WWE Monday Night Raw is unequivocally a horrible two hours of television. Read that sentence. I said “is,” not “was.” I said “horrible,” not “getting worse.” Raw has always been bad. It has always been offensive, derogatory, degrading, backwards, conservative, and lazy, and that’s because it’s a wrestling show. Professional wrestling is a dirty, disgusting mess of an artform. It is too structured, but too chaotic. It is thirty years behind the times, yet often too extreme. It is nothing like the good old days, except somehow less violent and petulant toward political correctness.
The line often quoted in these situations, from Vince McMahon: “To those who believe in the beauty of professional wrestling, nothing needs to be said. For those who don’t appreciate wrestling, nothing could be said to change their minds.”
Let’s dig at that statement, because there are two severe problems built into that phrase. The first should be obvious: detractors of wrestling have nothing to hook them, because these people have looked across the rail and witnessed only a stain on popular culture. Professional wrestling has done a disparaging job of making it seem attractive or even tolerable to non-fans. They have very little to offer to anyone who snubs their noses at it. Much like how in that phrase, McMahon has accepted that nothing can be done, wrestling itself does very little to improve itself.
The other problem lies in the first sentence. Some things do need to be said about the beauty of professional wrestling. The beauty exists, that we’re sure of: too many intelligent people enjoy wrestling for it to only be a bullshit fake sport. But to say that wrestling is beautiful isn’t good enough, because it doesn’t answer a single criticism from the other side. In fact, it only exacerbates and frustrates the critic. It only flies in the face of real and important issues plaguing the art.
The October 10 episode of Monday Night Raw was considered offensive, self-serving, and, perhaps the worst criticism of an aggressive art: boring. Between HHH’s burial of 9/10ths of the roster, CM Punk’s apparent character suicide, John Laurinaitis’ rise, and Vince McMahon’s ability to demote people who demoted him, there wasn’t much to enjoy. It was the ultimate proof to those who feel WWE has absolutely dropped the ball since Money in the Bank, making that event seem like more a fluke than a highlight.
These kinds of things can anger the consistent fan, but it’s somewhat important to point out that plot and character issues are symptomatic of a much larger issue: wrestling is happy to be a poor product because the majority of people on the planet consider it to be a poor product all the time.
To nonfans, it’s not at all a surprise to hear that WWE would screw something up like Punk’s motivation, HHH’s powerplay, and John Cena’s integrity. Of course they would again arbitrarily rob us of Jim Ross’ voice. To nonfans, these are the sort of things that are happening in wrestling constantly. This is what wrestling is to most people: a never-ending cycle of idiots and juveniles running circus tricks.
Wrestlers have always had awful character motivation, abysmal consistency, and even worse ethics. Every single one of them has held our hope in their hands and crushed it beneath their avarice. Wrestlers are bad people, even the best of them routinely hand out uncivilized advice to the kids: violence doesn’t solve anything, but never stop trying that option.
Wrestling can be a never-ending soap opera about bad people doing bad things, and can act as a cautionary allegory about morality, choices, and character. Wrestling can be a stage where good fights evil, and good wins. Wrestling can be a place where ideals clash, where the zeitgeist can be turned on its head, revealing the narcicissm of obsessing over minor differences. Wrestling can be a hot mess of insanity. It absolutely can accomplish these things, and a ton more. It can be the beauty that Vince McMahon sees, and that we see, from time to time. But we’re nowhere near it right now. I don’t know that we’ve ever been near it for more than a few fleeting moments.
K Sawyer Paul is an author and publisher living in Toronto. He tweets and tumbls. In the wrestling world he is known for International Object.
Edited by Jason Mann.
