The Phantom Rant: Remembering Hulkamania part II & Brock Lesnar’s Return

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. It is I, the one and only “Phantom Lord” Joe Davis and this is The Phantom Rant. It’s getting hot and muggy here in New York City and that always puts me in a wonderful mood. But first, I must make a rare correction and admit I made a huge omission from the Hulk Hogan remembrance column I posted the other day. I completely forgot about Hogan vs. Andre The Giant. I can’t believe I forgot about quite literally the biggest Wrestlemania match probably in history. Picture it, back in 1987. Hogan just finished his amazing feud with Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorf and he had no credible challengers for the title. Enter Andre The Giant with his new manager Bobby Heenan. Six year old me couldn’t quite process what was going on other than Andre was supposed to be Hulk’s friend and now he’s turned on him.

The match at Wrestlemania III could have gone a lot of ways as we know. Andre could have said the hell with everything and no sold Hogan and done whatever he wanted. But that didn’t happen and we got one of the more memorable matches in Wrestlemania history. I’m not a star person so I wouldn’t rate it high anyway, but that bodyslam was monumental in the lore of Hulkamania. We didn’t have the internet back then so when they said that was the first time anyone slammed Andre, we believed them.

The official rematch on The Main Event, which was on a Friday night in prime time on NBC drew an astronomincal 33 Million viewers. People complain about ratings never being in the heights they were during the Attitude era, well 33 Million is a number no one will ever see ever again. Of course that match gave us the double referee angle with The Hebner brothers. Gotta love the lengths The Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase went to for the WWF Title at the time. Did he pay to have someone have plastic surgery so they could look like referee Dave Hebner? See, it’s little things like those that are missing from Wrestling today. In reality Hogan had to be protected in a loss so not only was there the referee angle, but Andre pinned him when his shoulder was clearly up at two.

This all lead to Wrestlemania IV and Macho Man Randy Savage winning the title over Dibiase in the main event of the tournament. In retrospect perhaps The Million Dollar Man should have been champion. He technically held the title for two weeks after buying it from Andre. But the WWF has always been a company where the face is the super hero and the bad guy has to get what’s coming to him eventually. Hogan had all the qualities of that super hero in the 80’s and into the early 90’s. Terry Bolea the man is a different issue. Ah well, I said what I had to say about Hogan. Read last weeks column for more in depth on my memories of Hogan. Right now I say goodbye to the dearly departed and come back to the living.

So I was trying to write this column the other night and I figured I would wait for Summerslam to end and see where the dust settles. At first I was really upset at Seth Rollins winning the world title. I just can’t stand Rollins and I really cant stand MITB cash in’s. This one really irked me the wrong way (never mind how upset it got my father). I suppose in retrospect that’s just a heel doing his job. I hate Rollins and I want to see him lose so in theory I will tune in to see him get beat up and lose. Granted he won’t lose for a while, but when he does it will be worth the wait.

I could write more about my hate for Rollins, but the second night of Summerslam kinda blew that out of the water so who cares about that. We got a really good John Cena/Cody Rhodes street fight. I guess Cena read my column on him being a bust as a heel (one can dream) and realized that it was time to just put a stop to that and just be John Cena. I mean Peacemaker season 2 is coming out and this whole heel thing wasn’t really working so a drastic change was needed. Cena loses the WWE Championship in a really good match though.

But that wasn’t the change. Oh you see no one expected that change to be in the form of BROCK LESNAR. Now to be fair, my brother read rumblings that Lesnar was spotted in New Jersey and said that earlier in the show. I dismissed it though because I believed Daniel Cormier from the UFC and others when they said Brock Lesnar was persona non grata in the WWE. Brock is a touchy subject. On the one hand WWE legal cleared him about a month ago according to some reports. Others say John Cena requested Brock for his farewell tour.

I’ve seen reactions all over the spectrum for Brock’s return. Everything from this is awesome to “I’LL NEVER WATCH AGAIN”. The Janell Grant lawsuit is obviously a bad thing for the WWE and I’m glad it was the thing that got Vince McMahon finally out of the company. But from what I’ve read of it, a few things are clear. Brock Lesnar isn’t named in it. Yes, supposedly Brock requested a disgusting video from Ms. Grant and she sent it to him. This is a family friendly site so I’m trying to avoid typing the details (plus they sicken me). Despite that though, Brock never engaged in any relations with her. Is he unethical and a potential adulterer? Yes. But for all I know Brock and his Mrs have one of those open relationships.

So if Brock isn’t named as a defendant and the victim herself has said he’s done nothing legally wrong (morally is a different issue)…why are we so upset over Brock’s return? For all we know it’s probably one match with Cena and that’s it. Now if suddenly he’s in the title picture and were to win said title, okay now you have something to be upset about.

But, if you really want to be upset about something, be upset with how the WWE is screwing over Karrion Kross for daring to reach for the brass ring. He’s gotten himself over. He’s selling merchandise. So of course (as of this writing) the WWE have not offered him and Scarlett a new contract. The old one is due to expire this weekend. That’s just one thing to be upset about.

Ah well, it’s going to be interesting with Brock back. I personally won’t get upset unless Brock is suddenly WWE Champion again. What are the odds of that happening with Homelander Cody as champion right now?

On that note I am done for this week. As always you can leave me feedback down below, on twitter or email me at phantomlordnyc@gmail.com