There have been interesting posts this month about women who have made a significant impact in professional wrestling. One that I liked in particular was by Stephen T Stone regarding Kharma, aka Awesome Kong (real name: Kia Stevens). I am in agreement with Stone that eventually the 6’2, 272lb Stevens will eventually contend against the men of the WWE, and possibly even hold a belt traditionally held by men, given of course that there is no macho chauvinistic alpha male bullshit strike in the locker room against losing to a woman [Ed note: not likely].

Reading about Stevens and her potential and comparisons to other WWE women wrestlers brought to mind a lesser accomplished woman of similar stature: Lindsay Hayward, aka “Isis The Amazon”.

A few years ago, the 6’9’’, 245lb Hayward was signed to a WWE developmental contract, given the moniker “Aloisia” and was briefly showcased on WWE’s NXT program. She was only with the WWE for a few weeks, however, before being released and set back on the indy trail. Although there were rumors Hayward’s appearance in racy photos years earlier might have done her in, there was no confirmation on behalf of the WWE why she was let go.

My opinion is that in the pre-Kharma world of the WWE, Lindsay Hayward had no real options in the WWE, and that they had no other choice but to let her go. The very attribute that makes Isis the Amazon such a draw is the very thing holding her back from success at the top levels of professional wrestling.

Years ago, the WWE used Andre the Giant in a way that allowed territorial talents to shine while still getting maximum expose for Andre, using him as a traveling road show around the US and the world to face the best of each region. The thinking behind moving Andre was that if Andre were to stay in one place, he would have to hold a championship belt wherever he was due to his mere size. The fans would expect Andre to dominate and at 7’4 and over 500lbs, the unfortunate consequence was that at his prime few could realistically defeat him. Wrestling is a visual art, and smaller men are supposed to lose to giants, so the giant doesn’t look weak.

Unfortunately for Isis the Amazon, the WWE is no longer a one-person traveling circus. Hayward would be expected to fight her competition on a regular basis in matches that at least appeared realistic. With no women within a foot of Hayward’s height on the WWE roster when she was signed, Aloisia would have no realistic competition. As well, her lack of experience would have exploited her in any match with male competition. Could you imagine a rookie woman competing against the likes of Kane, the Undertaker, the Big Show, or anyone else in Hayward’s height range? It wouldn’t happen.

Unlike Stevens, Hayward was not able to work her way through the indies without being anything more than a sideshow. In order to put over women who stand between five and six feet tall, Hayward would have to exhibit more than just “monster” wrestling skills. As Awesome Kong, Stevens was able to hone her skills and become a capable wrestler in near-evenly matched spectacles, facing women who were above average. This was an opportunity Hayward has not had.

So why not re-sign Hayward now, with Stevens under contract? The fact is, Stevens is a far better wrestler with far more experience. Unless the WWE trains Lindsay Heyward at FCW for enough time to make her into a legitimate threat in a realistic, non-carnival sideshow wrestling match, Stevens will also exploit Hayward as a gimmick with beginner-level talent. Remember, with Stevens at 6’2 and Hayward at 6’9, seven inches does not a giant make. Hayward will have to learn the ropes in order to hold her own versus Kharma.

Maybe one day Isis the Amazon or Aliosia will make her WWE debut. Maybe she will storm into a Royal Rumble and eliminate Kharma as Giant Gonzales did to the Undertaker twenty years ago [Ed note: let’s hope the analogy ends there]. But once the smoke settles and realism permeates the illusion of professional wrestling, as she stands now, Lindsay Hayward will not be able to stand tall in the WWE.

Mike Lortz (aka Jordi Scrubbings) is a Tampa-based writer currently hanging out in Afghanistan. He has written for the Tampa Bay Times, Deadspin.com, and has been published in two books on Minor League Baseball. He is a WWE fan and steady presence in the Florida indy scene, to include a stint as Social Media Manager for the formerly Tampa-based All-Stars Wrestling of Florida. He has written about how wrestlers can increase their presence in social media, suggested using metrics to measure the worth of pro wrestlers, and recently lamented about the disconnect between writers and wrestlers.

Edited by K Sawyer Paul.

