From the moment you are thrust into this world naked and screaming, civilisation has a natural predisposition to lie to you. From Santa to size not being an issue, your formative years are a procession of poorly constructed altruism intended to protect you from the harsh realities of existence. Though all it really does is create a reliance on the expectation of fairness leaving you ill equipped to cope with anything more honest than “it’s personality that counts” before you traipse back to your bedroom to listen to music that ‘really speaks to you’. I find it astonishing that modern society laments its inability to comprehend what has gone wrong with its fragile status quo, especially considering that it fails to suitably protect us from those who seek to do us harm and instead blames pop culture figures and violent escapism for the collapse of values and decency. Luckily, the version of reality disseminated by pro-wrestling is so contorted that any morally fibrous benefit that could be potentially gleaned therefrom would be lost in translation before the pyros died down.
But before I start (and god knows I will) I should point out that this is my second attempt at writing this piece (though not a reference to the ‘part one’ aspect of the title, which will become apparent next time). I originally wrote this column addressing the mutated reality of pro-wrestling (gimmicks, storylines, work/shoots) and when it came time to make my conclusions and deftly prove that, rather than a construct enabling a merry band of travelling players to entertain us with their performance, wrestling is in fact a malevolent deceit created to drain the confused and the weak of their hard earned income, I found that I couldn’t. Not even close. A complete waste of four hours and six and a half brain cells (which unfortunately only leaves me with three brain cells left and one of them only works if I lean to one side). I concluded that the WWE only has two reasons to be deceitful and these are to protect itself (which is ‘business’) and to protect the storylines (which is ‘kayfabe’). I will stop short of claiming that the WWE is deserving of our sympathy, seeing as it is routinely guilty of being manipulative, superficial, exaggerative and the billion other underhanded tactics it has utilised over the decades to increase its bank balance, but when it comes to lying the WWE is much more the victim than the perpetrator.
The issue of censorship became the backdrop for a series lies committed by those involved with the 1999-2002 sponsorship feud and PTC court case. Under the leadership of L Brent Bozell III, the Parents Television Council applied pressure on soda giants Coca-Cola and the US Army, Navy and Coast Guard to discontinue advertising during Smackdown. Despite assurances to the contrary, the military persisted with advertising on WWE time but that didn’t stop the PTC claiming in print that they had successfully convinced them to pull their commercials. In truth, various companies had suspended advertising on the show but many, including current Raw advertiser Burger King, rekindled the business relationship with WWE knowing the appeal that pro-wrestling had with their target demographic. The WWE filed a lawsuit in November 2000 alleging thirteen instances of defamation (linking the WWE to the murders of four children), copyright infringement (using unauthorised WWE footage in PTC fundraising campaigns) and interference with business relations. In 2002 the PTC paid an out-of-court settlement of $3.5 million and Bozell issued a public apology saying, "It was wrong to have stated or implied that the WWE or any of its programs caused these tragic deaths". The lesson is that, in business at least, Vince has learnt that the one person you shouldn’t lie to is yourself. Bozell was so sure of his ‘crusade’ that he regarded his purpose as more important than legislation, something that might not be written in huge stone tablets carried by dudes that look like Charlton Heston but is a lot more conclusively provable in a court of law. It is fair to question whether the specific intention of a freedom of expression is to allow the WWE to exhibit the levels of smut, violence and outrageousness that it does on a weekly basis but, under such an umbrella, it has the allowance to do so and be judged thereon. From a company standpoint, McMahon understands the right to learn from his own mistakes better than most. He was under no illusion that diverse ventures such as the WBF and XFL were risky encroachments into enemy territory but he takes solace from giving people one more reason to talk about him and he accepts the notoriety as suitable recompense for the perception of failure. Kind of like that old Oscar Wilde quote but with more head shaving and necrophilia.
