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FEB 2020 WRESTLING DISCUSSION


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Pro wrestling can be compared to performance art, but it is a facile comparison. Any performance can be named "performance art" because it itself is so broadly defined. There are similarities but pro wrestling is not fine art as it is created    strictly for a monetary transaction; nor is rassling a sport, but it certainly exists in a Venn diagram of these two poles, created by a nerd who has to define and pigeonhole everything.

- sui generis,

RAF

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14 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

Ever since the controversy over whoever (Jordyn Grace?) calling wrestling "performance art" happened, I've been trying to figure out any possible way pro wrestling doesn't fit that category, and came up with nothing.

 

2 hours ago, thee Reverend Axl Future said:

Pro wrestling can be compared to performance art, but it is a facile comparison. Any performance can be named "performance art" because it itself is so broadly defined. There are similarities but pro wrestling is not fine art as it is created    strictly for a monetary transaction; nor is rassling a sport, but it certainly exists in a Venn diagram of these two poles, created by a nerd who has to define and pigeonhole everything.

- sui generis,

RAF

You sir just saved me from doing a long essay on this shit. I can't thank you enough for succinctly summarizing what I was going to say.

Here is my pushback on the Jordynne Grace performance art thing, and it's not so much the Jim Cornette angle of protecting the business or kayfabe. Pro wrestling straddles so many fences that calling it one thing (especially as something as general and vague as performance art) is just kinda lazy. For years (especially during the MNW), people put the male soap opera label on it. Ric Flair has said it's not fake, but choreographed. I remember the late Patrice O'Neal on radio after his very short stint as a WWE (then WWF) writer calling wrestlers "stunt men who could act'. 

I would say, if anything, it falls under the label of the newer TV term "scripted reality" more than performance art. Why? How many nasty double crosses have you seen in performance art? I know they seldom occur in wrestling now, but wrestling has a tradition of that. Moreover, the nature of the physicality in pro wrestling lends it to be presented in a much different manner altogether. I mean we can argue back and forth about how performance art doesn't exactly need an exact fixed outcome either if you bring up someone like Harry Houdini. My point would be there were people intent on changing that outcome for their own personal gain instead of that performance going awry through the fault of no one else. Again, I am not saying that the latter doesn't happen in pro wrestling. You look at the deaths of Oro, Plum Mariko, and Emiko Kado. The list goes on and on. Hell, we just passed the anniversary of the death of Luther Lindsay. What I'm saying is pro wrestling has a sporting aspect in that changing or directly affecting an outcome can play a role in what the landscape looks like down the line. You could say that if a TV or film writer changes the ending to something that it could change the whole entire industry, but that's way, way too general for the purpose of what Jordynne Grace was probably trying to get at. There is a big difference between Arnold Rothstein fixing the 1919 World Series and Tim Donaghy fixing NBA games and the ending to Lost or The Sopranos. I mean Paul Heyman pulling a fast one on Dennis Coralluzo during the 93 NWA title tournament, and the works of Banksy are really the same thing....Actually, on second thought, I don't buy that at all. Yes, if you put the really general label of both being somewhat controversial on it, you can tie the two together. Otherwise, it makes no sense for the two to be even related. 

While a variety of performances are presented as completely real, pro wrestling has always been about presenting a mixture of both real and fake elements to not only blur the lines of reality but to build on and create completely new narratives in the matter of days and weeks. It can either be super scripted and bullet pointed to death with varying degrees of success (WWE) or using more genuine, practical, and authentic speech/expressions (AEW), with the latter separating it from soap operas. Either way, everything is being built on. I mean you can call any roster in a wrestling a group of a repertory players. But shit, why stop at professional wrestling? Is any starting five for the NBA a group of repertory players? Is basketball now performance art? I mean each person in the back court and front court has their own specific duties and assignments. They "play" basketball (hence the term "basketball player") and the season (both regular and playoff) as a whole has "storylines", but I would stop short of calling it performance art. If you want to go that far though, I would suspect you are some type of hipster douchebag who is trying way too hard. With wrestling the way it is and it never being completely static, I wouldn't drop it in one bucket. It's hard for me to think about Ric Flair's comeback promo on the Nitro the day after Fall Brawl 1998 or something way more recent like Santana's sitdown interview on AEW Dynamite weeks ago and think, "yep, this is just a performance". Yeah, it's being done to FURTHER future aspects of scripted events. I won't argue that. However, the reality added it into makes pro wrestling way too complex to just say it's a bunch of neat parlor tricks, cool looking stunts, and a drama with more colorful dialogue added in. Just because it's technically something that's performative doesn't automatically mean it fits in that particular box or any particular box. So we're far past it being continuous physical magic and now bordering a touring "reality" show. Thus, I am far more comfortable calling it "scripted reality" rather than performance art. If you cast a wide enough net, you can call pro wrestling just about anything. It doesn't mean it makes sense though. 

