Wrestlers might wrestle, might not like each other backstage, women, botches, burials, bears, beets, battlestar gallactica. We all have nothing better to do than read obvious lies and wild guesses about things we really know nothing about.
—The Observer this week, and everyone who posts rumours about wrestling, generally.
This is just like when they brought Kane back as a villain and had him explain his actions on a WWE.com exclusive clip.
Joking aside, it’s less weird to have this sort of stuff on the website considering how much more they value it as a competent storytelling tool than Raw. It’s also a great place to put a five minute monologue: Totally opt-in, and fast-forwardable. But there’s nothing here you need to fast forward. Eve, like many wrestlers, shines as a villain.
Fair to Flair: Predictability Is Hardly the End of the World -
TH:
One of the big complaints about Elimination Chamber Sunday from those who watched was that it was too predictable. Everything that happened could be seen coming from a mile away. Why should they pay $60 to WWE for something that wouldn’t keep them guessing at every turn? Maybe they do have a point. Why pay to tune into an event where the way the stories play out are apparent before they happen?
I hate it every time I go see Hamlet and everybody fucking dies.
During the flurry of discussion spurred yesterday by a perfect storm of WWE’s insipid slut shaming on Monday mixed with Chris Brown’s entrance into the WWE Canon, a topic was brought up on Twitter: How do we judge people with terrible personal issues when their art may be really, really great? This is a fantastic conversation to have, because everyone is going to stand on different ground, and we can talk like adults about the importance of artistic output vs personal morality. It’s a thick, juicy, bloody talking point, and I’d love to drill down on it with everyone.
There are lots of wrestlers out there who would fit into this argument. The biggest example is, as we all should figure, Chris Benoit, a man who exists with two absolute parallel truths: he was perhaps one of the greatest wrestling performers in history, and he murdered his wife and son. Your stance on how much you compartmentalize those two truths is an interesting thing to discuss, because it forces you to take a stand on personal morality, the importance of cultural output, and how well or poorly we treat and are treated by the people who are paid to entertain us.
I want to have discussions like this. Wrestling journalists could do well to think harder about issues like this. Does a guy like Benoit belong alongside a painter like Caravaggio, a supremely talented artist who was exiled for murder? Furthermore, if we were to simply eliminate all the art in the world made by people who did morally and ethically dubious things, we wouldn’t be left with much of interest. It’s unfortunate, but it’s also the world we live in.
I do believe a person’s talent and contribution to society has to be taken into account when discussing their importance to the world. I think it’s wrong to ultimately eliminate them from discussion because they have done terrible things, but I think it’s equally wrong to dismiss the terrible thing so that we can peacefully discuss the art. I don’t think the two can be separated. But I feel the quality of the work is the only thing keeping that person from being utterly eliminated from public discourse.
But what I have little patience for is terrible people in society who contribute nothing of artistic worth. If a substandard wrestler had murdered his family, it would not be as difficult a dilemma to eradicate his work from the canon. That’s one of the reasons so many people have a problem with a guy like Chris Brown: he has done a terrible thing, and he has utterly no talent to keep his name in circulation. I went back and looked through Metacritic for old album reviews, and found not one that scored consistently well. He is not only a heinously substandard character to write about, but a substandard icon of pop music. It is not a dilemma for most people to separate Brown’s artistic work from his personal heinousness, because his work simply isn’t that good in the first place.
Brown’s fame is entirely based on controversy, and yet without real talent his star will dissipate, and he will eventually become for everyone the bland, illiterate neophyte most of us already know him to be. And including him in our discussions will seem silly, unless we use it as a jumping off point for better things.
I would love to speak in intelligent terms about difficult issues involving art & violence. I am interested in the aggressive arts, separately and together. Let’s make things difficult for those who can’t keep up. Let’s make this discussion and intelligent one. Try, people. I know you can do it.
Shaq will not compete at Wrestlemania -
It’s pretty rare for WWE to flatly come out and say that a thing will not happen in a universe where “anything can happen,” but I have a feeling they’d like you to stop spreading this rumour.
The current spinner-style (though it hasn’t really spun since 2007 or so) has been around since April 2005, which makes it almost seven years old.
The Attitude Era-style belt, with the oversized Eagle on a big circle, lasted from 1998-2002. It’s outlasted that one. The Undisputed-style WWE Championship lasted from 2002-2005, so it’s outlasted that one too. It’s even outlasted the Hogan-style one, worn basically entirely by the Hulkster from 1984-1988.
The only belt in the modern era that’s outlasted the spinner is the classic eagle, which WWE used from 1988-1998. That will change if WWE doesn’t redesign the WWE Championship before 2015, which probably has everything to do with where John Cena is.
CM Punk responds to Chris Brown -
I’m glad he’s on our side.
Brandon Stroud:
It makes the crowd go “oooh” and get a little behind Cena, because they want to see the slut punished for being bad to the guy they like. That’s what it accomplishes. The guy in the Rise Above Hate shirt who tells you not to bully people is openly and unabashedly hating a woman for being a whore she’s never actually been. And at home, Zack Ryder — the loveable guy who spent the last several months pining over Eve and repeatedly expressing how much he loves her — types “broskis before hoeskis” on Twitter and makes it trend.
And that’s what we’re left with. Even the best of our characters are reducing women to objects, then condemning them for being objects when they get misrepresented or rejected.
Razor:
WWE, you’re my team, but like seeing a Bengal get arrested every week or the rampant sexual harassment that goes on during halftime of a New York Jets game, this stuff makes me embarrassed to be a fan. I can’t excuse it like I did when I was 14 and thought it was “edgy,” because it’s not edgy, it’s stupid.
From Kayfabe Comedy:
So yes, we can all agree that the segment in itself was bad and destructive and misogynistic. That should not be discounted. But even in terms of a narrative it’s poor. If we watch wrestling to learn how to be adults then this is a bad story because no one changed during the journey. No one learned how to grow up.