The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    Introducing Open Mikes Q&A: Professional Wrestling

    By Orion on Fri, 05/02/2014 - 12:12am |

    A couple weeks ago, wrestling phenom Ultimate Warrior died. I talked to Michael Maiello about it, hoping to publish it for my website Gonzo Times. My fiance Jennifer Lauren Reimer died in a not unexpected but nonetheless sudden and heartbreaking turn of events and my inbox got flooded with people expressing their condolences. The interview I did with Mike unfortunately got lost along with his offer to make this a regular thing.

    The plan was to do it at Gonzo. Unfortunately, with Jennifer gone, Gonzo doesn't really feel the same - she designed most of it. I need community to deal with this and Dagblog is a good place for that. Please excuse my absence.

    Michael and Jennifer together were the two professional journalists to really ever do anything for me. Both got me work and advertising money. He has been nice enough to post on Facebook some of Jennifer's last work about her struggle with extreme chronic pain and has said he's looking in to covering this story for a mainstream magazine. I really want to thank him for helping me through a tough time. Let's do this on the regular.

    I found the death of Ultimate Warrior very eery. I had been listening to a whole bunch of professional wrestling podcasts for the first time - ones by Stone Cold Steve Austin, Chris Jericho and Good Ole Jim Ross. Everyone was celebrating WrestleMania 30 occurring. It was only days after he was inducted in to the Professional Wrestling Hall Of Fame too. What did you think of it?
     
     I found out about it on Twitter when somebody retweeted Vince McMahon. At first I thought it was a joke in bad taste.  Also, remember, there were rumors during Warrior's WWF run that he had died and was secretly replaced by Kerry von Erich (who, being a von Erich, actually did die young).  
     
    Something like this could only happen to Warrior, I guess.  Now, if you go back and watch the main event of Wrestlemania VI you'll see that in that match, some of Hulk Hogan's blows clearly did not land.  These must have been some sort of secret lingering death blows... too soon for that joke? Yeah, too soon.
     
     
    54 is a bit early to die, though H.L. Mencken died only 20 years later and George Orwell was somewhere around the time. Do you think the wrestling life style leads to early death?
     
    The truth is that a person can die at any time.  Bruce Lee died young and was in fantastic physical condition.  Warrior was also in great shape. He has admitted to having used steroids so we don't have to speculate about that.  Does the wrestling lifestyle lead to this?  We can make lists of dead young wrestlers but because every death has a unique story, we'd just wind up arguing each and every case and why they are all different.  People like to blame the "rock star" road lifestyle of 80s wrestlers, but the McMahons would say they've gotten rid of since WWE turned into a big public entertainment company.  So, let's look at it logically:
     
    A single wrestling match is a strenuous athletic event that tests all your major abilities and requires feats of strength, balance, cardio and acrobatics on top of theatrics and acting (even a bad match needs all this).  If you wrestle for the WWE you will do that 250 times or more a year.  You're going to get hurt.  But, here's the thing, you're a contractor.  The more you work, the more you make.  The more you work, the better chance you have of building a following and whether or not you build a following is whether or not you make a fortune or have to get a job in the workaday world after getting beaten up for a decade or more. There's no retirement plan.  The economics and dynamics of the business encourages performers to over work themselves and to work when they're hurt or sick or just exhausted.  
     
    Also, it's not just matches.  You have to practice.  You have to travel.  You have to work out because you have to have that look (and even if you use some enhancing drug, the weights don't move themselves).  I don't see how those kinds of work demands can make you assume no health repercussions.  Even a clean-living coal miner can die young because coal mining is bad for you.
     
    Did you watch WrestleMania 30? What did you think at least of what you did see of it?
     
     I can't justify paying that much for WWE pay per views and no, WWE network, I am not subscribing just because you bought up the childhood memories of everybody who watched wrestling during the territory days.  So, I haven't seen it.  I watched RAW the next night and followed results on the Wrestling Observer.  I think some very smart things happened.
     
    First, there's Daniel Bryan.  They told that story well.  People think that HHH was kayfabe holding Bryan back because he doesn't have the typical WWE look (which is to look like HHH) but it just doesn't bear scrutiny.  HHH recruited Bryan in the first place.  Bryan was trained by Shawn Michaels, HHH's real life close friend.  No, I think this was brilliant storytelling.  They used all the suspicions about the WWE's unwillingness to ever make Bryan champ to give us an epic tale of Bryan becoming champ.  The Masked Man at Grantland has written brilliantly about this.
     
    Cena beating Wyatt was... I hate Cena.  I just do.
     
    Lesnar beat Taker!  I allow myself to believe that Taker chose this and if Taker chose it, I'm for it.  I saw Taker live when I was a kid in Albuquerque.  I remember him as "Mean" Mark Callous when Theodore R. Long combined him with Dangerous Dan Spivey to take on the Road Warriors in the NWA/WCW. So, whatever Taker wants.  Also, I do like Lesnar.
     
    What did you think of Darrin Young coming out openly as the first gay professional wrestler?
     
    I'm happy when anybody can be open about who they are and I was really happy that so many other members of the WWE roster (especially Cena) supported him without being condescending about it.  They have also thankfully resisted the urge to make a storyline out of it.  Now, someday, there might be a good story to be told.  If Young already had some sort of following (he doesn't yet) he could now be the central part of an interesting meta-angle where he reacts to the previous storyline depictions of homosexuals in WWE history.  He could parody "Adorable" Adrian Adonis or the Billy and Chuck wedding.  It could be edgy and funny.
     
    In addition to what I asked above, Mick Foley has claimed that his years as a wrestler gave him brain damage. Besides being unhealthy for wrestlers, do you think the profession might send bad messages to youth? How so? How not?
     
     Well, the reaction of other wrestlers to Darren Young was positive for kids watching, I think. So, there's that.  
     
    But, in the end, we have to face that this is still broad-stroke storytelling about grown men (and some women) who settle issues of pride and greed through violence.  I mean, a grown man hitting another with a hammer, what is this, The Avengers?  
     
    Roland Barthes compared wrestlers to mythological figures.  I think that's right.  What does The Odyssey teach our children?  A whole lot about pride, honor, heroism, effort and knowledge.  But what is the story?  Well, it's about a man who goes off to war for 10 years where he slaughters thousands and then, when returning with his looted goods, gets lost for ten years and is the only member of his crew to survive the journey.  When he gets home he is united with his son and former servant.  The man's house has been overrun by suitors trying to woo his wife and steal his kingdom.  So our hero, his son and the former servant lock all of those men in the castle, unarmed, and then attack them with weapons, slaughtering all but one who they leave alive to tell the tale.
     
    That was meandering but my point is that professional wrestling tells much the same kinds of stories that we teach our children as classics and I will not even quip "but with tits and ass" because there is a lot of T&A in The Odyssey.
     
    The kids will be all right.