The Importance of...12.12.08: Celebrities in Wrestling

Posted by Mike Chin on 12.12.2008

From Floyd Mayweather to David Arquette, this column takes a look back at the best and worst use of celebrities in professional wrestling, and how important celebrities have been to the business. All of this, plus a review of the Slammy Awards and props for Joey Styles!

Chinsulation… It Keeps Out the Cold
Quick notes from the past week in wrestling

-While I ultimately felt this Monday's Raw fell pretty flat (yes, Manu, Rhodes and Orton v.s Triple H and Batista is *so* much better than The Game versus The Animal for the first time in three years), I do have to give credit where it's do. WWE made the unconventional decision to actually take The Slammy Awards seriously and, in my estimation, give the awards to the deserving parties in almost every instance. Chris Jericho? Hated heel, but it's tough to deny he was the MVP of WWE in 2008. Ditto for Miz and Morrison and Beth Phoneix in their respective roles. Edge and Vickie are uberheels, but there's no question they were the on-screen power couple of the year. WWE could have easily not given Michaels-Flair props for being the best match of the year, given Flair's decision to walk away from the company. Nonetheless, they respected the clear winner. My only big grievance coming out of the awards section of the show is that it took the Slammy awards to finally assign a name to The Undertaker's gogoplata. For Chrissake, the guy used the move to win the main event of Wrestlemania, and this is what it takes to get the move a name? (Note: I haven't caught Smackdown for a few weeks, so if the name did come up prior to this, my bad. It was still long overdue).

-I'm still not 100% convinced it's true, but how about that story of Joey Styles laying out JBL in Iraq? Boys will be boys backstage, but, specifically as someone who works with children, I have little tolerance for bullying and hazing. Violence may not have been the most productive response, but I can't help smiling at the thought of Styles standing up for himself and giving Bradshaw a long overdue taste of his own humiliation.

On to our regular column...

Throughout pro wrestling history, major promotions have often used celebrities as a way of drawing attention to their product. There are cases like the inaugural Wrestlemania, where Liberace, Cyndi Lauper, Mohammed Ali, and Mr. T arrived to play varying roles, ranging from valets, to symbolic officials, to active participants in the ring. Then there are cases like Floyd Mayweather's appearance in Wrestlemania XXIV, where the man had his own, well-defined program leading into a high profile match. Over time, it has grown increasingly clear that the use of celebrities is not a paint-by-numbers activity, but rather a legitimate art, for which bookers must take careful consideration of a celebrity's strengths and limitations to use him or her effectively. There are times when this has worked quite well, and others where the results have been painfully bad. These varied results have demonstrated that the importance of using celebrities properly in the wrestling world.

Some celebrities come into the business with more potential to succeed than others. Specifically, celebrity athletes are generally fit, powerful and athletic enough to enjoy some degree of success. Floyd Mayweather was a model celebrity performer in this regard. Boxing is one of the closest matches you can get to professional wrestling, and Mayweather demonstrated this well, sticking to the brand of offense he realistically could as he dazed The Big Show with a stick and move, punch-heavy brand of offense. WWE was smart enough to complement this strength with some overbooking—a bevy of Mayweather's friends attempting to help him, allowing Show to deliver his best offense on him, and making it much more believable for Mayweather to ultimately sneak his way to victory.

Similar to Mayweather's success was the performance of Lawrence Taylor at Wrestlemania XI. The WWF put a lot of eggs in Taylor's basket for that show, going so far as to give the match the main event spot at the biggest show of the year. Part of the success was picking the right opponent for LT. Like pairing Show with Mayweather, sending in Bam Bam Bigelow to job out to Taylor was smart because he was high profile, looked formidable, and, most importantly, could help carry his opponent to a good match. Taylor performed quite competently in this match, and, again, the key was smart booking, where Taylor took a lot of punishment and ultimately used very basic brawling to pull off the win. Furthermore, like Mayweather, Taylor benefited just from having the spectacle of his entourage—a crew of other football stars, to help build the drama.

Contrary to the solid in-ring performances of Mayweather and Taylor, Kevin Federline demonstrated another positive way to put a celebrity into play. First off, WWE demonstrated an understanding that just because someone is famous doesn't mean he'll be liked. Federline was a heat machine, garnering stronger negative reactions than most, if not all of the active roster at that time. WWE made the wise decision to book him against John Cena, adding intrigue of a celebrity v.s world champion match-up—without being foolish enough to put the title on the line (more on this later). Ultimately, this program worked exactly as it should have. K-Fed ably delivered promos leading up to the match, and played a good chickensh*t heel when match time actually came—then pulled off the ridiculous upset based off of ridiculous outside interference. There was no hope for string bean Federline actually putting on a good, believable match, and WWE accepted that, again booking a celebrity around his strengths.

When it comes to booking celebrities with severe limitations, TNA needs to be commended for making the most out of Adam "Pacman" Jones. A wiser company may have opted not to use Pacman at all after the decision came down that he could not be physically involved in the action. Nonetheless, if they were going to stick with their investment, it's hard to fathom doing a better job with him. They paired the guy with a more than able Ron Killings, and put them in a high profile position as tag champs. Given they were a team, it was feasible, and, indeed, made a degree of sense that Jones would not be in the ring for much action. TNA succeeded in giving a high profile guy a high profile spot, while working with some very serious limits. It's not the ideal use of a celebrity, but it represents an admirable effort.

Decades ago, WWF put a lot of stock in Mr. T. Somewhat comparable to Pacman, the company was wise to put T in a high profile tag situation, pairing a big celebrity with a big wrestling star as he and Hulk Hogan main evented Wrestlemania I. This, in and of itself, was pretty darn successful. It's unfortunate then, that history shows this success led to one of the big matches of Wrestlemania II, when T had a solo effort against Roddy Piper, in a boxing contest. Worked boxing is pretty lame to begin with, but when you factor that it was neither guy's true forte, and just how green Mr. T looked, the match was just sad, and a demonstration of the very worst in celebrity wrestling.

While Vince McMahon's company seemed to learn its lesson, and offered very few poor celebrity outings after the Mr. T experiment, WCW clearly was not paying attention. WCW recognized the mainstream appeal of incorporating celebrities, but rarely struck a balance that put the stars to their best—or even passable—uses. There was the use of Dennis Rodman, Karl Malone and Kevin Greene in high profile, if not main event situations. While the company was smart enough to put them in tag matches, they still had a tendency to give the guys far too much ring time, openly exposing their weaknesses. Worse yet, you have Jay Leno headlining a big show. K-Fed may not have had much to offer from an in-ring perspective, but next to Leno, I would buy him as world-class athlete. This simply made no sense. And then, of course, you get to the crown jewel in WCW's celebrity idiocy—the decision to have David Arquette win a world championship. In the years to follow, this decision has been rationalized with an emphasis on getting the company attention, and the fact that this win gave WCW major coverage in the next day's USA Today. While this may be legitimate from a PR perspective, hardcore fans would never forgive WCW for this insult the title, removing any luster and legacy the belt could have had.

Celebrities have been a part of wrestling for a long time, and will likely continue to be for quite some time. They pop a buy rate. They garner extra media coverage. When used properly, they can put on entertaining matches. Despite the major failures that have occurred throughout time, celebrities retain a certain intrigue in the wrestling world, and will likely persevere as an important piece of the business.

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