Kayfabe in 2018

[tbarrie]

A post in the Roman Reigns leukemia thread got me thinking, and rather than derail that thread I thought I'd start a new one.

The Comedian made an analogy comparing the actor who played Joffrey on Game of Thrones hypothetically revealing he had cancer to Roman Reigns having leukemia. I don't disagree with his actual point, but wanted to go off on a tangent, because WWE handled the situation quite differently to the way a real TV show would.

I mean, Roman Reigns came out on an episode of Raw, stood in the same ring where in-storyline matches and interviews happen, and announced he was forfeiting the Universal Title because he couldn't be a "fighting champion". By contrast, if Jack Gleeson had gotten cancer during filming of Game of Thrones, they certainly wouldn't have filmed an episode where Joffrey got up off the Iron Throne and announced that he was stepping down as king because he couldn't carry out his duties any more. Doing so would seem bizarre, but the WWE letting the news out the way they did seems comparatively natural. Why?

It seems the WWE wants to have its cake and eat it too regarding kayfabe. They don't really try to maintain the illusion that it's a real competition any more, but they don't draw a hard line between real life and their fictional universe either. It's a strange situation, and I'm curious what you guys think. Should they move back towards maintaining kayfabe? Go whole hog and embrace their status as a fictional show? Just keep doing what they're doing?

For the record, I lean towards the "just embrace the fact that they're fictional" camp. I think Lucha Underground moved in the right direction by making it clear that the announcers couldn't see the backstage segments, for example. 

[Victator]

Kayfabe is not and cannot die. The fan want to believe it is more than a TV show. Really the only people who want Kayfabe to die are the McMahon family and a small segment of the fan base who are deeply ashamed of being wrestling fans. 

Wrestling is a million times better if you treat it like it is real. It is far better if the promotions treat it like it is real. When it is the story telling and characters are so much better. The more they treat it like a fictional TV show, the worst the shows get. 

[Swift]

I look at wrestling more as live (athletic) theatre rather than a TV show. In that sense, you can imagine a lead actor saying after a performance "I won't be continuing in the role of Hamlet in the future as I have to take some time off"

[Ryan]

Kayfabe is dead and buried. I just treat it like a performance art and engage that part of my brain that wants to believe when I feel like it and just enjoy what I enjoy at this point. At least there's no one trying to fight or murder the wrestlers during and after shows these days. Well, not too often.

[Go2Sleep]

Kayfabe was gone once the internet took off, and everyone got easy access to the dirtsheets that humanized these larger than life figures. This is fine, as kayfabe was always a stupid concept. Just like any other tv show, I don't need to believe that the events depicted are happening in real life, I just need the actors to be committed to their characters on screen and the writers to give them a compelling script. The whole "be in character 24/7" thing is a very unhealthy way to live, and frankly insulting to the fans. No one ever expected James Gandolfini to be Tony Soprano off set, and no one should expect anyone in wrestling to take their character behind the curtain.

[tbarrie]

17 hours ago, Swiftian said:

I look at wrestling more as live (athletic) theatre rather than a TV show. In that sense, you can imagine a lead actor saying after a performance "I won't be continuing in the role of Hamlet in the future as I have to take some time off"

That's a fair point - when you're playing to a live audience, it makes perfect sense to use the same stage for both the performance itself and for out-of-character announcements. So maybe the way WWE handled it isn't as weird as I first thought. But the "fighting champion" line still sounds to me like an attempt to maintain kayfabe, which seems like an odd thing to do during an announcement like this.

Or to put it another way: in the real world, Joe Anoi'a had to take time off, because he has leukemia. So in the fictional world of WWE programming, they had Roman Reigns relinquish the title... because he has leukemia, and needs to take time off. And both facts were conveyed to the audience via a single announcement, with no acknowledgement that there might be a difference between the two. Fascinatingly strange, in my opinion.

[odessasteps]

What would the reaction have been if they did an injury angle with Roman on Raw (the Dean turn or other) and then Tuesday announced that Joe was taking leave of absence due to his illness?

[Nice Guy Eddie]

3 hours ago, odessasteps said:

What would the reaction have been if they did an injury angle with Roman on Raw (the Dean turn or other) and then Tuesday announced that Joe was taking leave of absence due to his illness?

I think it would have been pretty negative. The information is out there, so we would have found out anyway. Having the news out there gives hope to every kid with cancer that if Roman can beat it once, and hopefully twice, then they can beat it.

