The moss covered, three-handled family gredunza is the third of Chris Jericho’s 1004 moves, preceeded by an armdrag and armbar, and to be followed by an armbar and the Saskatchewan spinning nerve hold. It is a reference to the Cat in the Hat’s TV special.
Links
This was my last article for Broken Dial for a while. I interview Canadian DJ icon Tarzan Dan.
Gregory Wind gives up three great mp3s and three very good reasons for having them.
SMS, the great editor of Broken Dial, summarizes last week to a T. See, I told you I’d pimp BD as best I could!
Brashear takes us back to a year ago when Khali debuted, as well as the Punjabi Prison mess.
I always appreciated Szulczewski’s comments about my music articles, and I plan on returning the favour. I’m completely on his side about the Edge MITB bank win(as well as what happened the following night.)
and that’s all for now. It’s been a while since I’ve done a pimp section, and much, much longer since I’ve done a wrestling column. I can be reached at post_kdp@hotmail.com
Sportive Entertainment
Here’s a fistful of irony for you; a few weeks ago a friend of mine went off to see the Cirque du Soleil show in Niagara falls. She was excited to see this stuff because she’s only ever seen clips on youtube. When she came back, she told me how impressed she was at the acrobatics and the storytelling they could do with just their bodies. She was absolutely spellbound by the entire experience for the sole reason that it was a physical manifestation of art. This is the same girl that turns her nose at me whenever I utter a single word about professional wrestling.
The irony here, in case it’s lost on anyone, is that Cirque and Wrestling have a lot in common. Both forms rely on physical prowess far beyond that of, to quote Heenan, “the ham n’ eggers out there.†Both rely on interpretive dance skills as well as a major bit of suspending disbelief on the part of the audience. Both work their performers into an underappreciated early grave. Both require a lot of fireworks and a lot of money and a lot of secrets.
One other thing they both shareâ€â€both Cirque du Soleil and pro wrestling are not sports. The difference is that one is still trying to be one. The history of these two art forms have common ground in the circus; while the acrobats and jesters enticed peanut-chomping crowds in the big tent, the big strong villain challenged the towns’ local hero in combat. While wrestling would grow into boxing-sized events all on its own, the circus would flounder and eventually perish. Television, a product that we can fairly safely say gave circuses the deathblow, gave wrestling its target demographic. A group of extremely talented Quebecois acrobats, mixed with the needy stages of Montreal, Las Vegas, and other tourist hubs, would see the circus return in a way that has everyone going “oooh†again. At present, we have several touring wrestling companies, several Cirque groups, and fifty miles of difference in the eyes of the general public.
I’m not comparing these two, nor am I saying that one should aim for the other, but someone should at least point out the brotherhood of these art forms. Wrestling has been officially “fake†in the eyes of the people since 1935, when Lou Marsh, a Toronto Star reporter, called it “Sportive Entertainment.†And since Vince McMahon’s re-christening of the term “Sports Entertainment,†wrestling has been allowed to be fake openly and honestly. But wrestling isn’t respected by anyone other than those invested in wrestling, either financially or through habit. It never really has been. The stigma of being “fake sport†still lingers, and if the success of Cirque Du Soleil is something to go by (and there are multitudes of reasons as to why), then wrestling can and should finally drop the “sport†from every inch of its moniker.
It is in fact the term “sport†that inhibits pro wrestling from becoming something respectful. Pro wrestling is found primarily on sport networks, or, in the case of TNA, on a network with a sport mentality. Wrestling magazines are found in the sports section of Chapters. Pro wrestling shows largely occur in sporting arenas. The merchandiseâ€â€be it foam fingers, t-shirts, or collectible signaturesâ€â€is directly comparable to sports paraphernalia. And this is not even including the broadcasts themselves, which border on sports parody they try so hard. This is all in the name of “sports entertainment,†as in, “we are a sport, so we have to look like one, or else people will think we’re fake, even though we’re technically fake, but being fake is what makes us entertaining, so it’s okay.†They have this half right. Being fake is what makes professional wrestling entertaining. It’s the other half that frustrates people who want to enjoy it as an art form.
