Professional Wrestling Explains Everything

Jaybird

Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com

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51 Responses

  1. Richard Hershberger says:

    Are you not entertained?

    Not particularly. It can be impressive as a gymnastics exhibition performed by really big guys, but that is only entertaining for a short while. If I am relying on scriptwriters to entertain me, I can do better elsewhere. Viewed as drama, the form is quite, well, formulaic.

    Compare this with competitive sports. Any given game might well be uninteresting to the point of tedium. But it isn’t scripted. This lack of scripting is what is being sold. The game might be dull, but at least both sides are trying to win. This is why throwing games is the ultimate sports crime. And this is why when a game is dramatic–two top teams fighting it out with the game only decided in the closing second–it is glorious.Report

    • At its best, wrestling is closer to melodrama than drama.

      As for competitive sports, my experience is that the best games could easily be happening in week 9 rather than happening during the playoffs.

      I mean, remember Tim Tebow? He had a real string of awesome wins there that came down to the last second. And, from what I understand, they were games that would have been blowouts had Elway or Manning been throwing the ball.

      Pro wrestling, at its best, does what movies about competitive sports do. The matches are close, the rivalry is palpable, and it all comes down to the big match at the end. And your team wins.

      Without having to deal with issues like “wait, are the Broncos the good guy or are the Packers the good guy?” (Though if I were making a movie, having Favre give his Elway impression before the game is something that I’d consider too hackish to include.)Report

      • Richard Hershberger in reply to Jaybird says:

        Pro wrestling, at its best, does what movies about competitive sports do. The matches are close, the rivalry is palpable, and it all comes down to the big match at the end. And your team wins.

        Yeah, that’s the thing. I don’t care much for those movies. The best sports movie of all time, in my opinion, is Bull Durham. A common alternative opinion is Field of Dreams. Neither is about winning the big game at the end. Major League does end with that big game. It is fun, but great art it ain’t.Report

      • DensityDuck in reply to Jaybird says:

        The fun thing about pro wrestling is that your team can be whoever you want it to be. Sometimes it changes while you’re watching the match, even. And it doesn’t matter whether your team is the Good Guy or the Bad Guy–it’s more important that it’s Your Team. You can knowingly and unreservedly root for the Bad Guy.Report

        • Jaybird in reply to DensityDuck says:

          When you first start watching pro wrestling, you cheer for the babyface and boo the heel. (When I was a kid, I couldn’t watch Ric Flair for more than a minute because I got too het up and it put me in an agitated state and I had to change the channel.)

          As you continue to watch pro wrestling, you start noticing that the heels are good at what they do. You notice how good they are at making you boo them and make you root for the other guy. Maybe they ask you to rise for their rendition of the Soviet National Anthem. Maybe they cheat during a match. Maybe they act cowardly and grab into the ropes and make the referee tell the babyface to return to his corner. Maybe they’re an Elvis impersonator or they moonlight as an IRS agent.

          “Wow… a lot of the babyfaces are interchangable…” you might think. “The heels! The heels are all different!”

          And you notice the difference between cheap heeling (“this guy, get this, is from A FOREIGN COUNTRY!!!!!”) and quality heeling (“He just looked at the audience and he put his nose in the air and scowled like he was smelling something.”).

          And, eventually, you see that more or less anybody can be a pretty good babyface but it takes *SKILL* to be a pretty good heel.

          And then you realize that you’re watching the show for the heels.

          Which is probably bad on some level.Report

          • Kolohe in reply to Jaybird says:

            Jaybird: And then you realize that you’re watching the show for the heels.

            Which is probably bad on some level.

            It made HBO a juggernaut. And allowed AMC to punch way above its weight for basic cable.

            Eta – heck, let’s go all in.

            The age of the anti-hero is how we got Trump.Report

            • Michael Cain in reply to Kolohe says:

              Disney animation, where the villains are almost always more interesting characters than the heroes/heroines.Report

              • KenB in reply to Michael Cain says:

                It’s true more broadly, I think. Heroes are Order, villains are Anarchy. Anarchy gives the artist much more latitude than Order.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to KenB says:

                Al Snow explains that the heel can do anything. They can be a bully. They can be a coward. They can be exceptionally skilled (but take shortcuts because they’re lazy or arrogant).

                The babyface can only do one thing: go after the heel.

                Jump ahead to 10:10 on this to see him explain it better than I can (content warning, sometimes Al Snow uses earthy language):

                https://youtu.be/yHhWGe02EeI?t=610

                Heels are free to do anything they want. That *ALWAYS* makes them more interesting.Report

              • Kolohe in reply to Jaybird says:

                The serpent was the first heel; Cain was the first heel turn.

                But the mother of all heel turns was G-d Himself with Noah the face.

