The Moss-Covered, Three-Handled Family Gredunza

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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.

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Greg makes a stalwart statement about free speech and copyright acts in regard to DRM. Angry journalism is good journalism, especially when there’s something to lose that we all hold pretty dear. And just because I’m in Canada doesn’t mean I don’t care about American copyright acts. It affects just about everyone.

Shawn makes some pretty mixtapes.

Speaking of Shawn…and Eric, they go head to head in this weeks’ VS.

World Titles and their Championships

The current world heavyweight champion is Edge. The current WWE champion is John Cena. The current ECW champion is Vince McMahon. These people hold “major” titles, and they are all in the same company. The reason this company has three major titles is that they have three major shows, and there is a very solid rule in wrestling that every program has to have it’s own champion. This is fine, and everyone accepted this until a few months ago when all three champions (and their various challengers) began jumping from show to show with no regard to the people that care about such things as “brand loyalty.” These titles, embodied in the physical presence as big and shiny golden belts, are now seemingly in danger of losing their stature due to over-saturation. Except that they’re not, because these titles don’t actually mean anything. Except they do, for reasons I’ll get to in a minute.

The “legacy” of the world heavyweight title dates back to 1908 when George Hackenschmidt beat Frank Gotch in Chicago, at least for American fans. The last time we had a true undisputed champion of the world was in 1956 after a disqualification dispute between Lou Thesz and Edouard Carpentier. Through the simple task of unifying and breaking undisputed championships over the past hundred and four years, we have allowed for the existence of over three zillion “world heavyweight” titles. This is something one could have seen coming. In a fake sport filled with righteous egomaniacs that often invent titles for themselves, there is bound to be disputes as to who is really a champion. There are two things I want to look at here. One is the idea of a “title,” and the other is the idea of a “champion.” Through this, I’ll get to the point where I think that Vince McMahon holding the ECW championship is the best thing to ever happen to it.

Just like “wrestling,” the term “title” is a blanket term that can be used countless ways. Just about every wrestler has a title, from “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan to, well, Mr. Wrestling. I absolutely can’t think of a single wrestler that hasn’t had a title put on him in some way. The idea of a giant shiny golden belt across the waist of a wrestler, however, gives him or her a title of prestige over other wrestlers, because they’ve all agreed that it’s a fair image of superiority (Jim Ross’ constant assertion that “this is what our business is all about” asserts such universal acceptance). Holding one of these belts has nothing to do with actual wrestling ability, however (if it did, we would have to completely rewrite the last 104 years of wrestling history) and everything to do with shock value (Edge), marketing (John Cena), and political positioning (Vince McMahon). There are, in fact, no other ways or reasons to become champion of the wrestling world.

Cena’s title, then, is not necessarily just WWE champion; it’s “marketable” WWE champion. Reading the predictions for match outcomes at the big pay per view shows here at Inside Pulse, you’ll notice writers begrudge Cena’s inevitable victories due to his marketability. This is, in fact, no different than begrudging the Honky Tonk Man for hitting his opponents with his guitar whilst the referee’s back was turned. Every wrestler has a title, and that title gives them their strength, and if that strength matches the qualifications of holding a world title, it is usually only a matter of time before they get one.

There have been complaints as of late that having three champions on three shows that have no barriers is a bad thing. The general logic in this complaint is that of Highlander movies: there is only one. The reality of it is, the logic is more akin to the Highlander sequels: there should probably only be one, but in reality there’s a ton of those buggers, but there will only be one at the end of the movie, until the next one. So what’s in the word “champion” anyway? When your stage is scripted, what does it really mean to be awarded it’s “highest honour,” and why is it of eventual importance that there is only one champion, especially when it’s not an annual presentation like real sports?

The answer to this is that, like in boxing, the world championship “matters.” This comes down to marketing again. The Big Show vs Booker T vs John Cena would have been a main event on a free show without the adage of all three of them holding major titles last fall, but since they were, the match was presented as “The Champion of Champions.” These belts have a way of elevating wrestlers above other wrestlers, even if it’s a complete misrepresentation. Is the wrestling match in and of itself worthless without the championship prize at its conclusion? No. There have been plenty of extremely marketable feuds that had very little to do with title belts. But let’s remember that wrestling writers tend to burn out rather quickly, and it is so much easier to have two wrestlers fight for a belt and have a thinly veiled “story” attached to it than to actually build something organically and have it play out without the cherry on top that is a world title. It is far more often you’ll see a title match that is marketed correctly over a, to borrow Scott Keith’s phrase, “They hate each other, that’s all you need,” type of story. Storylines (that we as an audience care about) where the two combatants are wrestling for neither belt nor blind hatred are so few and far between that they might as well not exist.

So, championships exist to give wrestlers a reason to wrestle, because we believe that these people hate one other only so much, and there are no other real good reasons to be passionate about something to fight for it. Unless of course, you’re the Million Dollar Man, Ted Dibiase. Here was a character so perfect in every respect, it makes you sad they can’t do this more often. Dibiase had more than just a title, he had a built in reason to wrestle that had nothing to do with titles or hate. Dibiase wanted everyone to know just how much money he had, and wrestling was the biggest stage in which he could do just that. The image of Dibiase stuffing a handful of bills into the mouths of his victims to conclude his schtick was not only a testament to the commitment to this gimmick and a wonderful commentary on the excess of the 80’s, but a slap in the face to anyone who thinks that wrestling is stupid when it’s not super serious.

It is no surprise, really, that Dibiase commissioned his own championship belt and brandished it in identical ways as the “real” titles of the time. The Million Dollar Championship was a physical embodiment of Dibiase’s best qualities. It is, in fact, no different than John Cena’s “marketable” WWE championship. It is no different than Edge’s “Shocking” world heavyweight championship. And it is no different than Vince McMahon’s Extreme Championship Wrestling title.

Vince McMahon is the owner of WWE. He’s also not a very good “wrestler.” Still, he’s holding a belt that used to be taken very seriously by a select group of people, and this is offensive because he is “tarnishing the legacy” of the ECW championship. Legacy tarnishing, by the way, is frowned upon in professional wrestling, because professional wrestling is super, duper serious. Let’s forget for a second that belts have been having more than their fare share of tarnishing long before Vince McMahon came along. Let’s also forget that the ECW title was created in the act of tarnishing the NWA title in 1994. Having Vince McMahon as the ECW champion is fantastic, because it’s been a long time since we’ve been able to hate a character due to political narcissism, and wrestling requires this kind of evil. I really hope he beats Lashley at One Night Stand. I hope the riot promised by the fans last year happens. Because the title of ECW matters to some people, even if it’s just another big shiny gold belt, and that’s the only thing in wrestling that ever means anything. Vince McMahon is threatening something that people have held close. We have here a completely organic wrestling feud between corporate greed and independent nostalgia lust, and it’s beautiful. I hope he keeps that thing all year.

Still, belts hold some characters back. Last year, the Latin American Exchange seemed to be poised to break out into nWo country with their Mexican militia story, but they stopped their surge since attaining the tag team titles. They made that their ultimate goal, when it really should have been tearing the TNA apparatus apart in total chaos. That was a very clear case of creative thinking held back by wrestling logic that titles are more important than causes.

Championships are titles, but titles aren’t necessarily championships, though they can lead to them. They matter to the wrestlers, fans, and everyone above them, if they are really just political propaganda embodied in ten pounds of gold. They don’t matter and aren’t remembered nearly as fondly, however, nearly as much as the causes that get them there.

K Sawyer Paul is the author of This is Sports Entertainment: The Secret Diary of Vince McMahon, co-editor of Fair to Flair, and curator at Aggressive Art.