The Unreality of Pro Wrestling: FINISH THE STORY

Two years ago, I made a video called "The Unreality of Pro Wrestling," and I am proud of that video. But it has also haunted me ever since because the story it was trying to tell was incomplete. But now, two years later, that story has concluded. So what you are watching now is the most unreasonable, self-indulgent, and let's be real, concerning video I have ever made: a new, massively expanded version of "The Unreality of Pro Wrestling." For reasons we will get into, I should never have made this video, but I had to. Because the story we're telling today, it's not just one of my favorite stories in wrestling; it's just one of my favorite stories, and one that showcases all of what is so beautiful, terrible, and f***ing crazy about wrestling as a medium.

And so, to begin, I want to start with two corrections. The first being that this is a story not with one protagonist, but two. And the second being that that story does not start 12 years ago, but over 40.

It's impossible not to feel something when hearing the story of Dusty Rhodes. Born with a bad leg as a child, Dusty would struggle through the pain to put on weak, weekly wrestling shows against his brother for the kids in their neighborhood—the earliest sign of a pure love of wrestling that would never leave him. Dusty was never a gleaming pretty boy like Ric Flair or a carved statue of a man like Billy Graham, but that was the point. He could have been your dad, your uncle; hell, he could have been you. Dusty earned the love of the people by being one of them. And just listen to how that calcified into a persona in his legendary "Hard Times" promo:

"I admit I don't look like the athlete of the day supposed to look. My belly is just a little big, my h is just a little big, but brother, I am bad, and they know I'm bad. You don't know what hard times are, daddy. Hard times are when the textile workers around this country are out of work and got four or five kids and can't pay their wages, can't buy their food. And hard times are when a man has worked for a job 30 years, 30 years, they give him a wife, kick him in the butt and say, 'Hey, a computer took your place, daddy.' That's hard time."

I don't care if you know nothing about wrestling; if you appreciate performance, appreciate drama, you could see the electricity that flowed through Dusty's matches. Whether he was smashing someone with an elbow strike or just leaning against a turnbuckle, Dusty just had that intangible X Factor. You could feel the moment he'd stepped through a curtain, and an arena around him would explode. The son of a plumber becoming so beloved, so worshiped, not only to the point that he was able to run his own wrestling promotion, but that he took on a new title: The American Dream.

This was an era of wrestling where territories were carved up into different, formless borders, owned by different promotions that were reinforced only by whiskies and handshakes. This was the Old World of Wrestling, but a world that was about to be erased by the rise of WWF and Vince McMahon. McMahon used the advent of national television to invade the homes of local wrestling fans, first draining those regional federations of their audience, and then of the wrestlers themselves, leaving those local promotions either so anemic that they'd collapse under their own weight, or be bought outright by McMahon. By the late 80s, the WWF was the meteorite that had nearly entirely wiped out the Old World of Wrestling, one of the final remaining holdouts being Dusty Rhodes.

Dusty had given everything to the world of wrestling, and it had taken its toll on his marriage, on his relationship with his son, on his physical health. And so now he wasn't about to give it all up and sell to the man that had destroyed that world. And McMahon's response was to publicly ridicule Dusty. He named a manservant character, Virgil, after Dusty's real name. He made other wrestlers do ghoulish impersonations of the Dream on national television—like, oh Jesus, Hakeem the African Dream. Look, we don't have time to get into everything that's wrong here, but worst of all, he'd repeatedly plunder any wrestler who became popular in Dusty's PWF, until eventually the promotion could barely afford to pay its staff. And the impossible happened: The American Dream was forced to leave his own company, with nowhere left to go except the WWF.

Dusty, now under the employ of the man who had destroyed his world. Watching Dusty in the WWF was bizarre. The American Dream was a proven national draw, arguably at one point the most popular wrestler in America, and for so many people, an obvious candidate to become the face of the company and WWE Heavyweight Title holder. Which is why when Dusty made his debut wearing lurid yellow polka dots, it felt wrong, like it was some kind of humiliation of the American Dream. In the months that followed, that humiliation would only grow worse. Dusty's passionate everyman persona reduced to juvenile skits where he fixed clogged toilets. This proven national draw, embarrassed in storylines where other men would buy his girlfriend, and he'd be forced to lose a series of feuds against midcarders who would invariably be fed to Hulk Hogan, including Virgil. Dusty losing seven times in two months to the very character who had been given his name to mock him. Within two years, Dusty had gone from being the American Dream to little more than an enhancement talent before finally leaving the company, his name, his kingdom, reduced to nothing. Wow. What a fascinating and tragic start.

But unfortunately, we need to take a brief interlude. See, whenever I make a video about wrestling, WWE takes all my money from it—meaning the roughly, at God, at this point, seven months of work that went into creating this. Uh, YouTube will give me zero for that, meaning that this video was a monetarily catastrophic decision the first time, not a mind the seconds. The literal only reason I'm doing this is because I love this s*** that much. And so, if you want to help justify future awful decisions like this and make these videos possible, there's two ways you can support the channel. One is my Patreon, where for a single dollar you can get Patreon exclusive videos, like me reviewing every game, book, and movie I watched last year, as well as access to my Discord and my secret review blog. The second is I Patch Wolves, my pro wrestling adjacent fake anime that is communicated entirely through a sick ass merch line of high-quality t-shirts, which has its own ongoing storyline that we will see now.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's the moment you've all been waiting for! In the house tonight, cheering me on, are some of the biggest celebrities in Angel City, like the one responsible for exposing Crow as the Frog—she is in Damage—and the other members of the Kings of Violence. Does she ever stop talking? Oh my God, she's my name, kind of. And of course, savior to Angel City, CEO of Zero Day Industries, and my love: It's B! I can't believe it's him! [Applause]

Zero, are you ready to once and for all see this s*** humiliated? I hope someone either brought a stretcher or are only you ever hear that expression: Wolves don't lose sleep over the opinions of sheep. [Music] [Applause]

I'm going to enjoy this. Thanks to everyone who supports the channel; uh, ridiculous videos like this would be completely impossible without you. Okay, I appreciate people enjoying the interlude. We now return to our story.

We meet the first of our two protagonists on what is considered by many the most disastrous night in the history of pro wrestling storytelling. Imagine walking into the best moments of your entire life—the moments when you finally made it to the place you've always dreamed of, and the brightest future spreads out infinitely before you. Now imagine that moment surrounded by tens of thousands of screaming people, outraged and appalled by you. And this isn't right; you are meant to be their hero; they're meant to be cheering for you, but they're not. Instead, they're booing you, telling you how you do not deserve this, how you shouldn't be here, how you have ruined the thing they love. This bizarre nightmare actually happened in real life to a real person on the night of January 25th, 2015, and to a man named Joe Anoa'i, also known as Roman Reigns. And it's a moment where you can see the fictional reality of pro wrestling separate from the actual reality experienced by its audience. This night being just one small chapter in a story that stretches back over 40 years—a story that takes place both in real life, in the fictional narrative of wrestling, and in the nebulous unreality [Music] between.

Okay, this story starts over 10 years ago, and a little setup is required. At any point, a wrestling promotion is going to be attempting to build its next top star—the face of the company, around whom all major storylines can be built, who can sell millions in merch and penetrate the mainstream, creating new wrestling fans. Because without that top star who is over with the audience, wrestling promotions can see a disastrous drop in revenue. And that fear is going to play a huge part in our story. See, this was a period when WWE's current face of the promotion, John Cena, had been on top for nearly 10 years. Cena, now now feeling the pull of Hollywood, meaning WWE needed to find its next mega star, and it needed it now. Two potential options being the man Cena would face this night: one being CM Punk, a former indie wrestler beloved by hardcore fans for his ability to make wrestling feel real, but to WWE management, perhaps a little too real; the other being Ryback, a man with a physique resembling two shaved bears wrestling for dominance, which appealed greatly to the real-life WWE owner and legitimate f***ing crazy person, Vince McMahon, whose oddly obsessive yet bizarrely platonic love of man-muscle meant that a lot of people were now speculating that this would be the night where a decisive Ryback victory would see him crowned as the next face of the company. And that is not what happened.

As the match enters its closing moments and a Ryback victory starts to feel inevitable, three completely unknown men entered the ring and, like a swarm of black hornets, engulfed Ryback. And there was something so powerful about this image—this giant of a man being devoured by this cloud of darkness—as they ripped the match apart, decimating Ryback. This was the first introduction of The Shield: three brand new wrestlers—their names: Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, and Roman Reigns. For the next month, this pattern would repeat, as regularly scheduled matches would be hijacked and destroyed by The Shield. It didn't matter who you were or what you did; if you were an employee of the WWE, you were part of the problem. The Shield was here to dismantle, and it was exciting. When The Shield's music hit, you knew you were about to see something real and violent. And you got to understand this was during the PG era, in which a child-friendly WWE would feature cartoonish characters like Santino Marella, a man who would win matches by transforming his arm into a sentient snake and paralyzing people. But now it felt like that cartoonish world was being invaded by three very real, very dangerous men. And everything about The Shield's presentation enhanced that feeling. Their promos were shot on staticky handheld cameras; they came to the ring in combat gear and steel-toed boots; they didn't have a big, elaborate, fireworks-filled entrance; they just emerged from the crowd like a group of silent killers. And suddenly it would feel like the pageantry of the PG era was coming to an end under a hail of black-clad fists and feet. And it was f***ing bananas.

But maybe the most striking thing about The Shield was the intensity of those attacks—an intensity that would be explained years later in Dean Ambrose's autobiography: "The first night at Survivor Series, our mission was to destroy Ryback. Punk could put it in our ear that people might be in Ryback's ear telling him not to sell for us." Just a note here: if someone doesn't sell for you in wrestling, it means they make it look like your offense doesn't hurt, which can make you look weak. "As would be our philosophy in these cases going forward, there's three of us and one of him. We beat the f*** out of Ryback. We were pros, and we never hurt anybody, but there was a lot of busted lips, black eyes, and bruises."

The Shield were like a lightning strike to WWE, but it still didn't prepare anyone for what would happen in their first match, which would come one month after their debut at TLC 2012, in which they now face the combination of Ryback, Kane, and Daniel Bryan (real name: Brian Danielson). Wrestling is very silly. No one really knew what to expect from this match because Kane, Bryan, and Ryback were all good guys, and popular ones—characters that WWE had put a lot of time and money into building up—whereas The Shield were newcomers and bad guys at that. Traditional wrestling storytelling dictating that this would be the night where they'd receive a much-deserved ass-whooping and slide back down the midcard. But what played out felt less like a traditional wrestling match and more like gang violence. Individually, you could take any member of Ryback, Kane, and Bryan, and in storyline, they'd nearly certainly defeat any single member of The Shield. But The Shield didn't fight as individuals; they were a unit, swarming and devouring their bigger, more experienced opponents. The good guys might get the best of one member of The Shield—hell, maybe two—but that's when they'd be blindsided by a third, dragged to the ground, and obliterated in a hail of boots and fists. Despite there being the same numbers on both sides, Ryback and Bryan felt constantly overwhelmed and disorganized, whereas The Shield were an efficient, violent machine working in perfect unison, even sacrificing their own bodies for the greater good of their team. When the bell finally sounded, audiences sat stunned as The Shield stood victorious. The message was clear: individually, these men were dangerous; as a faction, they were unstoppable.

