Wacky Wrestling Theory 01.15.09: Pro Wrestling in Space

Think about space. ‘The Final Frontier.’ Astronauts. The moon lander. Space stations. Colonies on Mars. ‘Ghosts of Mars.’ Alf.

Now mix that with pro-wrestling. Zero gravity. Floating moves. High-high flying. Really delayed vertical suplex. Interatmospherial Title. Max Moon. Tekno Team 2000.

Let me tell you something about history. In olden times ‘they’ said wrestlers would never leave their feet. The sport was about the ground. Stay low and you can’t lose. ‘They’ said that wrestling would never allow striking. Boxing was a sport of face ugly thugs, while wrestling was for handsome gentleman to play what they called, ‘the chess of the chest.’ As well, ‘they’ told us that wrestlers could not use weapons, body oil or brass knuckles once being the most illegal of foreign objects. Well, those days are long gone. In fact, I swear I saw a Nerco Butcher match where he applied ancient Grecco-Roman joint locks, performed a diving somersault from the top rope to the floor, gouged open someone’s eye with a serrated spoon, and then brewed a pot of tea on top of a stack of chairs thrown into the ring by the fans, so you can never say never when it comes to the future of professional wrestling. So, when wrestling eventually moves into outer space, what is our favorite past time going to look like?

First of all, the matches would be taking place inside some kind of space station or moon base, that much is for certain, at least in our lifetime. I think at first, the matches would be televised or taped for viewing from earth, rather than in the presence of an audience. Therefore, I predict that for space wrestling the sport will evolve to start using a spherical ‘ring.’ The wrestlers would float in the middle of the sphere and compete against each other while flying. Since the lack of running would negate the need for ring ropes, or a floor, it would only be natural for the matches to take place inside a sphere, in order to maintain the symbolism of an enclosed battle zone. Or, it could be a big cube, whatever. The point is, wrestling in space is going to take what we think wrestling should be like and turn it on it’s head…. literally! And then turn it back on it’s head again… again literally!! Finally, it might just go ahead and flip it back… actually, that might be more figuratively… but anyways, I’m just trying to dumb all this down for all you non-Physics majors.

What’s important to explain is exactly who do I think would be the best wrestling company to make the initial move into the zero gravity spherical arena in space? That’s easy, Ring of Honor. This innovative and yet blisteringly traditional pro-wrestling promotion is on the verge of breaking through to the next level. Even recently there have been reports of a High Definition television show coming from Ring of Honor, and while this would be an elevation for Ring of Honor into a higher quality video format and to bigger platform to display their product, the high def is just a cosmetic change that every visual medium is converting too and therefore not a unique enough format change to match the innovative wrestling presented in ROH. Also, the added exposure on a small cable channel might be great, but certainly not the mainstream penetration that we would all love from them to procure. In my opinion, they should hold out until they can be the first wrestling company that can perform in space. The ROH producers and wrestlers and the most progressive and state of the art wrestling creators in the world today, and thus they would be the only people I would feel confident trusting with the next evolutionary step into zero gravity match making.

In my opinion, currently the only, and biggest, problem ROH has in the presentation of their video product is the numerous amounts of contrived near falls in main event matches. Actually, this can be a problem in all of wrestling, but the WWE and Japanese promotions do try to reset this balance a little bit every few years. The problem is, once people start kicking out of everything, the endings of matches can become redundant. While ROH exploits this effectively in order to obviously please their raucous live audiences, the matches on tape, (especially considering ROH is completely on tape delay and thus most of their fans who are not in attendance watch the matches already knowing the outcome) can be predictable at the least and un-re-watchable at the worst. Multiple finisher kick out near falls are not part of crafting a dramatically arcing satisfying match, and are comparably nothing more that flat ‘high spots.’ I believe, that wrestling matches in space would eliminate contrived near falls from the format of wrestling matches. In fact, the concept of the ‘pin fall’ would be eliminated completely.

