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/wrestling /guests /Wolf |
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/wrestling /guests /Wolf |
| Guest Columns | Lone Wolf |
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God bless Kayfabe Greetings, true believers. What you are reading now is the work of one of those rarest of the rare, one of those amazing discoveries on the net, a WCW fan's thoughts. What? You thought WCW fans didn't exist? I don't blame you. God knows they're difficult enough to ferrett out in this maze of WWF addicted fans and ECW "smart fans." But, yes, they do exist. I'm living proof. Perhaps I should explain myself a bit further though. A WCW fan is not the same as a WCW mark. But that discussion over "markishness" is a discussion for a whole other day. The truth is that I'll criticize my beloved WCW as much as any other, and often more harshly because I am a fan of it. But I will often assault and rail upon the WWF for that same reason. Someone has to do it. Confusing? Yes. Opinionated? Yes. Stupid? No. Now, that's a short synopsis on how my writing will deviate from the norm of DX-Attitude-26 that I undoubtably share space with. But this is the first time I've written on this particular board, and so I find myself in quite the pickle. You've probably chosen favorites to read out of the selection CRZ mercifully gives you and I don't blame you. Some writers are better than others and cater to different audiences. To each their own. And there in lies my rub. I am, simply, a "newbie." A newcomer, bound to be ignored unless I choose something beyond the simple Monday Night Thoughts post we've all seen ad nauseam at thousands of sites littering this ocean that is the World Wide Web. To be seen, I must be unique. Fortunately, I have no trouble doing that. And thus we come to my topic of the day, not quite your average subject with not quite your average opinion: Robert Wuhl. Across the 'net, people were amazed at the way WCW put out a good show, something that truly is out of the norm for WCW. But yet, even their GOOD shows must have faults. For me, it was the simple fact of Sid v. Hogan. I'm not so sure this can be called a "match" so much as "punishment for watching our program." That alone was nausea inducing. But for others, it was the appearance of "Arli$$" in his fictional form. Others have descried this as common WCW stupidity. How dare they show a man in his guise from another show? This is just foolishness! Can't they just let the celebrity be the celebrity? They're wrong. Wrestling is an arena where all of its participants where masks. Or must in order to become popular. All wrestlers have this second life they live in the ring. The gimmick. The charade. Kayfabe, or something close enough to it. But that's all it is, a charade. A simple guise worn in front of 20, 000 rabid wrestling fans. Do you honestly think the Rock goes around talking about himself in the third person constantly? Or does Debra really offer to show off her ancient wares to any lucky enough to walk her way? Does the Ultimate Warrior honestly think of himself as ... err ... bad example. At any rate, barring that one exception, the answer to those questions is "Of course not. That simply doesn't happen" and probably a "What's your point?" from several of you. So why should the celebrity guests they have not play a role just like all of their own employees? Why must they immeadiately break kayfabe? Sure, it's always been done before, but is it the right way to handle things? Consider this: There are a myriad of talk shows out there that will revel in showing us the "true face" of an actor or performer. They're the shows with a simple comedian host, not always a good one, that has the standard couch and invites various celebrities on their show to promo a production, or just simply keep their face in the news. Jay Leno's Tonight Show. David Letterman's Late Show. Craig Kilborn's Late Late Show. Conan O'Brien's Late Show. Those are just a few of the endless varieties. Hell, Rosie O'Donnel has her own "kiss-and-tell" forum. They litter the airwaves of television like so many roaches on a week-old pizza. You can easily get "close and real" with any of a hundred famous personalities, often whether you want to or not. Some are good and interesting, others are rot taking up valuable airtime that could be much more expertly used. But what's to take from this is that the idea behind this show has been taken, admired, spruced up and firmly beaten into the ground. It's done, it's finished, if it's to be improved upon, it'll be improved upon by its own employees. Why should wrestling seek to become an extension of this? To me, it makes far more sense to bring in guests and to let them play their approapriate fictional role for which they were brought in. If you must have celebrities in wrestling, and I'm not altogether convinced you should, then have them be far more than the simple jokes we've seen them used as thus far. Mike Tyson was used as a celebrity because of being an infamous boxer. Of course, atheletes are different than actors, performers and that vein of the entertainment stream. Or so we think. We're not sure that atheletes don't make up a whole show of their personalities a la Dennis Rodman or Iron Mike, but we're fairly confident they're the real deal. But here's another interesting example. Jesse Ventura won't be refereeing Summerslam as a public politician, he'll be taking the striped shirt as "the Body." Sure, the fact that he's a governor definitely played into the fact that he'll be making quite the hefty penny off of Summerslam (uh-oh, that's controversy for you), but he's not going to sign legislature in the middle of the ring. He's going to referee like he did for the first ever Summerslam. And that's the way it should be. Robert Wuhl sucked. He was a decent acrot that made it as far as Batman, then stopped short and found himself regulated to HBO prime-time. Robert Wuhl does not have any name value for WCW that they couldn't get with just Dennis Rodman. He isn't a big deal. Arliss, on the other hand, could be a goldmine. He could perform an almost Andy Kauffman like role in WCW, working the work throughout his career. Think of the media attention given to WCW should Wuhl continue to act as his character on Nitro. It sets a precedent. And frankly, Arliss was far more enjoyable to see in the ring than Robert Wuhl would have been. Would Wuhl have been portraying the scummy agent attempting to get the PPV match signed? Or would he just stand around awkwardly going "uh, err ... what am I doing here again?" Arli$$ had a reason to be on WCW. He was an agent seeking to cash in on the popularity of wrestling, seeking to carve out his own piece of pie from the substantial cake WCW is. Wuhl was just there to promo his HBO show with the WCW wrestlers. Which of those two choices was more interesting to you? I told you it was gonna be different. Now do you believe me? Making his mark upon the world, The Lone Wolf WCW fan at large Mail the Author |
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