With that said, I think we put way more thought into this than Jordynne Grace did.

 

Edited by Elsalvajeloco
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1 minute ago, Archibald said:

I think that people calling wrestling "performance art" just want to do whatever the hell they want without being limited by rules and conventions that were set up by previous generations.

 

Who is exactly limiting them? Pro wrestling has had some outlandish shit through the years often written or crafted by those in previous generations. Also, I mean I ain't been watching Impact wrestling lately, who the fuck is keeping Jordynne Grace down or stopping her from doing what was she doing previously? The last time I seen her, she wasn't exactly rewriting chapters in the book of pro wrestling.

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42 minutes ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

So does Orange Cassidy pre-date Fire Ant? 

Doesn't look like it. Judging by Cagematch, JC Ryder became Orange Cassidy around the end of 2007/start of 2008. Whilst Fire Ant started appearing on Chikara shows in early 2006. The earliest JC Ryder matches they have are for Ground Breaking Wrestling in 2004.

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14 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Ric Flair has said it's not fake, but choreographed. 

In that 30 for 30 Flair mentioned that choreographing matches has only been more commonplace for about 15 years and that was more so to benefit the camera guys and the people in the truck than anything else. That's why even now the wrestlers talk about having more freedom on house shows because its alot looser. I think most wrestling fans when explaining to no fans they bring up the ability to inprove. I remember the rapper Wale was on the popular hip hop show the breakfast club talking about WaleMania and he talked about how he was a fan of wrestlers ability to inprove and call things on the fly. I believe even if you aren't a fan, that's something that you can respect. I've listened to Nash interviews and he talked about how he and the people in his era didn't need to go over everything and how it was damn near impossible to him and his peers to remember everything move for move. There are a ton of people that have the skill to do things on the fly but the way business is structured its isn't a necessity. You don't have to be a Daniel Bryan to have  that skill. Cena had that skill ( obviously because you could hear him call everything)

As a wrestling fan its I think we are very careful in how we explain the business to people on the outside of the lack of respect. People probably think writers script the matches move for move. They may have an effect on the outcome but they don't have any ring knowledge.

Even AEW is forcing WWE to scale back on the scripted promos, which is why we should be rooting for AEWs success whether you watch or not because forcing WWE to change. NWA as well 

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14 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

 

You sir just saved me from doing a long essay on this shit. I can't thank you enough for succinctly summarizing what I was going to say.

Here is my pushback on the Jordynne Grace performance art thing, and it's not so much the Jim Cornette angle of protecting the business or kayfabe. Pro wrestling straddles so many fences that calling it one thing (especially as something as general and vague as performance art) is just kinda lazy. For years (especially during the MNW), people put the male soap opera label on it. Ric Flair has said it's not fake, but choreographed. I remember the late Patrice O'Neal on radio after his very short stint as a WWE (then WWF) writer calling wrestlers "stunt men who could act'. 

I would say, if anything, it falls under the label of the newer TV term "scripted reality" more than performance art. Why? How many nasty double crosses have you seen in performance art? I know they seldom occur in wrestling now, but wrestling has a tradition of that. Moreover, the nature of the physicality in pro wrestling lends it to be presented in a much different manner altogether. I mean we can argue back and forth about how performance art doesn't exactly need an exact fixed outcome either if you bring up someone like Harry Houdini. My point would be there were people intent on changing that outcome for their own personal gain instead of that performance going awry through the fault of no one else. Again, I am not saying that the latter doesn't happen in pro wrestling. You look at the deaths of Oro, Plum Mariko, and Emiko Kado. The list goes on and on. Hell, we just passed the anniversary of the death of Luther Lindsay. What I'm saying is pro wrestling has a sporting aspect in that changing or directly affecting an outcome can play a role in what the landscape looks like down the line. You could say that if a TV or film writer changes the ending to something that it could change the whole entire industry, but that's way, way too general for the purpose of what Jordynne Grace was probably trying to get at. There is a big difference between Arnold Rothstein fixing the 1919 World Series and Tim Donaghy fixing NBA games and the ending to Lost or The Sopranos. I mean Paul Heyman pulling a fast one on Dennis Coralluzo during the 93 NWA title tournament, and the works of Banksy are really the same thing....Actually, on second thought, I don't buy that at all. Yes, if you put the really general label of both being somewhat controversial on it, you can tie the two together. Otherwise, it makes no sense for the two to be even related. 