After reading a bit of discussion on The Wrestling Blog, Fair to Flair and Twitter about the dueling chant, I felt compelled to share my piece. As a veteran live wrestling show fan (in multiple promotions, cities, and countries), I think I have a fairly good grasp on the concept. In fact, if you follow SHIMMER or CHIKARA or ACW, you’ve probably heard me and my friends leading a dueling chant ourselves. As someone who has been there, done that, and done it better than most let me first say: put away the idea that fans do this as some self-indulgent attempt to draw attention to themselves.

As anyone who attends wrestling shows can tell you, the asshole fans who want to draw attention to themselves actually draw attention to themselves. They don’t join in with other fans to cheer on a wrestler or applaud the match. They cat call. They make obnoxious comments. They talk about the football game or cheesecake or make unfunny and embarrassing Undertaker references at ROH shows or do other things that have no purpose save making others look at them and acknowledge their existence. You won’t hear these people on TV or DVD, but they are there at every show. They are the actual jerks attempting to take away from the match for their own benefit.

The true vocal fans, the troublemakers, the chanters, the clappers, the singers are on the complete opposite end. They are the hardworking, very small minority of people that make the difference between a “hot” crowd and a “dead” one. They might be just three or four people in a crowd of two or three hundred, but they’re the ones who get all the chants (not just the dueling ones) going. The majority of fans only join in with the fire starters when they can be bothered, which is only a fraction of the time. The notion that either of these factions, the lead vocalists or their grudging backing chorus, clamp their hands numb and scream their throat raw out of anything other than love or passion for the sport is, simply, wrong.

On dueling chants specifically, K Sawyer Paul suggested they were a failure because they don’t clearly convey their purpose. The mistake is in thinking that the crowd has a purpose. A wrestling crowd is not, in any way, a homogenous group with a single defined goal. It is a collection of individuals with various tastes and preferences that are in constant conflict with each other. 

When I and 10 to 20 of my favorite people in the world at the moment scream, “Let’s-Go-Kana,” and then 10 to 20 people who in that moment I hate more than anything in the world scream, “Let’s-Go-Sara,” we’re both making very clear our, separate, goals: We want Kana to choke the life out of Sara with the Kana Lock. They want Sara to decapitate Kana with an axe kick. 

This is not a detached, orchestrated, cooperative, unified attempt; it’s fucking war. We must scream louder and harder and longer or they (those putrid sub-humans  who dare challenge us and our chosen fighter) will win. In that moment it’s all or nothing. Kill or be killed. It’s Pro Wrestling.

You might not understand this if you haven’t been there, in the trenches, trying to convince Chris Hero that he absolutely cannot beat ACH while Chris Hero’s many fans reassure his ego with a “Yes-he-can!”If you were there but sat unmoved and didn’t cheer “Ha-ma-da” or “Me-li-ssa,” then you didn’t feel that surge of adrenaline and you didn’t see how time stood still and the euphoria hit and you didn’t realize you were not only watching the perfect wrestling match, but that your voice had become a part of it. The wrestlers see it and feel it too. They’ve told me. They live for those moments just like fans. 

Of course not every chant fans earnestly perform is good, but the truly problematic ones (“U-S-A” or “Show-Your-Tits”) tend to have more obvious issues than merely seeming mildly pretentious or confusing in a limited context. So, before judging a chant, of any kind, consider what it’s like for the people actually saying it, and the wrestlers as they hear their fans fight for them. Better yet, participate yourself at the next show you attend. It’s an experience worth having.

And just one more thing: To any Cheerleader Melissa fans attending NCW Femmes Fatales in Montreal next month, I only have this to say: Let’s-Go-Hailey! - Clap - Clap - ClapClapClap

Leslie, aka John Hyperion, is the editor-in-chief for the progressive pro wrestling blog, the Dirty Dirty Sheets. Check it out for the beat on everything puroresu, joshi and independent wrestling.

Edited by TH.

Let’s start with the obvious: Professional wrestling is not a real sport. It very clearly is pure entertainment involving feats of athleticism blended with a production style and schedule that makes in unquestionably unique. And while it’s been years since any serious wrestling company tried to come across as a sponsor of legitimate competition, all of them still approach their craft through the lens of conventional sports. The shows are presented as sporting contests, and fans have knowingly agreed to suspend disbelief in exchange for being entertained.

