Belated Monday Night Raw Review from 12/4/06: On the Rhetoric of Security Guards

Monday's Raw was all about pure storyline, building rivalries. There really were no actual matches that remotely settled, or--on the immediate surface anyway--even accomplished, anything. That being said, Harrogate gives this past Raw an 'A' precisely because storyline is exactly what has been so sparse on that show. In other words,'twas not the current happenings that mattered, but rather what those same happenings did to shape future happenings.

The two builds featured were the rivalry beteen DX and Edge/Orton, and then of course the mounting tension between John Cena and Umaga. In neither case did the fans get instant gratification: the Tag Team rivalry was diluted by the 8 Man Challenge in which they participated, giving the hatred between the teams yet another week to percolate before we get the real deal. This is a good thing. Medicine Hat, Canada wasn't built in a day, after all. Neither can believable, engrossing narrative be thrown together slap-dash. Patience, as Guns N Roses once famously opined, is what we all need a little more of.

Next Monday there is supposedly going to be a match between Edge and Triple H: look for this to get interrupted rather early, so that everything remains in the air and the hatred between these people mounts.

The patience principle is even better reflected, however, by the excellent way WWE's writers have been handling the Umaga/Cena feud. Once again, they had a confrontation where nothing was on the line and nothing settled; matter of fact, now they've got a stipulation whereby Cena and Umaga cannot touch one another for the rest of the year. All of this was set up with a Rhetorical Move that Harrogate has come to refer to as the Security Guard Buffer. Watch this video to see how the Security Guards lend a sense of narrative seriousness to the feud. Watching the two wrestlers try to get to one another through the multitudes of Security makes us believe Their Coming Match For the Heavyweight Championship Is Terribly Important, So Important In Fact That We Can't Have Them Tangling At The Present Time.

Harrogate loves the Security Guard angle. Probably the most effective use of this schtick ever was by WCW in 1998 during The Great And Unimpeachable Bill Goldberg's epiphanic Championship Run. After winning the title, Goldberg (depicted below) would heroically Walk That Aisle, surrounded by Security Guards. The message being: I'm Too Important To Be Captured. You'll Get Your Chance In The Ring (Where I'm Going To Beat The Everloving Hell Out Of You), But Not Before.

Ah, Goldberg!!!!!!! To paraphrase Richard III, what can Harrogate say about ye that he has not already inferred tenfold????? Harrogate's memories of ye occupy the tippity top of his late 90's Cinematic Nostalgia. Many is the time that he reflects upon your defeat of the Terrible Hollywood Hulk Hogan: Not on Pay-Per-View but, true to your populist credo, on TNT before a breathless nation. Thanks, Goldberg. Thanks for the memories.