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Submitted by Sheepster on Thursday, May 15, 2008 at 11:01 PM EST 
(April COTM, CFI) Welcome to Hardtime. As this is being posted on the main page, I want to take the time to say that some of you may remember me posting my column here on lordsofpain.net’s main page back in 2006. I left the main page near the beginning of 2007, and took a hiatus from column writing altogether. Over the summer I started writing again in LOP’s Column Forum. At the end of every month in the Columns Forum there is a contest where people can vote on which running column series they thought was “Column Of The Month”. For the month of April, I am honored and privileged to have “Hardtime” be voted the winning column of this contest. As a reward, the winning columnist is granted to have one of his columns, whether an original or a repost, posted on LOP’s main page. Right now there is a contest going on in the Columns Forum called The “Columns Forum Invitational”. It is run by one of the moderators and former main pager Your Ayatollah Each round columnists are paired with each other in one on one, two on two, one on one on one, etc. type matches where they each write new columns and posters vote on them. This is my contribution for the second round. Other contributions for this tournament, as well pieces of great writing not entered, can be found at the LOP Columns Forum, which can be found through the “FORUMS: link at the top of the main page. If you wish to send feedback, whether it is positive or negative, it can be sent to david12345575@yahoo.com I am going to let you know that this column is very, very long. In fact, it is exceptionally long. I would recommend reading this in two or three, maybe even four sittings. Thank you in advance to those of you who take the time to read all of this. Without further ado… If you were to approach several different individuals who you would not consider to be even your casual wrestling fan, I would wager that many people will offer a number of different answers regarding what professional wrestling can be likened to. Unless someone is actually a wrestling fan, the average person most likely will not understand the technical definition of “sports entertainment”. In fact, there are probably a good number of WWE fans who don’t comprehend that phrase. Nevertheless, they are likely to identify just something else in the world they are familiar with that it can be compared to. Some will call it a glorified three ring circus. The acrobats, the strong men, and the side show freaks all play a part. A common answer that normally will come up is that it is a male soap opera. All the elements of a soap opera are present, only with the existence of physical competition and male testosterone in the air. Friendships being broken, relationships suddenly ruined, backstabbing, jealousy, and so forth all play their role as they would on “Days Of Our Lives”. Only the characters settle their differences with body slams, STFU’s and Pedigrees. And, on not too atypical occasions, professional wrestling is likened to existing as a sub-culture, or a sub world of our main stream scene. An individual might even consider it to be the type of reflection one would view if the entire entity of pop culture itself were standing in front of a wacky fun house mirror. It’s not always an accurate portrayal of how things actually are, and often times the image is incredibly distorted. But you can still tell what the image is supposed to be. Hulk Hogan doing his “hulking up” routine to comeback to beat Macho Man Randy Savage may have been the distorted image of underdog Rocky Balboa fighting out of sheer desperation to knock out Ivan Drago in the fifteenth round. Stone Cold Steve Austin constantly using foul language very well could have been the reflection of shows like South Park rising to prominence. However, when you take a closer look at the business of sports entertainment, you will see that in many ways and for many continuous years, the music industry and the wrestling industry have paralleled each other in terms of influential changes to their respective products. For a number of the major changes that occurred within the music scene over the last several decades, there has usually been an event that equaled it in terms of overall influence to it’s product. The 1950’s were characterized by a time of relatively over-conservativeness compared to future decades. None the less, the conclusion to second tumultuous World War had been in the record books for some time now, with the good guys being victorious, and youthful exuberance was in the air. For a lack of a better pun, one might even say that they were “Happy Days”. While it would most likely prove unreasonable to find a locale that embodied the stereotypes to the same high degree that Henry Winkler, Ron Howard, and John Travolta had conveyed years later, some things were as they’ve been shown to appear. With then home run king Babe Ruth having recently passed away, legendary Yankee Joe DiMaggio was amassing an incredible fifty-game plus hitting streak, popular Red Sock Ted Williams was winning batting titles on his way to retiring with the fourth best batting average of all time. Marylyn Monroe was happily married to the aforementioned Joltin’ Joe, and a new wave of music was hitting the youth scene.  