As The Shield continued to build momentum, the personalities of each individual member became more pronounced. Apart from being a technical genius in the ring, Seth was the architect, the cerebral tactician who would coordinate his Shield brothers from the sidelines, using them to create openings through which he would strike with pinpoint brutality. Dean Ambrose was nearly the total opposite—an uncontrollable wild man who lacked the technicality of Seth or the athleticism of Roman, but made up for it with sheer violence and passion, adept at both receiving and dealing massive amounts of punishment. But maybe even more critically, Dean was also the group's mouthpiece; his mic work had this captivating, laid-back tension to it that meant watching him deliver a Shield promo felt like talking to a cool stranger at a bar who might just be thinking about beating the f*** out of you. Then there was the silent intensity of Roman Reigns. Roman had this quiet charisma that meant he didn't need to do or say a lot to be captivating, but he was, with a massive body yet freakish athleticism. Any tag to Roman was the most exciting moment of a Shield match, as he'd bulldoze through enemies, saving near defeats and clenching close victories. Any one of these men would have been compelling by themselves, but together, there was something more.

The Shield didn't just feel like the bad guys of someone else's story; they were three people to whom being a member of The Shield really seemed to mean something. Unlike other groups in wrestling, no one ever joined or left The Shield—that that doesn't count. And despite being bad guys, there were times you could see them show real care and affection towards each other. You could see it in the moments when one member of The Shield would do something awesome, and the other two would look genuinely ecstatic. You could see it in how they'd celebrate each other's victories with a real, gleeful delight. You could see it in the genuine care and concern they'd show each other after especially brutal matches, helping support their fallen brothers and carry them backstage. And it all made it feel like there was something real at the core of this story—of these three men alone in the hostile and competitive landscape of WWE—three men who believed in, trusted, and relied on only each other.

And I think the reason that connection felt so real is because it was. One of the most difficult things to convey to non-wrestling fans about wrestling is how competitive it really is. Is yeah, matches are predetermined, but what isn't is the ongoing battle for TV time in professional wrestling—the most limited, valuable, and sought-after commodity there is. Is TV time, as it's time on television that allows wrestlers to get over with the audience, to sell merch, to build storylines, which leads to high-paying pay-per-view matches. Any wrestler getting a decent amount of TV time invariably means dozens of wrestlers who are not, and very quickly clicks locker room politics and resentments can form, leading to bullying, harassment, and vicious hazing—that is the very real, very hostile environment Colby Lopez, Jonathan Good, and Joe Anoa'i entered in WWE. Or to quote another extract from Dean's autobiography: "Seth told me another story once about some guys who obviously didn't like him trying to get him to drink with them—not in a friendly, 'Dude, let's have a beer' way, but in a 'Hey, we think you're cocky, so we're going to get you to do a bunch of shots to prove you're one of the boys' bully way. Seth's not a drinker. My f***ing blood boiled. That's my boy."

This kind of s*** brought us together. In storyline, The Shield were these three outsiders whose success, whose fate, relied on each other. But in reality, they were the exact same three outsiders trying to break into the hostile landscape of WWE, whose careers, whose livelihood, whose real ability to provide for their families depended on each other—their combined capacity to make this concept of The Shield work. And they'd spend nearly all their time together as three young, broke wrestlers. The Shield would, in order to save money, ride from town to town together, whiling away the dozens of hours of car travel in each other's company—the roadside diners, the pit stops, everything—even splitting cheap, twin hotel rooms: Roman and Seth taking the beds, Dean sleeping on the floor.

"I don't even know what I'd do in my life without you. Guess what? You are so sweet, and I love you so much, and you are a great father. You keep talking to me like this, I'm going to take you to dinner, and I'm paying. You will not leave the tip."

You don't go through all of that without forming a real connection with someone. And it was that real connection that resonated with people, to the point that even years later, after Dean had left the company, he'd get this kind of reaction from performing Seth's Curb Stomp finisher. The real-life connection of these three men—that's what made it easy to believe in The Shield. And oh boy, did the internet run with it.

Hello, and welcome to a very special episode of "What the Internet Did to The Shield." See, not only were The Shield wildly successful in WWE, but outside it. In fact, entire fan communities were built around shipping the different members of The Shield. Rollins and Reigns were Rawlins; Ambrose and Reigns were Ambra; and Ambrose and Rollins, by far the most popular pairing of the three, were Ambrollins. And oh boy, let me tell you some of that fanfiction:

"After a bad breakup, Seth Rollins leaves the Midwest to lifeguard for an Aquatics facility in Orlando and restart his life after everything he's been through. Does he have what it takes to dive into love again?"

You might be asking, "What is the point of bringing this up?" To which I would respond, "Well, what's the f***ing point in anything?" But I do think it genuinely shows two things: one, The Shield were doing something only the most successful acts in wrestling do—reaching new audiences you wouldn't traditionally associate with pro wrestling—in this case, to overgeneralize a little bit, young women who were into fanfiction. And two, I think it's also evidence that the reason The Shield were resonating with people wasn't just because they were three badass dudes, but because of the real connection between them—the uh, the emotional connection, not the uh, the the shipping part. The Shield were that feeling of you and an invincible group of friends against the world, and honestly, it was kind of beautiful. It was a really cool thing to believe in. But that investment came with tension. Factions in wrestling are built to fall apart. And what if that same fate awaited The Shield?

Dean was getting too unhinged, too careless, costing his Shield brothers singles victories and abandoning the teamwork that had brought them this far. Him and Roman now clashing over who the most dominant member of The Shield was, with Seth growing exhausted from having to constantly keep peace. And unfortunately for The Shield, they were about to meet another three-person faction whose bond was both stronger and more insidious: The Wyatt Family—a group of massive, deranged, backwoods cultists led by the anonymous Bray Wyatt. If The Shield were a lightning strike, The Wyatt Family were more like some terrible miasma descending on the WWE and choking the life out of it—the two groups building steady momentum until eventually all that was left to face was each other.

Taking place at 2014's Elimination Chamber, there was f***ing magic in the air to this moment—the match getting "This is awesome!" chants before the bell even [Applause] rang. And it was The Shield were what they had always been: a trifecta of people operating in near-perfect unison. But The Wyatts were something more; they were one, with Eric Rowan and the late, great Luke Harper operating as the massive, mauling tentacles of Bray Wyatt—silent and unthinking—the three together forming a single, frightening consciousness, one able to do what no other team had: separate and consume The Shield, with Ambrose being taken out early in the match, leaving Rollins and Reigns exposed and vulnerable. It's a fascinating match, rich with subtle psychology and in-ring storytelling that is so captivating. But it showed something: The Shield weren't invincible. Hit just the right spot, and cracks began to appear. Slowly, those cracks spiderwebbed outwards. But despite everything, The Shield were still a team; they were still brothers, and were now wrestling main event pay-per-view matches and gaining victories over the biggest stars of the company. While they had their issues, you could still believe in The Shield. There was nothing they couldn't survive as long as they stayed together.

Let's talk about Seth for a second. Seth was an amazing technical wrestler and the glue that held The Shield together, but he was neither as charismatic as Dean nor as big and impressive as Roman. And terrified of being left behind as his brothers grew more and more popular, Seth Rollins destroys everything they'd built together for the last three years, and The Shield implodes. And and just listen to how the audience reacts here—not with outrage, but with heartbreak. Oh my [Applause] [Music] God. In storyline, this was a tragic end to The Shield, but in reality, this was the conclusion of a three-year-long narrative that had been told and paid off to perfection. And if you don't know much about wrestling, you might be asking, "How could that be? WWE had just imploded their hottest acts." But the reason they did was simple. See, remember WWE's problem of needing to find a next top face of the company? Well, three years later, that had not happened. John Cena was spending less and less time wrestling—this very year acting in four separate movies, including "The Flintstones in WWE Stone Age Smackdown." There was no reason for me to be specific about that one, but I was. CM Punk had this very same month been fired from the company for, oh, we'll just leave it at "being bold." And Ryback had all the success of a wrestler whose gimmick was, I I guess, eating people. So with the implosion of The Shield, WWE had now three white-hot single stars who could now be positioned to become the face of the company. The only question being who.

It was never going to be Seth. Dude just has "heel" written into his DNA. And if you don't believe me, follow him on Twitter. You know, I made this joke back when Seth was a heel, and he has since become one of the most beloved faces in the company. So, well, well, he f***ing showed me. Dean was, to hardcore fans, the right choice—killer in the ring, believable on the mic—but I think to WWE management, his corners were just a little too jagged to put on the front of a lunchbox. Which left only Roman Reigns—big, cool, devastatingly handsome, and with a Superman Punch that could knock these stars out of the sky. Now, he did kind of f***ing talk John Cena once in an interview, but it it doesn't matter; that won't have horrifying ramifications later on. Roman even…

Winning the Slammy for best newcomer, and so the choice was obvious: Roman Reigns would be the new face of the company. And what could possibly go wrong? The answer is, oh my [ __ ] god.

One of the most difficult parts in crowning the new face of a promotion is that doing so invariably means not crowning an entire roster of other wrestlers—wrestlers who could have potentially filled that role. This is what we saw happen with Dusty Rhodes, a man who had proven he could be that guy and yet was never given that opportunity. The reasons for that could have been that Dusty just didn't fit the image of a typical WWE wrestler, or they could have been more malicious recompense for the fact that Dusty had ever dared stand against the McMahon empire. We don't know.

But where the Vince McMahon saga grows particularly strange is in the treatment of Dusty's son, Dustin. Vince was largely absent from Dustin's early life due to him traveling the territories. And while Dusty was initially against the idea of Dustin becoming a wrestler, they would later form a father-son tag team, which meant everything to Dustin as it was the first time he really got to be a part of his father's life. Early in his career, Dustin was known as "The Natural," and that's because, in so many ways, he was the perfect wrestler, with the charisma, size, and look to be the face of the WWF. The only potential problem being his last name. Like, if you were running a wrestling promotion, what would you do with this tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed, All-American slice of apple pie? Well, if you're Vince McMahon, you put him in a [ __ ] suit with a ball gag.

Rather than looking at Dustin and seeing a potential face for the company, Vince saw something else: Goldust. The Goldust gimmick was bizarre—a kind of sentient, walking Oscar statue who drew heat by being, ah, extremely homoerotic to his opponents, caressing them, kissing them, at one point even getting a tattoo of his opponent, Razor Ramon. People to this day are still split on Goldust, and personally, I think the character absolutely praised. Onna, the gays will get me. Panic. I am personally going to come out there and kiss each and every one of you. Well, at the same time, Goldust was also the first time I, and a lot of people, saw a character on television where the lines of gender and sexuality were less defined. And while that depiction was, uh, absolutely negative looking back, I'm honestly kind of just appreciative that I got the window into that world at all, and particularly in pro wrestling. The character was, of course, massively controversial, and many even saw Goldust as yet another Vince McMahon mockery of the legacy of the American Dream. And while we can't say that for certain, it sure doesn't help that Goldust's finisher, which involves, uh, booting a person in the bollocks, was called "Shattered Dreams." I mean, you know, come on now, that's that's a little suspect.

The sad part is that the Goldust character did actually play a role in the deterioration of Dusty and Dustin's relationship. Dusty was upset at the direction his son's career was taking, but I think for Dustin, Goldust was his way of doing something impossible. He had spent his career being seen as Dusty's kid, and this character was now a way for him to become something different. But that desire would lead to a more disturbing direction for Goldust as wrestling entered its late '90s Attitude Era, when more intense depictions of sex and violence became the WWF's currency. Goldust would take on a disturbing evolution—the artist formerly known as Goldust—in which the character would sink into total depravity. He'd come to the ring wearing diapers, he'd crawl around on all fours, colored and gagged, and in a decision that Dustin would deeply regret later in his life, Goldust would make an appearance clad in yellow polka dots and wearing a fat suit—another open mockery of Dusty Rhodes from Vince, but this time using his own son. The most disturbing part of all this is that as Dustin's in-ring persona grew more extreme, his real life was disintegrating. He developed a crippling opioid dependency to deal with the agony pro wrestling was causing his body, which would spiral into a decade-long battle with addiction. And as his identity bled away, it became difficult to tell where Dusty Rhodes ended and Goldust began. Dustin even pitched to get real-life breast implants to push the character to the next shocking extreme. Not only becoming estranged from his father, but also his daughter, Marlene, and wife, Terri—his real-life family destroyed in a vicious and public divorce that somehow became a live TV segment that felt way, way too real. "And I'm going to be who I want to be when I want to be it. I'm not going to live for you or for my father anymore. It stops right now. So you can take this ring, you can take this marriage, and you can take Marina and you can shove it up your—because I've had it up to here with you and you're—"

I don't think Vince necessarily hated the Rhodes family. I think he knew that the Goldust character would generate publicity, and it did. But I think it can simultaneously be true that Vince delighted in the humiliation he had caused Dusty Rhodes. I think there was a part of him that took pleasure in being able to look into his old rival's eyes and saying, "See what I turned your son into?" Because that's what Vince does: he takes people and he drains them, leaving them empty and broken. For every face of the company, there are dozens of stories like this.

