Heroes And Villains 06.10.04: Debut Column

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What exactly separates good wrestling from bad or mediocre wrestling? Depends on who you ask, of course—like any question of aesthetics, it’s all subjective. Some people ask for a certain amount of quality in-ring action, while others seem to put a premium on comedy or shock value. Nostalgia and mild sexual titillation are other possibilities. What I look for above all else, though, is interesting stories (which, of course, should eventually be resolved in the ring—like it or not, that’s ultimately what wrestling has to be about). And to me, a wrestling storyline just isn’t compelling unless it involves well-developed characters. I don’t think I’m alone in this, either. Every American wrestling promotions, at least those which most of us bother to notice (with the possible exception of a few niche promotions like ROH or Pro Wrestling Iron) must be able to create interesting and credible wrestling characters in order to have any chance of attracting and keeping a loyal audience.

There have been a lot of changes to professional wrestling over the past 20 or so years, changes which most of you are probably familiar with. Some of the more obvious ones are the end of the territorial system, the birth of pay-per-view, the transformation of television, the exponential increase in body mass for the average wrestler, and the growing premium on spectacular athleticism (or extreme violence) in the ring. While these are undoubtedly major changes, I think the biggest change ushered in by the 1980s might have been in the way wrestlers were portrayed on television. Rather than simply being asked to work a match, wrestlers were now also asked to play characters.

I’m not saying that all wrestlers before the eighties were bland, all-business types. Anyone who’s ever seen footage of Superstar Billy Graham, or heard tale of Gorgeous George knows better than that. However, the wrestlers with discernible personalities tended to be heels, while the blander ones tended to be faces. The average wrestling audience suspended disbelief and accepted pro wrestling matches as legitimate athletic events. As a result, fans almost always cheered for virtuous, all-American babyfaces, no matter how bland, over heels who violated the rules of sportsmanship by cheating or making a spectacle of themselves. It should be noted, of course, that the best faces did in fact have a great deal of charisma and were by no means bland. Likewise, many heels at the time were able to get audiences to root against them without having to rely on blatant cheating or “cheap heat” tactics (e.g., portraying an evil foreigner or effeminate dandy). Still, even those wrestlers with some sort of individuality often fell short of having a fully developed character—most only had a gimmick or a personality. What do I mean by this? Well, “Arabian who stabs people with a pencil” is a gimmick, not a character. “Cocky heel” is a personality, not a character. A character will often encompass both a gimmick and a personality, but it won’t stop there. What sets a character apart is motivation. If a wrestler is portraying a fully developed character, we will have a pretty good idea of what makes him tick.

For example, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin circa 1998 had a personality best described as “rowdy.” His gimmicks included drinking beer and attacking anyone and everyone, regardless of their relationship to him. He also liked big trucks. However, if Steve Austin the wrestler were defined by only these few things, he never would have become (arguably) the biggest name in pro wrestling history. Not a mere one-dimensional hellraiser, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin was a real character with a clear set of motivations. He didn’t wreak havoc just for our (or his) entertainment; he was trying to be the champion without bowing down to the wishes of Vince McMahon (or anyone else who tried to rein him in). True, Austin was a rebel who loved chaos, but that wasn’t all he was. Austin was also a veteran who was tired of doing what he was told. He was on a mission to prove that he could be successful and still do things his own way.

A big part of Austin’s success (and development as a character) came from the Austin vs. McMahon storyline that dominated WWF programming at the end of the 90s. There’s no denying that this storyline transformed Austin from successful wrestler to pop culture phenomenon, but we shouldn’t forget that much of the Austin’s character was developed before then. This wasn’t a simple matter of an angle defining a character, or a character defining an angle—Austin’s character simultaneously shaped and was shaped by this storyline. His motivations and personality became clearer as the storyline went on. At the same time, the story was compelling because we knew from the beginning that Austin’s character would never stand for the way Vince McMahon treated him. Likewise, we knew that McMahon wouldn’t tolerate Austin’s acts of revenge. Every week we waited in anticipation to see how the two would try to top each other. There may never have been a single angle, before or since, which has done so much to build a character AND build upon the strengths of a preexisting character. (And, I should add, there’s a reason that this storyline became less and less effective every time Austin and the WWE tried to replicate it in a new form, just as there’s a reason that the Mr. McMahon character has had similar diminishing returns. There’s a column in there, somewhere.)