On juke boxes everywhere, the new sounds of rock n’ roll were being played over and over again. With the advent of television, this genre became dominant in the main stream music scene. And, just as the previously mentioned Babe Ruth had brought baseball to prominence and almost single handedly made baseball the figurative background music of America, a man by the name of Elvis Presley played a significantly influential role in elevating rock music to be almost literally the background music of America. He was one of the first mainstream presences for the genre of rockabilly, an early version of rock n’ roll that encompassed both country music (sometimes referred to as hillbilly music) and rhythm and blues, with many similar characteristics of rock that we are familiar with today. With Elvis as the catalyst, also dubbed as “The King Of Rock n’ Roll”, rock music went on to become the single biggest form genre of our main stream culture for many years. And in this same fashion, so too did the professional wrestling scene see a dramatic change. Six time National Wrestling Alliance World Champion Lou Thesz is claimed to have said that until sometime in the 1920’s, professional wrestling was a complete shoot (meaning it was 100% real). Wrestlers were very tough, and it was not uncommon for World Title matches to last five or six hours. At one point, a wrestler named Ed “Strangler” Lewis became an overriding force to contend with, and soon became virtually unbeatable. Not a single wrestler had the ability to contend with him to the point that they were viewed as a credible threat to him. To add interest to the sport, he purposely lost one of his matches, or did the equivalent of “taking a dive” just so people could believe that he actually could be beaten. Lou Thesz can be paraphrased as claiming that this is had a snowball effect on the business and was major step towards the industry as a whole predetermining its matches. Professional wrestling became a complete work, but still had a fairly similar resemblance to amateur wrestling and being a legit sport. Enter George Wagner, or better known in wrestling lore as “Gorgeous George.” Rising to prominence in the late 40’s and early 50’s, George was indeed very good at “real wrestling”, and in many ways he was the father of the entire concept of sports entertainment as we know it today. As he was credited by Muhammad Ali as being the inspiration for the legendary boxer’s outlandish trash talking in order for fans to become more interested in his fights, Gorgeous George was truly the first person to utilize over the top theatrics into his overall performances in order to make the crowd want to come see him (or rather, to see him get beaten). His most notable trademark may very well have been his over the top entrance. This in itself was a sight to be seen, as he made his way down to the ring to the sounds “Pomp and Circumstance” with his long, bleach blond hair pinned up. At his side was his valet, who was always throwing flower petals around his feet and carrying a big silver mirror for him to relish in his own appearance. He was the true manifestation of arrogance, and as he enraged the attending audiences with his constant cheating in true, cowardly fashion, he became the first over the top wrestler, or the first real sports entertainer, that we have ever seen. Because of him, outrageous antics that have become common place in wrestling, such as the McMahon strut, the Five Knuckle Shuffle, and The People’s Elbow have developed over time, and while many subsequent factors were present in extraordinary scenes developing such as Steve Austin using a cement truck to destroy Vince McMahon’s convertible, the birth of theatre in wrestling can be traced back to George Wagner. Wrestling went Hollywood, or you possibly might say Gorgeous George took wrestling to Hollywood. However, while entertainment was being interwoven with a fixed sport for the first time, the new product that was created was not nearly as overly eccentric as it would someday become. The general depictions of wrestling that we have seen from “old time wrestlers” such as the Brisco Brothers or Bruno Samartino was still in tact. Outlandish gimmicks were used to help make things more appealing to outside audiences, but main pillar of the business remained the wrestling itself, whether it was predetermined or not. A little glitz and glammor wasn't going to shake everything up. At least not yet. As years went on, rock n’ roll continued to control the mainstream music market. Bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Doors took the nation by storm. Hits such as “Yesterday”, “, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, and “Light My Fire” were being played on record players and radio stations across the nation. Psychedelic rock saw a burst in popularity, and bands like the aforementioned Doors and The Grateful Dead were major players on the music scene. As time went on, rock music remained steady, and for a time shared the spotlight with the emerging trend of disco music. But through it all, after the Bee Gees, The Village People, and John Travolta again had their say, after every person was done shaking their booty and every disco floor had been cleared out, rock and roll still stood firmly and proudly.  