And then there is Roman Reigns. Initially, Roman seemed a good choice. "Roman Reigns" chants were common, and people loved him as the big, cool guy from The Shield. But what that meant was that Roman Reigns was a proven success in The Shield, but outside of that was a different question—and this was not a question either Dean or Seth had to worry about. Both had lengthy and successful indie singles careers prior to WWE experience and personas they could now draw on, but Roman did not, because wrestling hadn't been Roman's first choice. He'd actually been an American football player up until 2008, at which point he was released by the Edmonton Elks, only beginning training with the WWE in 2010. Meaning, by the time The Shield debuted, Roman Reigns had only been wrestling for about two years. You could hide that inexperience within The Shield; it was easy to build their promos, build their matches around protecting Roman's weaknesses. But now those protections were gone.

The attack to Roman Reigns genuinely was the most exciting part to any Shield match, but in the same way that an explosion is the most exciting part to a movie—it was cool to see, but you wouldn't want to watch an entire film of them. And if you immediately just thought, "Well, I would," no, you wouldn't, you goddamn liar. That's how Roman Reigns matches felt. He was good at running fast and hitting hard, but it was in the moments between those bombastic high spots that Roman's inexperience really started to show. He struggled with a lot of the subtler parts of wrestling, like maintaining a believable psychology or crafting a narrative through a match, and particularly in areas that involved acting—like selling, the art of making your opponent's offense look like it hurts, which, when done right, can make you feel like, "Oh my god, did I did I just watch a man die? Is is he okay?" Roman, on the other hand, to try and disguise these weaknesses, WWE would frequently pair Roman with far more experienced wrestlers like Randy Orton, who had worked their asses off to carry Roman to some good matches. But fans saw this as just another way of WWE protecting Roman Reigns, or as Uproxx's Brandon Stroud would write, "Randy Orton wrestles a broomstick. Orton versus Reigns could have been Orton versus Mama's boy from the pizza roll contest and been the same thing."

What it all meant was that Roman's matches just weren't that interesting, never telling a story more complicated or compelling than "Roman Reigns is a cool guy who wins a lot." And win a lot he did—over 90% of his matches. He would demolish entire five-person teams by himself; he would break the record for Royal Rumble eliminations; and would only lose when the bad guy cheated. And if you were a kid, this all probably made Roman Reigns seem really cool, and it was designed to. But if you were a seasoned wrestling fan, this was all starting to look eye-wateringly similar to the PG-friendly John Cena wins era. And what really did not help was this interview from CM Punk, released after he left the company: "It's me versus The Shield, 3-on-1. This is the—the most pushed three guys. They've pushed and protected all three guys, and then they—they stress and they grab me and they stress, but you got to make Roman look really, really strong. So while we're putting the match together, every two minutes somebody new is coming up to me, 'Hey, you gotta make him look really strong.'"

Slowly, Roman Reigns began to feel less like we were being told a story and more like we were being sold a product. And unfortunately for both Roman and the WWE, he had a much greater weakness than his matches—one that would not be so easily hidden. There's two ways to convey a believable persona in pro wrestling: one is in the ring, and the other is on the mic. And what you say doesn't have to be much, or logical, or combine words and sentences in a way any human would ever do, because this freaking nature right here is just beginning to swell, and when I get big enough, brother, there ain't going to be room for anybody else but me and all the Warriors floating through the veins and the power of the warrior. What it is about is inhabiting a car and projecting that character outwards with an authenticity and confidence that lets the audience believe it. Because Sandman, when you chose to cross my path, you chose a living hell, because you've awoken the sleeping giant. Made me ashamed of the man I've become, and I guarantee and I make you a vow right now that I'm not going to be that man anymore. Roman Reigns, on the other hand, once he's done with Owens, it's best friends fighting for the—the very top of WWE, WWE Championship. JoJo. Roman delivered his promos with all the confidence of a seven-year-old asking for more peas four seconds after [ __ ] himself. "And when I win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, I take my rightful place at the head of the table, and I'm here right now to be the first man to declare player at the Royal Rumble [Music] Match." He'd flub his lines; he'd lose his place; he was given about eight different stock catchphrases, all of which were equally vapid and conveyed nothing about him, such as "My yard," "I can," "I will," and most infamously, "Believe that," which look, I know it's not quite the same as what Naruto says, I'm still going to do the joke [Music]. Roman was actually pretty okay at growling out a few low, ominous words at the end of a Shield promo, but without Dean to lead him there, or the experience or skill to carry a promo by himself, that cool mystique he had in The Shield would just fall apart—in ways that were sometimes just dull and sometimes genuinely disastrous to Roman's momentum and credibility. "My so-called brother here, he's got donkey dong for brains. Actually, you're full of something else. You are a sniveling little suck-up, sellout, full of suffering, suck-attach son. Yeah, I know that was not easy to say. It's—it's so bad, it's—it's just so bad, and I keep trying to write something to convey how bad it makes me feel, and I just—I can—I mean, suffer and suck at what—what—what was that?" I don't want to go too hard here because this is maybe the most [ __ ] on wrestling promo in history, but the [ __ ] wink at the end, Roman buddy, what are you doing?

Originally, when I planned this section, I wanted to dissect why Roman's inexperience in matches, his lack of skill on the mic, all resulted in him not working as a singles performer. But the more I thought about it, the more I started to realize that there was something more—there was this kind of emptiness to both Roman's matches and his mic work. And what I think it really comes down to is just art. If art's going to resonate, it needs to be forged from some genuine sense of human emotion or experience that people can connect to. And it doesn't matter if it's the Mona Lisa or an episode of Smiling Friends; good art comes from taking an authentic part of ourselves and fashioning something out of it. And bad art is not that it's not honest; instead, it's usually a surface-level imitation of something else without an understanding of the human core that made that original piece of art special. Roman Reigns, at this point, was bad art—a corporately created John Cena bootleg with no identity or soul of his own. And you could see that and how he was now being presented—still making the same Shield crowd entrance, to the same Shield theme music, wearing the same Shield SWAT gear. And the only thing it communicated about this man was that he used to be in The Shield.

There was real stuff WWE could have drawn on from Reigns's personal life. He really was from a long line of great Samoan wrestlers; his cousins, Jimmy and Jay Uso, were a successful tag team whom Roman had grown up alongside and shared a real bond with. But this was barely acknowledged in storyline. Instead, the man of Joe Anoa'i was plastered over with this fake, cartoon superhero Roman Reigns, there being no connection between the two. While at the heart of The Shield was their bond with each other, at the heart of Roman Reigns was nothing. And that emptiness—that's what you could feel in his matches, that's what you could feel in his promos, and soon the audience started to feel it as well.

But before we get there, I think it's worth asking: what does the opposite of this look like? What does it look like when a singles wrestling persona is carved from something sincere, human, and real? In 2002, wrestler Rami Sebei was booked as an enhancement talent for a promotion called Internet Wrestling Syndicate. Enhancement talent, which often go by their slightly less politically correct name, "jobbers," are wrestlers tasked with, well, getting the piss kicked out of them to make other wrestlers look strong. But this was a problem for Sebei; he didn't want his current gimmick, Stevie McFly, to lose credibility—how Stevie McFly ever had credibility to begin with, I don't know. So instead, he donned a mask and wrestled under the pseudonym of "Generic Luchador." However, over the course of the match, something started to happen: the crowd started to get behind the Generic Luchador, and as they did, a persona started to emerge—this young, underdog wrestler who would regularly get his head punched out through his ass but would keep going. And over time, the Generic Luchador would become beloved by fans, changing his name to El Generico. With a natural, ultra-likable charisma and ability to wrestle his [ __ ] ass off, watching Generico perform was seeing someone who just really loved the art of wrestling. There was an electricity to Generico's matches. He didn't win a lot, or even often, but it didn't matter; fans adored him, becoming massively popular in Ring of Honor, where he'd meet his lifelong best friend and soulmate, Kevin Steen. The two together sharing their pure love of wrestling, and even capturing the ROH tag titles with a connection that felt real again, because it was—the two men being best men at each other's wedding. In real life, they were inseparable. I mean, come on, you've you've seen me do these videos enough now, you knew where that was going. Kevin saw in Generico that part of himself he hated most—weakness. Was he really going to spend the rest of his life letting his good-natured love of wrestling trap him in smoke-filled bingo halls performing in front of crowds of 50? No, he had to be more. Generico was a cancer he needed to cut out of himself, starting a lengthy war between the two that was kind of tragic—the audience's heart breaking over and over and over again for Generico, who was barely able to bring himself to hurt his former friends, until finally Steen drove him to that place, Generico becoming Ring of Honor's last hope against the maniacal and dominant champion Steen had become. The day came when the two bitter rivals faced each other one final time, but it wasn't a match. See, at this point, Generico had been signed by a much larger wrestling promotion, meaning their rivalry, their friendship, everything that happened between them was at an end. And just listen to how Kevin phrases this in his [Music] [Applause] promo: "Wherever you end up, wherever you're going, whatever happens to you, please know I will be nothing without you. Thank you." What I love about this moment is whether you view it as the end of two enemies whose hatred for each other pushed them both to greater heights, or just two real-life best friends saying goodbye, not knowing if they'll ever be able to wrestle again—it works perfectly. It's real, either way. When talking about the unreality of wrestling, this is the kind of moment it can create. That right there is what it feels like when a wrestler organically gets over with an audience—when they perform from a real emotional place, and the audience connects with that.

But by 2015, this was not what was happening with Roman Reigns. Every week, Roman's weaknesses were becoming a little more obvious; every week, those crowd reactions would grow a little more tepid; and every week, a steady under-chorus of boos would make its way more and more into the opening notes of Roman's theme music. Signs like "Roman Reigns likes Nickelback" saying more about how he was now being received by the crowd than I could ever fit into a single paragraph. "Hi, uh, John from two years later here, and um, just wanted to do my journalistic due diligence here and include, uh, this sign that states, uh, 'Roman is a wank pheasant.' Okay, I think that's—I think we're good here. Back to you, John from two years ago." And what was happening here was more interesting and bizarre than just a wrestler failing to get over; it was the fictional reality of WWE separating from the experienced reality of its audience. In storyline, Roman was this big, cool, invincible superhero—that's how he was presented in his matches, that's how he was talked about on commentary. But in reality, a very different narrative was starting to form: that Roman Reigns as the face of the company was not working, that he was being rejected by the audience, that WWE had chosen wrong. And it was hard not to agree with that. Dean Ambrose was now embracing his pre-WWE Jon Moxley persona and getting white-hot, organic crowd reactions, and Seth was killing it as a conniving heel, even winning the Money in the Bank ladder match, which would allow him to cash in a briefcase for a WWE title shot at any time, even during other matches. I wonder will that become relevant? WWE needed to get momentum back behind Roman Reigns, which would bring us to one night—a night that would see the constructed reality of WWE's story and the actual reality experienced by its audience rip apart completely.

