Chelsea 2 Everton 0

At the end of a difficult week which saw them largely dominated by 10-man Manchester City in a 1-1 draw at the Etihad, and then ease into the knock-out phase of the Champions League’s weird little brother thanks to the same scoreline in Croatia, Everton finally ran out of both steam and luck when they met Antonio Conte’s Chelsea on Sunday.

Ronald Koeman stuck with the same 3-5-2 formation which saw his side get an absolute walloping in this fixture last season, albeit with Mason Holgate and Leighton Baines playing so deep that it was really more of a back-five. Wayne Rooney spent the majority of the game supporting Holgate down the right, leaving Gylfi Sigurdsson to drift in from the opposite flank and help Tom Davies and Idrissa Gana Gueye chase shadows in midfield. Sandro was a willing runner as the focal point of what was theoretically a three-pronged attack, but made little impact as he was routinely bullied by the hosts’ physically imposing defenders.

Chelsea were two up before half-time through Cesc Fabregas’ deft finish and a free header from Alvaro Morata, and with the introductions of Muhamed Besic - who likely would have started, were it not for keeping it real going wrong for his dad - Aaron Lennon and Dominic Calvert-Lewin doing nothing to improve Everton’s chances of so much as registering a shot on target, you would have to believe that Koeman will be seriously rethinking his choice of tactics ahead of the visit of Tottenham in a fortnight.

Much of the post-match discussion (arguing on Twitter) between fans has centred on whether or not there have been sufficiently mitigating circumstances surrounding a start to the season that has felt somewhat underwhelming. After an early summer spending spree on the back of Romelu Lukaku’s move to Manchester United, followed by the more recent acquisition of Gylfi Sigurdsson for upwards of £45m, most of a us are still a little unsure of what our expectations should be; as while it’s easy to get carried away by the numbers appearing beneath Everton’s graphic on Sky Sports News, there isn’t yet evidence to suggest that it’s enough to expect Ronald Koeman to be sat drinking prosecco in his conservatory in May, a la David Moyes in 2005.

In keeping with the theme of chickens being counted before you find out if any of them can play up front, it appears that talk of another fallen dynasty at Chelsea was premature to say the least. Even without their best player, Eden Hazard, the champions had far too much quality for Everton, with Willian in particular looking head and shoulders above anyone in a grey shirt. At the back, Cesar Azpilicueta is about as good a player as you’ll find anywhere in Europe, and with Ngolo Kante’s ability to occupy numerous opponents once, Fabregas has the freedom to pick passes that few others are capable of executing on their Playstations. Add to that the movement of Pedro and general mustard-ness of Morata up front, and all of a sudden you’re thinking that the odds on them retaining their title are more than generous at 11/2.

With Lukaku still yet to be adequately replaced, Everton again looked worryingly toothless up front. Sandro appears too lightweight to be leading the line at the moment - especially with that first touch - and while Rooney has so far done much better than many, including myself, expected, it remains to be seen how far the Divine Toupée will be able to roll back the years once the novelty of his long-awaited return wears off. There, has, however been an unexpected bright spot in Calvert-Lewin, who I for one had written-off completely after watching him toil away on the wing last season. As things stand, the Geoff Hurst of the England under-20 scene is the best option to spearhead the Blues' attack, given his pace, athleticism and genuinely impressive holdup play.

Koeman seems to think that there’ll be further transfer activity before Thursday’s bi-annual yellow tie bonanza, although that could mean anything from a far-fetched loan move for Diego Costa to a stress-inducing desperation punt on this year’s Enner Valencia. It’s quite unlikely that the club will  have time to get more than one or two deals over the line before the transfer window closes, so hopefully they’re focusing their energies on finding the striker that this team is sorely lacking. Failing that, a winger with the speed and trickery to provide options beyond the current one-paced crop wouldn’t go amiss, but a centre forward is definitely the priority.

@softparadeblog

WWE vs. Game of Thrones, Part Two

4. Robb Screwed Robb

It is the autumn of 1997, and the World Wrestling Federation is at war.

