The Joy of Discovery
Saturday, April 6, the East Coast Wrestling Association held its 16th annual Super 8 Tournament. The tourney, the notable participants including Gregory Iron and Tony Nese, has been a launching pad of sorts for independent wrestling talent in America. Previous participants have included Billy Kidman, Austin Aries, Christopher Daniels and Bryan “Daniel Bryan” Danielson. While the tournament itself produced some memorable moments and excellent wrestling matches, it wasn’t the only thing that took place in Newark, DE that night.
The last match before intermission was a three-way match for the ECWA Unified Tag Team Championships. The champions, the Midnight Sensations, were a team that was billed from a future where humans have colonized one of the moons of Saturn. One team of challengers were a standard, indie-style tag team called Fusion DS. Then, there were the Flatliners.
How does one relay the teaming of Matt Burns and Asylum? They’ve been described as “Canadian as s**t” by one person in the business, which may or may not be a compliment. I’d pretty much call them hosses, because they’re both objectively big guys. Sure, some people are “indie” big, but both these guys looked like they had bodies fit for a higher level than the ECWA. If their frames were more WWE than bingo hall though, their ring attire was more 1995 WWF than anything else. Sporting half-pink, half-green singlets with a stylized close-up drawing of a gorilla on the front, the Flatliners looked like they’d have been more at home across the ring from High Energy on Superstars in the early-to-mid ’90s than anything else.
One cannot totally judge a book by its cover, obviously, but if the exposure had stopped there, I still would’ve been impressed with these guys. When they started wrestling though? Yeah, I was smitten. They were everything that was good about classic tag team wrestling with a lot of what is fun about the independent scene today thrown in. Asylum at one point had one of his opponents in a stalling suplex, while Burns was on the apron counting the seconds which his partner had the victim upside down. Mid-countdown, Burns tagged in and assumed the suplex hold, and thus the roles had become reversed when Asylum started his own count.
Later on in the match, all four of the other people in the match were perched on the top rope, trying to coax Burns off his seat on the top turnbuckle with a superplex. Asylum turned to the crowd for approval before adding the extra muscle to bring the four men - and his partner - crashing to the mat in a hextuple superplex that almost shook the entire building. Then, if that wasn’t enough, the two played Rock-Paper-Scissors to see who’d complete the dive out of the ring on the other four guys. Basically, the Flatliners were two big galoots having as much fun as anyone could have in a wrestling ring for the amusement of me and everyone else in that building.
The best part about the whole thing was that I was discovering a new favorite wrestling act completely by my own surprise. No one told me before the event to look out for these guys. They’re not overexposed in all the high-level indies along the East Coast. They were a true unknown to me, and there is a certain satisfaction one gets from being the guy who “discovers” something awesome before most of his friends. Sure, there’s a level of hipster attitude mixed in with that feeling, but then again, who doesn’t like being the first to hop onto a new thing? Who doesn’t want to be the one who shares something awesome with their friends rather than being the who’s always partaking in what others are sharing?
I had an epiphany during this match, and it was one of the best wrestling-related feelings I’ve had in my life. I hope everyone is able to have one of their own as well.
TH writes The Wrestling Blog and broadcasts The Wrestling Podcast. You can find him on Twitter, or at various other spots around the Internet. He also loves Chikara, and quite frankly, thinks you should too.
Edited by Jason Mann.
The fourth issue of Fair to Flair quarterly is all about women & wrestling. We want to explore this issue as thoroughly as possible. We feel that women’s wrestling is unfairly criticized, unfairly run, and unfairly represented, and the issue will tackle major issues pertaining to women’s wrestling today.
Pre-Order Issue 4 for $20.
Pre-order the print issue and immediately receive a link to download the epub version, which you can read on any iOS device, Sony Reader, Nook, Kindle, or desktop computer. And by immediate, I mean immediate. No more waiting for me to respond via email. It should begin downloading the second your Paypal purchase is finished.
We placed almost every part of this journal on the website over the course of March, as we celebrated our first women’s wrestling month. Please support these great writers you’ve enjoyed over the past month by pre-ordering the print journal. You’ll receive a beautifully designed softcover book containing every issue, plus a photo essay by Leslie L of Dirty Dirty Sheets (if you’ve seen that site, you know his photography is best in class). Here’s a breakdown of what you’ll find in the journal:
Thomas Holzerman contrasts Beth Phoenix and Tamina Snuka to Sara Del Ray and Aja Kong.