January 25th, 2015, the Royal Rumble. The Royal Rumble is an annual match where 30 wrestlers enter the ring at timed intervals and are eliminated by being tossed over the top rope, the winner of which goes on to fight the champion in the main event of WrestleMania. Meaning the Royal Rumble is, in theory, the most fun night of the wrestling calendar, adored by fans for its absolutely wild storytelling and potential to crown new stars in a single night—which Roman needed. But WWE management hadn't considered two things: one was the steady but building fan backlash against Roman, and the other was Daniel Bryan. Take everything I said about El Generico and multiply it by a factor of—well, probably one, honestly. An ultra-likable, battle-hardened indie wrestling gnome who could bring you to tears with the emotion and passion he brought to every match. Bryan was so beloved by fans that WWE was forced to change the main event of the previous year's WrestleMania because of how passionately the audience had gotten behind Bryan—only for Bryan to then tragically have to drop the title and step away from wrestling due to a career-threatening neck injury, which put him out of action for nine months. This match right here to be his glorious comeback, a fairy tale ending for a beloved crowd darling. Wait, no, what are you doing, WWE? No, no, don't do this [Applause]. No, yeah. The crowd goes numb, and then apoplectic, turning on every other wrestler in the match. And when Roman's music hits just 10 minutes later, you could hear the piss boiling throughout the arena. Oh boy. The combination of having their beloved underdog rejected in place of what they now saw as an artificial, corporately appointed champion—the crowd is brought to their frothing, quivering limit—a reaction that would haunt Roman for the entire rest of the match. It didn't matter who he eliminated or what he did; the cries of the audience were absolutely corrosive. "Big Show spot! He wants to earn his own! He wants to do it tonight! At the look! Big Show! Well, I think he was trying to—" to the point that when he topples his final opponent over the top rope in a deeply predictable Roman Reigns-style fashion, boos melt the arena. "Rock coming to the aid of Roman Reigns!" Seventeen thousand furious cries crashing down on Roman Reigns, and you can see the shock in his eyes as the crowd's reaction punches down through the fictional persona and into the actual person of Joe Anoa'i—a man expecting the greatest moment of his life and then colliding with the most monumental rejection the industry had ever seen. Even an appearance by Reigns's cousin, The Rock, cannot quell the rage of the audience. And just look at the expression on The Rock's face—kind of says it all, really. But regardless, the path was charted: Roman Reigns was going to be the main event of WrestleMania, and the crowd [ __ ] hated it.

March 29th, 2015, the main event of WrestleMania. Roman Reigns enters to a chorus of ghostly whales that follow and hound him to the ring. To everyone watching, Roman Reigns's victory was a certainty, given how he'd been pushed and protected to get here—one small caveat being the man he was facing: the Beast Incarnate, Brock Lesnar, the most believable, legitimate champion WWE has ever seen. Terrifying in the ring, but outside it, he had his advocate, Paul Heyman, one of the most compelling talkers in the entire industry. Pairing the right manager with the right talent can give them the final 10% that pushes them into greatness. Across from the combination of Lesnar and Heyman, Roman felt less legitimate, less believable than he ever had. And the idea that this was going to be the guy to dethrone the Beast—well, that was not a reality anyone wanted to accept. And you could hear that from the audience. Roman and [Applause] Rain. In fairness, I actually love this match, and Roman is great in it. If you watched it on mute, you could experience this kind of awesome and tragic underdog story as this valiant young hero battles upward against the hopeless inevitability of Brock Lesnar. But sound on, and you get a very different story. Any slight moments of hope or offense from Roman collide with a chorus of overwhelming boos—the near 100,000 people in attendance bursting into gleeful delight each time Roman is slammed to the mat. And it is surreal—like watching some bizarre alternate reality where the monster is cheered and the underdog hated. But this was not the only strange thing that would happen tonight. As the match entered its closing moments, Seth Rollins's music hit, and he cashes in his Money in the Bank briefcase, pinning Roman and stealing the WWE Championship in the heist of the century. And in story, this was a [ __ ] incredible moment. But in reality, there's one very curious detail about it: according to Seth, he was only told this was happening the same day, just a couple of hours prior, after his own WrestleMania singles match, which he lost. And this could have been to keep the swerve a secret, or a sign of WWE slamming the brakes on Roman Reigns at the last minute, having lost faith in him for the overwhelmingly negative crowd reactions he was now receiving. Regardless, if the plan had been to crown Reigns the next face of the company, it had gone disastrously. And unfortunately for Roman, this was just the beginning. Things have gone poorly, but it didn't change the fact that WWE still needed a face of the company. And having poured millions into marketing, into TV time, into development of Roman Reigns, they were not going to give up on their investment. And so WWE, in the following year, started trying to change the…

Narrative: What if Roman Reigns hadn't been successful? Not because the fans didn't want him, but because the WWE management had schemed to keep Roman down. A storyline that involved him feuding with the ultimate wrestling bad guy, Triple H, who is both in storyline and in reality the CEO of the company. And honestly, this story failed for the same reason that "Suffer" and "Suckatash" Roman had failed: it was a hollow imitation without any genuine core. This time, attempting to emulate the anti-authority appeal of Stone Cold Steve Austin in the Attitude Era, but it could never work. To so many fans, Roman was still this artificial, corporately appointed hero, selected not because he was a great wrestler, but because his mainstream marketability was so high. So, attempts to now frame that corporate hero as an underdog battling that same Corporation—it was a story as insincere as it was comical.

Triple H would brutalize Roman in attacks that felt designed to draw sympathy, but instead, the crowd would just howl in delight. After nearly an entire year, the two met in the main event of that year's WrestleMania, in which WWE did everything they could to make Triple H look like the ultimate authoritarian villain, including entering with a giant skeleton clone army of himself. It didn't matter; this match was [__] painful, rejected by the crowd from the opening bell. The audience's frustration crippled its momentum over 30 agonizing minutes. Second row caught him on the [Applause] right, a match that dragged itself over the finish line with a limp yet inevitable Roman Reigns victory. And the crowd despised this. WWE had done everything they could to bring Roman to this point, but fortunately, Roman's momentum would stall yet again. As per the pro wrestling torch, a wellness policy violation would see Roman punished with dropping the title and being suspended for 30 days.

WWE would spend the next year desperately trying to re-legitimize Roman in the eyes of the audience, including bestowing upon him the ultimate honor in pro wrestling: Roman Reigns would be the one to retire The Undertaker, the most respected, worshiped wrestler in the industry, with an incredible 30-year legacy that you can learn about in this video. But what should have been this monumental overcoming of this immortal entity at that year's WrestleMania kind of wasn't. You could see the years of wear in the now 50-year-old Undertaker; the match's slow, plodding pace punctuated by botches and missed timings. And when Reigns finally beat Taker, it just feels kind of sad. And God, did fans hate him for it.

That hatred followed him all the way to next year's WrestleMania, in which he main evented with Brock Lesnar again. And my God, the sheer vitriol from the crowd for this entire match. Having now endured their fourth Roman Reigns WrestleMania main event, they turn absolutely nuclear. They chant for CM Punk, who at this point had been out of the company for years. They scream, "You both suck!" and it features maybe the only "this is awful" chant I've ever heard. Oh my God. And now, delivering my God, the straight right hand of blow. Two years later, footage was released from backstage after this match, and you can see the absolute disgust on Brock Lesnar's face as he hurls the title belt at Vince McMahon and walks out of the company. And I have to say, when I watch back footage from this era, I genuinely feel like I'm watching a man trapped in a nightmare. There's a kind of haunted look in the eyes of Roman Reigns for a lot of his entrances—this faraway glaze, like he can't even believe what's happening. He can't believe that people hate him this much.

And that hatred, it only grew more corrosive and specific. All it would take is the camera to linger on Roman for just a couple of seconds at any random WWE event, and the crowd would turn absolutely toxic. And there were times when you could really see that hatred get to Roman. "And right next to that championship is a huge chip on my shoulder from people telling me I can't—people like these guys right here." Roman even had to stop making his trademark entrance through the crowd because of security concerns. And in one house show, a fan even hurled a metal briefcase that struck Roman in the back of the head. And the sad part was, Roman was legitimately improving all the time, developing a wider move set, showing a greater understanding of the storytelling and psychology that a good match takes, but it never seemed to matter. After a legitimately excellent match with AJ Styles at Extreme Rules 2016, Roman's victory was met with a single, freezing chant: "You still suck!" Sit-out power bomb, yeah. Impact from that is from that back drop through the—Roman was a man haunted, trapped between the fictional reality of playing a hero and the actual reality of enduring the hatred of hundreds of thousands of people.

And unfortunately for Roman, there was a single night where one person would obliterate the divide between those two realities, and his name was John Cena. John Cena, in a lot of ways, had been through many of the same things Roman had: a young star pushed to the moon by WWE only to receive massive fan backlash. And maybe that was a part of what was about to happen; maybe Cena saw in Roman the same ghost that had haunted his entire career. I don't know, but what I do know is that Cena was about to commit one of the most brutal maulings in the history of pro wrestling, but it wasn't going to happen in a match; it was going to be on the microphone. "You are the high exalted Roman Reigns. Everybody back there—no, everybody out here—still kind of trying to figure it out, because when they look at you, they see what I see: a cheap ass, corporately created John Cena bootleg." Cena comes at Roman with a genuine fury that leaves Roman visibly shaken. You can hear his voice quiver as he struggles to retort. And then it happens.

Roman, in front of the entire world, chokes up. "They boo you because, first of all, you suck, and second of all, go ahead, find it; go ahead—oh wait, it's called a promo, kid. If you want to be the big dog, you're going to have to learn how to—" Roman, now genuinely furious, lashes back at Cena, attacking the fact that Cena was now a part-timer and the pattern of him beating and delegitimizing younger talents. "You're a phony; you're a yes-man who can learn how to do anything or be anything." It was actually the first legitimately good piece of mic work Roman had ever done, but Cena, 10 years more experienced, volleys back and, in doing so, completely decimates Roman. "Congratulations, it took you five years to get a halfway decent promo. I blame you. I'm still here because you can't do your job. You should be ashamed. I'm a part-timer 'cause I can do this part-time better than you could ever do it full-time." Roman was a hero that no one wanted, and all Cena did here was drag that truth out into the blazing daylight.

By 2018, Roman felt more hated, more rejected than he ever had. And I got to say, knowing how much a single bad day on the internet can [__] me up, I don't know how a person goes out night after night, week after week, and endures this kind of disdain from tens of thousands of people. By all accounts, Roman—Joe—was a decent, hardworking guy. He was liked backstage and known to have treated everyone from the ring crew to his fellow performers with respect. And even then, was it really his fault all this was happening? Or was it the fault of the people who put him in this position? Unfortunately, the answer didn't matter at this point. Roman Reigns was maybe the most genuinely hated wrestler WWE had ever seen. Something had to give, and it did—just not in a way anyone was expecting.

October 22nd, 2018, Monday Night Raw. It's been nearly four years since that fateful night of the Royal Rumble. The show opens with Roman Reigns walking to the ring to what is, at this point, a completely inevitable wall of boos. But something's off; his steps are slow and heavy. There's no posing, no playing to the crowd. And when he enters the ring, there's just this pause—that silence immediately filled with the vitriolic jeers of the crowd. Then he speaks: "I feel like I owe everybody an apology. I've come out here and spoke as Roman Reigns, and I said a lot of things—that I'd be here every single week. That's all lies; it's a lie because the reality is, my real name is Joe, and I've been living with leukemia for 11 years, and unfortunately, it's back. And because the leukemia is back, I cannot fulfill my role, and—and I'm going to have to relinquish the Universal Championship. And it didn't matter if you cheered me; it didn't matter if you booed me. Thank you so much." Expressions of disbelief and heartbreak blanket the audience. Roman leaves his world title in the ring and walks back up the entrance ramp, where he's met by his brothers in The Shield, real tears in their eyes, as a new chant slowly starts to break out in the audience: "Thank you, Roman."

