Match A Day 12.24.09: Week 36 - Wrestling Fans Are Victims

Posted by Jake Chambers on 12.24.2009

A discussion of the victim-hood of the modern American pro-wrestling fan, false wrestling innovators, another Match of the Year Alert, and more!

There was an infamous review in The New Yorker decades ago by renowned dance critic Anne Croce, where she refused to actually see a performance that she gave a negative review. The performance she hated so much was called ‘Still/Here' produced by HIV-positive choreographer Bill T. Jones, and it incorporated videotaped testimonials from others infected by HIV throughout the show. Croce deemed that this was not art because, rather than depicting people dying through drama or performance, it used real dying people as a way to shun critics and make the show review proof through sentimentality. Her problem was that she would never be allowed to write critically about a performance like this and thus there was no reason to review something she knew was wrong based on a higher principle.

Readings of Croce's purpose and motivation for her anti-review since then have been numerous, but her refusal to actually see what she called ‘victim art' was an interesting rhetorical strategy nonetheless. Pro-wrestling has also become a conflicting art to review these days. Wrestling fans, specifically those who populate the Internet with their criticism, are from a generation where it became not only okay, but common, to talk about pro-wrestling as a staged/predetermined/phony sport. Rather than living vicariously in the role of fake fan at a fake sport, as other generations were allowed, the fans of today live every day with a sense of betrayal that the thing they took very seriously as a child is actually an embarrassingly stupid thing to take seriously as an adult. Rather than helping to morph pro-wrestling into a critical art form, the pro-wrestling Internet culture has reacted childishly, thus allowing the industry of pro-wrestling to take advantage of their loyalty and good nature again and again while ostracizing themselves from each other and any serious academic discussion.

I come to this topic based on some of the smattering of response to my column about why TNA Wrestling Sucks, specifically their fans. I believe that there are a large number of people who believe that because this is pro-wrestling on television, ‘we' the wrestling fans/critics must support it, and everything, or else risk losing credibility. It's almost like saying if you dislike some aspect of pro-wrestling for any reason not part of a mysteriously phantom collective Internet Wrestling Community voice, then you are automatically an idiot. Some would hope to manipulate this ‘voice' to support all things pro-wrestling in order for ‘the business' to succeed, while others would have this ‘voice' support the success of TNA because it's better for the ‘industry' to have competition, and anything outside of those two views is asinine. Well, most should be able to see the holes in this self-serving attempt to manipulate the collective voice of critics and fans, and that it is not part of a righteous attempt to save an art form, but simply people who have become victims to the cycles of abuse perpetrated by a phenomena that continues to treat adults like children and refuse any semblance of intellectual criticism due to old fashioned, punch-you-in-the-face kayfabe protectionism.

And now MAD Week 36 can begin…

Match #241 – Sunday, November 29th
Kevin Steen & El Generico & Bryan Danielson vs. American Wolves and Sylvan Grenier
[ROH The Hunt Begins, April 2009]

Gotta give huge credit to the wrestlers in this one, the transformation they pulled on the crowd was miraculous! As much as I was doubting the stalling by the American Wolves and Grenier in the beginning as feeding into the deadness of the crowd (except for the amazingly musically impaired rendition of the opening lines of the Star Spangled Banner by a Davey Richards), the escalation of their toughness and determination to match the good guys move for move later in the match, and then their ultimate humbling by the ferocity of Dragon and his teammates, made for an incredible ebb and flow that swept up the previously zombified crowd.

Just why was the crowd so dead? That's a good question! This is Montreal, of course, so you can't expect anything reasonable or rational from the French, now can we? Call me crazy, but I always thought that Quebec was actually a province for zombies! They eat weird food, just like brains, they speak in an incomprehensible language, like the moans of zombies, their archenemies are the Native People, and they sit on their hands during Ring of Honor shows.


-Zombie?