In this same fashion did traditional professional wrestling stand tall through thick and thin as the years went by. Vince McMahon Sr., former owner of the World Wide Wrestling Federation (today WWE), once ran a territory that was a part of the National Wrestling Alliance- a main organization that brought together many of the major territories of wrestling. Though the WWWF was competition, overall they did not make for an extraordinarily high level of threat towards them. That is, they would not until McMahon Sr.’s son, who we know as simply Vince McMahon, would take over, and take things to a level that were once unthinkable.  In the early eighties, the cable channel Music Television, better known by the initials MTV, was created. It was a grand concept: an entire channel devoted entirely to the current mainstream music scene. With the first video playing on the channel being “Video Killed The Radio Star” by The Bangles, a new colossal entity was now born into teenage culture. The concept of the music video was that a special video was made consisting of various footage that the artist wants to use to have playing with one of their singles playing in the background, that was meant to help promote their album sales. This created the platform that was needed for the entire music industry to be revolutionized, and ultimately for the rock genre to encounter it’s first real, substantial, long standing competition in the main stream. The business was on the verge or changing as a whole, and no single person propelled these changes more than… Michael Jackson. Formerly the star of the all African American ensemble “The Jackson 5”, consisting of Michael and four of his brothers, Michael became the very first African American to have a music video on MTV when “Billy Jean” was released off of his then new album “Thriller”. The song would become acclaimed, and many would deem this to be Michael’s signature song. Then, in the mid-eighties, Michael released a music video for the song “Thriller”, a single off his album of the same name. As a number of you most likely already know, the video became an enormous attraction in and of itself, and was in such high demand at one point in time that it was played almost once every hour on MTV. With Michael portraying an undead zombie, and dancing in unison with other bizarre creature of the night, the notion of music videos grew rapidly in popularity, and many artists then (and to this day) used it as a vehicle to promote their album sales.  Not merely did Michael Jackson just build the music video into an integral part of the music scene, but being one of the primary musicians in the genre of “Pop Music”, he elevated a new form of music that broke into everyone’s conventional, everyday lives. While it is true that many of today’s (and yesterday’s) biggest stars are, to a degree, manufactured products of a specific music label, Michael Jackson was an actual musician. Making use of an electronic synthesizer, he meticulously composed his songs while writing his own lyrics. He was for real, and was not a “cookie cutter” brand of entertainment through any comparison. From the arrival of Jackson’s solo career, pop music did not become purely a new trend of the time period, but a long lasting category of music that became a permanent staple of the music scene. Throughout that same time period, the familiar notes of the guitar that the world had grown accustomed to listening to were now in head to head competition with the best sounds that electronics can produce. It was man made vs. technological. It was White Snake vs. Debbie Gibson. In the rock world, new artists were now making a name for themselves. The era of the “hair band” had begun. These bands were characterized by composing rock ballads with drawn out, passionate choruses, appearing to live wild lifestyles on and off stage, and, obviously, having long hair. (many songs from Rocky 4 are examples “hair band music”) Legendary bands such as Van Halen, Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, Poison, and Duran Duran became household names in that age. If someone showed you a poster of Jon Bon Jovi or David Lee Roth, you immediately recognized who was in the photograph. If you heard the name Twisted Sister mentioned, the name certainly wasn’t foreign to you. The utilization of the music video was not limited to only pop stars, as rock bands incorporated this technique as well. The video for “Here I Go Again On My Own” by Whitesnake was both groundbreaking and controversial in it’s use of a scantily clad woman famously dancing on top of a car. Van Halen’s “Hot For Teacher” video respectably exploited the fun living image that they tried to convey. The songs “Pour Some Sugar On Me”, “Cum On Feel The Noise”, and others rock hits were very popular.  