It's a bewildering, devastating moment, one that I think Michael Cole puts exceptionally well: "We come out here Monday nights to entertain; we live in this alternate reality sometimes, and I think we all forget that we're real people—that the superstars in the locker room are real people. And reality came up and bit us here tonight." If you had spent the last four years hating Roman—whether it was booing him in person or talking [__] online—this moment forced you to reconcile with the very uncomfortable truth that at the other end of that was a real person. And honestly, I was one of those people—on Twitter, on podcasts—and if I'm going to be real, using Roman—using Joe—as an outlet for whatever was going on in my own life. I guess, in a way, this video is my—my apology for that. And so, Roman Reigns disappeared from WWE television; his future looked unclear outside of WWE. However, the wrestling world was changing—something you could feel in the night of May 25th, 2019, the first official pay-per-view of All Elite Wrestling. And it's here, once again, that we encounter the former Goldust—Dustin Rhodes.

At 50 years old, Dustin had given everything to wrestling, and it had cost him his body, his marriage, and for a time, even his relationship with his father, Dusty. He had gone broke; he had lost his home; and he had just barely dragged himself out of an oblivion of addiction that, for so long, it seemed he would never return from. And so, when he emerged on this night, half of his face covered in grotesque makeup, but the other half just him, it was hard not to see the powerful statement in that. This was a man who had been struggling to pull back his identity from the horrific distortion of himself that he had been forced to become. But what made this night even more meaningful was his opponent in this match: his half-brother, Cody Rhodes. Cody was 17 years younger than Dustin and Dusty's second son from his second marriage. And while Dusty had been absent from most of Dustin's life and not—well—in full support of the direction Dustin's career had taken, he had been a model father to Cody, behind him all the way when Cody entered the world of wrestling; the two sharing a close bond. One of Cody's earliest memories was seeing a tape of his father winning the WWF title in 1977, only for it to be immediately taken away from him on a technicality. And so, Cody's goal was simple: he would win the WWE championship and present his father the title that the dream had so cruelly been deprived of.

Well, initially a little less talented in the ring than Dustin, what Cody had was the ability to speak with passion and emotion—never more evident than when he inducted his father into the Hall of Fame, a speech that would springboard Cody to the main roster of WWE. But tragically, just like his father, just like his brother, Cody's run in Vince McMahon's company would be tinged with humiliation and cruelty. While he saw decent success as an arrogant heel in his early "Dashing Cody Rhodes" gimmick, his momentum soon dissipated, only for him to be repackaged as Stardust—the second time a Rhodes son was caked in makeup and transformed into a bizarre spectacle. The logic behind Stardust was simple: Goldust had generated massive publicity for the company in the early '90s, so what if we did that again? Except—except maybe lean up on the old homophobia. Stardust also being an old nickname of Dusty Rhodes. Jesus Christ, what is wrong with Vince McMahon? And you got to give credit to Cody; he did everything he could to make Stardust work, but holy [__] God, it was bizarre. "Welcome, WWE.com, to the Managerie of Madness, the Labyrinth of Lust, the KE of Chaos—it's me—" The problem was that the core of the Goldust character was centered around, however problematically, playing on the sexual fears of 90s conservative America, but Stardust didn't have that same core, and so he was just kind of weird—a mind-reading alien, uh, government agent, extradimensional being.

There was some enthusiasm for Stardust initially, likely because of how hard Cody threw himself into the character, and particularly in a story that had genuine potential: a Stardust/Goldust tag team that would descend into a bitter feud. But just when that story started to hit its peak, something strange happened: it vanished off television—no payoff, no conclusion. And this would happen over and over. Stardust would be given TV time to develop an angle, like his Cosmic Wasteland faction, or his rivalry with Cesaro, or his feud with Arrow star Stephen A.—only for each one of these stories to just randomly stop. Each time resetting Stardust's momentum back to zero. And soon, audiences learned to stop caring. Gradually, Stardust began to slip from bizarre spectacle to just another enhancement talent. Cody spent years as Stardust, well beyond the point that the character had any traction. And by 2015, Cody had been in the company for eight years, and with each passing day, the prospect of ever being able to hand his father the WWE title felt further and further away. Cody, now eating loss after loss—this year alone suffering 99 defeats, with matches that could often be as short as 20 seconds. Cody would constantly pitch idea after idea for Stardust—new directions for the character or actual storylines that could play out between him and his brother Goldust—but he was inevitably ignored. The only reason Cody could fathom being kept as Stardust so long after the character made any sense being that Vince just really loved seeing him in the makeup. Cody's place in the company was concrete: he was meant to prance out, do his little Stardust cartwheel, and then lose to wrestlers destined for much bigger and better things.

But while audiences were apathetic towards Stardust, good God, no one hated the gimmick more than Cody himself. He's since given interviews about how he considers these the darkest days of his entire life—how trapped he felt in the character and how other wrestlers would laugh at him; how he'd inhale mouthfuls of vodka backstage after matches, still caked in makeup, but just desperate to numb the inescapable feeling that the Rhodes legacy, his identity, his dream, were growing fainter and weaker with each passing day. And eventually, Cody couldn't take it anymore. He pleaded for his release—and in what was, at the time, considered career suicide—walked out of the biggest wrestling promotion in the world. And the really devastating part is that Cody wasn't even able to use his own last name when he left, as "Rhodes" was considered WWE property of Vince McMahon. Cody would spend the next three years working every independent show he could, including a lengthy run in New Japan. Japan has an entirely different approach to wrestling than the US, where the narrative is less dependent on gimmicks and more so on in-ring storytelling. And it's here where Cody would dramatically improve his skill as a wrestler, honing his persona into the American Nightmare, becoming a venomous heel in the Golden Lover storyline, which you can learn about in this video I made like three years ago. Wait, was it three years ago? Oh God. Cody worked his ass off, and in doing so, raised his own stock to the point that he—his friends Kenny Omega, Matt and Nick Jackson, along with promoter Tony Khan—started a new wrestling promotion: All Elite Wrestling. And that brings us back to this night and the match between Cody and Dustin, which took place at Double or Nothing, AEW's inaugural pay-per-view, which was considered by many a rebellion against the stranglehold that WWE held on the industry—a sentiment not so subtly conveyed during Cody's entrance, in which he would take a sledgehammer and smash a throne identical to the one now WWE CEO Triple H sat on in his WrestleMania 22 entrance. You could even hear that same sentiment in Cody's entrance theme, a song that had been written expressly for him and referenced everything from Dusty's "Hard Times" promo to how WWE had taken everything from the Rhodes family. "You took it all away; you took my dreams, but not my name. Now watch me as I take my throne and rule my kingdom."

There are so many layers of storytelling to this match, not least of which was the real-life narrative that existed between the two brothers. Cody had always been in Dustin's shadow—literally forced to adopt his gimmick—but to Dustin, he saw in his younger brother the relationship with their father that he never had and now never would; the American Dream having tragically passed away in 2015. This night, now a war for their father's legacy; the arena crackling with emotion as the crowd breaks out into a "Thank you, Dusty" chant before the two ever even touch. If you don't watch wrestling, this might sound like a strange sentence, but there are matches that feel real—not because the choreographed action is especially believable, but because the emotion behind those actions are. That was this match—a violent, emotional story of two brothers trying to reconcile their past and their relationship, struggling to make peace both with the memory of their father and each other. And when the contest finally crashes into its brutal, blood-soaked conclusion, you can feel something inside them both has shifted—like they've both let go of something. Dustin even trying to retire by leaving his boots in the middle of the ring before being stopped by Cody. "I don't need—I don't need a [Applause] friend; I need my older brother."

Cody versus Dustin was the first five-star match in AEW's history and a perfect showcase as to why AEW was a legitimate alternative to WWE. Cody, now positioned as a top star in the fledgling company. However, back in WWE, the ground was also shifting. Two years later, the world would find itself in the grip of the pandemic, meaning that the WWE now took place in the nightmarishly dystopian Thunderdome. Having his return ruined by an increased risk of COVID, Roman Reigns hasn't been seen on television for months, with WWE actively seeming like they're trying to avoid mentioning him. The main event tonight, instead, is occupied by Bray Wyatt—the Fiend—which, Jesus Christ, is its own ridiculously long video essay that I will probably never make—looking to settle his long-standing rivalry with the monstrous Braun Strowman. And just as the match enters its closing moments, Roman Reigns returns. But something is different—the way he speaks, the way he attacks his opponents. He feels violent and dangerous, leaving Wyatt and Strowman in a broken, crumpled pile.

One month later, Roman Reigns has allied himself with his new special counsel, Paul Heyman, and together, the two have snatched back the WWE title without ever even competing in a full match. And now, his first contender is his own cousin, Jey Uso. The build to the match is strange but compelling. On one side, you have Roman Reigns—no one knowing if he's a face or a heel or what's going on with him—but on the other is Jey, and Jey is delighted. See, he spent his entire career as a tag team wrestler with his identical twin, Jimmy, but this match was his opportunity to show the world that he was a legitimate star onto himself. And even more so because he gets to do it with his own cousin—this person he grew up with, this person he shared his life with. But Roman—Roman is cold, distant. In one section, Jey hugs his cousin, delighted that they've both made it through their entire lives to this level together. And when Jey walks away, Roman makes this face—oh, sweet mother of Jesus—I thought—I thought Roman is going to murder Jey. And there it was—for the first time, I found myself excited to see a Roman Reigns main event.

September 27th, 2020: Jey Uso versus Roman Reigns. Jey enters the ring, and it's hard not to root for him. After a decade-long career, this is his first singles title match, and he's excited. But then Roman's music hits, and he emerges, and holy [__]—I don't know what's changed in Roman. Maybe it was his battle with leukemia; maybe it was the months of isolation from the pandemic, but what I knew in this moment is that there was something different about Roman—something deep inside Joe and Hawaii had shifted. And where there was nothing before, there was now something—because whatever it was was filtering down through every tiny part of him: the way he moved, the look in his eyes, even his appearance had changed, having grown out his beard and packing on what looked like about 20 lbs of solid muscle. And this was all before the match even started. Roman brutalized Jey, demolishing his cousin in a way that felt so violent and frightening. But the parts of the match that stood out to me the most weren't even the instances of the sheer brutal physicality, but the moments in between, in which Roman would stalk Jey, berating his cousin, asking, "Why are you making me do this? I love you, but you can't handle this responsibility. Don't make me do this." Something inside Roman had shifted, and out of it had crawled something unhinged and terrifying. Finally, Jey's twin brother, Jimmy, horrified by what was now happening to his brother, throws in the towel.

A month later, Jey would face Roman again, but this time in an I Quit match—meaning that if Jey was going to lose, it was going to be by his own choice. Jey again fights valiantly; this is his last chance to fulfill his dreams, but it's impossible; he cannot compete with the overwhelming force that is Roman Reigns. As the match slows to an agonizing crawl, Reigns doing increasingly heinous things in order not only to make his cousin give up on his dreams but to acknowledge him as the head of their family, growing more deranged and violent with each passing second—until finally, with Jey unable to end the match under his own power, Jimmy pleads with Roman to stop doing this. He begs Roman to remember their entire life together—that whatever you're going through, we can fix this; you don't need to do this; we're your family; I love you. And you can see the pain in Roman's face as Jimmy's words slowly reach him, and the years of rejection, the years of pain, flooded out of him. Is this who he really is? Is this what he's going to let himself become? And as the past washes over him, finally, Roman Reigns reaches out and takes his cousin's hand. Saved by the love of his family? Roman chokes the life out of Jimmy as Jey, barely conscious, watches in horror, and he gives up, acknowledging Roman as the head of their bloodline. And the Tribal Chief is born. The message was clear: if this is what Roman was willing to do to his own family, can you imagine what he would do to anyone else? And so, the question now is: what was it? What was the emotional core of the Tribal Chief character? And I think there's one particular moment that answers that really beautifully: the main event of WrestleMania 38. This was the first time a wrestling show had taken place in front of a live crowd since the beginning of the pandemic, and that would prove vital. See, this new version of Roman Reigns had never performed in front of a live audience. And a big part of this new Tribal Chief persona is that he does all these awful things, but he does them—in his own mind—for other people—for his family, for his bloodline, for all of us—because no one else can bear the weight and responsibility of being the face of the company. That's the lie he uses to justify his own actions. In Roman's own mind, he is our hero, taking on the responsibilities no one else could. But then there's just this moment where, in the main event against Edge and Daniel Bryan, Roman takes a second to collect himself, and as he does, the audience begins to once again boo him. And look at the expression on Roman's face—after everything he's been through—after the years of rejection and hate, after beating leukemia, after the isolation of—

The pandemic. After everything he's done for us, we still boo him. We refuse to acknowledge him, and that—that right there—was now the core of the Roman Reigns character. And I want to break down just how [ __ ] incredible a piece of meta-fiction that is.

