Wrestling with Emotion

Contrary to popular opinion wrestling isn’t oily men in tights performing a strange pseudo-pantomimic ballet of violence. Well, not just that. It’s about emotion. When it is done right it is geared to getting an emotional reaction from the paying fans whether there are 100 people there or 100,000. Emotions cannot be faked but they can be provoked by fake things. Movies, books, soap operas – all are things that the person knows are not “real” but which, when they are done right, make the person feel emotion.

Here are some examples of some of my personal favourite “emotional” wrestling moments.

Hulk Hogan vs. The Iron Sheik (1984)

The Iron Sheik was the WWF champion. The people hated him because he was Iranian and Iran was public enemy number one. Even ahead of Russia which is saying something. The dastardly foreign heel had been a staple part of the business at least since the second world war but rarely (if ever) had the baddie actually won the world title. Never before had their proclaimed superiority over the USA been proven in the ring. Having beaten the All American Boy Bob Backlund (controversially, naturally), the Iron Sheik was hated. For him to be standing in the middle of the ring, in the home of wrestling Madison Square Garden with the belt that North Eastern fans considered the true world title was the height of evil. Along came Hulk Hogan – American Hero with his big muscles and his long blonde hair. The match only ran five and a half minutes but it was, frankly, perfect. The crowd was red hot. Really. They were so pumped up. To someone used to the rather cynical modern fans the raw emotion (there’s that word again) being experienced by those fans is a revelation. Hulk attacked Sheik from the off and took maybe two and a half minutes of offence. Sheik got back into it and manoeuvred Hogan into his killer submission hold The Camel Clutch. Hulk amazingly powered out of the move, hit his leg drop and won the title. That’s it. Less than six minutes of basic action but – and here’s the thing – it was perfectly laid out and the crow ate it up like a fat man at a sausage sampling seminar. The fans cared about what was happening. The crowd wanted to see Sheik get his comeuppance and were thrilled when he did. Nothing post-modern. Nothing clever. The booking wasn’t designed to achieve anything more than to get the Hulk Hogan era off to an explosive start and send the fans home happy. Happy fans return to arenas, unhappy ones don’t.

Steve Austin attacks Bret Hart on Raw

The Austin vs. Hart/Hart Foundation feud was a highlight of 1997. Bret’s gradual turn from clean cut babyface to bitter heel was fantastic and the Canada vs. USA angle just made this feud perfect. But the best part of it IMO was the night Austin attacked Bret on Raw. He smashed Hart’s knee in an attack where Austin (babyface) behaved in a totally heelish manner and Bret (the heel) was thoroughly blameless. But somehow they worked it so Austin was justified and heroic in his actions. He smashed Bret’s knee with a chair and Bret was stretched out. All fairly routine stuff albeit with the heat turned up to ten. What made this special was Bret being put into an ambulance with his cohorts the British Bulldog and Owen Hart showing great concern for their fallen leader. For the moment you can really believe that Bret is hurt (possibly this was one of those angles to cover the fact that Bret was really hurt – I forget the details). Then, just when you think that a very good angle has ended, the camera catches sight of someone inside the ambulance. Crashing in from the driver’s cabin is Stone Cold Steve Austin. Continuing his ruthless assault on Bret’s knee, Bret’s backup being outside and frantically trying to get in. Austin’s fury was devastating and it was performances like this which “convinced” the fans (ie they allowed themselves to suspend disbelief and believe) he was a genuinely out of control rebel.

Calgary Stampede

The ten man main event of what may be WWF/E’s greatest ever PPV was the hottest match I have ever seen. Like the Hogan match it was fuelled by xenophobic hatred and love for their national heroes. In this case it was the Hart Foundation who were the patriotic heroes to the Canadian crowd. Never mind that 3/5 of the team weren’t Canadian (2 Americans and a Brit), they were fighting for Canada and that was all that matters. The beloved Hart family stood up proudly for the people of Canada – the people of Calgary especially – against the American menace of the Road Warriors, Goldust, Ken Shamrock and Steve Austin. It is sad to watch the match now though as, a mere six years on, four of the ten wrestlers are dead.

In each example the story line was simple. It made the people care about the hero and care about defeating the villain. It has been a staple of movies since the medium was invented. It’s simplicity itself and yet WWE has forgotten all about it. A classic example is the Kane vs. Shane feud. The angle of Kane piledriving Shane’s mother was good but the fans didn’t hate Kane for it because they’ve been programmed to enjoy the abuse of women and attacks on authority figures. They didn’t love Shane either because they could see that he hadn’t earned his spot. He was the owner’s son given an unfair position on the card because of his surname. Stripped of these qualities the emotion was always going to be impossible to achieve. Add to it cartoonish and illogical angles like the flaming dumpster and the car crash and no one cared.

11th December 2003