Stephen T Stone pins a bright future for Kharma.
Logan Stallings remembers Jazz, one of the toughest women wrestlers in history.
Trey Irby defends fart humour, Natalya, and broad storytelling.
Andrea Marshall proudly defends the female gaze on professional wrestling.
Lydia Cyrus remembers inspirational female wrestlers and how they help her in life.
Mike Lortz re-introduces us to Isis the Amazon.
Lacy Fidler tells three killer stories about recruiting women as wrestling fans.
William S Young writes about being a guilty male fan, who hasn’t given women’s wrestling it’s due.
Joe Drilling reviews the greatest all-women pro wrestling video game, Super Fire Pro Wrestling: Queen’s Special.
Yours truly interviewed rising star Mia Yim.
Ashley Durham champions Kharma as the future of WWE proper.
Cewsh gives an important and well-researched history lesson on women’s wrestling pioneer Mildred Burke.
Lex Roberston takes on gender cues, GLOW, and Elizabeth.
Finally, Leslie L showcases over a dozen beautiful, world-class photographs of women wrestlers all over the world.
Pre-Order Issue 4 for $20.
Epub is a standard format compatible with all PCs, Macs, iOS devices, etc., If you do not have an epub reading app on your PC, Mac, or Android device, we suggest the Sony Reading app. For iOS devices, iBooks works wonderfully.
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❖ Hubris, Focus, and Wrestlemania XXVIII →
It isn’t often the case that a wrestling show feels cohesive. Generally, PPVs are 5–9 matches, all containing separate stories. Wrestlemania XXVIII felt, to me, as one long, repeated message. It was highlit in every match, suggested in every scene, and showcased from every camera angle: Do not, under any circumstances, take your eyes off the ball.
This message was clear from the opening video, which was focused on the two main events in a way almost no Wrestlemania opening video has been in many years. It showcased two focused dreamers growing up, working hard, and achieving their goals. The Rock and John Cena are separate men in separate generations, but as WWE Superstars, they tell a parallel story. These men are at the top because of their focus and drive, because they didn’t let anything stop them. That’s a strong message.
We have to talk about Daniel Bryan and Sheamus. Many wonder why, if a fast match had to occur, why it was not Show vs Rhodes. I think I can explain. But first, let’s talk about why this Wrestlemania began with this match. The opening contest of the show can rile up a crowd, but is also, in special circumstances, there to set the tone. Daniel Bryan and Sheamus was the second kind. It was there to say, “every match tonight is going to be a variation of this simple equation.”
What’s the equation? Focus vs Hubris. Every match on this card extented and toyed with that idea. It began simply, and quickly. The dominant Sheamus never took his eyes of his opponent, while Danial Bryan—by demanding a kiss from his girlfriend—did. It cost him. End of story.
I know people are going to ask if I consider the Rumble curse broken. Yes, Sheamus cashed in his Rumble win and picked up a world championship. But he did it in a way that, if anything, damaged the reputation of the title. What is that thing he’s carrying around? It’s not a championship under the defintion that I understand.
As for why Big Show and Rhodes went on third and were given time, I can offer two suggestions: for the Big Show to have a “Wrestlemania moment,” it has to come after people wonder if he will not. They had to, for a few minutes, create tension that Rhodes may deny him. Rhodes needed to toy with Show, so that we could see that Rhodes’ intentions here were not just to win, but humiliate.
The losers here were not all villains, as heroes are sometimes known to fall to hubris. That’s what happened with Orton, as he took too much time with what he—and everyone else—felt was an easy foe. That Kane’s victory was clean shows who the more focused of the two was. Kane knew exactly why he was in that ring. Nobody knows what Orton was even doing here.
WWE undoubtably wants each audience member to feel different things throughout the evening. Jubiliation is an obvious one, this year. The set, tone, and atmosphere was reminiscient of a great party, almost more ‘Summerslam’ than Wrestlemania. Palm Trees, neon signs and banners, orange and green and white everywhere you look for a mile around and nearly straight up. No fewer than a dozen times WWE showcased the arena in full-view from above, as if to suggest the full force of their universe. “This is what a good time is,” it said. That is, until the sun set.
The Undertaker and HHH were in a no-win scenario. The Undertaker has been in arguably the best match on the card for the last five years, and they’ve learned from 23, 25, and 27 that not putting him in the main event can severely diminish the show as a whole. Here, just over a quarter into the show, is the only place it can really happen. It’s placement also telegraphed the ending somewhat, but they did their damndest to make us believe otherwise.