But they were not without competition. Pop sensations Paula Abdul, Madonna, and of course Michael Jackson, among others, were leading the charge. They were not merely making a dent into rock n’ roll’s percentage of the audience that, if they had to make a choice, would choose their music over another genre as the disco icons had done, but rather something that was being promoted with equal billing had arrived. The concept of the radio as the major way to promote music was no longer present, but rather a whole new world had been opened. In this same way did professional wrestling in the eighties change as dramatically as it did. Just as the radio was no longer the primary source to promote music, so too were the ways of traditional “’rasslin” starting to fade away. As Michael Jackson revolutionized the industry with the idea of the music video, so too did Hulk Hogan help make those same changes to professional wrestling. Just as the young Michael Jackson was already stepping onto a platform he did not create himself, but was practically single handedly elevating that platform, The Hulkster did the same thing. Hogan stepped into Vince McMahon’s then WWF, and with his overwhelming charisma, a heavily muscled physique packed onto his 6 foot 8 frame, impressive power wrestling, and passionate, energetic interviews, the wrestling world as we knew it changed forever. Wrestling may have entered Hollywood back in the fifties, but now it purchased a permanent residence there. At that same time, the biggest form of “traditional wrestling”, the NWA, was in full force. Here, the ideas of theatre were used, but it still closely resembled the same brand of sports entertainment we had seen for years. It was the same stuff we had been used to seeing, and with a fan base that was amassed throughout a number of decades, there was a solid foundation for it to compete with the over the top “cartoon” style of wrestling in WWF. Generic boots, generic trunks, and generic knee pads, along with your basic use of headlocks, elbow drops, suplexes, and your other basic holds and maneuvers were used. Things were not very advanced, by today’s standards. Men like Ricky Steamboat, Harley Race, Dusty Rhodes and “Nature Boy” Ric Flair lead the helm. Traditional promotion of wrestling was still used in WWE, as to this day it has never died out, as the customary concepts of simply employing good old fashioned wrestling as the backbone to a feud are still around. But overall, traditional wrestling, like rock music, was now on the road to being eclipsed by something that was more trendier. It was being overshadowed by something that simply was welcomed with wider arms than in the reception it was getting. You can’t say it was the beginning of the end, as the end has not yet come (and I personally doubt it ever will.) But you can say that it was the beginnings of pure rock music and the pure style of professional wrestling to eventually taking a spot on the backburner. In the coming years, the style of music generally associated with hair bands would die out to a much different style of rock music characterized by the whole “essence” of the song not being so drawn out, and all around being of a much harder sound. Evolution came into effect, and grunge music, and alternative rock as a whole replaced the sound that was familiar to hair bands. However, a major force that paved the way for this was the band “Guns ‘N Roses”. They were tagged as “The World’s Most Dangerous Band.” And, looking only at their image, they could make a reasonable claim to that title. Lead by front man Axl Rose and one of the world’s greatest guitar players, Slash, they had a different image than many of the other bands of the eighties. They had long hair, but the fun loving antics synonymous with bands like Van Halen were not present with them. They did not sing about “Girls, Girls, Girls”, nor did they try to have any type of false image. They portrayed themselves as a group of hard hitting characters who walked on the wild side. Drugs, sex, and rock ‘n roll were said to be regular aspects of their lives. While their music was composed in similar fashion as other hair bands, they came across with a stronger, more “wild” vibe, and a more “hardcore” sound. Their overall image was dark, but not cartoonish like Twisted Sister .As was once said by a music historian, their arrival on the music scene exposed many other hair bands for being the posers that they were.  It was for these reasons that Guns ‘N Roses first paved the way for the grunge uprising in the early nineties. In a similar way did The Undertaker pave the way for the New Generation in the WWE. This is a comparison to GNR not in terms of image, but in the level of influence. Undertaker was paving the way for cartoonish gimmicks oriented towards children. He was certainly a frightening presence, and many kids were relieved when the big, scary dead man became a “good guy”. Undertaker was not merely someone like The Red Rooster or The Honkey Tonk Man, but rather he personified a gimmick that truly was larger than life: or rather, larger than the super natural. Others were doing this as well, but it was the dead man who truly blazed the trail for others such as Duke “The Dumpster” Droese, Tatanka, The Godwins, and even Doink. Many child-oriented gimmicks from the New Generation bared little resemblance to Undertaker in terms of appearance or character, but the concept of a cartoon like figure being prominent in the main event scene geared the audience up for what was to come. Back in the 80’s, the main television shows for WWE were Superstars, All American Wrestling, Prime Time Wrestling, WWF Challenge, and the once a month airings of Saturday Night’s Main Event. With the exception of SNME, which did not have a huge impact on the actual development of storylines due to their frequency (save for big events that could ignite feuds to go in certain directions). These shows were based out of a studio, or a remote location in the arena where the commentators sat. The overall format for the shows