The only thing I don't like was how it was constantly brought up after Roman's promo. Don't tie it into an angle that Stephanie and Corbin are trying to figure what to do about the vacated title.

[Ultimo Necro]

3 hours ago, odessasteps said:

What would the reaction have been if they did an injury angle with Roman on Raw (the Dean turn or other) and then Tuesday announced that Joe was taking leave of absence due to his illness?

I don’t doubt it was considered, even a year or two ago this is the route they would have gone.  I think the fact they didn’t choose this option shows a level of maturity from WWE and a trust in their modern audience.

I can’t imagine anything like that happening in front of a attitude era WWE audience?

In terms of Kayfabe WWE is like Inception now.

As far as I can tell there are 3 tiers.

Public Reality - Me, You, Celebrities, Charity Partners etc

WWE Reality - Total Bellas, NXT HHH, Corporate Stephanie etc 

WWE Storyline - old worlde Kayfabe

Storyline and real world can’t mix, Bray Wyatt can’t turn up in gimmick to a children’s ward for instance.  ‘WWE reality’ can mix with both. The only people allowed to enter Storyline from the real world are celebrities, I think....

The WWE universe is a strange and complicated place, it’s pretty far out man.

[Ryan]

Fifteen years from now assuming both are still alive.

Fuck you, you (series of epithets). It's still real to me, you son of a bitch! - Jim Cornette yelling at Kenny Omega's son on twitter if he has one.
Dial it back, crazy. - Guy who originally said that.

[Hamhock]

Just imagine if they went daytime soap opera on the thing and temporarily replaced Anoaʻi with another wrestler to portray Roman the character, complete with “the role of Roman Reigns will now be played by” voiceover.

Roman Brady, Roman Reigns.

[Tromatagon]

AAA has done that repeatedly

[MonteCarl]

[SorceressKnight]

11 hours ago, odessasteps said:

What would the reaction have been if they did an injury angle with Roman on Raw (the Dean turn or other) and then Tuesday announced that Joe was taking leave of absence due to his illness?

Well, that was something WWE would do a lot in the late-2000s, where WWE would announce the "real" injury and try to also announce a "kayfabe" injury that made more sense in storyline (so for example: Batista in 2009 hurts his arm, and WWE announces "The vicious attack by Randy Orton punting Batista has caused him a severe head injury, and it also broke his arm!") 

It did not work at all. 

[Victator]

Let me go into detail about why wrestling is better when it is treated as fully real. Back in the territory days when people might have suspected but did not know for sure about wrestling. They certainly did not know the hows of wrestling. To this day a lot of the fanbase is ignorant. 

Now in these days they needed to treat the shows as real. They were far more careful about characterization and maintaining a certain reality. You can go watch an episode of most territories in the early 80's and you will find generally a good episode of TV with good characters and great action. 

Now lets fast forward to 2000 and you see WCW is utter shit when it comes to writing and the WWF is not much better. Characters are inconsistent and storylines are riddled with plot holes that are nigh impossible to explain. When any of the perpetrators are asked about it, the answer is always some variation of "It's not real." 

Wrestling promoters simply do not have the discipline to do wrestling like a regular TV show. Which is why the story telling on all wrestling shows is universally trash. You can have the best action, but without characters you care for, you don't have shit. 

[Archibald]

I'm not sure if it is discipline thing. Most TV shows get their entire season or at least multiple episodes filmed before first one airs so it is difficult to change things on the road. Often they can really adjust only in second season or later half of the season. With WWE it is different, Vince can change things at the last minute because he feels like that and I'm fairly sure that most TV producers would also love to change their shows on the fly if something wasn't working as well as they expected. Sometimes such changes are good, sometimes not so much, but most of the time they create a big mess.

But yeah, if characters are treated as real people then it imposes limitations on what can be done with them. And those limitations often prevent people from doing stupid things.

[Kang]

I don't like the Kayfabe breaking angles. They undermine the history and cohesion of storytelling. It looks dumb if I called someone by their shoot name and mention stuff that doesn't relate to the personal characteristic traits of the worker's character he plays, then pretend it didn't happen two weeks later and go call them by their work name.

Working a legit injury in or death (Eddie) in or comedy fed that breaks the suspension, I don't mind. As for Kayfabe outside of job, they should at least be mysterious. Mystery can sell tickets. Joe Doering of AJPW doesn't have a Twitter for example.

[ka-to]

The invisible camera that can go anywhere and wrestlers that don't know things that were shown on TV last week just kill wrestling for me.