Haven’t We Seen This Before? 5.06.06: The Cheap Pop
Posted by Ryan Frank on 05.06.2006
“Don’t you DARE insult the great city of *Insert Name*!”
Before I begin, I wanted to thank you for all of the feedback I received from my debut column last week. You're probably just being overly forgiving to the newbies, and the hate mail will start soon enough, but I'll enjoy it while it lasts. I'm still more than a bit shocked to have gotten a column, and now I'm just hoping I don't run out of ideas anytime soon. I also want to apologize to the Triple Threat guys for saying last week that my column was the last of the debuts. If you haven't read their column yet, do so; quite an interesting variety of perspectives.
This week, instead of focusing on a particular character stereotype, I wanted to focus on a babyface promo element: The Cheap Pop.
You know how it goes; it's the same set week after week and, if not for three things, you'd never even notice where the show was taking place: the announcers' mention of the location at the top of the show, occasional glimpses of the arena's exterior, and the dreaded Cheap Pops, mentions of the show's location that are meant to excite the live crowd. It has many different varieties, but do any of them still work? Let's see.
The simplest type is when a face will almost-randomly insert the name of the town into his promo. It's a tried-and-true tactic for getting a quick pop, and the wrestler doesn't even have to say anything about the town; the name is enough. Actually, giving more detail about the town can backfire by going too far into pandering territory. However, one wrestler has left such an indelible mark on this technique that its usefulness for current and future wrestlers is questionable: Mick Foley. He made gratuitous mention of the show's location such a prominent part of his babyface promos that the very term "Cheap Pop" is inextricably linked with him. There was a self-deprecating element to this, implying to the audience that he was resorting to the cheapest of tactics to get over, and that was part of what made his character charming to the audience. (Yes, I know, it's odd to refer to someone who is most famous for Hardcore matches as "charming," but I do think the term applies when he's in the "teddy bear" version of his persona.) However, by doing this, he effectively pointed out to the audience, over and over, that mentioning the town's name is just a cheap way of getting a cheer. It worked for him, by exposing one of the clich?s of the business and playing it off as a joke with the audience, but at the same time it has made the tactic less valuable for future performers, since the audience has been made starkly aware of what the performer is trying to do. This goes back to my point last week about Batista; I hope that his exposure of standard babyface gullibility doesn't make every other face look like an idiot by comparison.
The Rock took a different approach by making his version of the Cheap Pop into one of his catchphrases: "FINALLY…The Rock…Has Come Back…To *insert name here*!" The audience was encouraged to chant along with it, and they did. The lead-up was far more important than the mention of the town's name, which in most cases was a bit of an afterthought. This may provide a model for effective use of the Cheap Pop in the future.
Other times, use of variants of the Cheap Pop makes little sense. Often, street fight-type matches will have the town's name placed in front of them (e.g., "Chicago Street Fight"), even though nothing about the town seems to play any role in the content of the match. Maybe it is intended to make the audience believe that they are being indirectly praised for toughness, but this doesn't seem like an effective way to do so. Then again, adding elements to the match that would be too closely related to the town might run the risk of overly pandering yet again.
Announcers also get in on it, and this has never made much sense to me. JR, especially, is prone to discussing the merits of the town in question. Given that the live audience generally cannot hear the announcers, this cannot be meant to elicit a reaction from them. Maybe it is meant to get a strong positive reaction from local viewers who did not come to the live show, so that they will attend next time. Maybe the announcer is just looking for something to talk about, to fill the time, and talking about the town is a way to avoid saying the same things week after week.
Then again, one Cheap Pop type that I wish would come into practice again, the house show promo, was also directed at the viewing audience. As a child, I would watch Superstars and see promos for upcoming local house shows. In these, the wrestlers would give their usual 1980s backstage interviews, shouting about how they were looking forward to destroying their opponents, but would mention that they would be doing so in my hometown, Johnstown, PA. I was probably around 8 at the time, and it didn't dawn on me that the wrestlers were standing in front of that background giving many, many identical promos, one for each town. I just saw that they were building up matches especially for the show in my little town, implying they really did care about what happened during the show, and for my young-mark self, that made me a lot more willing to beg my father to take me to the show. This was especially effective in small rural towns like mine that would never stand a chance of getting a TV taping. It made the house shows feel important in a way that the current narrated weekly list does not. Anyway, before I regress any further into childhood, let's cut that topic off.
The Cheap Pop. One of the most time-honored, and timeworn, clich?s of wrestling. Can it still work? In short, yes. It's still very nearly in "works every time" territory, though its effectiveness has lessened in recent years. As with any clich?, even a slightly fresh take is all that would be needed to restore its old effect instead of just leaving you feeling like you've Seen This Before.
And now, Reader Mail!
RM has a question for me:
Good column. I can see you'll have a future around 411.
I wanted to mention a particular part of your article and get your take
on something-
"WWE's attempts to use over-the-top stunts to get Cena over again have backfired. Whenever he is given an overly-elaborate entrance (such as at Royal Rumble 2006 or Wrestlemania 22), the fans are reminded that he is the opposite of Anti-Establishment. Even in storyline, there is no way to buy that these huge stunts are being backed by anyone but management."