was for the hosts, usually Gene Okerlund or Sean Mooney, to discuss WWE’s current events of wrestlers and their feuds. They would talk about who hated who, show interviews from wrestlers taped in front of plain backgrounds, run down the matches on the upcoming pay per view, and show matches of the superstars, usually against preliminary wrestlers, and rarely against someone they were feuding with. Nothing big had to happen on every show. Everyone was generally just entertained by the generally slow and thorough development of the product. Enter Monday Night Raw. The show was based out of the arena itself, with the focus being on action and excitement. While it can be argued that action and excitement wasn’t always delivered, they almost certainly tried to do just that. The show brought with it an overall feeling of “What’s going to happen next?” for the viewer. They no longer wanted to just see Shawn Michaels give an interview where he simply talked about how he was going to break the young girls’ hearts and how he loved Sherri Martel. He had to do or say something exciting. Irwin R. Shyster couldn’t just talk about how everyone was a bunch of tax cheats and actually dig up the grave of a deceased man who once wrote off something for his daughter’s birthday party as a business expense, and said that he was taking away his grave site to recompense for the tax evasion. (That seriously happened in an I.R.S. vignette.) Irwin had to have his face shoved into the Raw One Year Anniversary cake by Macho Man Randy Savage. When WCW started increasing their number of pay per views a year, WWE increased their ppv’s as well to compete with them. With most major feuds never going past one pay per view, feuds were rushed to be developed, and with the flag ship show being Monday Night Raw, which made the developing of well done feuds to be difficult, it really made the entire product to be of an entirely different quality.  In this same way did Nirvana change the course of music forever. When someone makes a list of the top five biggest songs of the nineties, numbers 2 through 5 will usually lead to a good amount of pondering and debating. However, number one is almost always unarguable; Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana rightfully holds that spot on almost anyone’s list. And for exceptionally good reason. With the release of that song, and the song’s music video, the entire era of hair bands died. Or rather, was killed. In it’s place was alternative music: specifically in the form of grunge rock. In appearance similar to Guns ‘N Roses, these bands were characterized by rugged clothes and overall dark, yet realistic personas. Artists like Pearl Jam, The Offspring, Sound Garden, and others flooded the music scene, and with the controversial video for the grunge song “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam winning the Video Of The Year Award at the MTV Video Music Awards, a heavy argument could be made that at that time, rock music had taken back it’s firm hold of the music scene. It was still in a new world that was virtually created by pop music, but rock was music was once again running the yard. Grunge music was influential in eliminating hair bands, but also set a trend in its own right. Bret “The Hitman” Hart won the WWF Championship in late 1992, and soon the New Generation was born. With the technical expertise of Bret Hart being shown in championship matches, and with others like the new singles star Shawn Michaels and “The Bad Guy” Razor Ramon leading the way, in ring wrestling was now once again at the forefront of the industry, just as rock music regained its place around that same time. It was not the same rock music we were accustomed to, but a modernized version, just as wrestlers like Owen Hart and the 1-2-3 Kid were of a faster pace than Flair or Steamboat, and used more inventive, advance moves.  Bret Hart was not like Nirvana in the sense that he forever changed wrestling. While he is one of my favorites, that he did not have that particular influence. Bret merely set a trend as Nirvana started the trend of grunge music. However, it was the implementation of Monday Night Raw that revolutionized the business in the way Nirvana did. The slow, drawn out development of characters and storylines were no more. But in that same vein, the format for sports entertainment was now more conducive to the over the top theatrics of wrestling, rather than any modernized version of the traditional wrestling seen back in the NWA. At this same time, a new genre of music was growing in the mainstream: Gangsta rap music. With the release of Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic” and his single featuring Snoop Doggy Dogg entitled “Aint Nothin But a G-Thang”, there was a new brand of music to listen to. A new style that was generally unfamiliar, yet surprisingly enjoyable to the mainstream audience. It was already around, as the original NWA (N****s With Attitude) making a name for themselves, and with Ice T being publicly criticized by George Bush for the song “Cop Killer”.  