Match #242 – Monday, November 30th
Corvis Fear vs. Eric Alverado
[Beyond Wrestling, October 2009]



Look no further than Part 2 of this match, for reasons why Beyond Wrestling is so unique. The wrestlers share a legit water break in the middle of the ring, Eric Alverado has a verbal argument with one of the wrestlers in the ‘audience', and the finishing move by Corvis Fear is so dangerously beautiful, you know you'll never see anything like that one a card where politics and protecting face trumps artistry and wrestler creativity.



Match #243 – Tuesday, December 1st
Markham Street Fight: Jimmy Jacobs vs. Delirious
[ROH Tag Title Classic, April 2009]

MAD stalwart Delirious is back here in his red clad version, taking on his former leader Jimmy Jacobs in the self consciously named Markham Street Fight… the streets of Markham will never be the safe again for Hong Kong immigrants and kids going to hockey practice.

While not as epic or satisfying as the Jacobs/Necro blow-off that I reviewed last week, this was still a pretty good match that was hampered by too much ringside punch-ups and a pointless collection of plastic chairs on the ring mat that never really went anywhere. Also, the ending sequence saw Daizee Haze run in for the one billionth time in this feud, leading to a predictable sequence of Jacobs hair pulling, threatened spiking, misting and climatic reversals of fortune, before Delirious claimed the cathartic win.

Match #244 – Wednesday, December 2nd
Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Ricky Steamboat
[All Japan, December 1980]

I love these old school matches, but it's particularly interesting to me this week since I notice that the Japanese audience in 1980 seems generally unchanged to the Japanese audience of today. While politics and drama have not escaped the Japanese pro-wrestling scene in the past thirty years, one has to wonder what is different about the culture of Japan that allows them to take wrestling seriously and comfortably not seriously simultaneously. The falsification of the athletics rather than hyperbolized drama, may be one factor, as classic athletic draws like this match showcased realistic, fight-like struggles, something that basically continues today in mainstream Japanese wrestling.


-Jumbo man, tiny titles

Match #245 – Thursday, December 3rd
World Heavyweight Championship Match: Jeff Hardy vs. John Morrison
[WWE Smackdown, July 2009]

No doubt, Smackdown put on some great main events in the summer of 2009, and here's another case. Yet, I have a problem with the commentary yet again, as both guys are traditionally high flyers who have beefed up and grounded a bit in the last couple of years, therefore, is it necessary to continue to refer to them as innovators? In my opinion, an innovator is someone who does something new or different, not someone who simply bounces off the ropes in a certain way. Morrison and Hardy have been pretty much doing the same moves for years, with little in the way of innovation when it comes to the presentation of those moves. This is not a knock on their performances, which I thought were fantastic in this match, it's more a peeve I have with the commentators and the influence they would have on the audience into thinking these guys are innovators today, so when a true innovator like Bryan Danielson or Samoa Joe come along, it's much more difficult to promote their style of wrestling because viewers have been conditioned to think innovation applies only to more bounces, flips, spirals, or different use of steps, chairs and ladders as weapons.

Match #246 – Friday, December 4th
Vacant IWGP Title Match: Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Togi Makabe
[New Japan, September 2009]

Here are two guys that absolutely tore it up this year, particularly in the G1 Climax tournament. While I was not a big fan of Makabe or his faction GHB, I have to admit that his work this year has won me over. Yet, not enough to cheer for him against Nakamura in this rematch from the G1 Finals, in a battle for the IWGP title vacated by poor pretty boy Hiroshi Tanahashi's busted eye socket (get a hair cut too, you pussy!).



Watch the way they work the armbar at around the 3:00 mark of Part 2. Now, that's an effective way to work a submission in this MMA-smart environment. It's not about having the hold applied in order to cause pain for a sustained period, since any child now knows that a cross armbar can break an arm in seconds and thus the person has to tap. Instead, they work towards the completion of the move, with a prolonged struggle to avoid having the move set in. This does happen here and there, of course, but Nakamura is brilliant at developing this move and combining the PRO and MMA styles.