I appreciate that because of issues I had with a complimentary topic to this one: The Anti-Establishment Stable. I bought early on that the nWo was this rogue group invading WCW...until they had elaborate entrances with little projected nWo logos on the floor. Later when DX was conceived in the WWF it was even worse. You're telling me that these guys are rebels against McMahon's stooges yet they get this long, drawn-out entrance with green lights and pyro?
How do you feel about this?
To be honest, because of the restrictions of the school I was attending at the time, I didn't get to watch wrestling during the Attitude Era, though I've done my best to catch up with tapes and recaps. From what I can tell, though, I can sort of buy how it was handled with the nWo, since they were portrayed as not just rebels, but as being "above" WCW, so it wasn't a huge stretch for me to accept that they could just buy their way into dodging management's rules. Of course, they later got into very odd territory when authority figures like Bischoff joined the stable, badly blurring the authority/anti-authority line, and even stranger territory when they got to run their own PPV. As for DX, I agree with you completely; without the "rich-jerks-from-Up-North" element that the early nWo had, it just didn't make any storyline sense to give them so much. Then again, the fans went for it that time, so I think your point actually blows a pretty large hole in my reasoning from last week's column. RM: 1. Ryan: 0.
Matt Moses had a bit of a revelation when writing his response:
Nice debut column. I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head when it comes to John Cena. There is so much of his personality that is obviously establishment. Here is a list of some of the stuff I thought of.
1) When John Cena turned face, his promos changed. They went from funny and sometimes controversial to cracking regular poop jokes. With the sudden change, it is an obvious influence by the establishment.
2) His wrestling style. One of the biggest gripes against Cena is that his matches are boring and repetitive. Anyone who knows anything about his pre-WWE days knows that he wasn't a bad wrestler at all. Obviously another establishment influence. (I do note that Austin was very much the same way...but all the rights outweighed this one wrong).
3) 5 Questions with the Champ. Come on, let's get serious. While getting a chance to see what our favorite wrestlers think is a great thing, the fact that it is sanctioned by the WWE helps hurt the image of anti-establishment.
4) This is more along the lines of my own personal dislike. His spinner title. I hate it. My big problem with it is that Cena is supposed to be this anti-establishment character, so he changes a title he wins to fit his personality (no problem there), but then the WWE starts to sell replicas of this thing all over the place. If Cena was really anti-establishment, I wouldn't think the WWE would endorse his alteration.
Something just crossed my mind. John Cena ISN'T a face!!! Picture this: back in high school, there was the one kid who nobody liked, so he did EVERYTHING in his power to try and get people to like him. The harder he tried, the more people hated him. John Cena is that kid. Looking back at everything, I think WWE figured out awhile back what was going wrong and may be building off of it, turning him into one of the most unique heels ever: the guy you hate because he WANTS you to like him. And with his "I acknowledge that people don't like me" phrases, it just reminds me of someone in denial. Maybe...JUST maybe...this anti-Cena heat is being wanted now and WWE is just pushing our buttons (Cena goes over...Cena overcomes impossible odds...Cena makes another lame poop joke that nobody laughs at).
Hmmm, interesting. Well, anyway, I enjoyed your column. Keep it up.
Wait, I Was that guy in high school!!! Still am in grad school, now that you mention it. Anyway… I've often wondered just how much of Cena's current situation is intentional on the part of WWE. With a fanbase that tends to cheer any heel who becomes interesting, it must be difficult to book someone as a full-on heel anymore who won't bore the audience completely but also won't get cheered. They've already done the "face in one country, heel in another" routine, so why not purposely book someone as a face to some segments of the audience and as a heel to others? As for the spinner belt, I don't much like it either. Then again, with the number of them that they seem to sell, I have a hard time begrudging them for choosing substantial merch income over a fairly-subtle bit of storyline consistency.
Jislaine Medina gives me far more praise than I deserve:
I noticed you are one of the newly-hired 411 writers, and I can see why they selected you. I'm no expert on the 411 standard of first columns, but that was an excellent read! Your explanation of why Batista is anti-establishment makes perfect sense; I hadn't thought of it that way before. I especially liked the part about how he and the fans treat every heel ruse like an inside joke. I knew there was something funny about how he interacted with heels, but I could never quite put my finger on it. Now it seems so obvious, but hindsight's always 20/20, right? Maybe I didn't look hard enough, but yours is also the first simple explanation anyone has given as to why people boo Cena. Thank you for the clarification on that subject.
Once again, great work. Keep 'em coming!
Thanks, Jislaine. With the endless columns that have been written about the man lately, I really doubt I've said anything original, but if you want to give me credit, who the hell am I not to take it?
Luke takes issue with my writing style:
I think you hit the nail on the head regarding Austin, Batista and Cena. The only bad point was that the column had no climax whatsoever. Not even an "All right, bye" or anything. It just ended, which is good for novels and stuff but not for a column, especially when you introduced yourself at the begging and everything. It left a slightly
bitter taste in my mouth. Aside from that, though, a great column and I am looking forward to reading more. All right, bye.
You're absolutely right. I felt like I had hit all of the points I wanted to hit, and I paid no attention at all to wrapping it up properly once I had done so. Worse yet, I made the classic hack writer mistake of liking a line so much that I wanted to have it as the end of the column, no matter what. I'll try to do better from now on, though I'm horribly tempted by the idea of ending all of my columns from now on with "All right, bye."
Again, thanks for the feedback; keep it coming, by which I mean email me, dammit!
