| | | | | Jeuron Dove talks wrestling history
“Respecting Wrestling’s Past In Order to Have a Future”
By Jeuron Dove
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Hello fans. I want to start by thanking everyone who read and responded to my column last week about African Americans in wrestling. I’ll admit that I was a little nervous about writing a column about such a sensitive topic, but I’m glad that I made the right decision and went through with it. I was literally blown away by the amount of feedback I received. It’s always encouraging to know that people actually take out the time from their busy schedules to read my stuff, so as long as you all like it, I’ll keep on giving it out!
After putting out such a good and historically accurate piece last week, I was initially curious as to what I would write about this week. I knew that I had to come up with something strong in order to keep my momentum up (and to keep you all entertained and sending feedback). I was going to write something about the Raw show from this past week, but I know that there are plenty of columnists on this site that cover what happens each week on Raw, SD, ECW and TNA, so once again I wanted to go outside the box. Since my last piece was about historical stuff in wrestling, I figured that I would continue to talk about some aspect of the great history of this sport. Or rather the history of this sport period. Now, I’m not going to write about the history of wrestling. That would require me to know everything there ever was about pro wrestling (which I don’t) and it would take up tons of pages. And it would probably bore most people. Rather, I want to talk about the role that wrestling history plays in today’s product and how everyone from the fans, promoters, performers and bookers, can benefit from learning about wrestling history.
A few weeks ago, me and some friends were watching the World Class DVD that WWE produced last year. Up until 2006, I didn’t know much about the Von Erichs or the impact they had on the business or wrestling in Texas. After reading the awesome piece that Dave wrote about the family back in a July 2006 issue of the Observer, I have gone out of my way to learn more about this tragic family. Anyway, we were watching the DVD and it wasn’t like I was in a room of hardcore fans (except for one other) who knew about the old territorial system and “pre-WWE” wrestling, save for WCW. By the time it was over, you had a room full of people under 25, who were so into the story that they could not believe that something like that actually happened. We were all watching an hour and a half documentary about a period of wrestling that we were either not around for or too young to remember (and by the time I became a fan, I think that World Class was gone anyway). The point is that even in 2008, fans are still into learning about the rich history of the business, just as much as young kids and women are into cheering for Cena.
Just like any other business or walk of life, wrestling has always benefited from learning from its past. The more you study the history of something, the less likely you are to repeat the same mistakes. That is why watching TNA is baffling at times. You have a company that for all intents and purposes is the modern-day version of WCW (except much more under the radar). They have a plethora of hot young talent that can wrestle and if given the chance, can get over with their personalities. You have a stable of older stars from bigger organizations that have the name value. And you have a pretty competitive women’s division (which WCW never had, but I’m not comparing the two). TNA has all of the positives to be a huge force in the business, yet they give their audience the most consistently counter-productive booking since the heyday of the 1999-2001 WCW. The scariest part of all this is that many of the wrestlers and backstage personnel (namely Vince Russo) lived through the pure chaos that WCW was in during its decline and yet they still make the same mistakes. Pushing talent that isn’t over, constantly burning out potential great main event matches (Joe-Angle in ‘07), relying on old washed up talent to carry things (I love Sting, but he needs to hang them up) and the horrendous “Even Steven” booking that results in no one getting over with the fans regardless of how hot they are or how big of a victory they may have earned on a prior show.
And TNA is not alone. Almost every major wrestling promotion that has ever existed suffered from this problem. Of course, WCW may be the greatest modern example. They seemed to be the hottest wrestling company on the planet at one point and then they squandered it all by keeping the same people on top forever and not letting any new blood elevate. They also made a ton of bad financial decisions that resulted in them losing tons of money towards the end. People always said that the more WCW got away from having “wrestling” people in charge of the company, the worse it got. WWE has been guilty of this as well. There have been many times over the past few years that they have made some less than questionable decisions in regards to who they pushed and certain business directions. Certain bookers, like Brian Gerwitz (whose name probably strikes a raw chord with serious WWE fans), have constantly been portrayed as not caring about the history of the sport. He was one of the key people who was against the strong booking of Ric Flair’s retirement angle. He felt that Flair was too old to be going over on
so many young stars on his way out of the company, not realizing what many believed in that Flair had been one of the most consistently over guys in the company since returning in 2001. I guess he didn’t grow up as an NWA fan and didn’t understand the importance of Flair’s legacy in the business. I wonder if he understood its importance when Flair was honored with the most emotional sendoff in wrestling history the night after Wrestlemania by old wrestlers, young wrestlers and fans alike of all ages, many of who probably didn’t grow up watching the NWA or WCW.
When the people in charge of wrestling have an understanding of the history of the product, it makes for a more enjoyable experience for both wrestlers and fans alike. Wrestling is a cyclical business that always repeats itself for better or worse. Every generation has their ups and downs, their best workers and their biggest stars. There will always be periods when things are on fire and when things are cold. The recent thought process that WWE has taken up in pushing new stars best illustrates this. Things were cold for WWE in 1996-97. Even though 1997 was an awesome year from a creativity standpoint, they were behind WCW. And what did Vince do? He pushed new stars like Austin, Rock, Foley, HHH and repackaged others like Undertaker, and eventually ushered in the most successful period in the history of the business. After the business got even hotter in 1999-2000, he pushed more new faces like Jericho, the Hardys, Edge & Christian , Benoit, the Dudleys, Too Cool and others. When the business appeared to be cold over the last few months, Vince aborted the old ship and started pushing new talent again. CM Punk, Kofi Kingston, Cryme Tyme and Ted Dibiase, Jr., have all been pushed into top slots on Raw within the last few weeks. The ratings improved and it seems as if all of them are getting over much better than they were about three weeks ago.