After buying, stealing and blackmailing his way to seemingly unassailable hegemony over the professional wrestling business during the 1980s, the mid-‘90s would see WWF owner Vince McMahon finally discover what it felt like to be on the receiving end of unscrupulous business practices backed up by superior financial clout. The worm began to turn on McMahon in early ’93, when TV mogul Ted Turner made the decision to hand over control of faltering interest World Championship Wrestling to an ambitious young upstart named Eric Bischoff - setting in motion a series of events that would alter the face of the industry forever.

Unlike his predecessors, Bischoff wasn’t entrenched in the southern wrasslin’ culture that had left WCW appearing hokey and dated in comparison to their East Coast rival’s bright lights and family-friendly, larger than life characters. He didn’t think twice about introducing radical changes that would inevitably alienate the promotion’s core fan base, who shunned McMahon’s cartoonish ‘sports entertainment’, in favour of the grittier, more in ring-focused ideals that had been upheld with mixed results by past regimes. Despite an inauspicious start, Bischoff was provided with the resources to begin aggressively pursuing WWF’s top stars, and in ’94 he successfully acquired two of their biggest names in Hulk Hogan and ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage.

Severely weakened by a steroid scandal that necessitated a de-emphasising of the juiced up stalwarts of his company’s lucrative heyday, McMahon turned to a younger crop of talent, labelled ‘the New Generation’, to lead the company in a different direction. However, such was the depth of riches available to billionaire Turner’s camp that even keeping hold of these largely unproven commodities was becoming increasingly difficult, with freshly minted headline acts Kevin ‘Diesel’ Nash and Scott ‘Razor Ramon’ Hall soon following Hogan and Savage out the door. By mid-’96, all that remained were Bret ‘the Hitman’ Hart and ‘the Heartbreak Kid’ Shawn Michaels; and WCW had their eye on both of them.

Shawn defeated Bret clean for the WWF Title at WrestleMania XII

During a seven-month absence directly following WrestleMania XII - where he had dropped the WWF Championship to Shawn in a 60-minute ‘Iron Man’ match - Bret, soon to be a free agent, became the subject of overtures from Bischoff, who was keen to snatch another prized asset from under his competitor’s nose. Bret was offered an eye-watering $8.4m over three years to make the jump, but instead opted to remain loyal to McMahon and accept a compromise 20-year deal that would net him a far lower salary, but came with the guarantee of a behind-the-scenes role once he was ready to retire from wrestling full-time. He eventually returned to the ring in November ‘96 at the annual Survivor Series pay-per-view, beginning a year of turmoil that would culminate with arguably the most controversial moment in pro wrestling history, the Montreal Screw Job.

In the months leading up to the Screw Job, which took place at the conclusion of a long-awaited rematch between Bret and Shawn at the ’97 edition of Survivor Series, the two men had engaged in a bitter feud that evolved from competitive rivalry to full-blow enmity. Insults that landed well beyond the boundary between storyline and real life were exchanged on a near-weekly basis, as each baited the other with accusations of feigned injuries, infidelity and even homosexuality during broadcasts of Monday Night Raw. Ironically, considering his fondness for referring to Bret as a ‘mark’ who took his TV persona too seriously, it was Shawn who brought attempted mediations to an impasse by declaring that he would never agree to lose a match to his nemesis, which of course prompted Bret to adopt an identical stance.

By the time November ‘97 rolled around, McMahon had decided to renege on the deal offered to Bret barely a year prior. He claimed that the WWF’s financial difficulties were such that he could no longer afford to pay the man he had once again crowned champion back in August, and encouraged the Hitman to reopen negotiations with Bischoff and move on. An agreement was soon reached with WCW which would allow Bret to make his debut one month after Survivor Series, where he was booked to drop the WWF Championship to Shawn in Montreal, Canada. This proved to be an issue for Bret, as his character had developed from archetypal babyface to a nationalistic, anti-American heel, making him simultaneously a villain in the United States and a hero in his homeland of Canada. As a result, he remained steadfast in his refusal to put Shawn over in front of a Canadian crowd, but insisted that he would be open to losing under more palatable circumstances.

