Hi all, welcome back to what appears to have been yet another hiatus from the wrestling world for yours truly. I really wish I could have belted out a few more in the last couple of months but sadly personal circumstances have not permitted it. Nonetheless I hope that over the new year at least I can be more regular than a pensioner on a diet of bran and prune juice… eurgh disgusting thought, moving right along!
I want to touch on an event that was discussed a lot over the last couple of months but in my opinion for all the wrong reasons. Recently CNN did a documentary entitled “Death Grip” about the world of professional wrestling, addressing issues that have plagued the industry, but particularly the WWE over the last few years.
Now I’m coming clean here, I’ve never seen it, nor do I want to. I know it’s now going to be a tad hypocritical of me to then talk about a documentary I haven’t seen, but truth be told the points I want to make don’t require it. I knew what I would be in store for – a relatively one sided, sensationalistic piece of journalism not necessarily bothered about reporting the absolute truth on the matter. I certainly heard a lot of WWE bluster after it was broadcast complaining about it! My main focus however will be based on the transcript of the interview featuring Vince and Linda McMahon (which I have read) and how I think they seriously dropped the ball.
We all know what journalists are capable of. Here in the UK, the media can seem to sensationalise just about everything. Up until just this week we were enjoying daily hype regarding whether Jose Mourinho (big WWE fan, for those who don’t know) will take over as England Manager. Before that it was whether Amy Winehouse (another big WWE fan) was going to take it too far and finally overdose on the booze. Before that, it was literally six months of daily speculation into poor Madeleine McCann. Hell, some ten years on and we are still looking into what affect the paparazzi had on the accident that killed Princess Diana. As a body, they are incredibly powerful. This year, they have turned Lewis Hamilton into a hero who can do no wrong and Heather Mills McCartney has been vilified as a money-grabbing, attention seeking crazy lady. Who’s to say that this time next year they won’t have made them the exact opposite? Just look at what they’ve done to David Beckham over the course of his career!
The fact is this is how the media works in most of the free world. Sometimes they are an upstanding example of free speech and a beacon of what separates the democratic and free world from the oppressed, but there is also a more sinister side dedicated to profiteering and exploiting a story at any cost, even the truth. Ultimately it depends on the story being reported, those reporting it and a piece of advise from The Great One himself.
Know Your Role.
What’s the purpose of the article? The BBC in Britain have a standard mandate for the purpose of their output – to Educate, Entertain and Inform. It’s a fairly catch-all statement if you ask me, most things will fit into one of the three. But neither does it specify what must fulfil which category. Who is to say that News and Current Affairs issues educate or inform? Light hearted pieces about cute puppies and fluffy kittens entertain more than anything. Similarly it doesn’t define in what way you educate, entertain or inform. Horror movies entertain differently to comedies, for example.
In short, was Death Grip nothing more than a Current Affairs version of a horror movie? Was it ever intended to do more than tell a strange story of its own? Did the fact it posed as a topical look at current affairs give it more gravitas than it deserved? Was it designed to just entertain in a really weird way?
Of course, the wrestling community on both sides of the ring have voiced their outrage at the programme. In many ways, the “Role” of the show was irrelevant. Whether designed to entertain or not, it caused a lot of offence. But where it is relevant is in how the WWE might choose to deal with the way in which it was produced. Now, the McMahon family are intelligent people with good business acumen and a lot of history with dodgy media programming, so I don’t think it unfair to suggest that they should have known before this interview took place that there would be a strong chance that regardless of what they said they would be treated roughly upon broadcast. I think they understood this and accepted the interview as simply a damage limitation exercise. Their “Role” was to simply keep the reputation of the WWE in tact as much as possible.
But if that is the case, then it completely baffles me that they allowed John Cena, a relatively young man not nearly as experienced in situations such as this, to comment on issues such as drug use. We all know what happened next. Cena was horribly mis-quoted when asked if he had ever taken steroids, to which there was broadcast the reply:
"I can't say I never did them, but you can never prove I did."
Being as weary as they should have been about the nature and the “Role” of this programme, then regardless of its true context, what on earth was John Cena thinking saying something as coy and as potentially controversial as that at all? OK it wasn’t what he said at the time in direct response to the question that was put to him, but you think he would have been briefed beforehand to be straight and to the point whenever possible particularly on a difficult subject such as steroids. It only gave fuel to add to the fire and ultimately Cena forgot his “Role” acting on behalf of the McMahons. Sure, there were complaints afterwards, and they got CNN to change the response for any re-runs, but changing what was merely a misrepresentation of one individual is a victory that pales into comparison to the rest of the programme. In short it was a meaningless victory.
