Post by angryfan on May 7, 2010 7:35:38 GMT -5
It's the early 1980's and a still rising Hulk Hogan, during a match, cups his hand to his ear and the already hot crowd gets even hotter.
We've all heard that story, right? Something done in the moment winds up making a huge impression for years to come. It's what makes iconic moments, what makes wrestling junkies like us say, "damn, you remember the time...?" and then lament that it doesn't happen anymore, or rarely so anyway.
The question I pose is, would the above example happen today?
I'm betting it wouldn't, and not because of dirt sheets, inside reports, smarks, marks, or Grimmace doing the Charleston. Its because spur of the moment reactions to events as they happen are dying off in favor of scripts.
Vince once called wrestling a soap opera, I've also heard the term morality play and other things used to describe it, but none of them seem to grasp what professional wrestling truly is.
It's improv theater with simulated violence.
Take all the great performers of yesteryear and you see that each of them was able to read the crowd during their match, and react accordingly in order to maximize the reactions as well as get the fans to want to pay to see it all again. Now, with everyone coming into WWE going through a sanitization process down in FCW, and each of them more or less learning the paint by numbers matches that you have to learn when you first start out, the creativity of the moment is lost.
Think about it, if you sit backstage before a match and are told spot for spot what to do out there, then go execute, where is the playing off of the crowd? Where is there space for adapting when you realize that something you or the guy you're working just did got far more of a reaction than anyone anticipated?
It's gone because you're too busy trying to remember the sequence you're supposed to run.
The thing is, I can't lay it all on guys not being able to react, since much of that comes with experience that many just don't have yet. In the event that something does catch fire, the impulse of creative seems to be "it WORKED! Now we can tweak it because if they liked that, they'll really like this other thing".
Cena, for all the crap he's taken, was the red hot heel thanks to the comapny saying, "we have no idea what to do with you kid, so that thing you do backstage, just do that and see if it catches on". It did to the point that the blandish babyface suddenly was over and getting reactions based on being able to react in the moment and not have to worry about remembering his lines.
Perfect, right? Well, it was until they brought him to RAW and did just what I mentioned above. They decided that, since he was getting the reactions they wanted, they could just change what made those reactions happen.
Imagine that scenario with Austin after King of the Ring 1996.
"Hey Steve, that 3:16 thing was brilliant, they love you now and they're buying merchandise like crazy. Now get out there and pander to them, and make sure to smile a lot. Oh, and here's your script for the promo, now go make us money".
He would've been dead in the water within a year because they would've taken somethign spontanious and turned it into and overdone production with no emotional connection.
The same coudl be said for The Rock or, right now, Randy Orton.
Mark my words, if they treat Orton like they did Steve Austin, and just back off and let him go, there will be truckloads of money in the near future. If, however, they start tweaking, over-scripting, and changing what got them to this point, then we'll get what we got with Cena in late 2005 - a fan revolt that will confuse them.
The saddest part is that the TV writers WWE has can't process this fact simply because of who they are. They are used to writing television, something that, live or taped, follows a script and doesn't ad lib all that much. There's nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but professional wrestling isn't a drama or comedy, it's what I said earlier, improv.
You can't script improv, at least not beyond a basic outline. The rest comes in the moment, it comes from the crowd or audience. All creative has to do is give the boys an outline and say, "Go do what you do".
The saddest part of it for me is that I don't see that happening any time soon.
We've all heard that story, right? Something done in the moment winds up making a huge impression for years to come. It's what makes iconic moments, what makes wrestling junkies like us say, "damn, you remember the time...?" and then lament that it doesn't happen anymore, or rarely so anyway.
The question I pose is, would the above example happen today?
I'm betting it wouldn't, and not because of dirt sheets, inside reports, smarks, marks, or Grimmace doing the Charleston. Its because spur of the moment reactions to events as they happen are dying off in favor of scripts.
Vince once called wrestling a soap opera, I've also heard the term morality play and other things used to describe it, but none of them seem to grasp what professional wrestling truly is.
It's improv theater with simulated violence.
Take all the great performers of yesteryear and you see that each of them was able to read the crowd during their match, and react accordingly in order to maximize the reactions as well as get the fans to want to pay to see it all again. Now, with everyone coming into WWE going through a sanitization process down in FCW, and each of them more or less learning the paint by numbers matches that you have to learn when you first start out, the creativity of the moment is lost.
Think about it, if you sit backstage before a match and are told spot for spot what to do out there, then go execute, where is the playing off of the crowd? Where is there space for adapting when you realize that something you or the guy you're working just did got far more of a reaction than anyone anticipated?
It's gone because you're too busy trying to remember the sequence you're supposed to run.
The thing is, I can't lay it all on guys not being able to react, since much of that comes with experience that many just don't have yet. In the event that something does catch fire, the impulse of creative seems to be "it WORKED! Now we can tweak it because if they liked that, they'll really like this other thing".
Cena, for all the crap he's taken, was the red hot heel thanks to the comapny saying, "we have no idea what to do with you kid, so that thing you do backstage, just do that and see if it catches on". It did to the point that the blandish babyface suddenly was over and getting reactions based on being able to react in the moment and not have to worry about remembering his lines.
Perfect, right? Well, it was until they brought him to RAW and did just what I mentioned above. They decided that, since he was getting the reactions they wanted, they could just change what made those reactions happen.
Imagine that scenario with Austin after King of the Ring 1996.
"Hey Steve, that 3:16 thing was brilliant, they love you now and they're buying merchandise like crazy. Now get out there and pander to them, and make sure to smile a lot. Oh, and here's your script for the promo, now go make us money".
He would've been dead in the water within a year because they would've taken somethign spontanious and turned it into and overdone production with no emotional connection.
The same coudl be said for The Rock or, right now, Randy Orton.
Mark my words, if they treat Orton like they did Steve Austin, and just back off and let him go, there will be truckloads of money in the near future. If, however, they start tweaking, over-scripting, and changing what got them to this point, then we'll get what we got with Cena in late 2005 - a fan revolt that will confuse them.
The saddest part is that the TV writers WWE has can't process this fact simply because of who they are. They are used to writing television, something that, live or taped, follows a script and doesn't ad lib all that much. There's nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but professional wrestling isn't a drama or comedy, it's what I said earlier, improv.
You can't script improv, at least not beyond a basic outline. The rest comes in the moment, it comes from the crowd or audience. All creative has to do is give the boys an outline and say, "Go do what you do".
The saddest part of it for me is that I don't see that happening any time soon.