Let’s consider, for a moment, a hypothetical situation (or, as historians call it, a “counterfactual”). Let’s say that Bret Hart had stuck around, and Austin took some time off to heal his neck (a move which, in the long run, probably would have prolonged his career as an in-ring personality). Hart vs. McMahon would have been a terrific story, and it’s a shame that we’ll never see it acted out in reality. But, had Bret Hart and Vince McMahon stuck together, there’s no way that Hart could have been plugged into Austin vs. McMahon formula (not that there was ever any plan to do so—this is purely hypothetical). Bret Hart had long been portrayed as the consummate champion, someone who was defined by the belt he carried or sought to carry. In fact, it was this very persona that made his 1996-7 feud with Steve Austin so interesting—in many ways Steve Austin was Bret Hart’s polar opposite. Thus, it would be unrealistic for Bret Hart to feud with Vince McMahon over “Bret just being Bret,” when he had essentially succeeded Hulk Hogan as the WWF’s goodwill ambassador to the world. For that sort of angle to have worked, Hart would have to undergo a massive personality shift (which would have been the second one in a year’s time, don’t forget). Furthermore, we would have to buy that this new Bret Hart was the “real” Bret Hart, the one Vince McMahon wanted to keep under wraps. But a rowdy Bret Hart would have been a tough sell. As many other wrestling pundits have noted, the anti-American, pro-Canada character worked because it gibed with what we knew about Bret Hart, a guy who always seemed concerned with being a role model and a Canadian hero. It’s hard to imagine a 1998 Bret Hart, one who wasn’t “screwed” in Montreal, driving a Molson truck into an arena and spraying down Vince McMahon (though it’s a sight many of us would love to see now). Bret Hart wasn’t a stuffy aristocrat in the vein of Lord Steven Regal, but he was too dignified to do something like that.

But let’s consider someone who did play the pompous aristocrat earlier in his career. Let’s say Triple H, or to be more historically accurate, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, gets this push. McMahon vs. Helmsley. Doesn’t have much of a ring to it, does it? Hunter Hearst Helmsley, even as the early “Triple H” character, was not the sort of guy who you could buy as an underdog out to prove himself. The guy exuded arrogance, but he didn’t really have a very well developed character. It wasn’t clear what motivated him. I wouldn’t have bought Triple H or Hunter Hearst Helmsley as a guy who would prefer to do it “the hard way” than to do it “McMahon’s way,” because that would have come out of left field. It didn’t fall in with the (underdeveloped) character he portrayed.

That’s why characters are so important. The most popular angles and feuds of all time (including your favorites, I’d be willing to wager) have relied upon the audience’s strong recognition of the characters portrayed by the wrestlers. Here’s just a few: Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart, Hart Foundation vs. Degeneration X, Rock vs. Hogan, Four Horsemen vs. every face in Crockett at that time, Hogan vs. Bobby Heenan. In every case, you know who the characters are, what they stand for, and why they act the way they do. Their characters are so well developed that you can almost predict how they’ll react to every situation—which makes it all the more rewarding when they are given dilemmas with no obvious solution, or “swerve” you by doing something unexpected. You also know what losing means to them, what the stakes are. In a random match of wrestler A vs. wrestler B, this is less obvious. Thus, the match is less compelling, no matter how good the “workrate” or “psychology” is.

I’m not saying that a wrestler has to go out and give a promo enumerating his motivations and concerns every week for an angle or storyline to succeed. A few well-placed hints will often do the trick. Take for instance the nWo, back when it was just Hall and Nash. A few attacks, a few words here and there, and those famous grainy, black and white videos were able to communicate enough so that the future nWo became the most intriguing thing in wrestling, to both insiders and fans alike, within a few weeks of their debut. Everything about their introduction was perfect—how they carried themselves, the way they talked, where and when they chose to act, and even (especially?) the way they dressed.

