There are three things to talk about TNA-wise this week. The first is the easily swallowed but uneventful Impact episode, where the only real thing that occurred was Awesome Kong temporarily losing her title to someone who reminds me way, way too much of Alundra Blayze (they really don’t want comparisons like that). The second is the overly gimmicky Victory Road on Sunday (with really only three interesting matches).
The third is, well, this.
“We had a contract for cage fighting. We were deceived,” said Dwight Duncan, president and CEO of Four States Fair Grounds in Texarkana, where the first of two Arkansas fights raised suspicions last month.
Matt Labov, a Los Angeles-based publicist for Baron Cohen, said he had no comment Monday about the faked fights. One of Baron Cohen’s movies is due out next year.
The day after the June 5 Texarkana bout, Fort Smith’s convention center hosted “Blue Collar Brawlin.'” Fort Smith police Sgt. Adam Holland said organizers told him a character named “Straight Dave” would goad a planted audience member into the ring for a fight.
The two men would then wrestle, rip away some of their clothes and share a brief kiss reminiscent of one between Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell in the film “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.”
Producers said “there would be a romantic embrace,” Holland said. “They said it was kind of to essentially make fun, poke fun at wrestling — two guys rolling around on the floor, all sweaty.”
An elaborate array of mounted and handheld video cameras caught the crowd of 1,600’s reaction as the two men “went right up to the line” of the city’s morality laws, Holland said. The two men stripped down to their underwear, kissed and rubbed on each other, the sergeant said.
The audience, as well as local fighters drawn to take part in the show, became enraged. “It set the crowd off lobbing beers,” Holland said. “They had beers in plastic cups. Those things can get some distance on them actually.”
Holland said it took officers about 45 minutes to clear the convention center, as the two actors sprinted away through a specially set-aside tunnel.â€
Not surprisingly, this story isn’t being talked about much on wrestling websites, which is a damn shame. This is not only a wonderful prank to pull on an audience, but great social commentary about pro wrestling. How many times have we seen two muscular men basically holding each other in the ring, inches away from kissing? How many times would it have made so much sense? How many times would it have been awesome?
Answer: Every time. It would have been awesome every time.
Could you imagine, say, watching Victory Road on Sunday night. The six man tag match between AJ, Christian and Rhyno against Team 3D and Angle, let’s go with for funsies. The ring clears out, leaving Angle and AJ. Their feud has been building for nearly a year (as have most TNA feuds, if you pay close attention) over AJ’s supposed relationship with Karen. They look at each other from across the ring, and slowly come together. They appear to lock up, but instead lock lips? Could you imagine how loud Don West’s screaming would be? Karen, looking on from ringside, with the biggest WTF look on her face. Everyone in the arena going quiet. Hundreds of years of manly wrestling tradition completely down the toilet in one moment. God it would be so awesome. The subversion of it all. Someone get this to Vince Russo stat.
I’m going to send it out to you, the wrestling fan, for this one. Considering how ridiculously homoerotic wrestling already is, do you think we’re ready for an actual gay story line? In that, I don’t mean a Chuck & Larry type of thing, but like a passionate feud between two men who love (and maybe hate at the same time?) each other? Would this be welcome? Or are you still all so homophobic that you couldn’t deal with it? Or is it not homophobia? Is it something else? How would you have reacted if the above scenario had happened in front of you?
