The Importance of...5.25.08: Kayfabe

Posted by Mike Chin on 05.25.2008

A column about the importance of kayfabe, plus an argument in favor of TNA bringing in Warrior Warrior.

Chinnovative Thinking
Quick notes on the past week in wrestling

-Call me crazy. Call me a 1980s WWF mark. Call me an idiot. I want TNA to bring in The Ultimate Warrior for a brief run.

The reason why I'd support this move is quite simple—if they brought in Warrior Warrior, I would watch. As it stands, I'm a casual TNA fan. I watch Impact when I'm free, and there's nothing else I want to see on TV opposite it. I've never been to a live show, never ordered a PPV, and the only DVDs I own are ones I bought during their $5 sale at the turn of the year. Take my current status, and then advertise that you're going to have The Ultimate Warrior on. I'll be honest—I would make a point of not missing Impact, and I'd probably order my first TNA PPV, if for no other reason than to see just how crazy this guy will be.

The key to bringing Warrior to the company is to use him properly. First of all, this means next to no promo time (his first 15 minutes of incoherency on the stick really killed his WCW run). Secondly, it means short term booking that won't leave the company completely screwed when he inevitably fizzles out and returns to parts unknown. You can't put him over anyone important in any meaningful way, which means no one-on-one victories over anyone from the midcard up. Finally, you can't let him have too much ring time, lest you expose the lack of skill and conditioning that, (alongside his insanity) always put a cap on how far he could go in the business.

So the answer in the end? Bring him in for a 2-3 month run, tag teaming with Sting. Have Sting play face in peril at every turn, give Warrior the hot tags where he gets to run roughshod over the heels for 1-2 minutes before getting the win. Put them over a lower level team like Rellik and Silverdust or the Rock N Rave Infection first, then give us a Blade Runners-Steiner Brothers, or Blade Runners-Team 3D showdown before sending Warrior home. Shell out, Dixie. Book it, Vinne Ru.

-Before the news about Regal's wellness situation came out, how odd did this Monday's booking for the Regal-Kennedy program seem? You can say I'm overly optimistic, but the first two weeks of build for this feud had me thinking we might have a legitimate heir to the Austin-McMahon legacy. But then we get these two one-on-one already? And on free TV? And unadvertised? And in a no DQ match? And in f*cking you're fired match? For a minute, I thought I was watching Impact.

It's a real shame that Regal put himself in this position. He had a great push going, and was playing the perfect foil for Kennedy. I'm not sure where either man goes from here. Perhaps McMahon himself steps into the familiar role of heel authority figure, or perhaps Regal returns in two months for crazy, unsanctioned run-ins against Kennedy. Perhaps they drop the whole thing, and Kennedy continues to rot in the mid-card, while Regal returns to do Heat and job duty. I guess we'll see…

-So hey, guess what? I just heard about this great I Quit match between Tully Blanchard and Magn—oh—shoot. Guess I'm a week late.

All kidding aside, yes, as the bulk of last week's comments will attest, I dropped the ball on missing Blanchard-Magnum TA in my discussion of great I Quit matches. At the risk of hurting my credibility even further, the reason I didn't include this match was because I have not personally seen it, and don't like writing about matches I haven't seen. I knew it was a high profile match, but I think I also underestimated just how significant it was, and so, I will gladly have a slice of humble pie a la mode for that blunder. Regarding other significant matches from last week's comments—I actually did include the Chavo-Rey matches in my first draft of the column, but didn't have much of note to say about those ones, and ended up cutting the deadweight paragraph. You can make a case that Vince-Stephanie belonged in the column—it's another oversight, but not necessarily one I'd apologize for. Good match for what it was, but, in the end, it was what it was.

On to our regular column...

One of the pieces of professional wrestling that makes it unique to any other form of contemporary entertainment or sport is the institution of kayfabe. Wrestling is a work. The finishes are predetermined, the feuds are scripted, the greatest spots are pre-planned between the wrestlers and many of the promos are written backstage long before delivery. I doubt that any of this is news to anyone reading this column. And as much as we in the IWC like to make like we're up above the general fan population, I don't think there's an overwhelming number of fans out there anywhere who believe wrestling is all real. With that being said it's easy to think that kayfabe doesn't matter anymore, and there's no point in continuing the old ways of trying to protect the business. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. While the business has changed, kayfabe remains of the utmost importance.

