WWE Hell in a Cell 2011: Sin Cara vs Sin Cara & Great Reality-Based Storylines

As I explained in the article I wrote yesterday, while it was only briefly alluded to in English during Sin Cara II's promo on this past Friday's episode of Smackdown, there is a seven-year-long, real-life history behind the dueling Sin Caras feud. 

As Sin Cara II put it, Sin Cara I "stole [his] identity as Mistico" to become a superstar in Mexico, so it's only that fair he does the same in return.

WWE has a real, compelling, personal issue here, so I hope that they keep the feud going and fully explain the background.  It's not very complicated and should enhance the feud.

Over the years, real life animosity between wrestlers has been exploited for the benefit of business.  As I said at the end of the article yesterday, legendary booker Jerry Jarrett always used to say "personal issues draw money."  At one point, it was even printed on a sign on his office door.

Let's take a look at some great storylines from the past that were built largely on real-life issues.

Randy Savage and His Family Invade Memphis

In the late '70s, Randy Savage, his brother Lanny Poffo, and their father Angelo Poffo started International Championship Wrestling based out of Lexington, Ky.  It was what was called an outlaw promotion: They ran opposite establishment promotions in their cities.  Their main target was Jerry Lawler and Jerry Jarrett's Memphis-based promotion.

ICW would devote a lot of television time to running down the top stars of the Memphis promotion, with Savage and fellow tough guys like Bob Orton Jr. and Bob Roop issuing challenges for large cash prizes or part of a charity benefit.  The idea was that when Lawler et al no-showed, they'd look bad for backing down from a fight they didn't think they could win or denying a charity a large sum of money,

In 1983, ICW was on its last legs.  A deal for mainstream international star Bruiser Brody to come in and win their world title from Savage fell through.  Savage called Jarrett, they came to a detente, and it was time to do business.

At the beginning of December, Savage and Angelo showed up suddenly at the WMC TV-5 studio in Memphis while a match was going on.  They hijacked the show and Savage challenged Jerry Lawler to a match.

He accepted, and their first match in Memphis (backed by a strong semi-main event of top area tag team the Fabulous Ones vs the Road Warriors) drew 8,102 fans to the Mid-South Coliseum.  Their first match in Lexington was even bigger, packing Rupp Arena.

Over the next year and a half, they'd feud, team up, and feud again, culminating in a bloody loser leaves town match when the WWF came calling for Savage. 

They had incredible chemistry, and all of their matches together are well worth tracking down.  Both the cage match and one of their tag matches together are available on the Wrestling Gold DVD set.

What Everyone Forgets About Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels in Montreal

In 1997, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels feuded on and off.  During on interview, Michaels implied Hart was having an affair, leading to a legitimate fight backstage the next week.  WWE plugged a report on their 900 line about what happened on Raw that night.

Eventually, they agreed to do business with each other and Bret promised Shawn he'd be professional and trustworthy.  They had their big match in Montreal at Survivor Series '97 l a few weeks before Bret was to leave the company, as Vince McMahon had forced him out.

You probably know what happened, and if you don't, Google will help you if you look up the key words in this article.  There's something that gets forgotten, though:

They had a great match that did a brilliant job playing off their real-life animosity.  Their brawl around ringside felt different and not like the usual wrestling brawl.  Vince McMahon's interview earlier in the show about who would win made the feel different and important, as well.

When Vince McMahon and other WWE officials showed up at ringside to restore order (actually to give an excuse for him to be there when he ordered the match to be stopped), again, it felt different.  It was a uniquely great match, the best the two wrestlers ever had with each other, and nobody remembers because of how it ended.

Imagine how good it would've been if they got to do the whole match they had worked out.

Edge and Matt Hardy's Real Life Schism Becomes so Heated They Have to Feud

Matt Hardy dated Lita for years.  He hurt his knee and went off the road.  She cheated on him with Edge.  Hardy was vocal about it online. WWE fired him for it.

He developed a lot of support online for being wronged.  Meanwhile, WWE took advantage of it by pairing Edge and Lita (who had split in real life).  She turned out to be the key to elevating Edge to a top-level act, and in the process, someone at WWE realized that if everyone agreed to it, bringing Hardy back for a feud with them would be a good idea.

Hardy returned by attacking Edge on Raw and plugging his independent dates while grabbed the microphone.  He got to work those shows both to give credibility to the storyline and fulfill his commitments.  He also called WWE's Internet talk show "Byte This" to argue with Lita.

Their first match was, like Michaels-Hart, designed to be unique, and not wrestled like a traditional match.  It was a somewhat one-sided brawl that Edge won by a referee stoppage, which rarely happens in WWE.

While there was a big misstep early in the feud (Vince McMahon re-hiring Hardy on-screen and stripping him of his rebellious outsider status), they tried their best to make the feud unique.