For years, the in-universe fictional storyline in WWE is that Roman Reigns was a big, cool hero that everyone loved. However, the reality became that Roman Reigns was pushed by a giant corporate entity who saw him as a way to sell merchandise and appeal to the mainstream, who then was violently rejected by the fans he was meant to appeal to. And what's so incredible about this moment is that we now see that reality folded back into the fictional storyline, because Roman Reigns's greatest opponent isn't Daniel Bryan; it isn't Brock Lesnar; it isn't John Cena; it's us. It's the audience. It's the people who plunged him into a four-year-long nightmare, the ones who ripped at him, the ones who tore him down during the greatest moments of his life. All that pain, all that anger, all that humiliation—that is what was now his core. We can believe Roman Reigns, the Tribal Chief, because we created him. And that—that right there—is the unreality of pro wrestling, where story becomes reality and reality becomes story, week after week.

The Tribal Chief character would continue to evolve, justifying his own actions, saying that he did these awful things because his family, because wrestling could not survive without him. This was the lie he told himself, as well as Jimmy and Jay, telling them that this was all for them, for their family, for their wives and children, manipulating his cousins back onto his side and forming a brand new faction, the Bloodline, later joined by Solo Sikoa, the Uso's terrifying younger brother who literally kills people with his thumb, who Roman would use to enforce his maniacal dominance. If the bond of The Shield was three men who believed in each other, the bond of The Bloodline was the absolute cult-like devotion to Roman Reigns. And everyone involved played their part in this beautifully human drama: this nearly priest-like figure worshiping and adoring Roman, the Usos as these innocent but brainwashed devotees, but particularly Roman himself, whose character work had improved so dramatically. And you could see this in the moments where he'd be so kind, so gentle, just wanting what's best for his cousins and their family—a facade that would shatter the instant someone displeased him, and Roman would turn so cruel, so frightening. "The Tribal Chief said he wants peace. I don't give a damn what the Tribal Chief says." This was the power Roman forged the Bloodline in, and his presentation now reflected that beautifully: his new entrance music, "Head of the Table," ushering Roman into the ring with all the spectacle, bombast, and dominance of a Dark Souls DLC boss fight. And when that entrance music hit, and you watch the entire Bloodline emerge in full force, it was like watching a group of demons march out of hell. And it was—it was [ __ ] awesome.

Together, the Bloodline ripped a hole through WWE: The Usos capturing both tag titles and Roman Reigns becoming the unified Undisputed World Heavyweight Champion in an unprecedented, for the modern era, 1,000-day reign, laying waste to all his old demons—Daniel Bryan, Brock Lesnar, even John Cena. But critically, it was in those matches you could feel something at the heart of Roman Reigns where there had been nothing before: a trauma, a fear that was bubbling just below the surface. You could see it when he faced his old Shield partner, Seth Rollins, and Seth makes his entrance through the crowd in his old Shield ring attire to their old Shield entrance music, in a just exquisite piece of psychological warfare designed to remind Roman of what he used to be. You could see it in The Clash at the Castle, where a UK crowd is so rampantly white-hot in favor of their hometown hero, Drew McIntyre, and how having that size of a crowd so audibly against him seemed to gnaw at and damage Roman more than it ever should, bringing him back to the days when he was the most hated man in wrestling. But it was in those moments Roman was able to fall back on his Bloodline, his protection against us all. His canned, stock catchphrases replaced with a single defining command aimed at us, the audience: "Acknowledge me! Acknowledge me! Acknowledge me!" He was cheered; he was booed, but now it was specifically all by design: a king driven mad by his kingdom, exerting a crushing, maniacal dominance over his world. That is what Roman Reigns, the Tribal Chief, had now become.

At this point, Roman had become the kind of mega-star who is now breathing the rarified air of your Stone Cold Steve Austins, your The Rocks, your John Cenas. And how incredible is that? After everything we've watched this man go through, all the failure, all the rejection, and then to use that to get to this—that is some real ass [ __ ] art right there. Because sometimes you pour your soul into a project; sometimes you try everything you can to make it work, and it just—it doesn't; it gets rejected; it gets ignored; you fail. And that's [ __ ] hard. But what this entire story says to me is maybe that failure is going to be the growth you need to make the next thing work. And I don't want to sound like any more of a lunatic than I undoubtedly already do, but I find that a deeply inspirational statement on the nature of creating art.

But to try and yank this video back on track, as for what it actually says about the medium of pro wrestling to get there, there's one more piece of this we now need to fold back into the story: remember El Generico? Well, the reason Generico had to make that emotional goodbye to his friend and nemesis, Kevin Steen, is that Generico had been signed by NXT, WWE's developmental division, where he would drop the Luchador mask and El Generico character and took on the name Sami Zayn. At least, I—I think it's the same person. I'm like 70% sure it is. Zayn, still with all the electricity and charm that made El Generico so popular, was beloved both by NXT audiences and his fellow wrestlers. I mean, just look at the locker room empty out when he finally became the NXT champion, which all meant big things for when he was finally called up to the main WWE roster—or at least it should have. Being a fan of indie or Japanese wrestling and watching your favorites get called up to WWE is painful. See, remember how we talked about Vince's love of muscle wrestlers? Without that body type, they tend to have a very difficult time getting opportunities from WWE management. It doesn't matter if you can put on five-star matches; it doesn't matter if the audience would commit war crimes in your name—without a bodybuilder physique, so many of the most talented wrestlers in the world have watched their careers ebb away in a flurry of poor booking decisions. And unfortunately, this is what happened to Sami Zayn. Weeks would go by without Sami even being featured on television, and when he did, he usually lost. In fact, in 2019, he lost 15 out of his 16 matches, even being relegated to the role of a manager. WWE eventually turning this ultra-likable, natural babyface into a comedy heel character, kicking off 2022 by competing in a match with Johnny Knoxville, which he lost by being snared in a giant's mountain trap. And to be clear, I actually kind of [ __ ] love this match—like, Sami is amazing in whatever he does—but if you remember the glory days of El Generico, it was hard not to feel a kind of tragedy in all of this.

But then something started to happen. Sami Zayn began to appear in Bloodline segments. Initially, this was intended as a short-term comedy storyline: Sami as this ridiculous Bloodline fanboy, trying so hard to be accepted into what was now the most dominant faction in WWE, him even wearing Bloodline merch, which was just so hilarious and pathetic, and it was so silly and ridiculous and entertaining. But then something starts to happen. Sami's plan begins to work. Sami first befriending Jimmy, who just really seems to get a kick out of Sami, that to even forming a goddamn incredible secret handshake together. And then Solo, whose stoic demeanor would crack under Sami's endless barrage of positivity. The only holdout being Jay, who despised Sami, seeing him as this outsider, as this person trying to usurp his position as Roman's right hand. And the looks of disgust and hatred Jay would shoot Sami in these segments were just fantastic. As Sami became closer and closer to the Tribal Chief, and these interactions really humanized Roman, it was kind of heartwarming watching this little golden retriever of a man befriend what was now the maniacal God Emperor of pro wrestling. And what really made it work was the genuine chemistry the two seemed to share. You could see the moments where Sami would try and make Roman laugh, and how much they enjoyed performing together. And the result was some of the most entertaining television WWE had ever produced. "Just want to say, I know I'm not technically blood, right? But the way you guys have taken me in as a family is—I wanted to show my gratitude, also publicly acknowledge the Tribal Chief." "I like you, Sammy, but what are you talking about right now? Why do you have our shirt on? What—what's going on here, man? I want you to take that shirt off. I don't know if you're kidding or if you're not kidding. If I just don't make any rash decisions...I'm not going to tell you again, Jay. I don't want to see you in that shirt ever again. Do you understand me? You ain't never—never going to wear a Bloodline shirt ever again. You're never going to wear it again because I got you a new one." "Wow. Wow." This segment shows something else, however. See, I think what made Sami in the Bloodline so captivating was because there was this kind of unease to it. For as fun as these sections were, we all knew what Roman Reigns was; we'd witnessed the things he could do. And knowing all that violence, all that madness, was bubbling just a few feet away from Sami, it was like one of those videos of a mouse befriending a tiger: it was cute, but we all knew exactly what could go wrong.

For months, Sami fought to be accepted into the Bloodline, into this ultra-powerful faction that was now the most popular and talked-about act in wrestling. And it was hard not to feel a reality in that: Sami Zayn really had been an underdog his entire career. All the potential, all the star power he'd shown in Ring of Honor, in NXT, now worn away over 10 agonizing years of shitty booking. But finally, he was on the cusp of real, true acceptance, and it was genuinely heartwarming. However, in storyline, there was one holdout: Jay. Jay's story arc in the Bloodline had been tragic. The longer you spend as a tag team wrestler, the harder it is to transition into single stardom. And having spent his literal entire life as a double act, the dream of main event Jay Uso felt nearly impossible. But when his brother, Jimmy, suffered a legitimate injury at the beginning of 2020, it ended up being a springboard for Jay to fly on his own, only to then immediately have his wings torn off by his cousin. And now, after the physical and emotional maulings he had suffered at the hands of Roman, after giving up on his dreams as a single star, the only constellation Jay had was to serve at the right hand of the Tribal Chief. Only then for this outsider, this non-blood relative, to come in and take his spot. A seething tension boiled for weeks until that year's WarGames—coincidentally, a match that had been invented by Dusty Rhodes. WarGames is one of the most chaotic matches in existence: two rings, two teams of five, one giant cage, and no rules. In storyline, joining the Bloodline meant that Sami had turned his back on every other wrestler in the company, including his old friend and rival, Kevin Steen, who now went by Kevin Owens. "Owens pleaded with Sammy: 'This isn't you. You aren't one of them. They are going to hurt you.'" And that was the beautifully told melodrama that unfolded this match: Sami caught between his loyalty to his old friends and his new family, and Jay watching, waiting for any slight crack in Sami's loyalty. But that moment never comes. Sami gives everything to the Bloodline, sacrificing his body again and again, even taking an inadvertent shot from Jay and stopping Kevin from achieving a pinfall on Roman, which at that time would have been the biggest win in Owens's entire career. The final moments of the match are beautifully tragic: Sami slamming his old friend with a vicious low blow before allowing Jay to get the pinfall, and then for Jay to finally embrace Sami. And there's a real ambivalence to it: Sami had turned his back on his past and betrayed the one man he'd known his entire career, but he had also made it. And watching his arm be raised as a true member of the Bloodline, it was genuinely emotional, both in story and reality, because you really were watching this wrestler who'd struggled through everything be accepted to the very peak of the wrestling world, now given a new name by his Bloodline brethren: Sami Uso.

