Shining a Spotlight 11.12.09: Backstage Politics

Posted by Michael Weyer on 11.12.2009

An overview of how backstage politics can be just messy and dangerous as elsewhere in the world.




Politics
　

　 Along with religion and sports, it's a topic always guaranteed to start a debate and be a divisive factor among people. Whether it involves your own personal politics or how you work them around people, the topic is always prevalent in our world. I live in Chicago, a town where politics is ingrained in pretty much every aspect of the city and get pretty damn dirty. The thing is, people outside the political arenas often have a vastly different idea of how it works than those involved. It's always amazed me that so many people with no political experience whatsoever can set themselves up as absolute experts and have ideas how government supposedly works. I like Al Franken, funny and insightful guy but have often felt his views of how governments can solve problems in weeks if they try is pretty naive. I'm sure in his current role in Congress, Franken is getting an eye opener on how politics are all about compromise and very rarely does it do the actual public good, rather serve individual interests.

When it comes to wrestling, politics plays a huge part, one that has a long history, both good and bad. With politics in the news more than usual lately, it's interesting to look at how wrestling has embraced it, laying a foundation that's become ingrained with the business all the way through.
　

Promotional Powers

It always amazes me how people can look back at the old territory days as a magical time where everyone worked in peace before the evil Vince McMahon ruined it all. The fact is, read most any book on the time and you'll see how a vast number of promoters pulled moves that would make even Vince appalled. These guys cared almost nothing for their workers and felt nothing wrong with pulling double-crosses on both talent and workers in order to keep themselves successful.

Things were different then as the promoters held a lot of the power. Sure, the workers could move from territory to territory but the promoters were the ones with the ability to book and make fans see how the wrestlers were presented. There was no Internet then, or the "cheat sheets" either. Kayfabe was king and everyone kept to it religiously. Sure, there were fans who knew the truth but for the most part, the public bought what they saw in the ring and thus the promoters and bookers decided what the "truth" was.

While the NWA was an "alliance" in name, the practice of it was more like a group of back biting school alumni, battling for position. Double crosses were common among members as guys would constantly be fighting each other for a bigger piece of the pie. Sure you had someone like Sam Muchnick, who did go out of his way to treat everyone fairly and serve the greater wrestling community. But for the most part, promoters were out for themselves and working for their own piece of the pie.

Indeed, the politics were responsible for major changes for the business. When Verne Gagne was refused the NWA title, he made the move to break some of the Minneapolis territories away and create the AWA. Ditto when Vince McMahon Sr. forged the World Wide Wrestling Federation in the Northwest. As the decades went on and a new generation of promoters took over, their visions didn't match those of their predecessors and as such, the NWA's power began to wane.




This, of course, opened things up for Vince McMahon Jr. to make his plays in the ‘80's. Vince has proven himself a true master of the political game in wrestling. Hell, if he'd gone into actual politics, the man would probably have become President as he's a master manipulator, utterly convincing when he makes his deals. Time and again, I've heard of Vince's amazing charisma and how you get sucked into his thinking with little effort. We all know the man can be ruthless in his dealings and play people against each other, like a real politician does. But more importantly is how Vince can be wise enough to make deals when he can and curb his own ego at times in order to make things work. He's been humbled a few times (the XFL comes to mind) but for the most part, Vince is a consummate politician who succeeds more than he fails. His political view do end up effecting his product of course…
　

Politics in WWE




While politics had no doubt played a role in the early ‘80's, things truly changed with the coming of Hulk Hogan. I remember a nice comment Bret Hart made in his autobiography in how everyone knew Hogan was the top dog but didn't really mind it because of all the money he brought in as the big star. This led to Hogan getting a lot of leeway, something that would bite McMahon more than once over the years. Hogan was the major player there, although Randy Savage got some nice work himself in during his title reign. Even the Honky Tonk Man managed to be a player, extending his IC title reign with threats to take the belt to the competition. Hogan was the dominant force, however, although he could clash at times with Vince.

When Hogan started to fall in popularity, his power began to wane. When he left, things were a bit rocky but they would soon find new political players. Bret Hart in fact, could be argued as one with his open attitude and desire to put more emphasis on how matches looked than the real drawing power. Of course, when Shawn Michaels came along, things got shifted majorly as he, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall would be the backbone of the Clique. While I personally think their power in WWF was exaggerated since Vince has always been clearly the boss, it's clear they did have a whole lot of sway. To be fair, it's forgotten how Michaels, Hall and Nash were pretty over with the crowds so giving them big time in the spotlight made sense at the time. Bret could play the political game as well, using his influence as a major star in Canada, which set up the events of Montreal.

Everyone complains of HHH using his influence with Stephanie to get ahead big time. That is probably true although I don't think to the massive degree some expect. First, it's not like HHH was the first guy using personal influence with the boss to be big. So many forget that when it came to big matches, HHH has been able to bring up his A game and put on a good show. Hunter modeled himself a lot after Ric Flair and thus wanted to use the same formula as the hated heel champion people would pay to see lose. He was able to pull back from that starting in 2005 to really let Batista and Cena take the lead. Cena and Randy Orton don't seem as interested in playing the political card all that much although I have heard rumors about Batista doing it now and then. Undertaker has pulled himself up but he has going for him the experience as an icon in the locker room and Vince respects his loyalty.

The long and short of it is that a guy may wield some power backstage but in WWE, Vince is the boss and the final say in everything. He may be swayed by some guys due to their loyalty, longevity and drawing power but he'll make the final call in what gets on TV and not. One can argue that may be a very good thing since you don't have to look too far to see how backstage politics can lead to disaster…
　

The politics of WCW

Since Jim Crockett Promotions came out of the old NWA, it's not surprising it would be a political minefield. Crockett was a smart guy but lacked the true vision Vince did in order to make it all work. He also lacked the pure backbone Vince did to step in and lay down the law and thus was manipulated too much by his two major stars, Dusty Rhodes and Ric Flair.