As the years have passed, an ‘all was fair in love and war’ attitude has been adopted about the Monday night wars between WCW and WWF from September 1995 to June 1999 (competitively speaking). And yes, I accept that even Vince probably doesn’t harbour any animosity on the subject now, although that could be because he won, completely and decisively. But even though the WWE did dirty its hands during the skirmishes, albeit only through the lame Billionaire Ted sketches and some DX-led military silliness, no one crawled lower or with more salacious gratification than Eric Bischoff. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that, despite never specifically saying so on WCW programming, Eric was promoting The Outsiders (Nash and Hall) as an ‘invading’ team still aligned with the WWF. Something with which a court would later agree and Bischoff would be forced to clarify that they did not represent the WWF. I will concede a certain amount of gullibility aimed at Vince in complacently agreeing deals with Lex Luger and Rick Rude based on handshakes but Vince is always at his worst as a businessman when he trusts people, something that Jim Cornette would later state when interviewed. But the real slight came with Bischoff’s “open invitation” to McMahon for a match at WCW’s Slamboree PPV in May 1998. Not because he already knew there was no way Vince was going to turn up on the rival supercard (anyone that purchased the event expecting to see the match deserved the no-show countout they bought) but because it sacrificed the work for the shoot and I believe the business of building characters and telling stories should come first. It would be true to say that Vince only retaliated to Bischoff’s antics because the WWF was losing the ratings battle, something that was proven by WWE’s refusal to reference TNA’s recent attempts to refuel the fire with the VKM segments. Maybe there’ll never be an equal competitor to the WWE again, certainly not while any company that gets vaguely close seems intent on promoting themselves as merely an ‘alternative’, but you can bet that the first thing this future promotion should do is wait until the contracts are up on as many WWE wrestlers as possible and take advantage of the money and time invested in them by a company that knows how to develop talent.
As an individual, rather than the embodiment of a company, it appears pointless to defend Vince from accusations of duplicity, if for no other reason than because it is such a commonly held opinion. For every person you’ll find that believes him to be a hard working inspirational figure, you’ll find two or three that would conclude he is more full of bullshit than the place where bulls keep their shit. There is a steady stream of disgruntled ex-employees and former promoters from the days of the territories who will attest to Vince’s ability to look you in the eye and lie to your face. But then they would say that because Vince owns the dominant wrestling product in the world and, if you’re not working for it, you’re working against it. All of the noteworthy recently departed talent from Stamford have engaged in lengthy verbal conflict with their former boss and, despite each of them knowing the aggressive nature of corporate dealings, have bleated on about lack of push (Christian), copyright restriction (Dudleys), working injured (Angle), unfair dismissal (Rhino) or pulling talent from rival shows (Hogan) without A SINGLE ONE of them being able to identify a deception related to those issues coming from the lips of Vince McMahon. Just because someone is in the best position to act as ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and endow everyone that visits his kingdom with all the wishes they desire, doesn’t mean that he should shoulder the blame when those dreams fail to realise. All of the wrestlers I mentioned previously were as responsible, if not more culpable, for the breakdown of their relationships with the WWE and I hope they understand that their slanted recollections do a disservice to the fans that cheered for them while they were realising those dreams.
Forgive me if I did ‘go off on one’ but I tried to make this as much a stream of consciousness as I could and it’s always difficult to reign in the ambivalence when talking about Vince McMahon. But then I guess he’ll always carry that cross. Once you take away all the hearsay and conjecture surrounding the man, all you’re left with is some second hand bile thrown in his direction and the character traits dragged across from his Mr McMahon gimmick. I remember the opening promo at Wrestlemania XX, when Vince was there with Shane and his grandson Declan. It was a nice moment, seeing three generations of the McMahon family together, but in the back of my mind I couldn’t help thinking ‘get the damn baby away from Vince, he might eat it’. Or fire it. Or force it to kiss his ass.
Unfortunately, there is one small problem with all that I’ve written and that is ... I’m as much a purveyor of the conspiracy as any of the people I’ve listed. All of the instances regarding wrestling that I’ve recanted are factually correct but the desire to make an issue out of it, and my sweeping absolution of the WWE from its previous transgressions, is as biased and selective as any other I have mentioned. Remember this if nothing else, everybody has an agenda. Vince, Bozell, Bischoff, Angle, Hogan and even us fans use ‘facts’ to prove a point and no matter how objective you are, your opinion separates you from the truth. In the end, perhaps I should have posted the first piece I wrote. It might not have been as original or contained the words “bullshit” and “ass” (well, not in that order) but it did make some sort of sense. Kind of ironic really that the things that offer us the most comfort are the lies we see every week; the storylines, the gimmicks, the silly cartoonish characters with strange lives and even stranger names. Thankfully, no one in real life would pretend to have a cool name just to sound interesting ... now that would be sad.
Lee
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