OPINION
By Brandi Mankiewicz
Just when I thought the art of wrestling and rulebreaking was gone forever, I tuned into Raw is War to see a Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley tirade. Her decision to sign a match pitting Mae Young and Fabulous Moolah against The Acolytes and The Dudley Boyz made me squeal with delight. I knew the mismatch would no doubt be contested mostly between the much younger men, but the looks on the wrinkled faces of Moolah and Mae as they soiled their Depends were priceless.
Why wasn't Daddy quick to slug it out with his demon-seed daughter? In fact, where was he in those weeks following Steph's "betrayel"? There was neither tanned hide nor perfect hair seen of Vinnie Mac and son after Armageddon. Okay, so Vince and Shane did briefly appear on Raw the next night, but they were conspicuously abent during the rest of December.
Was it because they actually agreed with her choices, both professionally and personally? Maybe Test didn't really rank as high on the McMahon scale of worthiness. After all, he is a lowly wrestler who needs the McMahons to sign his paycheck so he can buy his next meal, and she is the crowned princess of their empire. He's a second-class citizen; she's first-rate. What did she stand to gain from the marriage? A long-haired wrestler to do her bidding and carry her bags? As an employee of her family, Test should have done whatever she commanded.
Test, on the other hand, stood to gain the most. The easiest way for this Canadian stud - oops, this Canadian dud - to wade through the strands of immigration red tape would be to marry a citizen of the country in which he's working. Add to that the power of being married to a member of the ruling family and you have the reason Test was just so gosh darn happy when Stephanie accepted his proposal.
Enter Triple-H. A man with a high-falutin and a palatial pad in Greenwich, Connecticut. Since his debut in the WWF as a silver-spoon fed member of high society, Hunter has transformed himself into a hardedged deviant with no links to his former noble persona. He's everything a young, hip, worldly woman would want, and given Triple-H's former self, it is easy to dress him up and take him to a fancy cotillion. Hunter knows precisely which fork is used to eat which course of the meal. I'd be surprised if Test knew there was a fork on the table.
Triple-H is what every little girl should dream of marrying. His ability to create chaos wherever he goes is a perfect pairing for Stephanie's power. Like two bad peas in a pod, they complement each other very well. They have shown the wrestling world that they have what it takes to be successful in marriage and as matchmakers for the top-rated wrestling show on cable. Without them, we'd have the same old stale matchups, but with them, the matches have been glorious tributes to anarchy. Mankind vs. a sleighful of Santas in a boiler room brawl match? I loved it! They even forced The Hardy Boyz and Edge and Christian to switch partners for a bout. When you can force a match in which Jeff Hardy breaks Matt Hardy's nose, you have an instant classic.
Speaking of broken faces, how about poor Test? His heart - much like his nose - is broken beyond repair. The money he spent on a wedding ring is flushed with his hopes of a quicker entry into the states. The chance to change tax brackets will have to wait as well. For now, he'll just have to cry while watching his beautiful former finacee ruin his career and his life. My suggestion to him is to use that anger he feels in a nefariously positive way. He needs to realize that the only one responsible for his current predicament is Vince McMahon.
If Vince would have just let Test know in the beginning that he was not of his daughter's caste, we wouldn't have been tortured with their storybook romance. But then, Steph may not have married Hunter, either, or ascended to her regal throne so gracefully. I'm sure that the only other way Stephanie would have assumed control would have been to pry the microphone from her dead father's hand before Shane managed to.
Stephanie definitely seems to be enjoying her time in the spotlight, and she deserves it. The whole world is forced to take notice of her, do her bidding, and not say one ill word about it. I just hope with my blackest of hearts that this is the real Stephanie, that's she is not just acting this way to spite her family. Of course, there is always a chance that she's going to run back to Big Daddy V's outstretched arms when the negative backlash gets to be too much, but I really doubt that will happen. She's a really liberated woman who is proud of her degenerate choices. And she's just having too much fun being the black sheep of the McMahon family.