Unfiltered Smoke

by Matt Jones

I don’t want to make it a thing on this site where every article spawns a series of debating articles. Nor is this meant to be an attack on Jennifer Harrison’s “What Happened to the WWE?” article.

From reading her article, I noticed two main things. First, at one time, Jennifer, you loved wrestling, and wish it was as good as you remembered. Me too. Second, you can tell from a lot of the minutia I mentioned in my comment that you haven’t been watching with any regularity recently. Fair enough. You haven’t enjoyed it, so why would you watch it? You’re not a sadist like I apparently am. I’ve watched the show hating it sometimes, wishing desperately that it would get better.

I’m not going to tell you that you’re wrong and the WWE is as good as it’s ever been. There’s a whole lot of gray area that’s subjective to each fan. But the title of the previous article ends with a question mark. I’ll do my best to answer that question.

The short answer is that wrestling changed, as it always has. Wrestling has been around more than a century and has been a lot of things. It’s been a carnival side-show attraction and it’s been on school lunchboxes. It’s held in smoky bars and rotary clubs as well as sold-out stadiums during international tours.

Since the “glory days” of the 1980’s, wrestling has gone through many of these changes, dictated by the circumstances of the business. Steroid and sex scandals in the early 90’s were combatted by the WWF through branding themselves as “family friendly” entertainment (and, let’s be honest, with their bright, colourful, cartoon character personas, the WWF wrestlers were already VERY family friendly).

And why not? From the WWF’s point of view, being family-friendly had made them millions. Doing the same thing, perhaps more so with characters like Doink the Clown or Mantaur, probably seemed like a good plan.

However, that extra neutered approach, and the stench of the scandals, led to a downturn in business and World Championship Wrestling took advantage with a more mature approach to wrestling. The WWF owned the 12 and under crowd, so WCW established themselves as the king of teens and young adults — essentially, the fans from the glory days who had now grown up and weren’t interested in the kid-friendly WWF.

Once McMahon finally got himself acquitted of steroid charges, they began to fight back. Going after the same “young adult” demographic as WCW, the WWF went much further and created what’s now known as “the Attitude era.” While WCW presented more realistic storylines, they were bound by the standards and practices of their parent company Turner Broadcasting. The WWF could do whatever they wanted though. They were bound by the judgment of the USA Network, which aired Monday Night Raw, but as long as the controversy they created attracted more eyes and corresponding advertising dollars, USA couldn’t care less. So sex and violence were amped up, and every child’s hero Hulk Hogan (“say your prayers, train hard and eat your vitamins”) was replaced by beer–swilling anti-hero Stone Cold Steve Austin (“Austin 3:16 says I just whipped your ass!”). In 2001, when the WWF bought WCW and ECW, winning the Monday Night Wars, the company saw no reason to change the way they did business or promoted themselves.

And why not? From the (now) WWE’s point of view, being edgy and outrageous had made them billions. Doing the same thing, perhaps more so with fiascos like Katie Vick or the Billy and Chuck wedding, probably seemed like a good plan.

Of course, history repeats itself, never more so than in the wrestling industry. Starting with the death of Eddie Guerrero, and then becoming firmly entrenched with the Chris Benoit tragedy two years later, the WWE is in damage control mode. The WWE is PG again and, in terms of presentation of storylines, bears more resemblance to the WWF of the 80’s than it does to any period in between. Edgy, sex based storylines are gone, as are most of the half-naked (or completely naked) women who used to be everywhere.

In the current WWE, kid friendly characters like Rey Mysterio and Hornswoggle are heavily featured. Bloodshed, for years all but expected in the main events, has disappeared. Women who used to simply represent T ‘n A (not to be confused with TNA) are now actually trained to wrestle.

That’s the interesting thing about wrestling though: if you asked 100 fans whether or not any of the changes detailed in the past several paragraphs is a good thing or a bad thing, you’d get wildly different answers. Wrestling “should be” different things to different people.

To a lot of fans who grew up in the 80’s, wrestling “should be” something you can watch with your entire family. Ask fans from the 60’s or 70’s though, and you might get a completely different answer. A lot of these fans were horrified with what wrestling became in the 80’s (when the WWF became synonymous with wrestling in the public perception). To many of them, wrestling was supposed to be about gritty, intense, athletic competition, not “kids stuff.” A lot of fans from the Attitude era feel the same way about the current PG WWE.

What is wrestling supposed to be? Everyone, from the lowliest fan to Vince McMahon himself would give you a different answer. Vince’s answer, if he’s honest with you, would probably be “whatever makes me the most money.” And that’s reflected by the in-ring product.