Dusty was able to use his amazing popularity to push his ideas, convincing Crockett that the countless "Dusty finishes" were a good thing despite how it turned off a lot of fans. Dusty also kept booking himself in the main event despite how the company had a lot of younger and hotter stars that could have used a boost. But in terms of politics, Flair had it all over Dusty. I've written before of how Flair gets a pass from fans for the fact that, in his prime, he was just as much a spotlight-hogging politician as Hogan or HHH at their worst. Yes, Flair was fantastic in the ring and brilliant at making guys look great but rarely in the ‘80's would he actually give up the title to someone hot and often would give things up to someone who didn't deserve it like Dusty or Ronnie Garvin (and even then only for a few weeks or months). Flair even had it written into his contract that he had veto authority over any title changes, a show of power unheard of. Sure, Lex Luger wasn't a fantastic worker in 1988 but he was hugely over with the fans and denying him the title cost Crockett business that could have been enough to keep him from having to sell to Turner for a while longer.

After the sale, Flair was able to use his clout to push programs with Ricky Steamboat and Terry Funk which were tremendous, of course, but did ignore the younger guys like Sting. But Flair was unprepared for the chaos when the Turner heads began to take over and showed little regard for the wrestling aspect of things. Flair's decision to take the belt with him when he left for the WWF was a rather political move which a lot of people tend to lionize more than they should as it left the company Flair had claimed to love so much hurting. One would think a veteran like Bill Watts would be good for the company but Watts' hard-nosed tactics only alienated his workers as he was unable to work in a corporate setting like Turner or adapt to a new generation of fans (insisting on pushing his unready son didn't help either).

But it was Hogan's arrival that really brought the backstage politics issue to WCW big-time. In order to cater to a guy he'd just given a big payday too, Bischoff was too willing to let Hogan do what he wanted, which included bringing back a ton of his old ‘80's running buddies and making WCW the very sort of cartoonish side-show it'd always been the opposite of. The arrival of Hall and Nash really shifted things up as the New World Order came to power. I've always felt the reason they ran so long was because it was pretty much the first successful angle in ages WCW actually did right and he hated to let go of it (a common thing in wrestling booking). The key issue was the fact the Hogan and Nash pretty much played Bischoff like a fiddle, letting themselves get whatever they wanted, keeping the younger talent down while they remained on top. Look no further than Starrcade ‘97 and the bungling of the long-planned Sting/Hogan matchup to see how that fared.

Make no mistake, that political chaos was a key reason behind WCW's collapse from the top. Not the only reason, of course, they had lots of issues but the way the big name stars kept on top while ignoring the slews of bright younger talent at their disposal was a major blow. Vince Russo was overwhelmed when he began and when you put a guy with his…unique vision into an atmosphere like that, where "every man for himself" seemed the law and the results were chaos. I don't see the need to review those last few years of WCW but the company stands as a prime example of what happens when you don't have a single voice/vision in command.
　

Politics in ECW and TNA
　
ECW was a different animal as the guys there weren't really into the whole politics stuff and thus you had a locker room mostly free of the problems that plagued the Big Two. Paul Heyman was able to keep guys pretty in line and handling some big egos like RVD among others. I should mention here that the IWC was changing the wrestling politics stuff as fans were getting a clearer view of what was going on behind the scenes and fans were getting more smart about what was happening. ECW was able to use the Internet and cheat sheets well to keep themselves popular while of course, fans were able to rant on the evils going on regarding WWE and WCW. Ironically, Heyman was unable to compromise when it came to important things like TNN and the other sponsors which ended up hurting the company. ROH has mostly been able to avoid the political situations as Gabe Sapolsky was good at smoothing things over and the guys there are more into the in-ring work than just making a buck.




TNA has been a bit different. That Jeff Jarrett held a lot of power is no surprise since he founded the company and kept himself as champion a lot. Like many a promoter/owner-turned-champion, Jarrett would really push himself hard at the expense of others, especially in ‘04-'05. It did get annoying when he would rant about how "those in the company" were against him when everyone knew he owned the company. Things have shifted with the arrival of a lot of ex-WWE guys and Russo and the recent battles between Jarrett and Angle have made the company look a bit poor. They have been rebounding a bit with AJ Styles as champion but the coming of the most brilliant backstage strategist in the business' history is bound to shake things up and maybe not for the better. True, Hogan has lost a lot of his influence and unlikely Russo is going to give him a lot of slack given their past but still worrisome. However, TNA has managed to weather a lot of storms so if they can keep the political battles to a minimum, they should be okay. However, like WCW, they lack a central figure that can keep everyone in line and maintain one vision which is the key reason WWE has been able to succeed so well.


Summation

It's difficult to give a truly in-depth judge of backstage politics since, like politics everywhere, there's a line between what the public sees and what really goes down. The IWC is filled with a lot of fallacies people believe are actual facts and rumors can become accepted as truth far more quickly than you believe. Of course, that's true for Washington politics as well as far too often, opinions overtake facts. However, it is clear that when you mix guys who are known for egos into a business that encourages "every man for himself" a lot, the results can be tricky. It's unlikely to change in the future as it's too ingrained in the business and the younger guys are often swayed into believing it's the best way to get ahead. Yeah, ability and presence counts but there will always be guys willing to use what clout they have to get ahead. It may not be pretty but then, politics rarely is which is why it takes a special mind to survive it.


For this week, the spotlight is off.