By Luke Hillmer
This wasn’t my first time at a WWE event, so I pretty much knew what to expect from the people around me. There was the casual fan in front of me, who came to the event alone, sat excitedly and cheered for everyone he could. There was the kid behind me who screamed in delight whenever he saw a wrestler in a mask. Then there were the two guys sitting behind me to the right, the smart fans, or “smart marks” as they’re professionally called in the wrestling business, who throughout the show would cynically pick apart every move and make inside jokes about the lives and controversies of the older wrestlers. Finally, perhaps the most interesting person was the fancy dressed guy sitting way up front with his laptop, who would casually read up on basketball news throughout the more boring moments of the event, I will hence refer to this man as “basketball guy.”
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the WWE, “WWE” stands for “World Wrestling Entertainment”. Formerly known as the WWF, it’s a sports entertainment company that specializes in pro-wrestling. Pro-wrestling is essentially to martial arts what the rehearsed battles at the Medieval Times restaurant are to actual medieval sparring. Wrestlers, or “Superstars” as the WWE brands them, are essentially characters who perform dangerous stunts that try to convey violence as convincingly as possible without actually hurting one another. These performers are separated into two categories: “Babyfaces” and “Heels”. “Babyfaces” or “Faces” for short are characters whose goals are to get the crowd to cheer for them, think of guys like Randy Savage, Dwayne Johnson, and John Cena. “Heels” are the exact opposite, their job is to get the crowd to boo and hate them as much as possible, so that inversely the crowd wants to root for the “face”. The false reality that these Wrestlers try to create for the viewer is called “Kayfabe”, which is pretty similar to the “Fourth Wall” of a TV show or film. Today some Wrestlers, such as Kevin Owens, have even used social media as a method of maintaining this kayfabe. Today’s wrestling fans have the ability to communicate with these performers like never before. From what I’ve observed, this has led to a far more intimate viewing experience than ever before. The crowds at WWE events are the realest thing about each show, because the fans say whatever they want to say: their emotions and responses are legitimate. The audience’s connection to the individual performers, and their desire to see their heroes succeed is part of what makes pro wrestling so engaging to watch, whether it’s a WWE show, or a show from lesser known companies like New Japan Pro Wrestling, Lucha Underground, or Ring of Honor.
At the Oct. 6 Smackdown Live show I was at the Capital Center in Washington DC, the smart marks were perhaps the most vocal, not just because they got to see the now famous Hollywood actor Dave Bautista, who I reckon most people would recognize for his role as Drax in the Guardians of The Galaxy films, but because they were opposed to a particular event WWE was holding called “Crown Jewel.” It was a Saudi Arabia event, and it was constantly being promoted. The Washington DC crowd was not having it. I heard the crowd respond to each of these promos with either bitter silence, or powerful booing, and I knew that this was undoubtedly in response to the fact that a Washington Post journalist had recently been found dead in the country of Saudi Arabia.
They were easily the ones who were the most disgusted by Crown Jewel ads, making weird scoffing noises that I didn’t think were actually humanly possible to make, then booing at the top of their lungs. It seemed that they both had different reasons for disgust though, one of them was simply upset by the fact that the WWE was holding an event in Saudi Arabia given recent news, I distinctly remember him saying “Jesus Christ! Such poor taste, don’t even bring that shit up here!” the other one had a more complicated reason for being upset, relating to former wrestler Shawn Michaels, after 8 years of in ring absence, returning to in ring competition in a country outside of America, “Way to ruin Michaels’ retirement storyline he had with Taker all those years ago… just shameful.”
WWE’s image has changed drastically over the past four decades. In the 80’s it great success as a family oriented show, spawning icons such as Hulk Hogan who would tell kids to eat their vitamins every morning. In the later portion of the 1990’s WWE began marketing it’s content as being more mature, in what they have since branded as the “The Attitude Era”. This turn in marketing done out of an attempt to compete with their biggest competitor at the time, WCW or “World Championship Wrestling”, which had since grabbed many of the icons that had made WWE big in the past, such as Hulk Hogan. This “Attitude Era” of WWE was the peak period of success among WWE’s mainstream audience. When people look back on this period of WWE they recall beer drinking, “mudhole stomping” characters like Stone Cold Steve Austin. WWE tried to ride this sort of attitude into the early 2000’s, only to eventually change their show to more family friendly content in 2008 when the show changed it’s ratings to PG. Then, in the 2010’s WWE has since attempted to become a progressive, family oriented program for people of all ages. The female wrestlers in WWE today are given more focus and more respect than they ever have before in the company, or possibly in the wrestling industry as a whole. The storylines in WWE have also become far more traditional, and far less gritty.
Multiple studies have shown that even today, most of WWE’s viewer base is still composed of people from ages 18 and older, despite its attempts to become more family oriented. This is why these “Smart Marks” exist, they watch the show in spite of what it’s become out of respect for the talented performers, and not out of respect for the poorly oiled company that governs said performers.