The McMahons send their regards

Exasperated by the situation, McMahon eventually relented and agreed to allow the Survivor Series match to end in a non-finish, granting Bret’s wish to defer relinquishing the belt until they were back in the US. However, at some point in the days leading up to the event, McMahon conspired with Shawn, along with Pat Patterson and others, to double-cross Bret by prematurely calling for the bell when Shawn had him held in his own Sharpshooter submission. What followed will forever live in infamy, as Bret smashed ringside production equipment, traced the letters ‘W-C-W’with his finger in full view of the hard camera, and finally knocked McMahon down with a punch during a locker room confrontation. It would be nine years before he was seen on WWF/E television again.

How, you may ask, does any of this relate to Game of Thrones?

Like Bret Hart, Robb Stark was royalty in his northern home and an antagonistic rebel to those in the South. Already seated as acting Lord of Winterfell, Robb was declared King in the North by his bannermen after receiving word of his father Eddard ‘Ned’ Stark’s execution at the hands of Joffrey Baratheon. Even before poor old Ned lost his head, Robb had gathered his strength and moved towards King’s Landing, with the intention of freeing his father from the black cells and seceding from the Seven Kingdoms. However, getting an army south involved more than simply marching and fighting his way through the continent; and only when it was too late would he realise that the most important battles were fought not on the field, but at the negotiating table.

Despite its harrowing conclusion, it must be said that Robb’s campaign actually started out with no small measure of success on the political front. In knowing that he couldn’t cross the Green Fork river without first securing passage at the Twins, he was wise enough to send his mother, Catelyn, to treat with the elderly Lord of the Crossing, Walder Frey. With her superior experience, both in diplomacy and in dealing with the cantankerous Frey, Catelyn was able to strike a deal which would enable her son to lead his army safely into the Riverlands, where they would lift a Lannister siege on her own ancestral home at Riverrun. Following less than amicable discussions, Lord Walder’s price for aiding the Starks in their open rebellion would be a marriage contract, ensuring that King Robb take one of his daughters or granddaughters as his queen once the war was won.

Inspiration for the Kennel from Hell match?

It is after the betrothal to House Frey that Robb Stark’s 299 AC (After Conquest) begins to look a lot like Bret Hart’s 1997. In both cases, their greatest and most memorable periods would prove to be their last on the big stage, with Robb meeting a gruesome, arrow-filled end, and Bret suffering a fate worse than a gruesome, arrow-filled end - Vince Russo’s WCW. Despite the misgivings he expressed over turning heel, Bret went on to deliver arguably the best promos of his career during ’97, and being that he was still very much the Excellence of Execution between the ropes, the lengthy feuds he had with the likes of Shawn and ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin are rightly regarded as some of the best of their time. Similarly, Robb’s final months before his betrayal are the stuff of legend, as he defeated and imprisoned Jaime Lannister in the Whispering Wood, lifted the siege at Riverrun following the Battle of the Camps, and smashed Stafford Lannister at the Battle of Oxcross.

A major contrast between the two subjects is that while Bret had the rug pulled out from under him when McMahon revealed his wish to cancel their deal, it was Robb who broke his agreement with Lord Frey, albeit under much different circumstances. While recovering from wounds taken in the capture of the Crag, he learns of the apparent deaths of his younger brothers at the hands of his friend and confidant, Theon Greyjoy; and in his anguish sleeps with a daughter of the castle, Jeyne Westerling. Forever striving to follow the example set by his father, he makes the politically disastrous decision to marry Jeyne in order to preserve her honour, and immediately loses the support of the Freys as a result. The situation is made even worse when, stricken by grief for her murdered sons, Catelyn frees Jaime Lannister in exchange for his promise that he would do all he could to release her daughters, Sansa and Arya, from captivity in King’s Landing.

