Posted in: Just Business Just Business #33 - Underneath The Trench-Coat
By 'Plan
Jul 17, 2009 - 6:45:11 PM
#33
Underneath The Trench-Coat
My name is ‘Plan and, like the rest of us all, I live in uncertain times.
That goes particularly for those of us who reside in the United Kingdom, in Britain. We in Britain are currently going through somewhat of an identity crisis. Team UK recently won a tournament over in the Columns Forum on LOP and it is a feat that reminds me somewhat of our nations other attempts to discover some kind of fresh identity since it was displaced as the worlds leading super-power.
We recently attained the right to hold the 2012 Olympic Games. We have succeeded in recent years at various sports internationally; rugby and cricket among others. Sadly not tennis. Nor football.
What relevance has all this? It is an issue that pervades the world of wrestling. Identity crisis pervades the world of wrestling. Gimmicks, kayfabe, storyline surprises are all becoming a rarity at a somewhat alarming rate. Some blame it on the development of this so called Internet Wrestling Community. Others, such as myself, see it simply as an evolution of the industry we love.
Is kayfabe necessary to the wrestling world or is it simply an outdated phenomenon? Will there ever be an end to this crisis of identity?
“Identity is an illusion, a temporary state.”
Remember when our world was all Looney Tunes and Super Heroes? It was a living, breathing comic book. Bright colours, garish costumes and over the top antics plagued the world. From bin men to irradiated giants, would-be Cuban gangsters to Japanese sumo wrestlers who weren’t actually from Japan.
Back then, everyone had a gimmick. Everyone had something they were known for. The absolute best, of course, was known for wearing pink. It seemed like these ridiculous creations would never stop being churned out by the behemoth machine of the then World Wrestling Federation. Yet it was not a phenomenon originated by or exclusive to it.
The gimmick has been around for decades, it is a concept almost as old as professional wrestling itself. It is generally believed a gimmick is needed to get oneself over with the crowd and, to some extent, this much is true. Very rarely is it found that a wrestler is really without a gimmick, if, indeed, it has ever happened. I for one, as I type this, can recall no such event.
There was once a time when a gimmick was everything. These men, our heroes and villains, lived and breathed their on-screen characters; it was live by the sword, die by the sword. Of course this has dwindled over time; no longer is the public, the fan base as innocent as it once was. The fans and their mistress have consummated their relationship and gone is our innocence. Now we know these men are all like the masked luchadors of Latin America. Now we know that the men we see fighting like fearsome gladiators in their arena every week are as merely mortal as you or I. The world has evolved.
Identity on a wrestling show is indeed only a temporary thing. We are aware of this. It is the boundary that disallows the fictional to blur with the factual, but in our day and age this line, this boundary is slowly beginning to fade and increasingly so. Gimmicks are no longer so prominent nor so outrageous.
Earlier this year we witnessed an on-screen recognition of an infamous real life relationship between one of the WWE’s top stars and one of its upper-most backstage figures; I do, of course, refer to Stephanie McMahon and Triple H. It was a step that represented the dwindling existence of the illusion of professional wrestling, a step that will now forever effect how the WWE audience who are not a part of the IWC view the character of Triple H.
Will they now begin to think the success of Triple H is not fully independent of his close relationship with one of the bigger authority figures in the company? If we force out the innocence of the children, is there anything good left in the world?
Some involved directly with the wrestling industry seem to take the time to slate the IWC, blame the internet for the widespread information now available regarding spoilers and the likes; they talk as if it were some vile cancer eating away at the magic of professional wrestling, that it is to our chosen industry what adolescence is to the legend of Santa Claus, or what science did to religion and faith.
Yet now, even the largest pro wrestling company on the face of the planet openly recognises reality in their largely fictional world. What are we meant to think?
“Everyone is searching for it…”
Today people are all too quick to bemoan how the magic has gone, too quick to criticise the fact we know things before they happen; we read spoilers, we get the backstage news…we have learned the truth. It is a sad day when we lament knowing the truth.
The blurring of lines between the real and the kayfabe is not a cataclysmic disaster sweeping across our world like some unstoppable force. It is just a change. It is just an evolution. We are growing up. The magic has not gone, it does not simply disappear or vanish without a trace. We’re just looking in all the wrong places.