You could tell simply by the entrances who was more focused. HHH’s involved another ode to cartoon barbarianism, with green lights and skulls and yada yada. It was there, and then it got deflated or something and immediately forgotten. The Undertaker’s entrance was spartan, especially for him, though no less grand. His jacket, full of spikes an excellent goth texture, ensured that Chris Jericho would not win best entrance attire. Finally, Undertaker’s haircut—a short buzz with a single line of slightly thicker hair down the middle—added another layer. He stripped away everything that might distract or get in the way.
Not that HHH didn’t exude focus, but he was focused on the wrong thing. He was determined to end the Undertaker. That meant steel steps, steel chairs, and sledgehammers to every part of his opponents’ body. That meant accosting Shawn Michaels into ringing the bell. But because there’s so much difference between hurting a man and defeating him, HHH’s hubris shone through.
This is as good a time to mention it as any, but Michael Cole stayed well within the bounds of his job. He, too, was focused on his task instead of petty arguments and twitter (which, I believe, was mentioned perhaps only twice and early on). Adding Jim Ross to the match gave it an enhanced sense of gravitas, though some of it was maybe too thickly delivered (‘carcinogenic right hands’ may sound cool phoenetically, but paints a very odd picture).
So often, we forget that there’s a third performer in the ring. The referee’s job is to be invisible until needed. A special guest referee’s job is generally to fuck something up that a normal referee would get right (or be super strong, though that’s almost never the case anymore). Shawn Michaels has a history of fucking things up as a referee, but that wasn’t really the case tonight. Instead, Shawn treated his place in the ring as an opportunity to showcase his ability to look tortured. Shawn Michaels is not one of the greatest performers in history just because of his cockiness and charisma, but also his depths of sorrow. Michaels has a range in a way that nobody else does. We’ve seen him emotionally pained before, but this was thunderous. As he became increasingly powerless to stop his best friend and his greatest rival from killing one another, the weight of the world pushed him down. He could barely contain himself as he cowered in corners, waiting for the end.
Last year, I wrote about how wrestlers should take more bows. HHH, Shawn Michaels, and the Undertaker took a bow before exiting. They knew that simply standing there, holding one another up, would elicit applause. I wish more wrestlers understood that. After a stirring performance, wait. The crowd will applaud you. They want to show you that they love this, too.
The 12-man tag suffered the exhausted crowd, but someone had to go on next, and I’m just thankful it wasn’t the ladies again. Once again, focus one the day. All the Miz wanted was to get a match at Mania. He got it, and he delivered. All Ryder wanted was for Eve to like him. That’s not a great goal for winning wrestling matches. It should be noted that Eve didn’t really do anything here except want to get in on Ryder’s chant. Zack’s the one who turned his back on a determined villain.
The video before the Women’s match was strange. It began with a video package about how great it was to be a Diva, as if they were actively recruiting. “See the world!” “Experince life!” “Have fun!”
Once again, focus won the day. The first thing I noticed about Maria Menounos was how small she was. I don’t mean skinny, as she clearly had muscle structure; I mean petite. You often forget, watching wrestling, just how much larger these people are. Also, how tanned. Maria wanted to win the match, broken ribs be damned. Beth and Eve wanted to look mean and pick on the little celebrity.
One note about the ladies match: I don’t think Maria was having any fun. It’s very possible that she was in real agony the entire time, and even Eve and Beth going easy on her may have been too much.
The night was sparse on interviews. It was even sparser on video segments. Of the main events, only Punk and Jericho received a highlight video, and nobody from any of the main events appeared before their match to speak. Though one could say that there isn’t much need since everyone they’re selling to is already watching, I’m sure there were some who wished to hear something from The Rock, at least.
But we did get something from Punk. Not a speech, but a short meeting with the new GM of WWE proper. John warned Punk about having anything other than a wrestling match. Read between the lines: don’t take your eye off the ball, professional wrestler. Focus.
Jericho took advantage of the new lose-title-by-DQ ruling early by bullying Punk. Thankfully, the gimmick was abandoned five minutes in, and the two best technical wrestlers to ever hold the WWE Championship proceeded to wrestle in the acceptable five-snowflake fashion. Someone in the front row brought a sign that said “CM Punk & Chris Jericho: The Art of Professional Wrestling.” I’m of the opinon that everything here, from best to worst, is art. But if we can all get ‘art’ to mean ‘great’, I’ll take it.
