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30 Day Wrestling Challenge - Day 23 Favourite Feud

Every card around the globe features a feud or two, whether that is Wrestle Kingdom or Nostalgiamania. With so many possible clashes between foes to choose from, what have the WSBF nerds plumped for?


Let's find out!



BRUM - JORDAN DEVLIN VS DAVID STARR (OTT)

Originally, I was going to have this feud as Devlin vs Starr vs WALTER. However, that's me probably conflating 3 different feuds into one so let's pick the most interesting one: Devlin & Starr.

I've complained about the notion of traditional "feuds" before. A lot of wrestling fans talk about the need for more "feuds" in wrestling. I think the opposite: I think that traditional compartmentalised feuds where Wrestler A & B have a disagreement, have a series of matches, & then afterwards they move on to a separate feud with no character development is childish, boring,& a waste of everyone's time.

Wrestling booking should instead focus on multi-layered overlapping relationships in which character interactions, decisions, and matches have a lasting impact on both the characters involved and to others characters connected indirectly. That's what makes other media interesting & it can do the same with wrestling.

I have a lot more to say on this subject but if I put it all down here, Ross will ban me from the site forever for boredom-based reasons. However, it's this kind of storytelling that attracted me to The Golden Lovers story (I talked about this in the "Favourite Storyline" entry) as well as OTT's Devlin & Starr story.

Rather than the usual tag team and/or friends fall out storyline in which the betrayal is contrived. Devlin & Starr's feud came about because of a combination of (a) traits of the characters & (b) pre-existing relationships. Starr's obsession with beating WALTER; Devlin's need to be the monster slaying, importing killing, Irish Ace of OTT; & WALTER being champion of OTT could never end well for Devlin & Starr. It is the opposite of contrived: it's destined.

But good writing only gets you so far. The execution needs to deliver. And OTT delivered in spades. You can have your WMX7 "My Way", you can have your WMXXX "Monster", but my favourite hype package is the Devlin vs Starr package from OTT Homecoming (Appendix 1).

I'm the kind of fan that keeps my wrestling nerddom & my "real life" mostly very separate. However, when I do show muggles an example of wrestling, this is my go-to video. Even without prior knowledge of the story it drags you in. Well done Shaun Ryan.

But maybe my favourite moment of this entire feud is Starr's entrance from Homecoming (Appendix 2). Devlin is in the ring with the crowd chanting his name. Boos ring out for the anticipation of Starr. Pat Benatar's "We Belong" starts. The crowd gasp as they realise it's the song they came out to together when they fought WALTER previously. As the drums hit, Starr walks out with a spotlight on him. Starr turns his back on Devlin on the top of the ramp & removes his jacket to reveal his ring shorts. It's the Irish tricolor with "dílseacht" (Gaelic for "loyalty) written on the back. The commentators & the crowd go even more bananas. He then slowly turns around to show his t-shirt which has a picture of them laughing & smiling together. Devlin plays this perfectly as he stares at Starr for 2 seconds. Not doing the usual wrestler gnarl or snort, just a look. Devlin then sprints down the ramp and they start throwing bombs at each other with the lights turned down & Pat Benatar playing. Utterly fucking brilliant.

That whole monster of a paragraph above is just 2 minutes of screen time & I cannot think of another 2 minutes of wrestling that I've enjoyed more. I'm going to go & watch it again after writing this. The whole match is great too (Appendix 3). I'm not going to talk about the result here but what's fantastic about it is the match changes both men. This isn't another feud constrained to the time it occupies: it has lasting effects.

In the intervening time between this match & their rematch, Devlin & Starr have lots going on with other characters but it all has interwoven consequences in an elaborate mesh where everything has relevance. By the time they fight again, both of them, as well as the crowd's perception of them has changed.


And I don't mean anything as simple as a "double turn" but rather nuanced characters interpreted by a diverse crowd. The promo for this match isn't quite at the level of the prior one but still a must watch (Appendix 4).