Having alienated a number of his key allies - so wroth was Lord Rickard Karstark after Jaime was sprung that he slaughtered two hostages, and had to be beheaded himself - Robb attempted to make amends by offering Ser Edmure Tully, his uncle and heir to Riverrun, in an alternative marriage arrangement to House Frey. The compromise was seemingly accepted, with a ceremony and feast held under Lord Walder’s roof at the Twins, only for the King in the North to be betrayed and murdered to the tune of ‘The Rains of Castamere’, which in wrestling terms is Tywin Lannister’s entrance theme. He followed his heart and did what he believed was right, even though an easier and more beneficial option was there to be taken; and he was stabbed through the heart by his own sworn bannerman for his trouble.

Just as Vince McMahon insisted that ‘Bret screwed Bret’, citing his refusal to do business the right way and drop the WWF Championship to Shawn Michaels, so too would Robb Stark be painted as the architect of his own demise by those who conspired against him. In A Dance with Dragons, Rhaegar Frey told the Merman’s Court:

‘Robb Stark betrayed us all. He abandoned the north to the cruel mercies of the ironmen to carve out a fairer kingdom for himself along the Trident. Then he abandoned the Riverlords who had risked much and more for him, breaking his marriage pact with my grandfather to wed the first western wench who caught his eye.’

Both Bret and Robb experienced the turmoil of ‘the human heart in conflict with itself’, a tenet of writing famously espoused by William Faulkner and adopted by George R. R. Martin, and both resolved to choose honour over duty. Each man held a crown that proved to be worthless once it was undermined by anyone willing to operate outside of the established rules of engagement - as McMahon did when he altered the predetermined finish of a match, and Lord Walder by disregarding the sacred custom of guest right, as well as the oath of fealty he swore to House Stark - and were ultimately undone by a misguided belief that others would abide by the same moral code that they themselves followed.

It’s fair to say that had Bret either gone to WCW at the first opportunity or agreed to lose to Shawn in Montreal, and if Robb had followed his mother’s advice and simply put Jeyne Westerling aside and married a Frey, their stories could have turned out very differently. They would, however, have only been swapping the treachery of others for a betrayal of themselves, and likely missed out on the immortality that comes with being remembered as a tragic hero.

@softparadeblog

Westeros Wrestling Entertainment: 5 Times that WWE and Game of Thrones Might Have Borrowed Storyline Ideas from One Another

As an unabashed pro wrestling fanatic, who has never quite managed to reverse the effects of being immersed from a young age in a culture of forged fracas and bogus bouts, I tend to view the world through a prism of suspended disbelief; and so it isn’t uncommon for me to come across situations that I believe mirror WWE storylines in pretty much every walk of life.

Admittedly, the vast majority of the comparisons I draw are figments of an imagination that has been conditioned by copious amounts of Vince McMahon Kool-Aid, and will fall down faster than Mick Foley hurtling from the roof of Hell in a Cell if subjected to any real scrutiny. I do, however, maintain that there are a few too many instances of clear similarities between WWE and Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire plots to be completely coincidental.

Have I stumbled across a discovery of Jon Snow’s parentage proportions, or should I listen to my dad and stop spending so much time watching oiled-up carnies stage phoney fights in their underwear? Here are five examples to help you decide.

5. Hellfire and Cleganebowl

The first, and perhaps most compelling, case for suggesting an element of light plagiarism could be levelled at WWE (then WWF) for the Undertaker and Kane storyline, which began less than a year after George R. R. Martin introduced the tragedy of the Mountain and the Hound in the opening book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Game of Thrones (1996).

During a tournament held to celebrate Ned Stark’s ill-fated ascent to the office of Hand of the King, we learn through a conversation between Ned’s daughter Sansa and the conniving Littlefinger that two of the betting favourites, brothers Gregor ‘the Mountain’ and Sandor ‘the Hound’ Clegane, are in fact mortal enemies. When sweet, naive Sansa questions how such a thing could be possible, she is told of how, as children, the older Gregor pressed Sandor’s face into a burning brazier as punishment for playing with one of his discarded toys. The official explanation for the incident, which left little Sandor horrifically burnt, was an accidental bedding fire, contrived by the boys’ father in order protect his house’s reputation.