However, there was one small problem. The Bloodline would make their grand entrance: Sami and the Usos. But slowly, the cheers from the audience grew more focused and specific, and they weren't chanting for the Usos or Solo or even Roman; they were chanting for Sami. Week after week, those chants got louder. Week after week, Roman would listen as the same audience who had rejected him, who had denied him, who had driven him to the brink of madness, now gave that love freely to Sami. Roman turning distant, cold, and cruel. One second he'd go off on Sami, screaming at him, accusing him of being a traitor, of trying to usurp the Head of the Table: "Do you want to be the Tribal Chief? Do you think you're me? Do you—do you think you're me? Do you think you're me?" The next, he'd draw him back in, apologizing, saying he needs to be a better leader, trapping Sami just as he had the rest of his family in a manipulative, toxic relationship. At one point, Roman even put Sami on trial, which I'm not going to give you the blow-by-blow of because, Jesus Christ, this video is too long, but it's on YouTube, and you should watch it because it is some of the most ridiculously compelling television I have watched in years. And oh my god, when Sami's found guilty and Solo was about to hit him with the Samoan Spike, but then it's Jay who saves him: "I love you, Sammy. I love you because you believed in me even when I didn't believe in you." It's so good. It's so good.

Slowly, this story began to feel like a mob movie. You'd tune in every week wondering: was this going to be the day that the Bloodline were going to turn on Sami? Until finally, the night of the Royal Rumble of this year, in which Roman Reigns defends his Universal Undisputed Championship against Sami's old friend and nemesis, Kevin Owens. Roman wins the match decisively with the help of the Bloodline, but it's not enough. "This man has committed the crime of standing against the Tribal Chief. Adequate punishment must be delivered." Owens is handcuffed to the ropes, and a volley of superkicks is launched into his skull. It's brutal. Until finally, Roman, steel chair in hand, approaches Owens, and just as he's about to strike, Sami steps in. A lifetime of memories the two share together now flooding back. Sami pleads with Roman; he begs him, saying he doesn't need to do this, that this is beneath the Tribal Chief. And Roman agrees. Sami, caught between his past and his present, is paralyzed; he cannot hurt his old friends. And Roman berates him, insulting him, slamming his palm into Sami's face until finally, Sami has no choice; he does the only thing he can do. One small detail that really chills me about this moment is that it's Jimmy who attacks Sami first—Jimmy, the first person that welcomed Sami into the Bloodline, the two having spent months laughing and joking together, doing their dumb little handshake. There's something so cruel about how all that just disappears in an instant, like Roman's madness and violence has now seeped into everyone around him, turning them just as empty and dangerous as he is. The Bloodline decimates Sami in one of the most frightening attacks I've ever seen on WWE television. The only one who doesn't is Jay, horrified by what his family have become. And at the center of it all stands Roman Reigns, as a brand new crowd chant now rains down upon him: "[ __ ] you, Roman!" For as indestructible as Roman now seems, all it took was an echo of the betrayal from 12 years ago; all it took was a reminder of the incident that had plunged his life, both in reality and story, into a nightmare he had endured for half a decade. And suddenly, the facade of the Tribal Chief crumbles. I think this is what makes the Tribal Chief such a compelling character: a god-king sitting atop the world of wrestling, clad in invincible armor, but underneath, still bleeding from all the pain and rejection that had brought him here. For WWE, Roman's success had been the best possible outcome, but the issue was: where could Roman's story now go?

The idea that someone, somehow, was going to beat the Tribal Chief was beginning to feel impossible. He had spent three years at this point devouring anyone in the company who could present a believable threat. Even Sami, despite being built up as this miracle underdog, was crushed under the boot of the Tribal Chief. And to the absolute devastation of his white-hot hometown Montreal crowd, Roman was everything he said he was: a level above the entire rest of the world. And now, with no challengers left to destroy, back in AEW, something strange was happening: the past was repeating. Cody had become a hero that his people were turning on. Initially, Cody had been embraced by the AEW audience: the former Stardust, now broken free to be himself and a perfect poster child for everything that wrestling fans had become so sick of in the WWE. But as the months went on, reactions to Cody's victories grew more tepid, and gradually, people stopped singing along to his Kingdom entrance theme and started booing it. And the problem was more subtle and complicated than what had happened with Roman. Cody could wrestle; Cody was good on the mic; but Cody was arguably the right guy in the wrong promotion. AEW was a company that prided itself on reconnecting with the indie spirit of wrestling that WWE had lost decades ago, and the kinds of wrestlers that got over there tended to be a little more gnarled, edgy, and alternative. But then there was Cody. Cody was a white-meat babyface in a land of gray, and one given long runs with midcard titles punctuated by matches where Cody would Superman his way through younger talents. And soon, how the audience viewed Cody began to shift. Cody became the establishment, in real life, the Executive Vice President of the company, whom, with his three-piece suits and Louis Vuitton shoes, did not—did not fit the image of a rebellious upstart wrestling promotion. And that was a problem.

If there's one big criticism I could level at Cody, it's that, as this neck tattoo may imply, he is not the most self-aware person. And that quality would be at the core of an event that would trigger a viciously corrosive relationship between Cody and his audience. Cody would deliver a rah-rah "America's great" promo with heavy racial overtones in a time where America was still reeling from the murder of George Floyd. And Jesus, I get where Cody was coming from here. Cody's wife, Brandi, is Black, as is his daughter, whom Brandi was pregnant with at the time. And I think Cody really did want this segment to be a unifying message in a time of division, but my God, people [ __ ] hated it. From here, audience reactions to Cody would grow so seething that it became hard to ignore. Cody's segments were pelted with boos and heckling; he'd throw his weight belt into the crowd only to have it thrown back at him and receive mass online harassment to the point that he would delete his Twitter. And in one particular moment that punctures through the entire meta of wrestling, you can watch as Cody himself is taken back by the sheer hostility of the crowd and, unwilling to turn heel, desperately tries to reconnect with his audience. He was unable to do those things, but he would. "You want to ask why I won't turn heel? It's because you cheered me when I needed it the most." And I got to say, I felt for Cody. He's always struck me as a genuine, if mildly oblivious, guy. I remember when he offered to pay the rent of a struggling Irish indie promotion during the pandemic. And at a house show I saw last year, not only did I watch him stay for 20 minutes signing autographs and taking photos with fans following a grueling match, he also took the time to bring this little lad into the ring and, in doing so, I'm guessing made his entire life. "Tony, come here. You will acknowledge [Music] me." And—and you know what? I actually like the neck tattoo now. I think it's iconic in a way that only something that looks weird at first can be. And I mean, really, I'm not the arbiter of sensible tattoos. "Oh God, he's on my skin. It won't come off. I can feel him touching my blood." This is, all in all, the wrestling world is cruel. After everything Cody had been through, his Stardust, he had resurrected his career, only then to become a hero despised by his audience. And worse, reports were surfacing that he was no longer on speaking terms with the friends he had founded AEW with. And suddenly, the unthinkable happened: in a mirror image of his father, Cody Rhodes left AEW, walking out of the company he had helped build, his dreams once again lying in pieces.

WrestleMania 38. In the ring stands Seth Rollins. Seth had been massively successful in WWE at this point, a multi-time World Champion and central figure to many of its biggest storylines. However, the one thing he wasn't was Roman Reigns. If Roman hadn't existed, there's every chance Seth would have been the guy. But now, after failing to take the title from Roman, Seth was out of the main event picture and potentially without a match for WrestleMania, only to be offered a mystery opponent. And who could it be? There's moments in wrestling that are genuinely surreal in a way that few other mediums can match, but seeing Cody Rhodes return to WWE to the sound of Kingdom, a song expressly about how that company Cody was re-entering had robbed him of his name and legacy—it's surreal in a way I could only liken to Tony Soprano walking into Game of Thrones and being like, "Hey, you got a problem with them White Walkers? Look, I'm—I'm sorry about the impression it was easy that are AI and I'm not doing that." And there's this moment in this match that I just [ __ ] love where Cody does his little Stardust cartwheel and taunt, and commentator Corey Graves declares it a shedding of the skin, because that's what it was: Cody reconciling his past and letting it go, stating, "I am not Stardust. I am the son of the American Dream, and I am here to reclaim my legacy and take what he was never given."

However, the real standout moment for Cody in WWE would come months later, when, in the culmination of what had become a vicious feud with Seth, Seth makes his usual entrance, but when he drops his robes, his tights are adorned with yellow polka dots—a blatant mockery of Cody's father, an appointed message: "The Rhodes will always be a joke in WWE, and you are no different." It's a brilliant and cruel piece of storytelling. But when Cody drops his robe, an entirely different dimension is introduced. The shock stops the Cody chants dead; the audience unsure of what they're even seeing. This was a legitimate injury: Cody, in real life, had suffered a horrific pectoral tear. And again, in real life, Cody had lied to the doctor about how much pain he was in in order to be cleared to wrestle this match. Cody's talked in interviews about how he's struggled to stay conscious over the course of this brawl and how close he came to vomiting from the pain. And while I would not want him or any wrestler to repeat that, it does give the contest this genuine, captivating agony. So when Cody clutches out the most desperate of victories, it was a moment that myself and so many others said: "This is the guy. This is the one who's going—going to dethrone Roman at Mania."

10 months later. WrestleMania 39. After missing most of the year due to that injury, Cody has returned, winning the Royal Rumble, and now seeks to finish his story, to win the

Title: His Father Never Did, and Challenges Roman Reigns

For many, what was about to happen was obvious. Roman Reigns, after a 900-day title reign, would finally drop the belt to Cody. Something that seemed practically inevitable given what had happened the previous night, in which the Usos defended their Undisputed Tag Team titles against Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens.

The story of this match is beautiful. The Usos, side by side their entire life, and now galvanized under the Bloodline, know if they lose that would symbolize the first crack in the Bloodline's armor. And so they feel invincible, a surgical killing machine, slicing and separating Sami and Kevin at every turn. Sami and Kevin battling up against the violently impossible; these two friends who have been through everything together, but are hopelessly outmatched against the Usos' malicious duality.

I find it genuinely hard to watch the end of this match without welling up a little. You think of the journey Sami and Kevin have been through. You think of them traveling town to town to make it to the next 50-book wrestling show. You think of the war as they put each other through, destroying their bodies in front of crowds of less than 100. And then you watch them here, both at the main event of night one of the biggest wrestling show on the planet, facing down the invincible 600-day champions and most dominant tag team in the world.

And when Sami and Kevin finally do it, when they eek out that single impossible win and claim the tag titles together—he can't look at this footage and tell me that that journey wasn't real; that those aren't real tears in their eyes. It's one of the most feel-good moments in all of wrestling. And fans would need that, because the following night, Cody is crushed by Roman. His dreams, his legacy, his story—they don't matter, because he was facing someone for whom a different story was beginning to unfold: one of immortality.

When you look at how wrestling became what it is, there's several unfortunate figures you can't ignore. One is Vinok Manah, who's now thankfully gone from the company and the world of wrestling; a man who I have tried to talk about as little as possible in this video because, given the horrific sex trafficking allegations against him, he is not even worthy of my mockery. The other is Hulk Hogan. Despite being a childhood hero of mine, I do not like Hulk Hogan, and the reasons for that could fill a video that I never plan on making. But to briefly summarize: manipulating Macho Man Randy Savage, not putting Bret Hart over, being a little rat bastard politicking [__], being weird about Black people, sabotaging WWF's only chance at ever having a wrestler's union, lying about pretty much everything, Santa with muscles, stealing Superstar Billy Graham's gimmick, this hat he tried to make a thing. And in the past I've had a whole… Despite my distaste for Hogan, I acknowledge that you can't separate him from the impact he's had on wrestling. He was, for a time, the entity that the entire wrestling world rotated around, and as it stands, the third-longest-reigning heavyweight champion of all time; the only men whose runs surpass his being Bruno Sammartino and Bob Backlund. However, not to take anything away from those men, but they were both champions in a very different era, and specifically the New York territory pre-the nationalization of wrestling, when multi-year title reigns were the… an era ended by Hulk Hogan, which signaled the explosion of wrestling as a global phenomenon, ushered in by Hogan's monstrous 1,474-day reign, cementing Hogan not just as one of the biggest wrestlers, but celebrities of all time, and granting him the name "The Immortal One."