The dramatic interpretation of the shoulder-to-mat pinning scenario that professional wrestling uses (adapted from the amateur style) is the main storytelling ‘final goal’ device that would have to change for space wrestling. There are a number of ideas for how this could be accomplished. First of all, there could be an accumulated scoring system, which is also somewhat based on the collegiate/Olympic level wrestling judging, possibly having a number of holds required to be performed in order to win. Another option could be aesthetic evaluation of the moves like in gymnastics or figure skating judging, or there could be a cumulative body part attack ratio, meaning that the wrestler would win based on attacking all the zones of the body in some predetermined order. The matches could all be submission based since they are taking place in a free floating space and the importance and innovation of close combat holds would be multiplied greatly. I’m sure everyone who is a wrestling fan would be intrigued to know what submission experts like Bryan Danielson and Nigel McGuiness are capable of if given a full 360 degrees of space and body movement to ply their craft. On the other hand, given that pro-wrestling is an artistic interpretation of a ‘real’ sport, possibly a static ‘goal touching’ element could be added to the event, like in football. The match is taking place in a zero gravity sphere, so the wrestlers start the match in the center. The interior walls of the sphere are scoring zones and every time a wrestler touches the wall, either from their own mistake or mainly by being thrown into it, the other wrestler scores a point. For example, Bob Holly gives his patented dropkick to weasely Cody Rhodes and sends him flying into the wall, that is one point for Holly. All of these are potential ideas for how the goals of a wrestling match will be changed once the style is taken into outer space.

The weightlessness of space adds an interesting dynamic to the pro-wrestling form. While these days there is always the sellable spectacle of seeing a big fat guy crush smaller twerps, this concept is often perceived as pointless and archaic by critical wrestling fans, because of course they would rather see Alex Shelley vs. Chris Sabin than Big Daddy V squash Jamie Noble. This progressive attitude by the critics would be rewarded by zero gravity space wrestling, because there would no longer be any threat for an obese monster to flatten some tiny dude. Again, Ring of Honor would be strong in this category, not only because their roster is mainly, and historically, comprised of ‘cruiserweights’ but because of the success they had developing super heavyweight wrestler Takeshi Morishima. While the WWE employs cheap tricks to get monster characters ‘over’ such as extreme contrast photography and quick splashing finishes, Morishima was effectively portrayed as a dominant physical force that was still susceptible to precise and careful plans of attack. If ROH can create an environment where a gravity locked Bryan Danielson can seem equal in threat to the massive Morishima, then they will be the right people to plan just how these two forces will be able to collide in space.

By expanding into space, Ring of Honor would become a novel and revolutionary force in the industry. Wrestlers would not just come to work for ROH after they were fired by the WWE or couldn’t get hired in the first place. I predict that the big stars of the future would flock to sign a contract with ROH once they saw the sensation that ROH in Space would generate, and with the limitless possibilities for creative and futuristic wrestling matches. I would imagine wrestlers like Jeff and Matt Hardy, CM Punk, Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe, and even Triple H himself, would be enticed by the concept of wrestling in a cosmic environment and would be salivating to jump from the WWE to ROH.

Pro-wrestling in space may be a science fiction concept to some reading this today, but those with vision will see the multiple possibilities that lay ahead. When space tourism becomes the next Niagara Falls, entertainment providers will want to take advantage of this new revenue stream. If pro-wrestling companies are wise, they will investigate this sooner than later. WWE has the resources to make space wrestling a reality sooner than we might think, but do they have the creativity to adapt and innovate a whole new evolutionary level of the sport? On the other hand, Ring of Honor is often called the future of pro-wrestling, and by being the first company, like the explorers of old, to venture into the beyond, then I believe they will truly be able to make the future happen now!

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I would like to plead with all of those Aaron ‘The Wrestling Bard’ Hubbard fans to stop filling my inbox with taunts and diatribes about how I suck compared to their hero. Hey, that might be true… but I just want to go back to a time when the only emails I got were from pyramid schemes and myspace bikini girls.

Personally, I’d like to get any rivalry we have behind us. If he has a problem with some of the things I’ve said in my column, well I’d like to give him a chance to directly show me how it should be done. Although he did not answer my first request to join in on my Wacky Awards, I have been in touch with Mr. Hubbard about participating in a wacky challenge where we will be able to confront each other once and for all. Look out for that ‘special’ column in the coming weeks.

Much like ‘The Wrestling Bard’ last week, I also compiled a list of my official Best of 2008, and you can check that out in my 411 Blog.