                (wait, is the fake fight between Satan and God the reason it’s called the Book of Job?)Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Kolohe says:

                The most amazing promo from the last 20 or so years came from Mr. McMahon and Stone Cold Steve Austin the night after WrestleMania XIV where Stone Cold won the world title.

                “We can do this the easy way or the hard way”, Mr. McMahon explained to Stone Cold. He then gave a promo that seemed lifted straight from Jesus being tempted by Satan in the wilderness.

                Just bow down and worship me and the whole world can be yours. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Stop being who you are and be who I tell you to be and do what I tell you to do. We can do this the easy way or the hard way.

                And Stone Cold punched Mr. McMahon in the nuts. Stone Cold stood over Mr. McMahon as he writhed in pain on the mat.

                “Let’s do it the hard way.”Report

              • DensityDuck in reply to Jaybird says:

                It’s why everyone loves Tyler Durden. “I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I am smart, I am capable, and–most importantly–I am free, in all the ways you cannot allow yourself to be.”Report

          • The Question in reply to Jaybird says:

            Late-stage Curt hennig when he was I want to say in NWO member or something I can’t quite remember clearly but the clear contemp had for the crowd every time he was out there it was just chillingly goodReport

            • Jaybird in reply to The Question says:

              William Regal (WCW TV Title version) was right up there, for me. He would walk out and get in the ring as if he were the only person in the building. Then, with his nostrils only, he’d acknowledge the crowd.

              It was awesome.Report

  2. Mike Dwyer says:

    I was a serious pro wrestling fan from the 80s until around 2003. Then life got in the way and I lost touch. When I was a kid and didn’t understand the work thing at all, I really did think it was all real. We watched a lot of Memphis wrestling and the NWA shortly before it became WCW (I still maintain that the NWA during that period was the best era of wrestling period). By the time the Monday Night Wars were in full swing I understood all of the work, shoot stuff and finally began to appreciate the theater of it.

    These days I still don’t really watch wrestling religiously, but I keep up with WWE just a bit, primarily because I am enjoying watching the women’s division reach a high level of excellence (similar to MMA). The upcoming match with Rousey and Lynch is one I am looking forward to.

    I will also say that given the title of the OP I thought there was going to be an analogy in there about how every political conversation also needs a babyface and a heel.Report

    • Mike Dwyer in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

      Found the video that still amazes me to this day. USWA from 1990. Sick bump for the King. Long live the CWA.Report

    • jason in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

      The Memphis wrestling on channel 41 was a big part of my childhood Saturdays. The King, Dutch Mantel, (Somebody) Dundee (and I almost forgot) Jimmy Hart-the quintessential heel manager –it was classic wrestling. It’s funny how small that studio was–I don’t think there were more than sixty or seventy people in the audience, but they did come to Louisville every Tuesday.Report

      • Mike Dwyer in reply to jason says:

        We referred to it as ‘Channel 3 Wrestling’ because in the early days it was on the local NBC station. Dutch Mantel, Bill Dundee, Jeff Jarrett, Jerry Lawler. Those were some bloody matches at the Gardens.

        Jerry Lawler was the same age as my dad and they looked very similar. The other guys in the CWA reminded me of my dad’s construction buddies. All barrel-chested and not crazy built like other organizations. For me, Lawler is still probably my favorite wrestler of all time. I hated what they did to him in the WWE.Report

        • jason in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

          It might have been on channel 3; I have a feeling my memory isn’t serving me so well. I forgot about Jarrett. Yeah, Lawler was great. I never made it to the Gardens for them (was it called “Championship Wrestling”?), but I did see a WWF event there. The main event was Hulk Hogan vs. Paul Orndorff.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

      Somewhere around 1996, Bret Hart and Stone Cold Steve Austin had a wonderful feud where they’d give the same promos in NYC one night and Austin would get cheered and Hart would get booed out of the building and then, the next night, they’d do the same thing in Canada and it would be reversed.

      Same guys. Same promos. You’re a heel here, you’re a face over there.Report

    • DensityDuck in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

      kid: it’s all real
      teenager: it’s all a work
      adult: it’s all real, even when it’s a workReport

    • Michael Cain in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

      When I was about a junior in high school, one of the local TV stations ran an hour-long live wrestling show each Saturday night. The “crowd” was a bunch of people who showed up to watch, standing outside the ring cheering/booing/etc. One week I went with a couple of friends. The ring was set up on a small sound stage. One camera, fixed position. The only place there was room for the crowd was in the space between the ring and one wall — maybe 15 feet front to back. That wall painted black so it didn’t show up in the shot. Back in a corner they had a second camera, a light, and a backdrop where they did interviews.

