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Book It
4-8-02
Each week in Book It we help the struggling WWF creative team with a few ideas on how to get talent that has been stuck in a rut over with the WWF fans.
More and more often lately, the WWF creative staff has been relying on a wrestler's past popularity rather than build storylines to remind us why we liked these wrestlers in the first place. Take Hulk Hogan for example. He's at the top of his game despite not having any kind of storyline built around him and he hasn't learned a new wrestling move since 1982. In Hogan's case that works fine because fans seem determined to cheer him, but what about a guy like Big Bossman? Bossman also had success in the '80s and was booked in awful storylines during the '90s. The WWF expects us to care about him despite doing nothing to make us care.
But to be honest, readers know I don't care about Big Bossman anyway. I do care about Mr. Perfect, Curt Hennig. Perfect was a top player in the WWF back in 1990. His gimmick was that he was, well, perfect. The WWF used to show little vignettes of Perfect bowling a strike or hitting the bullseye in darts. He was a cocky heel and very good at it. Then Hennig vanished for a few years, showed up in WCW, made a brief run with the upstart promotion XWF then finally returned to the WWF in January. To everyone's surprise Perfect was not only in the Royal Rumble but in the final three. Since then, he's begun a slow slide into the lower mid-card. Last week on Raw he was teamed up with Big Bossman against the Hardy Boyz. He has not been involved in a single feud and he pretty much just drifts around the lower card being a heel or face when needed. Maybe that's all the WWF wants from him. Maybe they only signed him to spite the XWF (anyone seen Haku lately?). Maybe that's what the WWF wants, but I want more.
Actually I'm wrong. The WWF did do one recent backstage vignette with Perfect where he was playing chess with some kid. Unlike his vignettes in the '90s though, Perfect cheated to win. It's this vignette that will help breath new life into an aging Mr. Perfect.
Hennig has always played the cocky heel well, so it's only natural that he continues to do so. However, Hennig needs to take his character in a new direction. Instead of Mr. Perfect actually being perfect, he should be a guy that's a few years older, no longer the paragon he once was. He has to cheat to win. He's a bitter older guy that thinks he still has it but in fact doesn't. Actually, Hogan has already been doing the gimmick for years, but he doesn't know it.
A natural match up for Hennig is Kurt Angle. The only problem is that they are on different rosters, so a trade would be the first step. McMahon can trade Faarooq for Perfect when the whole splitting of the APA thing doesn't work out. Once on Smackdown, McMahon will give Angle the job of showing Mr. Perfect around. Angle, as it turns out, is a huge fan of Mr. Perfect. While on the tour, Hennig can complain backstage about how many matches he'd lost on Raw and Angle can talk about what a huge fan of Perfect's he is. Angle will help Perfect to get his game back. They team together for a few matches. Angle's heel heat rubs off on Perfect, who gets his cockiness back.
The Smackdown roster is a better place for Hennig to be since he can feud with more evenly matched opponents. I'd love to see a Benoit vs. Hennig feud, which would tie in to the whole Benoit vs. Angle history. Chris Jericho and Mr. Perfect would make an excellent tag team of "has beens" that are trying to prove they still have it. I bet that Maven is just the kind of young kid Mr. Perfect would like to slap around for being so…young. Hardcore Holly and Mr. Perfect could clash in the battle of cockiness for a very cool feud. Instead of all these ideas, J.R. announced on Friday that because Big Bossman and Mr. Perfect had no chemistry together on Raw last week, Perfect's new tag team partner would be Shawn Stasiak. Doesn't that make you just want to swat your gum with joy?