The final set of moves that led to Jericho’s submission—and subsequent comforting head scratch—involved a pair of small packages, no doubt a callback to the first perfect Wrestlemania match: Steamboat vs Savage. We live in a good age. Jericho lost not because he failed, but because he succeeded in becoming as close to Randy Savage in 1987 as possible, and Savage’s character had to lose. Jericho and Punk danced, and won together.
Brodus Clay: This is what happens when you cheer for something you don’t fully understand.
If you listen to Jason and I talk about the main event of Wrestlemania last year (and you should), you’ll hear me suggest that The Rock and John Cena’s story has been disappointing because it isn’t really for wrestling fans, but instead people who like feuding celebrities. That may sound like the same thing, but it is absolutely not. You’ve heard of the term ‘casual wrestling fan’ or ‘casual video game player’ or what have you, but I think Rock vs Cena was for the ‘casual person’. It was broad, obvious, and simultaneously opaque. There were no layers to this story because this story was not built to have layers.
The wrestling fan sees Rock and Cena as a wasted year, but the casual person sees Rock and Cena posters and commercials all over the place and is given as early and often notice as humanly possible to think about buying this show. It was the greatest pitch WWE has ever made to people who couldn’t care less about wrestling.
That is, of course, why the Rock won. They are absolutely not concerned about John Cena’s drawing numbers as the loser of Wrestlemania XXVIII. In fact, it’s a side bonus for them. If he had won and he’d stuck around, who would he fight? Now, Cena’s been knocked back down. He can start over. He can do something different. He can be challenged.
Besides, I thought we all hated it when Cena won all the time? Pick a side, marks.
Rock vs Cena was why this show was so cohesive. Imagine Wrestlemania XXVIII was the first wrestling show you’ve seen in your life. You have no idea who these characters are, or why you should care. But you’ve been sold on this vague notion of Wrestlemania because Rock vs Cena posters were everywhere and it felt like a big deal. How do you make someone like that choke down 4 hours of fake fighting? Make it all mean something. Communicate a theme, and weave the narrative through. That’s why Bryan and Sheamus was a storytelling device that was echoed throughout the night. That’s why The Undertaker stepped on HHH’s sledgehammer, smiled, and decked him in the neck. That’s why John Cena, filled with false pride, tried to hit The People’s Elbow on the Rock and was punished. Wrestlemania XXVIII, as a whole, needed to be digestible.
It also had to be unbelievable, because this is a fantasy land. Have you ever seen a night filled with so many faces unable to believe their eyes? With Bryan, anger; with Orton, panic; with Michaels, harrow; and finally, Cena, with a mountain of defeat. WWE wanted us to feel these things, too. They wanted us to having trouble believing this show.
It’s the 25th anniversary of Wrestlemania III, which was the last time the world was really watching. Wrestlemania XXVIII may have finally taken them back there.
The Power of Gender Cues in Pro Wrestling by Lex Robertson
In her book, Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference (W.W. Norton & Co., 2010), Cordelia Fine challenges notions of innate, hard-wired gender distinctions. Her argument is compelling, especially when she turns to research that demonstrates the power of social priming and cues to influence outcomes. For example, many groups of people were given standardized tests, and some of the groups were primed by verbal cues indicating that men typically perform better than women. Groups performed just as they were primed, with men outperforming women when given the cue. When the groups weren’t given these kinds of gender-based priming, there were no gender distinctions in test results. Fine does an excellent job of arguing that our minds are not hard-wired computers, but subject to change, adaptable, susceptible to even the subtlest of influences. Perhaps, she suggests, they are even more susceptible to subtle cues than explicit messages.
While reading Delusions of Gender, I began to wonder how pro wrestling had influenced my thinking about gender and my attitudes, as a man, towards women. As a pro wrestling fan, mine is a familiar story. I was enchanted as a child (in the ‘80s), disenchanted as a teenager (in the ‘90s), and, through independent promotions, I have recently rediscovered that old enchantment as an adult (in the ‘10s). I choose that word ‘enchantment’ carefully. The scripted realism of pro wrestling combines the passion and intensity of sport with the imaginative fantasy of fiction. There’s a reason non-fans get a thrill crowing about how pro wrestling is ‘fake,’ and a reason fans get a thrill. Pro wrestling, when done well, doesn’t require willful suspension of disbelief; it can win us over, anyway.