Much More Memphis

As I alluded to in the introduction, the Memphis territory featured more of this type of feud than most.  Besides Jerry Lawler's feud with Randy Savage, there was:

- Jerry Lawler vs Jimmy Hart: Hart got into wrestling as Lawler's manager.  At first, he rarely spoke and was mostly a flunky.  When Lawler broke his leg playing football, robbing the promotion of its top star for months, Hart cut loose.

In a famous interview, he compared Lawler to a race horse.  What do you do when a horse breaks his leg?  "YOU SHOOT HIM!"  From there, Hart was the top heel in Memphis, and when Lawler returned, they proceeded to feud via various Hart proteges (and sometimes faced off themselves) for the next four years.

- Jerry Lawler vs Bill Dundee: They just didn't like each other, and they channeled it perfectly into a feud.  There's less you can put your finger on as reality-inspired, but even when they teamed, the tension could be cut with a knife.

Most memorably, their first loser-leaves-town match was preceded by a full episode of the weekly TV show devoted to them unloading on each other verbally. 

- Jerry Lawler vs Eddie Gilbert: Eddie Gilbert was the son of local wrestler Tommy Gilbert.  His idol wasn't his dad, though, it was Lawler.  He proceeded to imitate his hero as much as possible when they started feuding in 1985, first copying Lawler's "General Jerry" gimmick from the '70s.

Hart managed Gilbert, and when Hart left for WWE, Gilbert just replaced him with an impersonator.  Gilbert even confronted Lawler by conducting a "This Is Your Life" presentation.

They proceeded to feud every couple years.

In 1988, Gilbert's whole family ran wild in Memphis and Tommy feuded with his old tag team partner Eddie Marlin on the side.

In 1990, Gilbert ran over Lawler with a car and his flunky, Sam Lowe, changed his name to "Sam Bass," the name of Lawler's original manager who died in a car accident.

In 1992, Gilbert left the Global Wrestling Federation as champion and challenged Lawler to a title unification match.  During the contract signing, Lawler accused Gilbert of always wanting to be him, to the point that he had become pathetic and was actually trying to assume Lawler's identity.  Gilbert replied by throttling Lawler while screaming "I'LL KILL YOU!"

In 1993, Gilbert was away from Memphis, as he booked ECW and crowned himself the King of Philadelphia.  Yup.

In 1994, Gilbert stole Sam Bass's jacket and eventually destroyed it.

It was all awesome.

- Jerry Lawler vs The Snowman: The Snowman was an area journeyman who had worked for the promotion in the past.  In 1990, he went around Memphis telling people that he couldn't get a job in the promotion because he was a black man.

As with Savage, the promotion capitalized on it by having Snowman show up on TV out of nowhere.  He argued with Lawler, they cursed to make it seem more legitimate, and it generally came off as chaotic, though of course it led up to a match being made for the following Monday night.

Snowman would bring around various black wrestlers and their family members to help plead his case.  He won the area's Unified Title with help from guest referee Leon Spinks...and then he left the promotion, taking the belt with him.

Eddie Marlin played the role of on-screen promoter, and announced that Snowman had disappeared and had maybe pawned the belt for crack.  Yup.

That was the end of the Snowman in Memphis.

Steve Austin Becomes a Star as a Rookie

In 1988, Jerry Jarrett bought controlling interest in the Dallas, Texas based World Class territory and eventually renamed it the USWA.  With it came some of the Memphis wrestling and booking style, which got exposure on ESPN and in syndication.

One of the top wrestlers in the area was British wrestler Gentleman Chris Adams.  In 1989, he started using his wife Toni Adams as a valet and running a wrestling school that he plugged on TV.

Adams' top student was a big blond-haired guy named Steve Williams.  After some time on the undercard, he went to Tennessee for a few months before coming back as "Stunning" Steve Austin.

He turned on Adams and they had a good feud, but it needed more of a spark.  That spark was provided by Austin's new valet: Jeannie Clark, Chris's ex-wife.

A wild feud ensued.  Cage matches, mixed tag matches, barbed wire matches, "come as you are" matches, and more.

Interviews where Jeannie tried to embarrass Chris and split up him and Jeannie by showing bringing out nude photos of him and photos of him with other women.

Anything that could happen did happen, and the feud was even covered in the National Examiner supermarket tabloid.

It put Austin on the map as a star, and he handily won a variety of rookie of the year awards.  Many crowned the whole affair feud of the year.

In 1991, Austin and Jeannie went to WCW, where he quickly won the TV Title.  Many deemed him the next Ric Flair.  Nobody realized he was actually the next Hulk Hogan.

If you want to see the feud, various matches from it can be seen on the many "Steve Austin: The Early Years" type of DVDs floating around.