JOE BABINSACK LOOKS AT THE DETAILS OF PRO WRESTLING
- 09/06/2008 (3:44:01 pm)
- Georgiann Makropoulos
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It’s all in the details. When so many are complaining about the nature of the professional wrestling product, it’s easy to dismiss the critics and the complainers. Wrestling is wrestling, some say. Wrestling is just boiled down to violence, to all the wrong emotions, to stereotypes and male power fantasies. But when you explore the differences between what looks good, and what looks boring, it’s easy to point out the details. Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels? That's all about the details. Love him or hate him, Shawn Michaels is a consummate performer, a student of the business and someone who knows that doing the little things are what makes an angle worthwhile. Chris Jericho is the heir to the Hart legacy, and someone well schooled in various professional wrestling artforms, from Lucha Libre to Super Junior Japan style, from old school to hardcore, from Europe to Asia and Parts Unknown. Thing is, when Michaels and Jericho cooked up their blossoming angle, they didn’t pay heed to the Hollywood writer types. They didn’t let their careers rest in the hands of dramatists who know nothing about the industry, know nothing about it’s glorious history, and know nothing about putting on compelling storylines. Because, if they did, then they would be in the same boat as the Championship Belt Scrambles. And they’d probably have three other competitors foisted on their match, ruining the interest, watering down the emotion and overplaying certain stereotypes. No, the details are in there. Maybe Jericho really isn’t trying to elicit a comparison to that guy who butchered his family last year, but I’m seeing something of that in his appearance. Maybe Shawn just stumbled into his facial expressions, moving from a quiet acceptance of his retirement, to a brewing anger, to a subdued loathing for Jericho. Sure, it’s all subtle, but subtleties are what make the difference between schlock and scintillating. I got that same feeling when I put in a recently received DVD, from Hybrid Wrestling out of Ohio. Sure, most indy promotions play in gymnasiums, and have low rent productions, and really don’t seem to mind the lack of effort or lack of quality or lack of names. But Hybrid? They have top notch production values. They’re in a gym, but they’ve angled the ring and moved the shots to make it look futuristic and different, not just the same old stuff. But this isn’t a review of Hybrid’s Project Mayhem DVD. That will come later. See, working a column is like working the audience. It’s like building a storyline. On SmackDown! yesterday, we got “schooled” by HHH about what a “PROMO” is, and he took us inside to publicly whack Jeff Hardy about his “two strikes” and then he displayed his sense of professional wrestling understanding by basically cutting the Great Khali out at his knees. Better people than I have expressed how foolish it is to make a likely legit seven footer into just one more wrestler on the roster. But watching HHH not just beat Khali, but “power out” of the dreaded Vise Grip was something that turned my stomach. If HHH is Superman, then why should anyone wonder about him matching up with THE Brian Kendrick (Spanky to you and me) or any of the other mid-carders (except Jeff, who was put in his place in a different fashion) or any of the purported “odds” that HHH jokingly referred to? The only cool thing about SmackDown! Was Ezekiel Jones no-selling that chair shot from HHH. Well, except that he didn’t no-sell it. He sold it a bit, and then showed that he … enjoyed it. That’s the kind of action one wants to see in wrestling, the long term developments and the promotional tactics that raise an otherwise one-dimensional product into something multi-dimensional. It’s sort of like me dropping the name of Gary Howard, and his excellent book, “The Rassler from Renfrew” and his detailed history of Northern Ontario’s long-running promotion. Howard explores and explains how Larry Kasabowski built up his promotion and use a lot of archaic means, and likely interesting options, to make sure the crowds came back the next week. Because, that’s what professional wrestling should be all about -- making it so the audience wants to come back the next week. But we live in an era where weekly TV watching is an assumption, and coming back to the local arena means coming back 6 months or a year from the event. Things are different. But not so different that Hollywood writers and fading stars can figure out what to do. Hollywood writers (aren’t they unionized?) are geared for producing television that has a set season. And if they’re doing a movie, they don’t really concern themselves with having the people come back the next week. Sure, the really good ones plant seeds for sequels, but as horror flicks have shown, seeding a sequel isn’t that hard to do. Hollywood’s answer to sequels is to buy the book rights to a book that has already being written as a sequel. In other words, there’s little thought put into it -- it’s already packaged. So, while the history of professional wrestling -- as Gary Howard writes about it, as Michaels and Jericho act out, and as Hybrid wrestling shows -- is all about creating interest, holding the fans’ attention and making a good product, the efforts of the WWE continue to be focused on pleasing Vincent Kennedy McMahon’s tastes. Which was excellent ten years ago, and seems to be excellent ever time he (or his family) has linked up with a larger than life personality (Sammartino, Hogan, Austin, Rock) but these days, there’s no one inspiring on the roster, and nothing inspiring in the storylines. Maybe it’s just that wrestling has passed a certain person by, but then again, when the guys in the ring do the details right, it seems to connect. Maybe it’s that the details are being left to the wrong people? Joe Babinsack can be reached at [email protected]. Let’s see, I’ve dropped the names of Hybrid and Howard….what more should I do to entice you to come back next time? |
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