This is the first of three parts for my Senior Thesis on the creative process in professional wrestling that I wrote a year ago before I graduated from the University of Saint Francis. It takes a look at the changing environment in pro wrestling over the last few decades. I have provided my work cited page in an earlier post. Enjoy!
String Pullers:
The Evolution of the Creative Process in Professional Wrestling
The
landscape of professional wrestling is constantly changing. Each year professional
wrestling continues to evolve with the story lines, and characters, that make
up wrestling's expansive history. This history of wrestling has become
connected to human history, as until only a few years ago professional
wrestling existed under the veil of legitimate sport. While the wrestlers are
world class athletes; the knowledge by an audience, kept completely in the
dark, about predetermined out comes would have changed the original belief
about wrestling as a legitimate sporting contest. Professional wrestler Jimmy Jacobs sees the
genuine connection between reality and wrestling because “professional
wrestling has always been a fun house mirror of sorts to the world and culture”
(Jacobs). This ability of wrestling to take an exaggerated look at reality has
always been protected by the veil around professional wrestling, that in some
way wrestling was reality, because it was seen as a legitimate sporting
contest. When this veil that protected wrestling's reality was removed it
created a new wrinkle in the evolution of professional wrestling as the role of
creative writer became an option not just for those in the protected circles of
professional wrestling, but for professional writers from other mediums such as
television, theater, and cinema.
The removal
of the professional wrestling veil created a rift between the traditional style
of a pro wrestling match maker, also known as a “booker” (Oliver), and the
modernized creative skill found in a college educated English major. This rift
can be seen today in the ratings of World Wrestling Entertainment's flag ship
show Raw is War, that has seen television ratings cut in half since the
boom period at the turn of the century when the veil of professional wrestling
was being removed (Wrestling Information Archives). With this rift I believe
that professional wrestling is preparing for the next evolution in the creative
process as the future role of a writer will become a hybrid of a traditional
wrestling booker's knowledge of the sport and history fused with a college
educated creative writer's trained skill and natural ability to produce highly
developed ideas in story lines for various creative mediums.
The Pre-Show: A
History of Wrestling's Creative Process
Only a few
decades ago the veil of professional wrestling was firmly intact as fans
gathered from far and wide to cheer their heroes, and jeer their villains.
Roland Barthe's essay on professional wrestling, entitled The World of
Wrestling, says that this connection between the crowds and the wrestlers
is because “wrestling partakes of the nature of the great solar spectacles,
Greek drama and bullfights: in both, a light without shadow generates an
emotion without reserve” (Barthes 15). This ability to generate an emotion
without reserve is the foundation for the creative process in professional
wrestling. Since the day the first bell rang, until the somber day when the
last bell sounds, this ideal will be the heart of the creative process in
professional wrestling. This ability originally gained its strength in the veil
of professional wrestling as the secrets of how the magic was made were kept on
a very strict need to know basis. Legendary professional wrestling manager, and
seasoned booker, Jim Cornette remembers that when he began in the wrestling
business that he “didn't know there was a booker until a week before he went on
television” (Oliver). Since the knowledge of wrestling being a full contact
theatrical performance was so tightly guarded the history of the sport became a
tool that bookers used.
The role of
history in professional wrestling came from wrestling's general public belief
that professional wrestling was a legitimate sporting contest. Since the nature
of the business was protected the matches, and actions of the wrestlers, became
recorded by fans and the media much in the same way professional sports like
football or baseball are kept. Bookers could build feuds on history between
wrestlers, or even their families from generations ago, because in the eyes of
the fans professional wrestling had a legitimate sports history. This type of
emotion is comparable to the connection a rivalry has in sports. When a
professional wrestling booker used history to generate emotions from fans it
was no different than when teams like the New York Yankees got their fan base
riled up by showing negative Boston Red Sox highlights from decades ago. While
none of the players on either team are the same, the history of the teams
creates the energy used to fuel the hatred one team has for the other, as the
only constant is the jersey that the players wear.
Gabe
Sapolsky, a booker during the current rift in the creative process, says, “I
feel it can only hurt to not have a basic understanding of what works in
wrestling. You still need to have the fundamentals of storytelling in
wrestling” (Sapolsky). The most basic of fundamentals that all creative writers
in professional wrestling have is wrestling's storied history. Sapolsky broke
into the wrestling industry with one of the wrestling promotions that helped
remove the veil from professional wrestling: Extreme Championship Wrestling.
When it
comes to professional wrestling history the letters E-C-W carry a lot of weight
as a wrestling promotion that had left a mark on the wrestling time line. A
decade after the demise of ECW fans still chant the name of the promotion, and
others like World Wrestling Entertainment have tried to restart the promotion
because of these loyal fans (The Rise and Fall of ECW). These actions by fans
and wrestling promoters are a testament to the strength of the role history
plays in the creative process in professional wrestling, as a defunct promotion
can carry a fresh connection with a business and an audience over a decade
later. This role in professional wrestling history also played a role in the
current state of creative in wrestling as ECW literally removed the curtain
that separated the fans and the wrestlers.
During a
segment featuring two wrestlers, Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman, one wrestler
injures the other wrestler with a lit cigarette and strikes him in the eye with
a cane. This incident led to the cameras for ECW going backstage to see both
good guy and bad guy wrestlers co-mingling as Tommy Dreamer pleaded his case
that he didn't mean to hurt The Sandman (Rise and Fall). This segment was part
of ECW's counter culture cutting edge style. There was no true motive in taking
away wrestling's greatest tool. The rumors and theories behind removing the
veil of professional wrestling are plentiful. ECW, and other companies, were
trying to deliver new and fresh ideas to an audience of fans that, mostly
thanks to the internet, had started to get wise to the reality of the business.
The breaking of the greatest taboo in professional wrestling became the only
way to stay ahead of the fans, if only for a short time.
This was
just one example of how the veil of professional wrestling was torn off from
the nineties into the turn of the century. At this moment fans were being
allowed to see that the men, who in the ring hated each other enough to make
them bleed, were friends behind the scenes. Actions like this had destroyed the
illusion that professional wrestling was still a legitimate sporting contest.
As seen in the ratings for WWE's Raw is War during the time period, this
move to reveal the secrets behind professional wrestling generated instant
attention as professional wrestler Jimmy Jacobs saw during the time.
No comments:
Post a Comment