The McMahon’s themselves generally did better to be fair. If you get to read or see the entire interview, then I think for the most part they got some important points over successfully. They were right to argue why, for example, it would be wrong that they should have to have drugs policies as fully stringent as real sports. As a piece of research myself, the following link is a useful story of why the McMahon’s are right to argue this case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Baxter For those who don’t have the time or energy, Alain Baxter was a British skier stripped of his Olympic medal at Salt Lake City because he took an American version of a cold medicine which contained one extra but banned ingredient compared to his usual British version. Would a crime as small as that really be worth punishing in the WWE?
In addition, I believe they were right to address the nature of studies and statistics that were put to them. The analysis of Chris Benoit’s brain being the best example, but also questioning linking the WWE to deaths of wrestler’s who may have only had a very short time in the company.
What did strike me as a major error of judgement however was particularly Vince’s lack of knowledge about drugs in sports as a whole. Take the following excerpt as an example:
GRIFFIN: Well, the critic that I'm relying on is Travis Tygart, who's head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency for U.S. Olympians, and he says, this loophole with prescription medicine is a joke. He also says that the punishments, if we're both reading that right ...
VINCE McMAHON: Right.
GRIFFIN: You know, first time is basically a baseline, second is 30 days, [then] 60 days, and then eventually you get kicked out -- is nowhere near the kind of automatic two-year suspension close to the Olympics.
VINCE McMAHON: Let me ask you a question. It seems as though this lady [sprinter Marion Jones] who was recently found that she was lying and had to return her gold medals. Jeez, I wonder how she passed those tests in the Olympics.
Hmm, let me see. So whoever this is, Tygart, whatever his name is, from the Olympics, better look into his own policy before he starts criticizing ours, because there's obviously a loophole somewhere in the Olympic policy.
So I can throw it right back at this guy Tygart, whatever his name is, just like he can throw it here. Our policy stacks up just as well as anyone else's in sport, although again emphasizing we are entertainment, and no one in entertainment, no one has this kind of wellness policy.
There are a number of inaccuracies about Vince’s statement above. For starters given that it was a major scandal and all over the news at the time, I am amazed Vince did not at least bother to learn Marion Jones’ name before the interview. Secondly, his knowledge of testing procedures in sports such as track and field is shaky at best. For starters, to put things in perspective, Marion Jones’ drug usage has allegedly been linked to the Balco scandal, in which millions of dollars were spent on designer performance enhancing drugs that could go undetected past what were at the time considered pretty thorough drugs tests. The WWE testing on the other hand is struggling to monitor people openly taking well known and more easily detectable substances. Now I’m not saying this to undermine Vince’s effort in the interview, but he really did shoot himself in the foot there.
Another example is as follows, when asked about Chris Benoit’s previous tests:
GRIFFIN: Was that actually drug-free clean, or clean according to the policy? Like, he had produced prescriptions that said you can have this or that in your body?
VINCE McMAHON: You've have to ask Dr. [David] Black that. If he were on some prescriptions prescribed by a legitimate physician, then surely, that would be an exception. If he had an infection or whatever it may be, I have no idea.
Again, why has Vince not done his research before the interview? Why given the size of the scandal and the attacks that are coming against the company, has he not committed to an extensive check of the facts surrounding Benoit’s case? He needs to be able to answer these questions now and anything less could be construed as deflecting from the truth or worse trying to conceal it.
In the end the documentary was broadcast and the complaints were made with as much noise as possible, but by that time the damage had been done. People had seen the programme and made up their minds. It was always going to happen that way, but what bugs me however is the fact that the McMahon’s simply did not seem to show any knowledge of life outside making their programming and how it should be sold to customers. Instead in places we were given excuses and spin and I am amazed they got away with it. My only hope is that if, heaven forbid, something similar were to happen again in the future they come better prepared. Remember, Know Your Role.
Just a thought…
How do you think the WWE handled the media storm over the last few months? Feel free to drop me a line at stuart_black@hotmail.com and let me know your thoughts.
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