One of the first and most obvious reasons to defend kayfabe is for the benefit of those who do not know the business is work. Stereotypically, this population is made up of kids, super-casual fans, or people who either aren't all there mentally, or for some reason just don't get what wrestling's about. In my own life, I can refer to my grandfather in this light. Born in China, he lived most of his adult life in the USA, without ever developing more than the most basic understanding of the English language. Despite watching wrestling for over three decades, he never saw it as a work, and despite my father, often in unkind terms, telling him that it was, he never believed it. This is a quality that I think I will always admire in my grandfather. I am a fan for very different reasons, as I love to analyze and pick apart the business with the knowledge that it's all a show. But I can only imagine just how entertaining and, indeed, epic wrestling would be if I were conceive of it as all being real. Such is the appeal to thousands of kids out there who haven't been smartened up. It's like believing in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and monsters under your bed. None of it makes sense when you really think about it, but when you have the capacity to believe, these are pretty profound things.

Kayfabe isn't just valuable for the marks, though. Turning back the hands of time, let's recall Wrestlemania VII, when Randy Savage reunited with Miss Elizabeth, an emotional moment which led to their on air wedding the following summer. In reality, every piece of this is absurd. In the real world, Savage and Elizabeth had already been married for the better part of a decade. And in the ring, you're telling me dainty Elizabeth was actually able to save The Macho Man from one of the greatest female wrestlers of all time in Sherrie Martel? And after the save, Savage was going to take back two and half years of being a total asshole to fall back in love with Elizabeth? None of this makes any real world sense. Put all of the pieces together, though, in kayfabe, and you have the culmination of one of the longest running, best-executed storylines of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Savage and Elizabeth were lovers, torn apart by jealousy and Savage's meteoric rise to the top of the business. Elizabeth was fiercely loyal, and in seeing her man destroyed, adrenaline carried her to dispose of Sherrie. How could Savage not be grateful for the rescue, and not remember all of his history with Elizabeth, and accept her back into his arms that night? What we have here is one of the greatest mark out moments of all time. Hell, 17 years later, I still mark out every time I watch the match on DVD (mind you, long after the real Savage has gone completely insane, and Elizabeth is no longer with us).

Without kayfabe there could be no marks, and it would be much harder for there to be any mark-out moments. Wrestling doesn't have to be believable in order to give us reason to believe. So long as there is some degree of consistency in the storylines, and no one's coming out and saying it's all fake in the context of the show, the business allows markdom to persevere.

The IWC likes to describe mark-out moments as if they are unique to wrestling. In reality, though, mark-out moments are there in every form of entertainment. Fans of the TV show Friends marked out when Rachel and Ross ended up together in the series finale. Fans of The Matrix marked out when Neo and Trinity blazed there way through the lobby en route to saving Morpheus. You'd have to be legitimately insane to believe that either of these moments were true. But the people behind that show and that film were able to create a product good enough that viewers could lose themselves in the moment, and not consciously think about the fact they were watching TV at the time. The same can be true of wrestling. As much as we know it's a work, during the best matches and the best programs, we can forget that we are watching a show, and let ourselves get wrapped up in the action. All that wrestling really needs to do to promote this sensation is to do like TV shows, movies, books and plays do—not acknowledge the show is a work while it's going on. This is why kayfabe can survive the blooming business of tell-all wrestling documentaries and books. These new media are like articles in Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly. Sure, they don't pretend that the shows are real, but they exist in a different universe from the show itself. You'll never see an episode of The Office where Michael Scott slips out of character. Such should generally be the case in wrestling as well (I say generally, because I don't have anything against special exceptions like Flair's retirement or the Eddie Guerrero tribute show).

All in all, kayfabe is what makes pro wrestling pro wrestling. It's simultaneously the business's dirty little secret, and it's greatest element—the piece of it that allows the mark in each and every one of us to believe that for every villain there is a hero, and in the end, the heroes will triumph, winning world championships, redeeming themselves with face turns, and competing on the most dramatic stage in the modern world.

That's all for this column. Next week, we take a look at the importance of Referees. See you in seven.