Match #247 – Saturday, December 5th
ROH World Tag Team Titles Match: American Wolves vs. Bryan Danielson & Tyler Black
[ROH Tag Title Classic, April 2009]

MATCH OF THE YEAR ALERT

Whenever you see the words ‘Time Limit Draw' and Ring of Honor in the same sentence, you know you are in for something special. Add the name Bryan Danielson and the match is gonna be golden!

This non-stop marathon has some inspirational moments, some awe-inspiring scenes, and some truly fist-pumping touches that puts this match at the top of my list for 2009. It is amazing how when given 45-minutes to create a wrestling match, this environment led to such a brilliant experience, compared to most mainstream matches that luckily receive ¼ of the time yet feel 10 times as long.

What the ROH DVD provides to the wrestling word is truly special, and something not to be taken for granted. A match like this, with this amount of adrenaline and emotion and crowd investment, works perfectly as a taped experience because it captures the artistic endeavor so thoroughly and athletically that it feels like a self-contained movie or television show, rather than the episodic chapters that mainstream wrestling like WWE and TNA have degraded and conditioned us into accepting. While those pieces of redundant storytelling and monotonous matches played to dullard audiences who react like puppets are doubtfully re-watchable, ROH presents fulfilling entertainment that you can know the outcome of and yet still enjoy. This match was the ultimate extension of this ability of the ROH DVD series, something that everyone reading this needs to buy in order to support a wrestling world where this kind of product can exist.



Most of the victimization of pro-wrestling culture stems from the mainstream admission that pro-wrestling is fake. Although, most people knew that pro-wrestling was not a legit fight, decades before anyone reading this was ever even born, it is the conceit of internet culture that drives this generation of fans into a self-righteous battle against the judgment of their hobby. While the Internet did not necessarily bring about an enlightenment in the collective wrestling fan, it did provide a voice to a certain segment who felt most hurt by the switch from mark to smark, and learning that there were even names for these states of fandom. Whereas fans from the previous generation could take comfort in the fun of pretending to be a ‘real fan,' our generation is stuck in a confusing space between bravado and debate.

The Attitude Era of the WWF added some cache to the dying flame of pro-wrestling's pop culture credibility, bringing back some adult fans who had given up on the show once they grew out of it's phoniness. This gave those fans who had stuck with it (like me) some sense of satisfaction, but that was soon destroyed when none of those casual fans stuck around. Rather than WWE evolving into a hip, adult sport like the UFC became, it washed back down into the sewer with Monster Trucks, Cosplay and Daytime Soaps. The WWE does not care about the attitude or appetites of these remaining adult fans, mainly because they can be blamed for not helping to glamorize the fan base during this era. The adult fans (yes, like me) were just too fucking geeky, and thus all the cool were gone and now the WWE has to wipe the slate clear and try to start all over again with a new generation.

Instead of arguing for pro-wrestling as an art form, now the popular first defense of fans is that they are following wrestling as a kind of evaluation of the business model of a company. This is a sad and shallow claim that can be seen through by most, in that the industry has absorbed these fans into their process in order to stop from losing them in the wake of a loss of cool and credibility. This was a simple manipulation pulled off by mainstream pro-wrestling that is almost like a company that now makes money off of the image of Santa Claus (or Jesus), since we are in a time when the magic of myth and fairy tale can easily be proven false, these symbols are held onto for commercial value rather than spiritual value by those in control of the images.

Croce felt that once art is created to be un-reviewable then there would be no room left for intellectual criticism of that genre. The producers of ‘victim art' she claimed would be manipulating the emotion of the audience to look past the quality of the show for sentimental reasons. The effect on the audience would be catastrophic and lead to the end of art. Mainstream pro-wrestling has continued to brashly produce a dumbed-down product in spite of the rational knowledge by the Internet fan base of the system and history of the art form. This manipulation looks to be a long term trend, and it is the responsibility of the audience now not to fall in line with a hegemonic ‘voice' of smarmy geekiness, or else we will all be victims, calling each other idiots like naive children angry that their parents made rules they don't understand.