The sport aspect of pro wrestling is wrapped up in every angle. It’s not just the companies that toe the line. Newspapers and journals that talk about wrestling will post the column in “sports,†not in “entertainment.†If wrestling is ever spoken about on television seriously (as in, not a punch line or a cross promotion piece) it is on the sports- or sports-affiliated networks. Internet writers will often write about sports and wrestling without so much a page break, as if there aren’t hundreds of things that split the two apart. The worst offenders, and even some wrestlers are guilty of this (Kurt Angle being the main propagator at present) are those that find no border between pro wrestling and the mixed martial art world of UFC. To differentiate the two simply; pro wrestling is a staged representation of combat involving theatrics, disbelief and, when they’re really on top of their game, wonder; UFC is modern, barely legal gladiatorial barbarism. UFC is the gratification of violence. Wrestling is the gratification of metaphors and references.
One of my favorite tag lines was from the “attitude†era of wrestling, when you would often see the term “Get it?†underneath the scratched WWF logo. The genius of this was that they never elaborated. “It†ended up being whatever people saw in wrestling, which in turn opened the door to subjective logic. Most people, as I understand, saw the campaign as a front against WCW fans and people who didn’t like wrestling, because these people didn’t “get it.†Perhaps that was the intention, but much like how people will go to a Bjork concert and enjoy it because “not getting it†is kind of the point, I thought it was a dig against the WWF’s own audience, who watched it not “getting†the full picture. They didn’t realize that what they were watching was a representation of themselves and many other things. They didn’t realize that “getting it†meant studying wrestling beyond Kayfabe and well-known secrets. They watched, not fully understanding what it was they were being shown, but that was kind of the point.
This whole “get it†thing is really only one reason that pro wrestling belongs somewhere other than the sports world. There is no “getting it†in sports, because sports are fairly simple things. Teams play one another to the best of their ability. Scores are tallied, and the winners of the game (and the fans of such winners) are generally happier about it than the losers. That’s pretty much it. Wrestling is much, much more complicated, but only because they have to keep up the façade of being a fake sport.
There are two types of wrestling fans that would be disparaged to see the “sport†moniker leave pro wrestling, and their defences are fairly just. The first type, the casual fan, probably wouldn’t appreciate wrestling if it weren’t aesthetically sporty. To place wrestling firmly into the throes of theatre would inevitably lower its appreciation amongst the 18-34 male demographic of homophobic theatre-haters who want a little character development to go along with their violence. These people, and this is blatantly unfortunate, are WWE’s core audience. These people cannot be helped.
The other type of wrestling fan this would disappoint is the Chris Benoit fan, or, the type of wrestling fan that enjoys the athletic ability of wrestlers and appreciates it above all things. These fans subject themselves to months and months of subpar (to them) programming in between breaths of “great matches†involving the likes of “real wrestlers†like Benoit, Finlay, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Bryan Danielson, Homocide, etc. These fans believe what I believe; wrestling can be as transcendent as any art form, and it would be if we didn’t have to deal with whatever issue is making wrestling look stupid to the general populace this week (current whipping post: ECW).
This type of fan can be persuaded as art because they already kind of do. They see great wrestling contests as artistic, and put up with the rest because of habit. But what if the rest of the show reflected this artistic nature? Yes, this is idealistic, but this is a much better ideal than preferring one wrestler to be champion to another. It is better than wishing that Vince McMahon wouldn’t feel the need to hold a world title every few years. It is better than complaining about minutiae.
The term “sport†was once what held professional wrestling in high regard. Because of its relation to sport, wrestling avoided the same fall as the circus. But perhaps it was not to its greatest advantage. Through Cirque Du Soleil, the circus is enjoying a renaissance and is being lauded worldwide as a spectacle worth respecting. But “Sport†has become an albatross for professional wrestling, and while our art form is hardly down and out, being a fake sport certainly isn’t helping.
Kyle David Paul will soon be a pseudonym