While a variety of performances are presented as completely real, pro wrestling has always been about presenting a mixture of both real and fake elements to not only blur the lines of reality but to build on and create completely new narratives in the matter of days and weeks. It can either be super scripted and bullet pointed to death with varying degrees of success (WWE) or using more genuine, practical, and authentic speech/expressions (AEW), with the latter separating it from soap operas. Either way, everything is being built on. I mean you can call any roster in a wrestling a group of a repertory players. But shit, why stop at professional wrestling? Is any starting five for the NBA a group of repertory players? Is basketball now performance art? I mean each person in the back court and front court has their own specific duties and assignments. They "play" basketball (hence the term "basketball player") and the season (both regular and playoff) as a whole has "storylines", but I would stop short of calling it performance art. If you want to go that far though, I would suspect you are some type of hipster douchebag who is trying way too hard. With wrestling the way it is and it never being completely static, I wouldn't drop it in one bucket. It's hard for me to think about Ric Flair's comeback promo on the Nitro the day after Fall Brawl 1998 or something way more recent like Santana's sitdown interview on AEW Dynamite weeks ago and think, "yep, this is just a performance". Yeah, it's being done to FURTHER future aspects of scripted events. I won't argue that. However, the reality added it into makes pro wrestling way too complex to just say it's a bunch of neat parlor tricks, cool looking stunts, and a drama with more colorful dialogue added in. Just because it's technically something that's performative doesn't automatically mean it fits in that particular box or any particular box. So we're far past it being continuous physical magic and now bordering a touring "reality" show. Thus, I am far more comfortable calling it "scripted reality" rather than performance art. If you cast a wide enough net, you can call pro wrestling just about anything. It doesn't mean it makes sense though. 

With that said, I think we put way more thought into this than Jordynne Grace did.

 

Dear lord - what's a long essay like? ?

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1 hour ago, Ultimo Necro said:

Not sure where this belongs on the forum, but Suntori, the Japanese Whiskey company do a vodka named Haku.

I have a bottle of it. It has punched my face off. It is fantastic!

731-EEAA5-0660-4060-97-E0-FCE31-ADB103-F

 

 

HAKU VODKA

So when Kanemaru hits someone with the Suntori Sunrise, if he's using this, it's instant death, correct?

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11 minutes ago, Ziggy said:

In that 30 for 30 Flair mentioned that choreographing matches has only been more commonplace for about 15 years and that was more so to benefit the camera guys and the people in the truck than anything else. That's why even now the wrestlers talk about having more freedom on house shows because its alot looser. I think most wrestling fans when explaining to no fans they bring up the ability to inprove. I remember the rapper Wale was on the popular hip hop show the breakfast club talking about WaleMania and he talked about how he was a fan of wrestlers ability to inprove and call things on the fly. I believe even if you aren't a fan, that's something that you can respect. I've listened to Nash interviews and he talked about how he and the people in his era didn't need to go over everything and how it was damn near impossible to him and his peers to remember everything move for move. There are a ton of people that have the skill to do things on the fly but the way business is structured its isn't a necessity. You don't have to be a Daniel Bryan to have  that skill. Cena had that skill ( obviously because you could hear him call everything)

As a wrestling fan its I think we are very careful in how we explain the business to people on the outside of the lack of respect. People probably think writers script the matches move for move. They may have an effect on the outcome but they don't have any ring knowledge.

Even AEW is forcing WWE to scale back on the scripted promos, which is why we should be rooting for AEWs success whether you watch or not because forcing WWE to change. NWA as well 

I suggest people go back and re-watch NWA/WCW shows because boy is some of that production amateur hour in full force. They're missing whole entire finishes of matches on a regular basis. 

I can't imagine somebody like Craig Leathers being in the truck for an AEW or NXT show. He may have a heart attack mid-show trying to keep up.

5 minutes ago, Wyld Samurai said:

Dear lord - what's a long essay like? ?

It was originally going to be as long as a Meltzer career retrospective.

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12 minutes ago, Wyld Samurai said:

Dear lord - what's a long essay like? ?

Aw, that post didn't even have a references page. It was extremely light reading.

I would expect sources and annotations for an essay. No less. 

Also, NWA is basically what I want out of a wrestling show right now. It's like 60-70 minutes, a few squashes, a longer main event, and off-the-cuff promos. IMO, Powerrr is the best show on right now. Fusion and Dynamite are decent enough, but I actually look forward to Powerrr. 

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With the performance art claims- the big reason it's hard to see pro wrestling as performance art is that no one's willing to take that logic to its logical conclusion, and run an indie promotion taking more from pairs figure skating or synchronized swimming than traditional pro wrestling. 

When it goes, sell the matches as different exhibitions where the matches, themselves, are the competitors instead of the performers. The workers in the match are not sold as if they're opponents, but rather as if the wrestler and their opponent are a team, and the team's goal is to put on the best match on the card. Each match happens, and then the fans vote on which match was the best, with that match "winning" the event.

This style would invariably be absolutely terrible to watch, and that's the point. There's more than just the art work in a vacuum to make pro wrestling work, because it's the way that artwork makes you feel that's so important- and how everything surrounding the match tells you from the beginning how to feel about it. 

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