When one flips through the channels on any given wrestling night, going back and forth between wrestling and whatever else happens to be on, one can clearly realize that sports entertainment is not all that far off from popular (and unpopular) tv shows. This may not apply to reality tv, but the incorporation of characters, storylines, advancements in the plot, and so forth are integral ingredients to regular tv shows much the same way profssional wrestling applies several of these same major aspects of television. It's not a picture perfect, identical match, as pro wrestling is a different beast in and of itself, but you get the idea.
And unfortunately, something that World Wrestling Entertainment also shares in common with many televison shows is that it does, in fact, contain continuty errors. Continuity errors , as many of you already know, are when some action or event contradicts an action or event from trom the past. Almost all television shows throughout their history have at least some of these errors. Seinfeld, Friends, Gilligan's Island, and a littany of other shows on TV have all contain some goofs here and there. Professional wrestling, unfortunately, is no different. However, thisoften means that something withing the product should be altered for a greater good. Things get changed for a reason.
During the early seasons of the former Friday night sitcom Family Matters, the show started with the Winslows having three children; Eddie, Laura, and Judy. Eddie and Laura, the two older siblings, connected with the audience on a good to great level, and helped contribute towards keeping the show successful. Judy, however, proved to be an unpopular character with the audience.. She just did not resonate well with fans of the show. Finally during one episode, Judy was sent to her room, and was never seen again on Family Matters.No explanation, no excuse was given as to why she was gone. Here, this was a continuity error that probably achieve more positives than it did harm. It was a major mistake. How does a family suddenly and unexplicably lose a daughter after four seasons? It is a glaring error, indeed. However, it would have been pointless to keep an unpopular character through out the rest of the series when she would have just held the show back.
During the summer of 2005, it was advertised that a special announcement was to transpire on one episode of Monday Night Raw. Earlier that year, what was probably the biggest wrestling gossip this decade, Edge stole away Lita from her real life boyfriend Matt Hardy. While Matt was terminated from World Wrestling Entertainment for how he handled the situation in real life, Vince McMahon viewed this as a golden business opportunity. How often do we see real life story lines in pro wrestling? Vince wiseley rehired Matt Hardy on that Monday Night Raw, and immediately announced he would be facing Edge at Summer Slam. He was facing the man who everyone knew was his rival outside the ring. There was merely one problem, and that was that in kayfabe, in the storylines, things still needed to be explained. At the time, not long ago in the world of sports entertainment, Lita had been romantically linked to Kane. Trish Stratus had also been involed with the storyline. When Matt Hardy came back that night, he created a huge continuity error, in that he stated he had halways been Lita's boyfriend, untill Edge stole her away..He said she and Kane were never really married.
In these two occurences on Family Matters and with Edge/Hardy/Lita,, the continuity error in each respectful show actually created more positives than negatives. The end results were worth all the time and trouble. Faithful fans of the T.G.I.F. line up on ABC were left wondering whatever happened to Judy Winslow. They thought "Did they just lose a kid?". However, the show no longer needed to spend time on a person who did not resonate well with fans. More time and storylines were given to the more popular characters. In the case of Matt Hardy and Edge, they did, in fact, ruin a storyline for Lita, Kane, and Trish Stratus (who was involved at the time.) What was going on wasn't bad, however, the continuity error gave way to a feud that people remember to this day, and was truly one of a kind. It's not all the time you can see two sports entertainers competing with such a tumultuous real life relationship.
In 2006, John Bradshw Layfield wrestled a match on Smackdown against then World Heavywieght Champion Rey Mysterio. The quick, high flying, talented performer Mysterio came out victorious, and due to a prematch stipulation, JBL had to cease his wrestling career. In actuality, JBL was experiencing back problems, and needed some yime off. The storyline was catered towards JBL getting some much needed time off. However, later on that year JBL gave a promo regarding his in ring absence, saying the fans demand too much from performers.and cited a broken back for the reason he could no longer compete. . In this particular case, JBL came accross as creating a continuity error. It was on a very minor level, but it was an error just the same.It wan't all that big of a deal, because people already know the real deal on professional wrestling, and many fans knew the real reason as to why JBL was booked to lose that match was because of his physical health. .
This was a minor mistake. As stated before, pretty much all tv shows contain continuity errors. The first season of Saved By The Bell was set in the state of Indiana. The next four season were based in Calfornia. No explanation was offered for this. It's the nature of almost any television series that they are not perfect. Just as the location of SBTB was changed for a setting that would seem more interesting in the long run, JBL lost for a greater good. He had one more match to put over the World Heavyweight Champion, instead of just saying he was injured and had to discontinue his wrestling career.
The biggest continuity error in the last few years would probably be on the day that the bodies of Chris Benoit and his family were discovered in their house. Vince McMahon came out to the riing in an empty arena and announced the deaths in the Benoit family. Vince had to break kayfabe and openly cut short his major storyline about being killed in a limosine explosion. Yes, it was a huge continuity error. However, with the tremendous tragedy within the wrestling world, it was a storyline that simply could not continue. While it did halt a major storyline, it would have been totaly disrespectful and out of place considering what just happened. Triple H and Stephanie McMahon were married and divorced in kayfabe, yet they have recently revealed that they are a real life married couple. This aspect of the storylines isn't exactly picture perfect. However, it's alsmot been an inside joke on the air that Steph and Trips had been married in real life, aside from their kayfabe marriage and divorce.
Continuity errors are alsmot unevitable in pretty much any entertainment series. It doesn't matter if it's Home Improvement, Cheers, or The Simpsons, among others. And clearly, World Wrestling Entertainment contains these mistakes. However, they often times are semi-necessary, and will lead to something better in the long run. On Cheers, Frasier said his father was dead and that he had no siblings. However, on Fraiser, he lived with his father and had a brother. Does this insult the audience's intelligence? Possibly. Did it make for better televison? Yes. The same applies to professional wrestling. Storylines can be added and dropped almost out of nowhere, and doesn't quite fit in with continuity. However, it leads to a greater food, at least in their minds, usually. Why else would they have changed things?
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