Gregor (right) and Sandor (left) clashed briefly at the Tourney of the Hand (Season 1/A Game of Thrones)

Fast forward to spring 1997, and newly crowned WWF Champion the Undertaker finds himself being blackmailed by his former manager Paul Bearer, who claims to possess knowledge of a dark secret that could destroy the Phenom’s career. After months of suspense, it is finally revealed that the fabled funeral parlour where Bearer once worked had been owned by the Undertaker’s family; that was until it was destroyed in a fire caused by Undertaker himself, killing both his parents and, he believed, his younger brother Kane.

As it turned out, Kane didn’t perished in the blaze, and had instead spent his life locked in an insane asylum, dreaming of the day when he could exact revenge on his famous sibling for ‘murdering’ (as Bearer put it) their parents, and leaving him hideously scarred both inside and out. That opportunity finally came when he was released into the care of Bearer - who, weirdly, we later found out was actually Kane’s natural father - presumably without disclosure of the plan to have him embark on a campaign of extreme violence, culminating with Undertaker being thrown into a casket that was then set on fire at the 1998 Royal Rumble.

With all of that in mind, the similarities between the last scions of House Clegane and the Brothers of Destruction are rather striking. Both Gregor and the Undertaker are renowned for their immense size and prowess in combat, leaving Sandor and Kane to share the burden of standing burnt to a pyrophobic crisp in their vast shadows. It is heavily implied throughout AsoIaF that Gregor, in his ‘rages’, disposed of his father, sister and first two wives, while Undertaker was the arsonist who was, albeit unintentionally (to hear him tell it), responsible for the fire that took his parents’ life. Gregor and Undertaker led their own dark, terrifying groups in the Mountain’s Men and the Ministry of Darkness, whereas Sandor and Kane, seeking acceptance having lost everything at the hands of their respective brothers, leveraged their own imposing physiques to achieve gainful employment within powerful groups - the Lannisters and the Corporation - whose malevolent actions would drive them to a crossroads from where they each resolved to follow their own moral compass.

Even as the Game of Thrones TV show passes the book series and begins wrapping up its version of Martin’s story, the parallels between these two inter-feuding families continue. Gregor has finally been slain in combat, only to return as an undead zombie warrior, which is basically the Undertaker’s original gimmick from his first WWF/E run in the early ‘90s; and Sandor, after a Kane and X-Pac-like buddy adventure with Arya Stark, followed by a period of reflection on the spiritual Quiet Isle, is learning to control his demons and even engage in fire cult rituals with his current companions, the Brotherhood Without Banners.

For many GoT and ASoIaF readers alike, the burning [ahem!] question remains will Gregor and Sandor ever have their own WrestleMania XIV, or ‘Cleganebowl’, as it’s commonly known; or perhaps, dare I say it, settle their differences and fight alongside one another, as the Undertaker and Kane did on numerous occasions down the years, in the coming War for the Dawn II against the Others? The altercation they had at the aforementioned Tourney of the Hand whetted the appetite by presenting them as near equals, and went some way towards confirming the suspicions that surround the deaths of the Clegane's father and sister, by demonstrating Gregor's disregard for the long-held Westerosi belief that there is 'none more accursed than the kinslayer'.

[Personally, I think that, in the show at least, Sandor will begrudgingly accept that UnGregor is his brother in appearance only, and agree to make use of him in battle. However, the Night King will then take control of the Mountain’s body - him being effectively a wight - and that’s when we’ll get the fight we’ve been waiting for.]

Although I’d be as excited as anyone to see Cleganebowl happen, to me there’s an even more pressing matter to be resolved. If Paul Bearer is Kane’s father, and his son is almost identical in size to the enormous Undertaker, exactly how big was their mother?

The seed isn't strong.

@softparadeblog