This, above all else, is why any televised wrestling show still has a play-by-play announcer and color commentary. No major network would broadcast a football game without an announcing crew, at least not in this era. There has been some great Internet discussion in the last few weeks about the quality of current on-screen wrestling media, and I certainly would advocate an experiment wherein the play-by-play guy simply told us what was happening and the color man provided analysis of the action.

Another reminder of wrestling’s use of traditional sports conventions as a way of framing its production is seasonally relevant—the WWE Hall of Fame. The first inductees of the Class of 2012 were announced Monday, and the first name listed, the recently retired Edge, is a prime example of the fine line wrestling promoters walk between sports and entertainment.

With the Edge announcement coming within days of the Baseball Hall of Fame election of former Reds shortstop Barry Larkin, several people commented how odd it seemed to see Edge announced for induction so close to the end of his in-ring career, especially juxtaposed with the standard five-year waiting period between retirement and induction eligibility for “real” sports.

Edge is a legitimate hall-of-famer, no matter your feelings on the legitimacy of the WWE Hall of Fame. Whether he is inducted in 2012 or 2016 or 2026, anyone who watched the man work in his prime is aware of his credentials. NBA fans could say the same for Bulls great Scottie Pippen, but no one expected to see him enshrined in Springfield ahead of schedule. (We might have argued Michael Jordan should have been given such an honor, as was bestowed upon hockey’s Wayne Gretzky. But frankly, none of us believed MJ would ever stayed retired for five full years.)

But why is Edge in the Hall of Fame already? Because the WWE is a show, and Vince McMahon (or whomever makes such decisions) wanted a true headliner to make the 2012 induction ceremony special. It’s a fitting tribute to a man who literally risked his life for the business and had to walk away after the most recent WrestleMania. The baseball ceremony in Cooperstown, N.Y., in July lacks any such star power (the other big name inductee is a guy who died more than a year ago), and as such the induction weekend likely will take a back seat to whatever else is making sports news that weekend.

In a similar vein, why is the WrestleMania main event The Rock vs. John Cena? Because the WWE is a show, and Vince McMahon (you know he made that decision) wanted a true headliner to make his signature event special. And this is the larger point: Vince McMahon can do what Bud Selig and David Stern and Roger Goodell only dream of doing. He makes matches the fans want to see—or at least what he thinks fans want to see.

Selig and his television partners know their ratings would peak if he could get the Red Sox or Yankees in the World Series every year. Sure, many fans (those who really care about the sport, and not just their favorite team) might get upset at seeing the same thing over and over again, but money talks. Popular teams from big markets draw eyeballs. Yes, the Cardinals and Rangers played one of the great World Series games of all time in October. But only people from those cities and devoted fans of the sport were watching.

If the wrestling parallel isn’t clear by now, it should be. The vast majority of people who express wrestling opinions on the Internet are going to follow fairly closely no matter who the main players are. We are far more prone to get bored with the status quo and therefore much more likely to clamor for new faces in the main event scene. C.M. Punk and Dolph Ziggler could deliver an absolute classic WrestleMania main event if given the chance. But this isn’t real sports, where a small market team can turn the establishment on its ear with skill alone.

As much as the WWE would like to brand WrestleMania as the Super Bowl of sports entertainment, it’s not a totally apt comparison. The Super Bowl is immune from bad matchups. It’s a veritable American holiday regardless of which teams are playing. When you can bet on the coin toss or how long the national anthem performance will last, or when you just need an excuse to consume lots of light beer and guacamole at your brother-in-law’s house, the actual contest is irrelevant.

Maybe, maybe WrestleMania would be like that if it were on free television. But when you’re asking people to pay $60 to order the pay-per-view, you’d darn well better give them a reason. This is where the flip side comes in.

Vince McMahon may be jealous of Roger Goodell and his NFL and the millions of people who tune in no matter the color of the jerseys on the field. But McMahon has one thing Goodell doesn’t: the ability to deliver on the promise of a good show.