The match however, eclipses the first. It's not like anything I've ever seen. There is so much going on that it demands your attention. Both competitors put in career defining performances. It was my match of 2019 & I'm not sure what's going to surpass it any time soon (Appendix 5).

And like before, the match changes the participants; it changes the audience; & it changes the overall story of OTT. I just wish the rest of wrestling was like this. Actually, I'm not sure if I do because I don't think I'd ever get anything done.

APPENDIX:

1) HOMECOMING PROMO: 



2) HOMECOMING STARR ENTRANCE: 



3) HOMECOMING FULL MATCH: 



4) 5TH ANNIVERSARY PROMO: 



5) 5TH ANNIVERSARY FULL MATCH: 






DOM VAN DAM - ROH vs CZW


“This is a wrestling promotion; and a real one. Not a seedy backdoor, bar room, peep show promotion, The Combat Zone…” Jim Cornette - ROH Commissioner, 2006.


Bruce Prichard likes to say that Wrestling is like ice cream with countless different flavours. Some people like vanilla, some people like chocolate and some people like double-salted caramel with marshmallow and cookie dough that’s named with a witty pun about pop culture. Not me though, I just love ice-cream. Any flavour, every flavour; give it to me here and there, give it to me everywhere; give it to me on a boat, give it to me with a goat.


Pro wrestling is just like ice cream. As a kid I could never choose between Nitro and Raw and luckily for me, where I grew up in Australia, I never had to because they were screened on different days. Similarly, several days of this 30 day wrestling challenge have truly been a challenge for me to choose an answer. On even more days, I skipped the task, because choosing just one topic to write about felt like Sophie’s Choice.


An indecisive, all-accepting fan isn’t traditionally what wrestling promotions would aim their product towards. You’re supposed to pick sides: cheer your favourite, boo the “heel”. Sure I’ve had my favourites, I loved Rob Van Dam as much as any sports team, favourite band or ex-girlfriend.


But I didn’t really care that much if he won or lost, because well, I just liked ice cream. But there was one time in my 3 decades of wrestling fandom when this all changed. I found myself identifying with a promotion, a group, a movement more than any other. In Ring of Honor (ROH) I finally found my go-to flavour.


In 2005 I was in my first year of University and although for most people that might have meant some of the busiest years of their lives academically, for me it meant an incredible amount of time to devote to Professional Wrestling.


I was already obsessed with Ring of Honor by the end of secondary school, but with the freedom provided to me after completing school, I became encapsulated in ROH. I watched the shows, I lived on the forums, I even wrote the mini-thesis for my Bachelor of Arts on how the wrestling world mirrors pop-culture; comparing Ring of Honor to the trendy Indie bands which were popular amongst my university mates.


I related to ROH because it was “real” wrestling; that’s what they wanted us to believe anyway. Not real as in, a “real fight” (I’m a nerd, not an idiot) but real as in a promotion that didn’t insult your intelligence and you wouldn’t be embarrassed to tell your friends that you watched. Being a “ROHbot” meant I was as much a part of Ring of Honor as World Champion Bryan Danielson or booker Gabe Sapolsky.


So at the end of 2005, when Chris Hero stepped out of his “heel” persona at the end of a CZW show in Philadelphia, to cut a “babyface” promo against Ring of Honor, (who had announced they would run CZW’s home building in Philly in early 2006) this felt like a personal attack to ROH fans. Thus began my favourite feud in wrestling.


Just as the ROH fans felt slighted by Hero’s attack on Ring of Honor, this same promo sparked a fire inside CZW fans against ROH and it seemed like a light was switched on in their consciousness. I liked CZW, I loved deathmatch wrestling (ice cream, you get the metaphor by now) but how dare that prick Hero in his ugly, backyard wrestling gear attack my home promotion?


Him and his garbage wrestling style, loose looking cravats and 90 minute matches with no psychology. For CZW fans, they now realised ROH was the enemy. The privileged, “good son” of Philadelphia’s wrestling scene who bullied other promoters out of buildings. The overrated lot, with their booker who refused to see the talent of our roster and their self entitled, ignorant fans who look down their noses at us.