The awful truth is people are developing a sense of self-entitlement in the modern age; they want everything handed to them on a silver platter and they want it done perfectly. Whether it be a five year old girl demanding to be a princess like Katie Price or a moody fifteen year old lad ridden with acne and demanding his band is the one deserving the big break. The same phenomenon extends to our world; we want to know everything but we want to be surprised, regain the innocence once possessed, now lost.
As the fandom changed, the industry was forced into changing with it. We’re not eating our vitamins anymore, nor are we saying our prayers. Instead we’re clicking links, listening to insiders, fuelling the rumour mills that more often than not churn out nothing more than thick smoke screens, an impenetrable fog of bullshit and tripe. We’re addicted to it. We’re addicted to it and they know it.
Maybe that is why the industry itself has begun to purposefully blur the lines between the real and the kayfabe, maybe that is why The Matrix is adapting itself. We’re all looking for something from our world, we’re all looking to recapture the magic that wrestling had for us when we were knee high and left unawares to the grim reality, the ongoing tragedies, the darker side of the wrestling world.
Once upon a time, there were never any drug suspensions, no backstage politicks, no Super-Cena or Triple Haitchanator. There were the good guys, there were the bad guys and there was The Boss. We took what we were given, we cheered where were meant to, we hated those that played the villain. Life was simple.
Then we grew up. Then we got opinions, ideas, demands. Then we got our self-entitlement. Then we got our self-hating bandwagon to jump on, to allow us to deny the simple fact that as we evolve, so too does wrestling fandom, which in turn forces the industry itself into change.
Whether we like it or not, that is very much the grim truth of it.
“…but it’s only a brief reflection…”
We know that The Undertaker can not indeed turn out the lights, smite his opponents with great vengeance and furious anger (Hello Pulp Fiction!), summon lightning, rain and thunder storms. We know he can’t make the ring shake or create the ominous sound of a dong to signal his enemy’s impending doom.
We know that Ted DiBiase Senior didn’t literally possess the amount of money he flashed on-screen, that he wasn’t really a “Million Dollar Man” and that his jackets and extravagant dress sense were all playing up to the crowd reared to believe he was the man we were meant to think he was; although, I’m sure that by the end of his career there could very well be a chance he is a “Million Dollar Man”, or an incredibly wealthy one at the very least.
We know that when Shawn Michaels disappears behind the curtain he is no longer the Showstopper. Gone is the slightly arrogant tinge in his strut, the desire to be the centre of attention, the inherent desire to have people chant his name, remember his face and admire his feats of amazement before those shown by anyone else.
…
Ok, bad example. Let me try again.
When CM Punk goes back to his hotel room, the belief in the principle of the so called “Straight Edge” lifestyle is perhaps not so prominent, not his defining characteristic, the thing that has everyone else talking. His supposed mastery of martial arts vanishes and he remains simply Mr. Brookes.
…
I’m detecting a trend here.
The gimmick does still exist; it is simply becoming harder to define. I sometimes wonder what the response would be if I asked someone what Jeff Hardy’s gimmick is. What about John Morrison? Rey Mysterio? The Big Show? John Cena? Even Triple H now seems to have a gimmick becoming increasingly difficult to define clearly.
It raises the question, is there a difference between having a gimmick and being a character? How do we define “gimmick” in an age where our reigning World Heavyweight Champion has a gimmick that we all know to be completely rooted within his real life philosophy? CM Punk is known as the Straight Edge Superstar…because Phil Brookes just so happens to be straight edge in real life due to the unfortunate alcoholism of his father.
What of Edge? Nowadays, due to the PG-Era limits imposed by the management at WWE, he is known primarily as the Ultimate Opportunist, but it is not this moniker that adorns his ring gear. No, he was once the Rated R Superstar. He was Rated R, surely, because of his well documented real life antics as regards to long standing friends Lita and Matt Hardy; essentially, even his gimmick was rooted in the grim reality of the real world and our easy access to such information.
That boundary is fading, the fence being pulled apart by the winds of change. Every wrestler has to have a gimmick to get started but those gimmicks are becoming increasingly rooted in real life, increasingly difficult to define or clarify and now it seems every fan has access to information dictating that real life turns of events must be adopted into a business once routed in fiction and what one could even argue was myth.