Developing interesting and compelling characters is the cornerstone to putting on a good show in today’s wrestling world. Before kayfabe was broken wide open (whether that happened in 1985, 1994, 1996, 1999, or some other date), fans were quicker to accept that the motivation of every wrestler was to win matches and, hopefully, eventually win one of the titles. Like I mentioned earlier, this meant that characters could be underdeveloped, since the audience’s suspension of disbelief allowed them to view wrestling as real athletic competition (or a reasonable facsimile). Of course not every wrestler was able to rack up the wins or earn a title reign, which is what made the territorial system so crucial. A wrestler could leave a territory before fans branded him a loser. He could then return after a spell, once again fresh in the fans’ eyes. It’s no coincidence, in my opinion, that the man most responsible for destroying the territorial system was also the first to attempt to give all of his wrestlers more distinct personalities. If we were going to see the same faces month after month, we would need something beyond the chase for the belt to keep us entertained, Vince McMahon reckoned. We needed feuds based on clashes of exciting personalities. Since the idea of character-based angles was relatively new at the time, not every wrestler had to portray a fully developed character in order to get over. In other words, McMahon was apt to rely upon simplistic or cartoonish gimmicks (or managers) for some wrestlers, like the Honky Tonk Man or the British Bulldogs. Meanwhile, other wrestlers like Hogan, Andre the Giant, the Macho Man, and Jake Roberts were developing more sophisticated characters. For a variety of reasons, fans expected an even greater degree of character development by the late 90s (and possibly before then—which might partly explain why the wrestling industry was flat from about 1989 through 1995, an era defined by evil Fins and wrestling plumbers). WCW was the first to stumble upon this fact with the introduction of the nWo, but McMahon was the first to really exploit this idea to its fullest with the “Stone Cold” character. (Yes, I know I’m leaving ECW out of this picture, but that opens up a whole new kettle of fish, and this column is long enough as it is.)

This is not to say that there weren’t well developed characters in wrestling before the late ‘90s boom. Hulk Hogan, the center of McMahon’s empire, clearly had a character that we all understood—a larger than life superhero whose main motivation was to be a positive role model and hero to the youth of America. As corny as that sounds, it really did work. In every match and angle he participated in, Hogan always seemed like he was primarily concerned with pleasing his fans. Since nothing pleased the Hulkamaniacs more than seeing Hulk Hogan win, that motivated him to really Hulk it up out there and emerge victorious. Because Hogan won Hogan was our hero, and because Hogan was our hero we said our prayers and took our vitamins, just like he told us to do. Mission accomplished—at least until the early-to-mid 90s. That’s when fans started to lose interest in the Hulkster’s character, no doubt in part because the steroid trials made Hogan look like a hypocrite (though also because the seemingly unstoppable force of cynicism meant that more and more fans were turned off by Hogan’s Real American act).

Which brings us to another point: a good character is tailored to entertain the audience who watches it. Hogan’s image was, by 1996, tarnished by the steroid trial, his supposed “betrayal” of Vince McMahon by working for Ted Turner, and, above all else, the audience’s disenchantment with the rather threadbare Hulk Hogan character (you may not believe it based on Hogan’s very warm reception from 2002 to 2003, but the Hulkster was pretty much passé in 1996). It was well past time for a change when Hogan joined the nWo, and the fans immediately bought into Hogan’s new character. It was obvious to some of us that Hogan was only in WCW for the money (to be fair, so were many, many others, including Ric Flair); his initiation into the nWo only confirmed our suspicions that Hogan wasn’t such a nice guy after all. Plus, the “Hollywood” Hogan character played into his over-inflated ego. The character was especially believable after the WCW audience was subjected to Hogan hyping his Thunder in Paradise movie/series (if you’ve been lucky enough to escape this footnote to Hulkamania, imagine a hybrid of Baywatch and any generic Saturday afternoon syndicated action/adventure series—only dumbed down to the point that only the most die-hard Hulkamaniacs could stomach it). Opinions diverge as to whether the Hollywood Hogan character overstayed its welcome, or allowed Hogan to abuse his position of power within WCW. Nevertheless, in late 1996, Hogan stepped into a role which totally fit him. He immediately became one of the most hated characters in wrestling history.