Five-star matches like Mr. Perfect vs. Bret Hart, Steamboat vs. Savage, Angle vs. Benoit or Jericho vs. Michaels aren’t where McMahon made his money. Or, more correctly, they aren’t where he made his biggest money. What made Vince McMahon a millionaire was the sales from Hulkster, Stone Cold, Rock and John Cena shirts, toys, video games and other ancillary merchandise. Wrestling doesn’t move merchandise- characters do. Carefully marketed and positioned characters.

The fans who actually care about wrestling matches- the fans like me and many others – we’re always going to be there (in McMahon’s view). We’ll be the ones to keep the company going with DVD sales, Pay Per View purchases and live event tickets (I went to one last weekend in Moncton, actually). But it was when the casual audience got involved that everything was gravy for Vince and the WWE. It doesn’t really matter to them if I place an order through WWEshop.com for a Finlay shirt and a Dean Malenko action figure. What matters is when having a “Hulkamania” or “Austin 3:16” shirt becomes the hot new thing and the casual, mainstream audience all have to have one.

That’s why Hulk Hogan is still one of the biggest, if not the biggest, names in WWE history despite wrestling virtually the same match for his entire career (punch, kick, bodyslam, big boot, leg drop). He could make people care about him, and made them want to cheer for him, and to buy his merchandise.

Believe it or not, Vince McMahon is a big fan of technical wrestling, according to a number of sources I’ve read. McMahon loves believable, credible technical workers like Bret Hart, Chris Benoit or Kurt Angle. But he’s smart enough to know which side his bread is buttered on. There will always be a place for technical wrestling in the WWE, but it’s not necessarily going to be the main event.

Is the quality of the actual wrestling as good as it was in the past? Like everything, it depends on who you ask. The pace is quicker these days, and there are more moves from the top rope. On the other hand, with less places to work, young wrestlers have less experience and are often less polished in their performances (especially in the “psychology” of a match). It’s give and take. But is one era conclusively better than another? Hardly.

Jennifer made reference to Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect from Summerslam 1991 as being one of those great, classic wrestling matches that you don’t see anymore. But does anyone remember the rest of Summerslam ‘91? Ted DiBiase and Virgil had a decent match. That’s about it. Everything else was pretty awful, and the main event of the show was a wedding.

Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect was a great match. It’s one of my favourites (though, I am partial to their 1993 King of the Ring bout). But matches like that stand out more than they would otherwise because they’re framed by crap like The Bushwhackers vs. The Natural Disasters. Wrestlers like Bret Hart, Mr. Perfect, Ted DiBiase, Jake Roberts, Randy Savage and Ricky Steamboat stood out because they were surrounded by guys like King Kong Bundy, George Steele, Giant Kamala, One Man Gang, Outback Jack and Hillbilly Jim.

And that’s not meant as a slight against Hillbilly Jim or King Kong Bundy or anyone else. There’s definitely a place for them. Though they weren’t, as Jim Ross might put it, “catch-as-catch-can stylists,” guys like Junk Yard Dog, George “The Animal” Steele and Hillbilly Jim were LOVED by fans. On the heel side, people paid good money to see King Kong Bundy, Kamala or One Man Gang get their ass kicked by Hulk Hogan.

Wrestling is, at its best, like the circus. There should be something for everybody. Just like the circus would get boring if it was nothing but lion tamers, wrestling would be boring if everybody wrestled like Bret Hart. If you don’t like the lion tamer, maybe you’d prefer the high-wire act (Randy Savage, Rey Mysterio), the clowns (George Steele, Santino Marella) or the side show (Andre, The Great Khali).

The problems with the WWE are, in many ways, the same problems as the earlier eras. John Cena is over-exposed today, as was Hulk Hogan in his day. Drug and steroid abuse is still an issue. There was, and still are, too many wrestlers to effectively showcase all of them with allotted TV/PPV time. New stars need to be cultivated; this used to require talent scouts, now it requires a development territory and trainers. There are still fans who tire of the emphasis on sketches and skits over actual wrestling. And as always, there are wrestlers at the top of the card who will do whatever it takes to stay there, regardless of what that means to the company. Either way, it’s all wrestling. It’s just adapted to what Vince McMahon thinks people want it to be at a given time. Whether that’s for better or for worse is up to you.

But remember that, as I said off the top, wrestling means different things to different people. No matter what our opinion is, there were many who think that our favorite era is an abomination. It’s telling that the WWF’s two biggest periods were the diametrically opposed squeaky-clean late 80’s and raunchy and edgy late 90’s. The WWE will no doubt go through many more changes as time goes on, so keep checking in. Who knows? In a few years, you might love it again.