Nearly every Super Bowl I’ve watched in the 1980s and 1990s was a one-sided affair. From a football standpoint, almost each one was anticlimactic compared to the drama of the conference championship games (notably the NFC battles involving some combination of the 49ers, Cowboys and Packers). Even when games looked good on paper, they rarely “delivered” the way a great wrestling card can when the performers, booking, crowd and arena are running on all cylinders.

Example: Michael Jordan’s Bulls vs. Magic Johnson’s Lakers in the 1991 NBA Finals was, on paper, an epic matchup. Would the old guard pass the torch to the new generation? Would the rising superstar begin to stake his claim as the greatest of all time, or did the proven hero have enough tricks in his bag to keep the crown where many felt it belonged? As a Bulls fan, I have great memories of that series. But my team won four games to one, and it ultimately lacked the drama some might have expected, at least compared to its potential.

Yet those same storylines were the lynchpins of the Hulk Hogan-Ultimate Warrior showdown at 1990’s WrestleMania VI at SkyDome in Toronto. Say what you will about their in-ring skill (and the rest of the card, for that matter) but that match delivered on its promise as an entertaining climatic moment.

Should wrestling be more real? Maybe. Would you trade backstage “soap opera” segments for a 30-minute pregame show a la CBS or Fox’s NFL studio crews? Perhaps you’d rather see Terry Bradshaw explain his pick to win the U.S. Title match than watch Zack Ryder try to change a tire. All right, we’d all rather see TB. But there are other things—tracking wins and losses, leader boards, perhaps divisions or conferences, announcers that don’t know who will win or have marching orders to drive a narrative home against all rational thought—could be implemented.

But wrestling isn’t sports, it’s sports entertainment. Fans are willing to suspend disbelief. We accept revisionist history and the occasional abuse of canon. We may not always agree with what the writers think is the best way to deliver on the promise of entertainment, but we don’t watch wrestling for the same reasons we watch conventional sports. And that’s OK. It’s all part of the package.

Edge is a hall-of-famer. The Rock and Cena are headlining WrestleMania. Such things aren’t about the hardcore fan. They’re about grabbing money from as many people as possible. Mainstream people. And if that money sustains the product over the course of 12 months so we can have things like Punk in glorious triumph at Money In The Bank (and, to a lesser degree, Survivor Series), then I’m all for it. The guys we love are going to steal the show no matter where they are on the card. The real tragedy would be having no show to be stolen in the first place.

Scott T. Holland is a newspaper columnist and self-published author with a ridiculous collection of Coliseum Video products obtained on the secondary market and hidden from his wife in a box in the basement. You can find him on Twitter.

Edited by K Sawyer Paul

There are four weeks between Survivor Series and the final WWE pay-per-view of the year, TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs, which comes to you live Sunday, Dec. 18, from 1st Mariner Arena in Baltimore, Md. But when it comes to John Cena, there is only one date on the calendar: Sunday, April 1, 2012. WrestleMania 28 in Miami, Fla.

In the interim there will be 19 episodes of “Monday Night Raw.” With two of those shows in the can already, we are starting to see how the WWE intends to treat Cena in the time between his Survivor Series tag match with The Rock and his WrestleMania showdown against The Rock.

When the Cena-Rock WrestleMania match was established in April 2011, it was unprecedented. Never before had the WWE advertised any match a year in advance, let alone the biggest match of the biggest show of the year. On the part of The Rock, this made sense. No one expected him to be a fixture on weekly TV. In fact, his wrestling character is now partly defined by his absence. On the flip side, Cena’s character is defined by his presence: he is always on the show, always saluting, tossing his cap to children and rising above hate, always hustling with loyalty and respect or rising above hate or whatever mission statement his T-shirt du jour proclaims.

Clearly the Rock-Cena match could not be a WWE Title match, because The Rock (the character) has no interest in winning the belt. He is simply consumed with proving the fans still love him more than anyone and that he can still “bring it” as well as anyone. He does not want to have a better wrestling career than John Cena, he wants to prove he remains a bigger star than John Cena. And while this rampant egotism might not seem the type of thing fans are supposed to cheer, it has evolved as the perfect antidote to Cena’s Superman character.