It can be said that the “cool image” of a rock star comes from what he holds in his hands: that being, the guitar. The lyrics to many rock songs are not “hardcore” by any stretch, as most of them are about lost love, celebrating love, etc. All he needs to do is put a pick in his hand, and strum away at the chords. Rap music is the exact opposite. A rapper tries to appear to be cool by the image he can convey through his lyrics. There are plenty of love songs that fall under the rap category, but overall, they try to glorify themselves by the amount of women they sleep with, the drugs they take, the money they have, and the violence they inflict on others. That is a generalization, and there are exceptions, but rap in general sense is categorized in this way. In time, rap music started to become interwoven with the pop music scene, and many of the bigger names in pop music and rap music have done collaborations. While there are many instances or the two genres existing as separate, distinct entities there are many mixtures of this. Today, pop princess Avril Lavigne has done a remix of her hit single "Girlfriend" with rapper “Lil Mama”, as The Pussycat Dolls have collaborated with rappers such as Busta Rhymes. In this same way did ECW bring the notion of hardcore wrestling to the mainstream. ECW was the third biggest promotion in the US for most of the nineties. Granted it was always a distant third, but everyone still knew about it none the less. The idea that such extreme violence could be incorporated into wrestling was generally a foreign approach to matters. Marty Jannety had been thrown through the barber shop window, Sherri Martel had had a mirror smashed over her head, and even Hulk Hogan tried to pile drive Andre onto concrete at Wrestlemania 3. But overall, the idea of a cheese grater and being wrapped in barbed wire was way too extreme. However, as the knowledge of ECW got around with the use of syndicated television, it was well received by the majority of the audience that knew about it and able to watch it, just as gangsta rap was generally well received. Overall, it went over in a fairly respectable fashion. As time went on, the marketable concepts derived from hardcore wrestling were interlaced with the over the top theatrics of wrestling. Over time, Bret Hart’s trend of great in ring wrestling, carried on by Shawn Michaels and others, was eclipsed once again. With the employment of the techniques and overall attitude of ECW, WWF was now changing the pace of the industry. Now, as the “MTV era” made it so conducive to, the Hollywood aspect of wrestling became center stage again, and in general, wrestling as the main pillar took a backseat, where it generally stays today. The great technician Chris Benoit main evented Wrestlemania through this time, but not before Steve Austin and The Rock were no longer active on full time schedules. That’s just the way it was.  Napster took the world by storm around this time, as with the advent of the internet for domesticated use, and with it’s widespread popularity, downloading music for free was a highly sought after method to listen to your favorite songs. Why pay for something at The Wall (remember that?) when you can get it for free in your own home? Overall, this has had lasting damage on the music industry, as many people can now download and upload music from whoever they wish without paying a dime to people like Eminem. The Internet Wrestling Community rose to prominence around this time, and many credit this with having a long lasting, negative impact on the wrestling business. Kayfabe is no longer in tact except on the tv screen. Events like Hulk Hogan’s heel turn and the N.W.O. invading WCW would never have gone over in this day and age with the same surprise, as it would have been revealed long before it happened. Austin’s heel turn at Wrestlemania 17 was revealed long before it took place, and John Cena’s return at the Rumble was utterly shocking in this day and age, when many other events, such as Ric Flair bringing the WCW belt over to WWF, will never take place again with the same shock and awe. Cena’s return this year as the thirtieth entrant in the Royal Rumble was about as big a surprise as I feel we are ever going to get now a days. The business is widely exposed on a regular basis, and without the IWC, one had to wonder how different things would be. Yesterday, rock n’ roll stood tall. It was a force to be reckoned with, and it was once in firm control of the mainstream music scene, left virtually unchallenged. Then, with the birth of MTV and Michael Jackson becoming a solo star, the music industry changed forever. Rock and pop music stayed in a long, drawn out competition with each other, but even after the resurgence of rock in the form of grunge music in the early nineties, pop music gained the lead back, and stands today with a virtual stranglehold on the FM radio. Years ago, traditional wrestling was center stage, but as time went on, and with Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan revolutionizing the business as we know it, a new form of wrestling with over the top shenanigans and Hollywodd-esque entertainment became more appealing, and in the end, it stands today as the dominant force of the wrestling business. Thank you for sitting through this and taking the take to read this exceptionally long column. It is very much appreciated. If you have any feedback for this column, you can send it to david12345575@yahoo.com All feedback, whether it be positive or negative, is welcomed. Adios. *NEW GALLERY* Brooke Hogan BOUNCING AROUND With Her New Toys! MUST SEE!
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