Hollywood Hogan was a great character (initially, at least) for many reasons. It fed into what we knew about Hogan (or at least what we thought we knew about Hogan). It fit into our image of WCW as a second banana—of course Hogan would betray it, if given a better option. Who wouldn’t? It fit into the war between the WWF and WCW over the Monday night audience, even if we didn’t really believe that Vince McMahon sent Hall and Nash to destroy his competition. It reenergized a sagging roster. Instead of the Dungeon of Doom vs. the Hogan army, we now had an angle that forced us to throw out the old way of viewing the lines between heels and faces. The invasion angle worked because Hogan, Hall, and Nash were such believable and threatening villains; as a result, we now could freely buy into the Four Horsemen as faces And better yet, the Horsemen’s history as heels made them interesting faces because they were reluctant faces. Seeing Flair team up with Sting (for reasons other than betraying Sting) was a real mindblower. The strength of the nWo heels (especially Randy Savage, once he joined up) permitted us to see Diamond Dallas Page, of all people, as a frontline defender of WCW’s good name. Good character development was at the heart of it all. Three very strong, very credible heel characters transformed the entire promotion. Likewise, an even better defined Steve Austin character would soon after transform the WWF.

The modern wrestling audience demands characters. “I want the belt” is no longer enough to entertain most of us; we want a character whose actions reflect the things we learned about him in previous weeks of television. We don’t buy into feuds based on an issue as simple as “which one of us is better” unless the characters in question are portrayed as hyper competitive (like Kurt Angle). We don’t buy into a character whose motivation to win is the mere desire to win, unless his character has been portrayed as someone whose only concern in life is that other people perceive him as a winner (as is the case for Triple H). This makes the writers’ and bookers’ jobs much harder now than they were in the seventies and earlier. Nowadays, writers/bookers not only have to manage feuds, but also develop recognizable characters for the wrestlers, and make sure that the storylines they write remain true to the characters. It’s got to be a tough balancing act, but when done correctly it’s worth the effort. Most of us would agree that Chris Benoit’s recent success owes a lot to a storyline which established him as a resilient underdog who was determined to finally win the belt after years of failure. And that, folks, is the payoff to good writing and good character development. And, I might add, it never would have been possible if Triple H and Shawn Michaels weren’t such compelling characters themselves.

In future columns, I’d like to address the factors which make an anonymous wrestler into a great, memorable character. Specifically, the best characters are ones that build upon the talents of the wrestler in question. Likewise, the worst (or least memorable) characters are the ones that ignore, or worse yet, work against the talents of the wrestler. Assuming the wrestler has talent; there’s probably a reason why Ed Leslie has had a slew of gimmicks thrown at him, but only managed to get one of them over. So next time, I’m going to introduce a very rough (and hardly definitive) system for analyzing what a wrestler’s strengths are, and then look at how several successful characters have been developed by working towards the strengths of the wrestler in question.

And before I sign off, let me send out special thanks to Ross Williams for giving me a chance by picking my humble submission, and humoring me while I bothered him with questions about the likelihood of being chosen. I hope Ross is aware of the irony that a recruitment agent would have been the one to go through all those applications. Oh wait, that’s not “ironic,” it’s “appropriate.” And in the interest of creating in-group solidarity among the new columnists, let me also encourage you to read John Zlock’s Double-Teamed, which, in case you missed it, is a weekly look at tag-team wrestling.

I realize what distinguished company I’m in with this Thursday slot, and in writing for 411 in general. Readers, I won’t let you down for lack of effort. I like the written version of the sound of my own voice too much.

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