THE PREMIUM OPINION: SWEAT THE
By: Charles Beckmann
9/4/2003 12:09:00 PM
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A while ago I wrote a column about the generals of good booking. In that
column I put simplistic concepts over complicated detail, however I did not
intend to understate the importance of details in general. Often it's the
little details in wrestling that make the action more fun, and real. But
wrestling is a work, right? It's not supposed to be. Wrestling is supposed
to be real. The men and women involved are supposed to be real people,
participating in a real sport, with real rivalries. Or at least that should
be the goal.
There is a saying in Hollywood: "Save it for the close-up," which refers to
withholding the amount of emotion you display until the focus is on you.
The same saying can apply to wrestling, only in wrestling every moment is a close-up. Performing
in front of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of fans
requires that you give it your all, all the time, and perform for each of
those fans as individuals, or risk cheating even one of them out of the
experience of being worked.
When I say worked, I am referring to being pulled into the characters, and
the stories they are involved in. It's the small stuff that does that.
However, at the same time, it's the lack of the small stuff that will drive
fans away, and even drive them into mocking the work. It's the small things,
such as a worker breaking character to say something to someone while in the
ring, not taking into account the possibility that someone in the crowd
might be able to read lips, or a referee who screams and shouts while waving
his arms frantically, like trying to conduct a Speed Metal band, but
noticeably not saying anything at all, that betray the fans' willingness to
suspend disbelief.
The little things count. Kurt Angle cringing after kissing his gold medals
that he had just retrieved from Chris Benoit's pants, or a sly smile from
Eddie Guerrero after having just escaped with a cheated victory. A few
weeks ago, Rob Conway debuted for World Wrestling Entertainment, posing as a
service man before turning on the Dudley Boys and attacking them with the
flag pole. Before that segment took place, Rob entered the building with
the rest of the fans and sat through nearly a full hour and a half of the
show with his front row seat, cheering and reacting to the show with
everyone else. Rob even went as far as to tell people details about his
time in the Armed Services, such as how long he had been out, and when he
returned home. While these little details did not affect the majority of
the people in the audience, or any of the people at home, it reasonably made
the angle a little more special to the people he came in contact with before
the show.
Rob Conway didn't stop there though. He continued to work the character all
the way up to the swerve. When he was invited to get in the ring by The
Dudley Boys, Rob awkwardly climbed over the barrier wall, and once at the
ringside was hesitant about whether to slide into the ring like a wrestler,
or to just use the steps. If you know how to recognize a plant, but you
couldn't recognize Rob Conway, it was almost impossible to tell that he was
a trained Professional Wrestler, and nothing more than a service man, or a
person playing a service man for the company. It is detailed work like that
which allows fans to believe what they are seeing is really happening, and
is a work ethic that should be admired.
Another example took place in TNA two weeks ago when two people dressed as
Jason and Freddy Krueger purchased a ticket to the NWATNA Asylum and took
their seats at the ringside, and watched the show from there. The two
costumed characters played to the cameras from behind the announcers, as
many fans do. It would turn out, when the two hopped the guardrail and
attacked Erik Watts, that Jason and Freddy were really AJ Styles and Vince
Russo in disguise. That's the NWA World Champion and Vince Russo, sitting
in the crowd, in disguise, just to pull off a swerve. This is what the
charm of wrestling should be.
Forget unpredictability. "Anything can happen" but there are a lot of things
that really shouldn't.
The mystique of Professional Wrestling should be "Nothing is what it seems."
The veterans are masters at it, and one of the signs of being green is
overlooking it, but selling a move is probably the biggest small thing in
wrestling. Selling a move with your entire body, and selling it throughout
a match lends so much believability to the physicality of Professional
Wrestling that I believe it should be the first thing taught to aspiring
wrestlers. Fans should not have to use their imagination to understand how
much it hurts, the facial expressions, and physical demeanor of a worker
after a move should tell the whole story.
The next step is selling outside of the building. Back in the old-school
days, Kayfabe was law, and there is a reason why many fans have such fond
memories of those days, why heels like Terry Funk were hated so much that
the fans actually attempted to kill them. Kayfabe drew money then, and it
can draw money now, even if it is done only to a fraction of the extent it
was done in the past. Kayfabe still has a big part in Professional
Wrestling. However, with the advent of the Internet, the old-school has
become old hat. Rarely does kayfabe exist outside of the arena doors. The
days of heels being forbidden from associating with faces in public are
gone, I guess because some of us "get it" it's not worth trying anymore, and
maybe that's true, but there are times, in grand circumstances, when kayfabe
will bring business.
Summerslam weekend, Zach Gowen was taken off the PPV due to "injuries" as a
result of a beating at the hands of Brock Lesner. Although on that same
weekend, Zach was spotted at an Independent Show in New Jersey with no signs
of injury other than a mark on his forehead, a blown opportunity at putting
over promoting your company, and yourself. Seeing a kid, one leg or not,
with a leg in a full cast, and a head bandaged like he was in a car wreck,
the natural impulse would be to ask him what happened. The straight answer
would be "I was beaten up by Brock Lesner on WWE Smackdown! which airs on
UPN every Thursday night." I don't mean this to exploit Zach Gowen because
of what he is, a one-legged wrestler, however a worked injury should be
exploited to give legitimacy to the real harm that the wrestlers do to their
bodies.
In ECW, there was an angle where The Sandman was blinded, and Woman was
hyping up the debut of her new man. It would turn out that the new man was
The Sandman, who was never blinded. That didn't keep The Sandman from
keeping fans in the dark about his condition. Between the time that he went
out with blindness, and came back in his new role, Sandman went into
seclusion, not going out in public, and if memory serves me correct, he
rarely, if ever, left his house, he worked the angle in his daily life, and
it made it just that much more surprising.
It's okay to keep the work alive outside of the ring. I personally think
it's not done enough. Not everything has to be done infront of a camera, if
something were to happen in a public place the day before a show that set up
a feud, I think it would draw more tickets, as long as it didn't look like
it was set up. Kayfabe does have a place in wrestling, and I think it will
make money when executed appropriately. The money is not in the shoot
angle. It's in the worked angle done like a shoot.
The Premium Opinion
anacondapro@hotmail.com
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