All of a sudden, this was no longer a wrestling feud, it was class warfare. It was now going to be fought not just by the wrestlers or promoters, but by the fans on the message boards.


The feud really got underway at ROH “Hell Freezes Over” (named for the invading challenger in the main event) when Chris Hero challenged Bryan Danielson for the Ring of Honor World Championship. Bryan Danielson claimed to be the “Best Wrestler in the World” and issued an open challenge to anyone, from anywhere. Chris Hero, who had never had a match in ROH before, but boasted several victories over their biggest stars in other promotions, now had his chance.


Hero, and a couple of his CZW mates, ventured into enemy territory and although he didn’t win the championship he caused enough of a stir amongst ROH fans that afterwards, he began turning up “uninvited” at every ROH show.



The feud continued to grow with several “guerrilla-style” invasions by Hero and “homegrown” CZW wrestlers like Super Dragon and Necro Butcher (the same ones who never received a shot in ROH) on subsequent ROH shows. CZW continued to gain the upper hand, employing a strength in numbers approach and they were even responsible for ROH commissioner Jim Cornette losing a tooth when he tried to break up a melee between the warring factions. Cornette, an anti-hardcore wrestling crusader, was now involved and cut some of the most searing promos of his career on Chris Hero, CZW, their fans and their promoter, John Zandig.


Ring of Honor kept their booking at the “CZW Arena”, but in a matinee style show as a double header with CZW. This provided the perfect opportunity for inter-promotional matches across the cards, to continue the feud. Surprisingly for me, however, by the end of the evening show it was still CZW who asserted their dominance by spray painting their logo over the top of ROH’s ring canvas.


One of the coolest moments of the feud, which stands out clearly in my memory, was at the ROH 100th show where it seemed like the war would finally be settled in a 6-man main event. Ring of Honor put bleacher seats on both sides of the arena and sold one side as the ROH section and one side as CZW territory like an FA Cup clash at Wembley. The opening match saw Christopher Daniels, who was in ROH from show 1 and gained fame for never following “The Code of Honor”, finally shake the hand of an opponent, in the man he called “The Future of ROH”, Claudio Castagnoli.


Castagnoli’s CZW tag team partner and real life bestie Chris Hero then appeared on the CZW bleachers, amongst his fans, and cut a promo against ROH and the future-Cesaro. The atmosphere and genuine vitriol between the 2 groups of fans is again what made this, as Hero was greeted as both a revolutionary and a terrorist all at the same time. In the main event Castagnoli would turn his back on ROH and their fans to cost the promotion (who had welcomed him so warmly to open the show) the match and side with his Hero.


The feud continued to build, month after month; with plot twists and layer upon layer of storytelling, with several moving parts, culminating at Death Before Dishonor IV in The Cage of Death (CZW’s signature match).


This match was one of the most excellently executed blow-off matches to a blood feud ever promoted. There were high spots galore and more sharp turns than the Monaco street circuit, but when Homicide emerged to save Ring of Honor and hit a Cop-Killah on a barbed wire board, the war was finally over.



Ring of Honor were victorious, but as it turned out, over the course of these beautiful 6 months in 2006, wrestlers like Hero, Eddie Kingston, Claudio Castagnoli and even The Necro Butcher won enough respect from the ROH management and fans that they were forgiven and even booked as regulars for Ring of Honor afterwards. It seemed, by the end, that most wrestling fans just appreciate good wrestling after all; no matter the flavour. But this feud was the best, bloody ice cream that I ever tasted.


30 DAY CHALLENGE


DAY 22 - FUTURE STAR

DAY 24 - DREAM MATCH

DAY 25 - FAVOURITE HIGH FLYER

DAY 26 - FAVOURITE TOURNAMENT

DAY 27 - FAVOURITE TURN

DAY 28 - FAVOURITE PPV

DAY 29 - FAVOURITE REINVENTION

DAY 30 - FAVOURITE COMEDY WRESTLER



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