It’s a big issue that crops up often not only in the minds of the professionals involved in the industry, but in the fans that worship it too. My question is…is it really that big a deal?
“…in a very shallow pool of time.”
There isn’t a day go by in which I don’t hear of some form of disillusionment with the wrestling product. We all go through cycles.
I like it.
I love it.
I hate it.
Fuck off.
No, come back.
Love me. I love you.
It’s ok I guess. Worth watching.
We’re like petulant children who won’t shut up; impossible to please, difficult to silence. It is almost a fashion to hate yourself for being a so called “Smark”. This is why I chose to write this column. We live in uncertain times where the line between kayfabe and reality is blurred thanks to the changes in wrestling fandom, the evolution of the professional wrestling enthusiast. Some people dislike this, others hate it and some are prepared, it seems, to put all of the ills of pro wrestling on the fans that these same said people claim “make the business”. Is there no bigger hypocrisy than that?
The IWC, the blurring lines are not a cancer. They’re not some disease to be treated. They’re just…different. It’s time to stop holding the curve down and time to just go with the flow. Reading spoilers is not a crime. Being nigh impossible to fully surprise is not as dreary a phenomenon as it sounds on first sight.
If this evolution enables us to step back and view things objectively as we would any other facet of our lives, I for one embrace it. It’s a different way of enjoying wrestling…dare I say a more mature way.
Does it wipe out the escapism that is such an important and arguably integral part to the world of professional wrestling? Perhaps. I can see how it could be argued. But another question, if you would but entertain it for a moment.
When you go to the cinema to watch a movie, do you sit there and wonder why a camera was so coincidentally there at that time to capture those events on film so they could be showed to audiences world wide? No. You go to the cinema to watch a spectacle you know to be fake and that you are fully conscious of being fake throughout, yet you enjoy it.
When you read a novel, do you sit down and believe every word spoken in the dialogue, every action taken to have been a real one made by real people in real situations, somehow miraculously recorded on paper and printed for mass entertainment? Of course not. You are conscious of reading fiction, but you enjoy it for the story, the characters, the out-of-this-world events.
The magic of professional wrestling has gone nowhere. It remains to this day. But if you expect to be able to sit there, hands held out, expecting everything without exemption then all you’ll get in return is nothing. It’s all about change. We don’t need to understand it; we just have to accept it and more importantly embrace it.
There is nothing to be disgraced of, knowing the ins and outs of the wrestling world. If anything, it represents passion, increased interest, a dedication unmatched in my eyes. Would we spend so much time reading ridiculous monotonous columns such as this one and checking out the latest bullshit rumour if we were not dedicated to the business?
Wrestling is going through an identity crisis. Will kayfabe ever return to the full glory it once had? Will it fade entirely into obscurity? Will the world of wrestling get to the point where all we have are characters routed in reality and non-existent gimmicks and a roster full of those unable to get over?
All we can be sure of is that it will continue to change.
All we should be asking is should we really be so up-tight about it?
“I think, therefore I am.”
Who and what we are is something we should know, that much goes without saying. As wrestling fans, we are undergoing a great change, a shift in the fabric of what it means to be a fan of professional wrestling. Some of us struggle to deal with the change. Some of us prefer the change. There may even be more than anticipated that remain entirely apathetic to it.
It is an issue easily blown out of proportion, into something more than it is. The only real important thing to know is that it is happening and that we must accept it. If we do not, all you will ever see on a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday night is a product tried, tested and found wanting.
It’s not about the industry losing its magic. It’s about the fans losing their sense of identity.
My name is ‘Plan and I, like all of us, live in uncertain times.
(Author’s Note: This column is dedicated to my friend Crackle, for asking me inappropriate questions about The Undertaker’s trench-coat.)
Written with thanks to Olivia Dresher and “Discourse on the Method” respectively, from which the quotes used here are derived.
Feedback to: planm4n89@hotmail.co.uk
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PS: Unfortunately, this column was somewhat rushed I feel due to the timing of my recent holiday to the glorious city of Prague. I hope it did not prove too monotonous. For those wondering, Spandex Fortnightly shall return within the next week. Keep the eyes peeled.