      Highly educational at the time. Many of the moves were played to look good for the camera — from the side where we were standing you could see how it worked. The interviews were fun. The announcer did the intro while the main heel stood off to the side. When it was time, it was like throwing a switch — a spitting, screaming maniac went on. As soon as he stomped out of camera range, turned it off. The people in the crowd were playing a part too, since everyone there could see that it was a work. After the on-air part was over, the top babyface went over to the ring rope on the crowd side and said something like, “Good job, people. You really helped make it work tonight.”Report

      • Jesse in reply to Michael Cain says:

        The interesting thing is, since wrestling fans are some of the most obsessive on the planet (if I remember, like, half of the top ten most edited wikipedia pages are wrestling related), if you knew the date and where you were, I could probably find the results for that taping.Report

  3. Michael Cain says:

    What, not a word about the bookers (writers) themselves? Dominated by a surprisingly small number of people overall (Russo, Sullivan, Bischoff, Heyman), capable of ruining a company with a few bad choices. And all of them eventually write themselves into an onscreen role. I sometimes think Donald Trump’s biggest problem is that he thinks he’s in that situation: an onscreen character who also wants to be the booker, but the rest of the world isn’t playing by his script.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Michael Cain says:

      You don’t need everybody to play by your script. You just need enough people to play by it.

      And, in recent decades, it’s a lot more important to give a memorable promo (or catchphrase) than to have a workrate comparable to Bret Hart’s.Report

  4. Jaybird says:

    One thing that happens in the Senate is the thing where, on the floor, they’re yelling about other senators being the enemy and, two hours later, they’re seen together at the bar laughing and discussing the upcoming golf game.

    The stuff on the floor was a “work” and the friendship at the bar is the “shoot”.

    That seems to have evolved into folks working a work into a shoot. I don’t know that that’s better. (Though it is a lot more “authentic”.)Report

  5. Saul Degraw says:

    A lot of people want to see things as spectacle-filled epic battles of “good vs. evil” without any nuance?

    Got it.Report

    • Michael Cain in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      Worked for the Romans :^)Report

      • Kolohe in reply to Michael Cain says:

        Worked for George Lucas. And Stan Lee.

        As I said above, perhaps clear cut, cartoonishly straight forward battles between good and evil may in fact be better for society – and politics – than the more morally ambiguous contests among gangsters, drug lords, and advertising executives.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      I think that there is an implied criticism in here but I can’t tell what it is?Report

    • Aaron David in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      I think it depends on what the primary focus of a viewer/reader is. Do they want to be entertained? Or do they want to think? And this can change with every viewer at every opportunity. I know, from reading his articles, that Jaybird loves wrestling and video games, but that he also seeks out poetry. His writings that are informed by philosophy are the work of someone who truly loves the medium. Compare and contrast.

      I happen to prefer the moral ambiguity of writers such as Conrad and McCarthy but will stop every now and then to enjoy the simple humor of an Adam Sandler flick. I have written here about the awe-inspiring Dekalog of Krzysztof Kie?lowski. But he will never take the place of Howards Conan for sheer boyish delight.

      People want different things at different times.Report

    • Stillwater in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      A lot of people want to see things as spectacle-filled epic battles of “good vs. evil” without any nuance?

      I think it’s more that people want to see epic battles of good v evil without anything at stake. That’s what separates pro wrestling and Star Wars from, say, WWI. Or, for some people anyway, continued protections for pre-existing conditions by insurance companies.Report

    • James K in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      @saul_degraw

      This debate goes back to Ancient Greece at least – the debate between heroic epics and more nuanced drams was a major theme of the debate between Aeschylus and Euripedes in The Frogs.

      Of course Aristophanes was on the other side to you on that one – he believed that straightforward displays of heroic virtue was high art, and nuanced human drama was of lesser worth.Report

      • Maribou in reply to James K says:

        @james_k Given Aristophanes’ tendency to humor, I’m not so sure that whatever side he espoused was the one he really valued most. It’s been at least a half-dozen years since I read him, though, and that in an old translation, so feel free to school me :).Report

        • James K in reply to Maribou says:

          @maribou

          I haven’t read the Frogs in nearly 20 years, but my classics teacher certainly interpreted Aristophanes’ position as sincere. It starts with Dionysus going into Hades to get Euripides, and ultimately concluding that Aeschylus is the right choice, so that doesn’t feel like him joking. also Aristophanes was pretty conservative for his day so it makes sense he would feel that way – he preferred straightforward stores that provided heroes for people to aspire to emulate.Report

    • LeeEsq in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      It should be clear that the answer to this is yes. It makes life so simpler.Report

  6. Saul Degraw says:

    Speaking of other heels who have no shame:

    http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/11/turtle-no-shame

    Jaybird, I still find the WWE boring but you might have a point.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      Yeah, you should watch Wrestling With Shadows.

      You might even find the WWE less boring afterwards. And if you don’t like the WWE style, 205 Live is really good, and there’s NJPW, and Lucha Underground, and IWGP, and Ring of Honor…Report