As much as we’d all love to think otherwise, pro wrestling is, first and foremost, a serialized television program. It has season premieres and finalés, story beginnings and ends, and specials that require promoting. One won’t necessarily see a football player on Leno to promote Sunday’s game, but it isn’t terribly uncommon to see wrestlers flood the promotional media outlets in March to talk about WrestleMania. The fact that the wrestlers themselves show up to these programs instead of the promoters is a fairly good tip off that wrestling is entertainment-based. When a new Brad Pitt movie is being released, Brad Pitt will show up on the “Today” show. When The Rock is about to fight in the main event, he might show up on Letterman. Wrestling, the music business, the movie business; they’re all really in the shill business.
The above reality is, however, only one that wrestling enjoys. Yes, wrestlers are often scheduled to promote their current work. But just as often, wrestlers are invited on talk shows for the purpose of damage control. It isn’t terribly uncommon for news media to pounce on a pro wrestling tragedy. There isn’t a single medium of entertainment that has to justify its existence as much as wrestling. The reason for this is simple; the media loves, absolutely loves, to ask the question: Is _____ safe for your children? Nothing fills in that blank better than pro wrestling.
Before the ’80s-era WWF, wrestling was more or less considered real and fake, depending on who you talked to, and this dichotomy was acceptable because very few people took it seriously beyond idiot-box-style entertainment. There wasn’t anything in wrestling for people to get seriously offended about, really. The athleticism involved in pre-’80s wrestling wasn’t seen as dangerous enough to cause alarm: a dropkick was considered a match-ending move, and the violence was never intended for children’s eyes. Storylines were simple, serious, and rarely delved into smut. It was non-news in every category.
One of those early “is it safe for our kids” moments came around 1983 when Bob Backlund, the safest and blandest man alive,1 lost the world championship to the Iron Sheik, a foreign stereotype villain that was, for once, actually talented enough to be considered a threat. In the midst of Reagan’s America, an Iranian was the world champion of America’s biggest wrestling program. The fact that Sheik only held the belt for a month, and only held it so that Hulk Hogan could become the new #1 good guy, was irrelevant. Many remember that title reign to have lasted much longer than it did, but that doesn’t matter, either. What is important about Sheik’s title win was that he was apparently threatening to the youth of America. Here was a foreign wrestler who could legitimately out-wrestle his peers,2 who looked like he could outfight just about anyone, and held a fictional but believable disdain for America. He would spit on the floor after saying the word “America.” If that’s not hatred, nothing is.
Yes, the Sheik was just as much of a cartoon character as Hulk Hogan, Big John Studd, André The Giant, and Brutus Beefcake. He was just as two-dimensional and harmless as any wrestler ever was. And even though the media generally perceived ’80s wrestling to be okay for children,3 the fact that the question had to be asked at all is significant, and can largely be blamed on the Iron Sheik.
Naturally, I say “blame” in a backwards sense. Sheik was the other side of Hogan’s coin, and incredibly necessary to continue Hogan’s path to superstar status. He represented the great villain that made the great hero, and Hogan would have been nothing without the likes of him.4 And while there had been villains before the Iron Sheik, he was of a type that was socially piercing, even if none of that fear happened during his time as champion. Largely, people remember the Sheik for being in a team with Nikoli Volkoff, a Soviet character. Somehow, this team were rarely played for laughs, and seen to be a legitimate threat during their time together. A threat to what, though? Well, they always seemed to either be the tag champions, or about to win them. In terms of villain behavior, winning isn’t particularly up there. Yes, they cheated, but every wrestler cheats in some way or another. What made them threatening was that they represented the “other” in a way that was actually less cartoony than you might think.
When Brad Pitt goes on Letterman to promote his new movie, he’s not appearing as his character. But when the Iron Sheik would visit the set of Regis & Kathie Lee, he was the Iron Sheik.5 They didn’t call him by his real name. They didn’t ask him about how well he researches his role, or what he does when he’s not wrestling. To media outlets in the ’80s, wrestlers were always wrestling, even when they were just standing around. To push this, Regis6 would often try to fight the wrestler. This would end up with Regis helpless in a headlock, and everyone would dutifully laugh.
