Tonight in This Very Ring
Often, on a Professional Wrestling show, we'll see the main event of a show actually booked on the show itself, as a result of a confrontation that takes place at the beginning of the show. This often leads to a What Happened to the Mouse? situation, as fans wonder, "Well, what was the main event going to be before?"
Of course, we're never told exactly what match was canceled to bring us this spur-of-the-moment match. This leads us to two three possibilities:
- Pro wrestling promoters are willing to scrap their pre-planned main events at the drop of a hat, or, stranger still...
- Promoters go into a show with no main event whatsoever planned as a matter of course, and, if it weren't for the fact that their wrestlers are extremely volatile individuals, would have a lot of time to fill and nothing planned to fill it with, or, cynically...
- Wouldn't the logical choice be dropping the lowest importance match off the bottom of the card instead?
- The "confrontation" was scripted as a way to introduce what the main event is going to be (which is kept secret up to that point for the sake of the storyline).
A more interesting question may be to ask yourself why they insist in saying, "In this very ring!" What, did they think you would think they meant "some other ring"?
This was once parodied in the e-wrestling federation Brawlers on a Budget: "I'll face you on another night, in another ring!"
Since Vince McMahon popularized it one can say that part of the reason for changing the main event at the beginning of the show was a counterattack against Eric Bischoff and WCW who, among other things, would reveal the results of taped WWF broadcasts. Even when live shows became the norm the gimmick of changing the main event could be used to throw off the competition as well as Internet smarks.
As a matter of fact, in the Wrestlecrap made book The Wrestlecrap Book Of Lists!, one of the lists in the "Those Poor, Poor Promoters" section is "Top 4 Things Vince McMahon Loves To Talk About". The #3 entry is indeed marked, "This Very Ring." An excerpt, for your reading pleasure:
You know, if Vince really wanted to change things up, he'd say, for example, "Triple H, you have crossed me for the last time! Quite frankly, I've had enough of your shenanigans, and therefore, later this evening you will be facing Randy Orton in some other ring other than this very ring." Sheesh, even in our fantasy world, where we dream of Vince not saying "this very ring," he still somehow sneaks it in. Bastard.