Part of that enchanting nature is the combination of the explicit with the subtle. Pro wrestling shouts and it whispers all at once. The action draws the audience’s attention, but attention is held by the greater context. We keep watching to see the battle between right and wrong, heroes versus villains, revenge and justice. A suplex is never just a suplex. Pro wrestling is never just ‘entertainment.’ It has too much power over the hearts and minds of its audience.
When I was a child in the 1980s, pro wrestling sent out different messages about women and gender. My hometown promotion, World Class Championship Wrestling, featured valets like Sunshine and Precious. They weren’t exactly meek and delicate, but neither were they wrestlers. They’d feud and start fights between their men. They had some matches that were mostly cat fights, with screaming, clawing, and hair pulling, sometimes in mud pits.
There was also a short-lived, campy television show called Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, which, even in prepubescent innocence, I understood to be more about the Gorgeous Ladies than the Wrestling. Even as a kid obsessed with pro wrestling, I couldn’t take G.L.O.W. seriously.
What I took most seriously, and most prominent to most children at the time (and ever since), was the World Wrestling Federation. No woman stood out more at the time than Miss Elizabeth, the quiet, doting valet and wife of Macho Man Randy Savage. She was a symbol of hegemonic patriarchy, steeped in chauvinistic chivalry. She dressed elegantly, knew her place, and stood by her man. She was regarded as a possession by Savage, whose jealousy over her would propel some of his most memorable feuds. Her portrayal was hardly progressive, but, on the other hand, she was never made to get on all fours and bark like a dog, she never gave birth to a hand, didn’t have a recurring striptease segment, and there were no storylines built around her flatulence.
Besides Elizabeth, WWF had some women wrestlers on its roster. Women like Wendi Richter, Leilani Kai, Sherri Mantel, and Rockin’ Robin were actual wrestlers I could take seriously. They competed for the WWF Women’s Championship. They weren’t called ‘Gorgeous Ladies’ or ‘Knockouts’ or ‘Divas.’ They were called ‘women’ and ‘wrestlers.’ This got through to me, and I’m confident that it contributed, in some small way, to the values I’ve embraced as an adult. WWF wasn’t exactly beating anyone over the head with a feminist message. They were just giving a little bit of TV time to women who could wrestle. This is a subtle cue to the audience: judge these women by their in-ring performance and on-the-mic behavior, not by their bodies or sexuality.
Today, there are many talented women wrestling in independent promotions in North America and in Japan. The first to grab my attention, in my reintroduction to pro wrestling, was Sara Del Rey. Del Rey’s performances speak for themselves, as her skill and psychology can produce a great match with anyone in the world. That includes men. It’s easy to forget, watching Del Rey take on Claudio Castagnoli or Mike Quackenbush, that we’re not supposed to expect a woman to compete with a man, much less beat him. In its portrayal of Del Rey as a Grand Championship contender, Chikara, no matter how silly it might appear at first glance, proves to be very serious. Chikara understands the enchantment of pro wrestling and the message it sends when Sara Del Rey, and other women, compete with men. This is a message I’d like for the kids in my life to receive.
Shimmer Women Athletes is another independent promotion that sends a powerful message. Shimmer’s stated goal “is to provide the most skilled women pro wrestlers with a forum to truly shine as athletes and perform at the most competitive level.” There is nothing profound or revolutionary about this concept, but it stands out as something positive and uplifting. Any company could do what Shimmer is doing by treating women like women, like people. Women should be called women, and, as wrestlers, they should be portrayed according to their skills and characters. It seems pretty simple, but the effect could be world changing.
As Cordelia Fine argues, our perceptions and attitudes are easily swayed by subtle cues. Pro wrestling often sends out very distinct cues that perpetuate misogynistic stereotypes. Dismaying as that reality is, pro wrestling fans can find hope in the power pro wrestling demonstrates with its subtler cues. We can ask for the very least, that women be taken seriously as wrestlers and not objectified for the cheapest possible reactions. We can demand more, that wrestling promotions recognize the responsibility that comes with their power and use their unique format to promote equality. Enchanted children, little boys and little girls, the kids in our lives, are watching. Pro wrestling is giving them cues that could have a lasting effect on their attitudes toward women.
Lex Robertson lives in Spokane, Wash., where he works as a board-certified hospital chaplain. He has a Master of Divinity degree and runs a wrestling gifs blog on tumblr, Hair Match. He watched wrestling from the early ’80s until “The Fingerpoke of Doom” and has recently rekindled his fandom through independent promotions. He is a fan of ROH, Chikara, Shimmer, and DGUSA.
Edited by K Sawyer Paul