Now, this strange style of public appearance was partially because even though everyone knew wrestling was scripted, the illusion of real tension had to be sustained. To this day, I have no idea why this is. If a) everyone knows that wrestling was scripted, and b) all the wrestlers knew the audience knew that wrestling was scripted, why did wrestlers keep up the ruse? The argument lies in the fact that wrestling was, in the ’80s, for kids, and kids like to believe in things that aren’t necessarily true. Watching Hulk Hogan defeat King Kong Bundy in 1986 from an adult standpoint is a surprisingly bloody and satisfying (if albeit kind of slow) cage match. To a 5-year-old, though, it was their hero beating the big bad guy. Like Santa Claus, wrestlers being real athletes was a child-driven lie that America swallowed en masse.
This changed somewhat in the mid-to-late ’90s, and did so for the absolute opposite reason. Instead of a new, diabolical villain presenting themselves to children watching the program, it was a new kind of hero that the media questioned. The popularity of both Shawn Michaels and Steve Austin in the late 1990s attracted media watchdogs to reconsider their position on pro wrestling. Since the product had become more realistic, more violent, and more socially relevant, the question of whether it was safe for children quickly turned south. Michaels’ brash sexual provocations, mixed with Austin’s colorful language and excessive violent behavior,7 left the media agape at what their friendly little fake sport had become.
It wasn’t just these two wrestlers creating controversy, however. The industry in general was becoming geared toward an older audience, and it became suddenly clear that children were no longer the target demographic. This happened without anyone letting anyone know, either. All of a sudden, wrestling was TV-14, strippers replaced valets, bad-asses replaced heroes, and corporate control became the new villain. Essentially, wrestling stopped reflecting children’s fantasies of good and evil and began reflecting those of young adults.8
Justification became the de facto stance for wrestlers facing the media at this time. A common question asked of wrestlers in 1997 was why many of the new attitudes were necessary. The answers were soundly intelligent, usually. Many wrestlers began stripping off their characters for the press, showing for the first time that they were talented performers as opposed to caricatures. Along with this, they would explain that the ante had simply been raised; the passage of time has led to wrestling fans demanding more from the program. As Vince McMahon had said around this period, audiences were sick of having their intelligence insulted by archaic stories about simplistic black and white conflicts.9
Of course, there’s not insulting your intelligence by portraying overly simplistic morality plays, and there’s showing a video of a porn star being genitally tortured by Japanese cruiserweights.10 There’s going from Hulk Hogan versus Zeus the “evil” God to the Rock versus Mankind in a match involving nearly 20 steel chair shots to the head. It’s all well and good to argue that wrestling was in need of a change, but it isn’t at all a difficult task to point out where they may have gone too far in the opposite direction.
News media were right in the regard that they were saying exactly what wrestling in the late ’90s was. It was more violent than it ever had been. It was more sexually provocative. It was more socially controversial. And, ultimately, as many in the media would agree during this time, the wrestling in the late ’90s was more interesting to watch. The interesting thing about this is that one of the reasons it was so interesting to watch was that because, all of a sudden, pro wrestling was dangerous, and this made it worth tuning in. One really didn’t know what was going to happen. It was an exciting time, and for exactly the reasons that you would think.
Around 2001, however, the media attention began to fade. Fewer scandalous news reports were filed explaining the depravity of wrestling. Fewer tell-alls were published. And, most importantly, fewer people tuned in. Many people never turned back, and the people that continued to be wrestling fans still cite 1997-2001 as this strange little golden age. So what happened? Why did several million people stop watching wrestling? Why did the media stop reporting on it? Why did its relevance suddenly cease?
Many peg the demise of WWE’s rivals, WCW and, to a lesser extent, ECW. Both closed shop in early 2001 but were clearly on their way out by the end of 1999. Others blame the fact that wrestling was simply the “cool” thing to digest, and by 2001-02 the unwashed masses had found other pabulum.11 Both of these reasons are absolutely true, but I don’t think it’s the whole story. Yes, wrestling is largely based on both a competition, and milking fads until they suffocate. But more than either of those things, wrestling is about the illusion of reality. It is crucial that the audience believe that anything can happen. Since WWE had shattered the “wrestling is real” artifice, they had to up the ante in order to keep fans entertained. They did this by producing mostly interesting television, compelling characters, and a sense that “anything could happen.”
The beautiful thing was that this was generally true. Literally, anything could happen on the wrestling stage. Brides could get married to the wrong husband. Gothic stereotypes could crucify blue collar rednecks. Black supremacists could fight a white-trash biker gang. People could get hurt for real. People could die. Audiences could feel great empathy for a sock on the end of a hand of a man with four personalities.