Vince apparently took heed to the history of his own product. He saw that when he freshened up the product a decade ago it led to record business. He decided to do it again a decade later and the results haven’t been too bad so far.
Of course, regardless of who is on top, there will always be down periods. During most down periods, promoters have always cracked under the pressure of failing ratings and less than packed houses, and have gone into desperation booking. Fritz Von Erich did this with the infamous heart attack angle. Eric Bischoff did it by putting Goldberg and Hogan on free television when it could’ve done a monster PPV number and Vince recently did this with the million dollar giveaway and his second attempt at potentially being fatally hurt (even though they learned from last year's attempt and made a point to not kill him).
The results for these desperation angles is normally a short-term increase followed by an even more pronounced downturn. Wrestling is an established part of pop culture and will always have a stable if not decent fan base. Doing crazy stunts for ratings doesn’t nearly achieve as much as learning from the past and realizing that while the business may be down now, it will eventually pick up as long as the right things are being done.
When it comes to wrestling today, I feel that there is more of an appreciation for the
history of the business than there certainly was 15-20 years ago. Newsletters such as this great one by Dave Meltzer, as well as Pro Wrestling Torch, have been chronicling the sport since their inception over two decades ago. Of course, a curious fan who is thirsty for knowledge, needs to go no further than their own home computer to learn about wrestling. There are countless websites that cover various aspects of wrestling history. Most are fan created sites, so always proceed with caution as they may not always be factually accurate. There are plenty of credible ones like Slam Wrestling out of Canada, and the website that you are reading this article on. For fans who want to learn about some of the territorial history, there are excellent sites like the Mid-Atlantic Gateway ( gotta shill since I’m from Greensboro, NC), Wresting Classics and Kayfabe Memories. There are also countless pro wrestling books on the market for those who prefer the old fashioned way of opening up a book as opposed to surfing the web.
The one person who is perhaps most responsible for the recent surge in so much historical stuff being put out about wrestling is the man who we least expected it from to begin with, Vince McMahon.
Ever since Vince bulldozed his way through the territories en route to creating the national phenomenon of the WWE, he’s always had a flair for recreating history in his own image. Many wrestlers who came from the NWA and later WCW into the WWE in the late 80’s and early 90’s had their gimmicks completely changed so that fans wouldn’t even be able to tell that they gained their initial fame in another company. Who could forget Harley Race as the “king” or Dusty Rhodes in polka dots. Kerry Von Erich was repackaged as the “Texas Tornado” and the “Total Package” Lex Luger was known in his early WWE tenure as “The Narcissist”. A more recent example was former WCW superstar Diamond Dallas Page, being rechristened as a crazy stalker during the Invasion angle in 2001. For some bizarre reason that only he ( and perhaps only God) can understand, Vince has felt the need to totally ignore the history of a great sport and rewrite things as if his company was the only one that ever existed.
This has changed in recent years though. A few years ago, particularly starting in 2004, Vince felt the need to release many DVD releases that told the story of other things in wrestling aside from the WWE. The Monday Night War and Rise and Fall of ECW started the trend, and it has virtually exploded since then. We have seen the company release DVD’s about World Class, The AWA, Four Horsemen, Bret Hart, Ultimate Warrior (more of a burial), Dusty Rhodes and other important names and periods in wrestling history. There is a new Flair DVD that has just been released and a Best of Starrcade collection that will be coming out later this year. That’s a long way to come from a company that once erased any shade of history aside from their own.
I think that Vince has changed his whole view on wrestling history because he realizes that he is the only major promoter in the game. He owns of all the tapes of the most popular and influential companies and sees that there is no point in ignoring what happened in other places. He also makes a huge profit because these DVDs are always among the best selling sports DVD’s each year.
Vince’s new philosophy in honoring wrestling history has seen the most obvious change in the company’s annual Hall of Fame ceremony during Wrestlemania weekend. The WWE Hall of Fame has went from being something that used to be a joke within the industry to being among the most respected halls in wrestling. This is because over the last few years, they’ve attempted to make a real wrestling hall of fame as opposed to one that just honored longtime company employees. The hall has been made far more legit in recent years with the addition of many of the biggest names in the history of the game like Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan, Billy Graham, Eddie Graham, Flair, Gordon Solie, Verne Gagne, Nick Bockwinkel and Dusty Rhodes. Some of these men did gain their greatest fame while in the WWE, while some have been on bad terms with Vince over the years and some have never competed in the WWE at all. It seems that Vince has finally gotten it and is making tremendous strides to make sure that the legends of this business are given their just due.
It appears that wrestling history is indeed intact and that it will continue to remain an important part of the current product. My hope is that every major promotion continues to apply the lessons learned from the past in order to make their companies successful, so that we as fans can continue to benefit by having a consistently good product. I encourage every wrestling fan to do something to learn about the history of the sport they love so much. Whether it be reading a book, watching some old matches on youtube or going to the store to pick up the latest WWE DVD’s, do something to show appreciation for this business that many have literally shed their blood, tears and even their lives for. And to the promoters, bookers and people in charge of the game who may be reading this, remember that there have been many successful high-profile wrestling companies that have gone out of business either due to sheer incompetence or a complete lack of understanding about the history of the business. The old saying is indeed true. “Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it”.
Thanks for reading and all feedback is much appreciated and always encouraged. |
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