scratched off without any regrets.  Next up on the list – CM Punk vs. The Rock.