Some of it was stupid. Okay, some of it was really, really stupid.12 But it was legitimately unpredictable, and this might have been wrestling’s strongest selling point. Given that the macro wrestling story line actually transcended several large companies and was delivered to audiences at least three times a week, this unpredictability was captivating. So what happened? Well, in late 1999, WWE became a publicly traded company. That meant that there were stockholders now. Immediately, any sense of being a rogue brand of entertainment flew right out the window. Oh sure, that didn’t mean WWE behaved perfectly well since then,13 but any sense of real spontaneity left at this point. And people stopped watching for this reason, whether they knew it or not.
Now, it might be strange to jump seven years in terms of media attention, but it wasn’t until the late spring of 2007 that the media and wrestling really locked horns again. This time, it was over Chris Benoit’s legitimately shocking and incredibly unbelievable murder of his wife and son and consequent suicide. It’s a topic that makes every wrestling fan uncomfortable, and every wrestling critic uncomfortably justified. It makes then justified because a wrestler finally snapped and became the animalistic subhuman that the harshest critics paint them as. It also makes every single wrestler a suspect for crazy, stupid shit, because Benoit committed all of this seemingly unprovoked and while perfectly calm. As well, when the autopsy came back, it showed that Benoit’s brain was terribly damaged, maybe a result of dropping himself on his head thousands of times, something lots of wrestlers do with various levels of protection. Conversely, Benoit is a rough topic for wrestling fans because he was arguably the best wrestler of all time.
Like any major crime involving a celebrity, the 24/7 media channels reserved an entire week to talk about Benoit. There were a few instances of reporters falling back on old arguments of wrestling being too violent, demeaning, and inappropriate for children. These were largely ignored by everyone, because wrestling in 2007 wasn’t nearly as violent or controversial as it was in 1999. In fact, WWE had reverted, becoming closer to as kid-friendly as it was in 1989 (and would rapidly become after the Benoit criss passed). This actually made a tremendous difference. Even though Benoit wrestled for WWE, one couldn’t really look at their 2007 product and claim it was anything but maybe a little boring. Although the media tried to paint a grim picture, it was a moot argument from the beginning. Many of the various wrestlers interviewed by reporters had become so media-savvy that they ended up promoting themselves by defending their own “humanity” and how good of friends they were with Benoit.
Looking at wrestling from the exact same entry points as before, reporters hammered home the subject of steroid abuse and roid rage as the cause of Benoit’s actions. This was largely disproved by the autopsy, but it did make the WWE’s no-tolerance steroid policy a real thing instead of simply a friendly plaque. It did make a physical difference to the roster. A few wrestlers outright quit, and the ones who stayed and were on steroids were remarkably smaller on television a few months following the Benoit incident. In a profession where the average weight for a wrestler in 2000 was 275 pounds, neither of the two men who held the WWE title in 2009––John Cena and Randy Orton––weigh over 240. But other than the subtle changes in steroid use, absolutely nothing changed in wrestling. Once again, all the media accomplished by attempting to demonize pro wrestling was to promote it out of the slump.
1 Until he went somewhat insane in the ’90s while inexplicably running for president
2 he was an amateur wrestling champion
3 the product was strategically geared toward them
4 I understand that it might be a stretch to assume that one single match made Hogan’s entire career. General wisdom shows that the first WrestleMania match, where Hogan teamed up against Mr T, was the real tipping point. But it’s easy to forget that Hulkamania existed before WrestleMania, and it existed even before Hogan beating Sheik. Arguably, the Iron Sheik’s short title reign summoned Hulkamania into WWE in order to bring peace, and we’ve had to deal with the Orange Bastard ever since.
5 In fact, he’s still the Iron Sheik, even though he’s really old and doesn’t wrestle anymore.
6 and people like him
7 let alone his inability to keep intercontinental belts out of large rivers
8 I personally attribute all of this to Goldust and Roddy Piper. While everyone else was still wrestling nice PG matches with nice, cartoon characters, Piper and Goldust were fighting in hardcore matches in drag while referencing OJ Simpson. Have I mentioned that the 90s were kind of weird sometimes?
9 Ironically, this was around the time WWE did a story about a group of black militants whose mandate was to put an end to the racist favoritism in the wrestling world.
10 Can’t wait for that 3-disc best-of Val Venis collection.
11 like drugs and mp3s.
12 Seven words: Senior Citizen gives birth to prosthetic hand.
13 Seven words: World champion rapes fake corpse in coffin.
K Sawyer Paul is an author and publisher living in Toronto. He tweets and tumbls. In the wrestling world he is known for This is Sports Entertainment and Aggressive Art.
Edited by Jason Mann.