There are many reasons why WWE as a corporation has received this harsh criticism from its fans. An example is how WWE has changed the way wrestlers are allowed to conduct in ring promos In the mid 2000’s onward, WWE became far more concerned about what kind of content they show on their live programming, so they began using script writers to write incredibly generic promos for their wrestlers. A common criticism of this, is that experienced WWE fans can tell when a promo sounds like it came from a script writer as opposed to a wrestler: because in their minds they compare it to promos of the past. Promos used to be an art in WWE, they used to have character to them, they used to come from the wrestlers themselves: the wrestlers were ultimately the ones who would drive the stories, and that was just part of the performance. Wrestlers like Dwayne Johnson in the late 90’s were able to read their audiences and play with them, it brought the levels of interactivity to a level that felt like it wasn’t simply just covering bullet points.
WWE is the Walmart of its industry, it’s not the most respected organization of its type by any means, but people will always go to it, because it’s the most easily accessible. Today WWE Monday Night RAW is the longest running weekly episodic television show in history, and WWE Smackdown is the second longest running weekly television show in history. WWE’s accessibility and sheer dominance as a brand is what has kept it floating for so long, it no longer has to worry about appealing to a core viewer base, it only has to worry about expanding its audience to more places on Earth. Many American fans have jumped ship to shows like Ring of Honor and New Japan, and that movement is slowly becoming more mainstream, but it’s not quite there yet.
Even on my college campus I’ve observed many people wearing Bullet Club shirts from New Japan Pro Wrestling. Bullet Club shirts are also, to my knowledge, sold at every Hot Topic store in the US. Pro Wrestling is evolving, and expanding. Crown Jewel may, in retrospect, be remembered as one of the biggest flops that WWE’s corporate management has made in a long time. I was not surprised when it made international news.
One of the biggest returns of the night was the return of the legendary WWE wrestler, The Undertaker. Fans exploded in excitement during his entrance, as The Undertaker is an aging legend who few modern fans will have a chance to see live. Undertaker walked to the ring, was handed a microphone, looked into the camera and said “At WWE Crown Jewel, I have three words for D-Generation X: Rest In Peace,” and after this single sentence, The Undertaker left the arena. Upon the utterance of the words “Crown Jewel”, a sea of cheers quickly turned into a sea of boos. I was surprised to hear this, because never in the seven years that I’ve watched WWE have I ever seen Undertaker get booed. Undertaker is one of wrestling’s most respected and beloved individuals, and it’s his job to promote whatever event that the WWE pays him to. The crowd, upon the simple utterance of two words, ruthlessly turned on him. It didn’t help that the Undertaker’s appearance was short lived either, as I later heard a rather loud southern gentleman profanely curse out the segment when I used the restroom. It seems like WWE could lose tens of million dollars if they cancel the Crown Jewel event in Saudi Arabia. There’s been speculation of whether or not the event will simply be moved to another place but WWE has not confirmed anything as of yet. Hell, from what I just read in recent online news, it sounds like Hulk Hogan may make an appearance there too. This event cannot get any more controversial. Today’s WWE crowd is global, since 2015 a huge chunk of their viewer base has been reported to come from the countries of India and Mexico. It likewise has to appeal to these audiences. From what I can tell, this is just another instance of WWE making a dumb corporate decision, but I don’t think it will really hurt their business as a company much.
When you look at the crowds that WWE shows gathered in the 80’s and 90’s, it’s incredibly apparent that the crowds aren’t like how they are today. Today’s WWE fans are like fans of any other TV programming. Many WWE fans are, not to sound condescending, quite nerdy. WWE as a company has a broad history, like a comic book company it has a legion of heroes and villains that stem across different decades. There are wrestling fans today who are younger than me who can probably give you a detailed analysis of why Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat’s 1989 feud and matches are considered masterpieces. Old WWE feuds are like old comic books in that sense. And sure, a lot of WWE fans act like they completely understand the wrestling business even though they’ve never been a part of it, but that doesn’t make them bad people. It’s kind of like how every time a new Marvel movie gets released there’s a million articles written analyzing every last detail of them. Marvel movies aren’t really that complicated, they’re actually very simplistic, but the fans care and find investment in them, fans go into Marvel films wanting to have a good time, and when they do have a good time they analyze the films for years afterwards. Wrestling storylines likewise usually aren’t the most complicated things in the world, but when wrestling is good, it feels like there’s so much more to it. Pro Wrestling has its own little world to it, and the legacy of that world may just be in the hands of the WWE. The success or failure of WWE may ultimately determine the fate of pro wrestling as an industry. The voice of WWE’s crowds are a voice of truth, and whenever WWE chooses to ignore that truth, it also ignores the voices of the only people who really care.