WWE writers gave us plenty of reasons to quibble over how we got to the main event of Survivor Series, but the reality of wrestling is that’s no longer important. (Complain, if you will, about Awesome Truth being made an afterthought, but at least The Miz has even more legitimate reasons to complain about being overlooked. It should be interesting to see him act on that rage, although we could all do with less extreme close-ups of his angry face.) What is important now is the stage has been set for WrestleMania.

As others (including David Shoemaker and Brandon Stroud) have already explained, John Cena is already among the WWE’s top heels. A significant, vocal portion of fans want to see him lose based entirely on the character he presents and the success he has had.

(This was the problem with the Cena-Alberto Del Rio title matches at Night of Champions and Vengeance. Del Rio, as a classic heel, is the kind of wrestler the WWE wants us to boo. We have been conditioned to cheer when rich, good-looking and physically gifted stars get their comeuppance. But when pitted against Cena, loved only by some of the fans, we can be assured of an outcome that will displease about 75 percent of fans. Which is to say nothing of the inability of anyone to present Del Rio as a legitimate threat to a man who has defeated dozens of bigger, scarier and sneakier opponents.)

This is why the Cena-CM Punk feud from the summer was not really about Cena and Punk. It was about Punk vs. The Man and Cena was merely the in-ring incarnation of The Man. Even people who cheered for Cena when he faced Punk are likely to support Punk when he faces Del Rio, because now Del Rio represents The Man.

This is why the Cena-Rock feud works. Because as long as Cena remains true to himself, his loyal fans will continue to love him. The people who already dislike him will continue to dislike him and they will cheer for The Rock because they believe what The Rock believes — that The Rock is, was and will be a bigger star than John Cena and he will beat him on the biggest stage of all (and, oh yeah, The Miz did that too last year, but who’s worried about last year?).

Bringing this back to Piper’s Pit on this week’s Raw (and in-house articles on WWE.com) we are indeed starting to see WWE writers attempt to take ownership of Cena’s dual nature. In the late 1990s, it became cool to cheer for the bad guys. Now, it is cool to boo the good guys. But no matter what, when the company acknowledges there are certain characters who can be simultaneously loved and hated, the potential for riveting feuds is abundant.

The trouble with John Cena, then, is making sure he doesn’t do anything to cause his loyal fans to turn on him. The fans who boo John Cena do not want to cheer him. Rather, they are best served if he keeps on being Boy Scout John Cena because that is the character they like to boo, the one they want to see lose to guys like CM Punk and The Rock. But if all this Cena soul searching (to be fair to Cena, he does not seem to want to search his soul, and he told Piper as much) leads to him attempting a Hogan-esque Bash at the Beach style heel turn, he could be lost forever. No one wants Super Heel Cena. It would not be cool. It would be confusing to those who happily take what they are fed and dissatisfying to those who try to prop up the counterculture.

How all of this plays out between now and WrestleMania and, more importantly, after WrestleMania, is open to wild speculation. Cena has seemingly been removed from the WWE Title picture for the time being, and hopefully will stay away throughout the winter in order to make sure that belt has its own match of extreme significance on the card. The World Heavyweight Title scene is playing out nicely in a more traditional monster vs. underdog feud. The U.S. and Intercontinental titles are held by smug yet talented heels who could easily build programs from here to April that would generate intense fan interest (or just as easily be swept under the carpet, which has been known to happen), to say nothing of the prospect of one more Undertaker WrestleMania classic. That’s six matches I’m already excited for and I only know a handful of the participants.

But the key, as always, is Cena. In the coming weeks, there is worry the writers will try to do to much with Cena, when less really is more. One might suggest a kayfabe injury leading to a pure sports build for his Rock encounter might be the best prescription for capturing the current fan sentiment and bottling it up to be uncorked in mid-March. The Rock is far, far bigger than Raw or Smackdown right now, to say nothing of TLC or the Elimination Chamber, and it might be time to confer the same status on Cena. We know his motivation, we know his next big match and we know who we will support. We are perfectly fine with waiting until April for the payoff, but please don’t muddy the water between now and then.

Scott T. Holland is a newspaper columnist and self-published author with a ridiculous collection of Coliseum Video products obtained on the secondary market and hidden form his wife in a box in the basement. You can find him on Twitter.