But now Roman Reigns was threatening to do something thought completely impossible in the modern era—when title reigns typically only lasted a few months—his title reign was now within a year of surpassing Hulk Hogan's. And in doing so, meaning Roman was on the cusp of being crowned the immortal modern-day god of wrestling. And in doing so, proving that everything he had suffered, everything he had endured, all the rejection, all the hate—it would all be rendered meaningless, immortalizing Roman as the greatest of all time.

In the next year, Cody and Roman's paths would diverge. Cody, having lost at Mania, was now at the back of the line. And worse, WWE of 2023 was an entirely different landscape than the company had been just a few years ago. Rather than a drought of potential company faces, the promotion was now drowning in them. The Bloodline story had elevated not just Roman, but created several other crowd favorites like Jay, who now had broken free from his cousin's toxic hold over him and was fighting to end what his family had become—arenas exploding into choruses of "yeets" whenever he'd make his entrance—or Sami, who had finally reached his full potential as one of the most beloved faces in wrestling. Either of these two could legitimately be pitched to win the 2024 Royal Rumble and go on to face Roman at WrestleMania 40; same for Drew McIntyre or even Seth. I mean, how poetic would it be for the man who plunged Roman into the hell that forged him into the Tribal Chief be the same person to end his title reign?

For Cody, the loss at Mania was not just a plot beat and a fictional story; it was a genuine, real-life, devastating setback. But the biggest blockade for Cody ever finishing the story didn't come from within WWE, but outside it: CM Punk. After being fired from AEW for—oh, we'll just leave it at "being bold"—CM Punk returned to WWE, a homecoming 10 years in the making. Punk's story: he wanted to do the one thing he never had—main event WrestleMania. And with a nuclear fan base behind him, it seemed almost inevitable Punk would win the Royal Rumble and face Roman at that year's WrestleMania. And that really seemed like it was going to happen, particularly when Punk enters at number 27 and lasts all the way to the final two; only the one man left in the ring with him: Cody Rhodes. It was a kind of magical moment where you could believe both as prospects to face Roman at Mania. But when Cody actually did it and tossed Punk over the top rope, there was a kind of disbelief to it. Was this actually happening? When Cody actually finish his story? And the answer is no. No, he would not.

At this point, WWE had already invested a lot of time and resources into what they saw as the biggest WrestleMania main event of all time: The Rock versus Roman Reigns. And so, in a bizarre promo on Monday Night Raw, The Rock convinces Cody instead to face Seth Rollins, who holds the new, and let's be real, inferior heavyweight championship. And so the main events of Mania were set: it would be The Rock versus Roman Reigns, and Cody versus Seth Rollins. Only that's not what happened either. Against the cry of mass fan backlash, WWE buckled, and the main event of WrestleMania 40 was changed to Roman Reigns versus Cody Rhodes. Cody's final attempt to finish his story. Okay, everything I just said—that is how the story was presented on television. But personally, I just got to say I think we might have been worked here. I think WWE knows that the best way to make wrestling fans want something is to make them believe they're never getting it. I cannot prove that, but I do believe it. Okay, thank you for letting me get that out there.

There's one final beautiful subtlety to Roman versus Cody I've held off on. Before his passing, Dusty Rhodes had actually been rehired by WWE and spent his final years working as the creative director of WWE's developmental brand, NXT, during which time he helped raise, train, and launch the careers of several massively prominent wrestlers: Becky Lynch, Seth Rollins, Sasha Banks, Sami Zayn, Finn Balor—in a generation that became known as "Dusty's Kids." And you know what Cody Rhodes was doing during the peak of the Dusty's Kids era? He was dying a thousand deaths as Stardust. He was part of this crop of guys and girls that were Dusty's Kids from NXT. I hated all of Dusty's Kids, um, and I didn't… you know, that was unfair; it was just jealousy. In real life, Cody hated the term "Dusty's Kids," because to him it was a term that became popular when he, Dusty's actual son, was going through the darkest days of his entire career. And he resented the idea that now he wasn't even his own father's legacy. And you want to know who the most influential, the most successful, and the most celebrated of the Dusty's Kids generation was? Roman Reigns. And just listen to how beautifully that reality was woven into this story.

A song about your dad… [Applause] Huh. Easy. I have too much love and respect for that man to degrade him. He's done way too much for me. We… we spent a lot of time together. The dream is the one that put the confidence in me, and we would talk for hours, and we would talk about everything. You want to know what he used to always say about… [Applause] You—nothing. It was like you did not exist. I know you miss him. I miss him too. But just know this: if there's anything that he didn't teach you, I… [Applause] will.

For Cody, this was a match about legacy. It was his final chance to take back his father's name, his birthright, his kingdom. But for Roman, this was a war for immortality. All he had to do was crush Cody like he had so many before, surpass Hulk Hogan, and live forever. This was the battle of those two stories.

WrestleMania night one, the main event would be Seth Rollins and Cody Rhodes versus The Rock and Roman Reigns. If the Bloodline wins, the following night's main event would be Bloodline Rules, meaning the Bloodline could interfere and cost Cody the title, just as they had done the previous year. Say what you will about The Rock, and I'll say plenty—for all his corporate, fake-ass, box-office, lion-man's hair product peddling, Insight Out Burger mistruths—when he turns it on, he's still an electric heel. Not so much this promo; not sure what's going on here, my brother. I don't want that; I want this. Now filled with rage and malice over losing the main event spot to Cody, promising that the only belt Cody's mother would be presented with that night would be one drenched in her son's blood. As for Cody finally finishing that story… [__] your story. I love this match. The Rock, in real life on the board of directors for WWE's parent company, threatens to fire the referee for making any small call against him; he and Reigns unleashing a torrent of punishment down on Cody and Seth, grinding them into pieces until nothing is left. And in that victory, I knew which story was going to be told the following night: Roman was going to become immortal.

WrestleMania 40, night two: Legacy versus Immortality. Cody's final chance to finish his family story, but for Roman, the last stop to immortality. Roman, now champion for an unbelievable 1,316 days, is as dominant as ever; a perfect wrestling machine, grinding the pace of the match down and smashing apart Cody's already broken body. And God damn, Roman is such a perfect wrestling heel here. At one point he even hits Cody with Cody's own finishing move, and when Cody kicks out, Roman shouts, "That move sucks! That move ain't beating nobody!" God, I love him. In case the 2 and 1/2 hour video essay didn't make that apparent. But as the match goes on, Cody hits just enough offense, snatches just enough kickouts, even drawing on his deceased father's move set to the point that it makes you think maybe he really can do it. It's an expertly crafted match, the kind that, no matter what your preconceptions going into it, you can feel the very axis of the world of wrestling shift back and forth. And when Cody comes so close to winning the title, it's once again ripped away by the Bloodline, in the form of Jimmy Uso. And here the match descends into chaos. But as it does, with each new participant, a story starts to unfold. First is Jimmy, still brutally loyal to everything Roman has built, but who is immediately taken out by Jay; Jay, who had been the first member of the Bloodline who had been brutalized and manipulated by Roman for years, but now had broken free from his cousin's toxic clutches and was fighting back against what his family had become. But it doesn't last. Soon Solo appears, the same man who cost Cody the title one year ago, only for John Cena's entrance music to sound. Cena, having been the impossible ideal Roman had failed to live up to earlier in his career, and the man who had shone a spotlight on that failure for the entire world to see, only for him to be countered by The Rock; the man who had stood beside Roman as what should have been the best moment of Roman's life turns to one of the worst. The Rock, later countered by the [__] Undertaker, the same man Roman had retired all those years ago, triggering the most hated period of Roman's career. But the moment that drives home the feeling that all Roman's past ghosts are now rising up to consume him occurs when the Shield's music hits, and Seth Rollins enters through the crowd, dressed in his old Shield gear; a psychological cannon blow aimed at Roman's one weakness: his past. It is utter chaos. But by the time everyone has taken out everyone and the dust settles, we are left with a single choice. Roman stands in the center of the ring, steel chair in hand, and in front of him is Cody. And all Roman needs to do is strike Cody down and step forward into immortality. But to Roman's left is Seth—is the person Roman had entered the business with, is the person whom he had traveled America as a broke rookie with, is the person who had set Roman's nightmare in motion with a single chair shot. Everything Roman has been through, all the hatred, all the rejection—it all started in that moment. But that doesn't matter. All Roman needs to do is step forward, is beat Cody, and live forever. He can have everything he's ever wanted, and all it'll take is taking all that rage, all that pain, and all that rejection, and everything that he's been through, and just leaving it behind. All Roman needs to do is let go of his past and move forward. And he can't. Come on, Tony Crossroads cover finished the SP. Roman strikes Seth the same way Seth had struck him 12 years ago, and it cost him everything.

I am not ashamed to say I lost my [__] mind; full-on exploded from my couch, crying like the emotionally deficient lunatic I am, and I'll do it again. But you can see that reaction everywhere. You can watch footage of people absolutely melting down, of four-year-olds in tears because champion Roman is the only world they've ever known. You can feel it even in the wrestlers themselves, who pour out of the locker room in tears to witness this monumental change. You can even hear it in the voice of Samantha Irvin, whose usually immaculate vocals crack under the sheer emotion of it all. And when Cody hands his mom the belt… but it feels this way because if you'd been watching Cody, if you've been watching Roman, if you knew everything they had both been through, both in storyline and out, you had just witnessed those two monumental stories collide and explode in this beautiful, haunting, and bittersweet conclusion. For Cody, it was a moment he was able to take all his pain, all the trauma and misery he had endured as Stardust and being rejected from AEW, and just let it all go, winning the title for the memory of his father and finally finishing the story, laying the past to rest. But for Roman, it was the opposite. It was the moment where he couldn't free himself from his worst memories, and they, in turn, devoured him. The message of this generation-spanning, decades-long story ultimately being simple: let go of the past, or it will destroy you.

Look at how much of that story is real. Cody really did have his legacy taken away. He really did travel the world and evolve beyond anything anyone thought he could be, and he did it by simultaneously drawing on the past, but not being trapped by it. Roman really did forge a new era of wrestling by internalizing all the real-world hate, the real-life rejection, and using it to tell a story of a man who could never let go of his own trauma. And even beyond that: Kevin Owens, Seth Rollins, Sami Zayn, Dustin Rhodes… hell, 2023's Royal Rumble winner J [__] Uso—who, come on, he can do it, the boy can do it. Each one of these stories are fiction, but they are fiction only in part. They are the journeys of real humans, real people who have taken their lives, their pain, and their struggle, and made art out of it. And that is [__] incredible. That is the unreality of pro wrestling, friends.

Thank you for joining me on what has been, by far, the most unreasonable video I have ever made. If you have watched this much, holy [__], uh, thank you. I appreciate it. And hey, maybe you want to consider supporting the channel either on iPatchwolves.com or at patreon.com/SuperiatchWolf, where you can access a well of bonuses and, along with all these beautiful people on screen right here, you may also have your name listed alongside Emperor Gum Moth, Avery Neelen, Mary Garen, Caffeine Dependent Life Form, Aviana Werewolf Enthusiast, and Antichrist Against Fascism. Find me, as ever, at iatchWolf on Bluesky or the official Superiatch Wolf podcast, Versus Wolves, on my anime podcast, Jeff Jeff Bizar Adventure, where we have recently started a new season on Berserk, or on twitch.tv/superwolf. Friends, I love wrestling. Take care of yourselves, and I'll see you next time.