Quick Hit Discourse on Pro Graps Brought To You By The Wrestling Blog Pt. 2
The mystery devil, asses in seats, the ungovernable one, and SKEEEAVONNNNNE
For those who don’t know, I used to write extensively about professional wrestling. For over a decade, I plied my passion for free at The Wrestling Blog, writing about everything and anything on my mind. Sadly, I lost my joie de vivre to muse about wrestling on a regular basis, so that blog has fallen by the wayside. However, that doesn’t mean I still don’t have thoughts about the subject from time to time! The wrestling discourse is HOT HOT HOT, and I’m going to weigh in, like I used to. Only I won’t be weighing in long form. Nope! I’m going to give each topic one, maybe two paragraphs. Here goes, starting with…
Who’s the Devil? - Maxwell Jacob Friedman is enjoying a refreshment on his All Elite Wrestling run this far because his blossoming friendship with Adam Cole gave him a whole new studio space to explore, that of a man who wants to do right by nature, by God, by the fans, and by himself. In wrestling parlance, we call that a “babyface.” Max is playing the role a little different in that he embraces the shitty character tropes that got him to the AEW World Championship, but realizes that he doesn’t need to be perfect to be a good guy. However, in his current feud with Jay White, a new figure has been introduced, a mystery wrestler helping him out, whether or not it’s with his blessing or consent, while wearing his custom “devil” mask that he sported when he resurfaced in the company last year at All Out after a couple months on the shelf for whatever reason.
Take a good look at it:
MJF isn’t the one wearing it this time, and there’s really no reason to believe that he’s the one orchestrating it because, like he’s said in promos, if he were dredging the depths to keep his AEW World Championship, he’d proudly admit it. Therefore, it’s a secret third party who took to wailing on the wrestler known colloquially and affectionately as “Knife Pervert1.” But who could it be?
The most obvious answer is Adam Cole, and sometimes, the most obvious answer is the best one. He’s out with a (legit) injury, but he’s got a ready-made goon squad to back him up in Roderick Strong, Matt Taven, and Mike Bennett. Still, I feel like wrestling has conditioned fans not to expect the blatantly obvious, and while there’s gas in the tank for another Cole/MJF rematch (their All In match set one up perfectly with MJF winning via flash roll-up in overtime), there’s also the issue of whether the fans would be willing to boo Cole at this point. A more intriguing answer is Jungle Boy, who is busy serving a suspension for his part in the altercation that got CM Punk fired from the company. While I’m almost positive his actual timeout is up, the extended break from airtime gives fans a good reason to react strongly to him when he comes back. He makes sense because he’s got history with Max and the idea of him trying to jump the line to get at him is pretty juicy.
There’s one option that I think could be bold but given AEW’s corporate status might just end up serving the most obvious answer. Britt Baker has pretty much done everything there is to do in the women’s division, and until Tony Khan proves he’s not just shoving them on-camera to fill a quota and until they get another true star on Britt’s level, she’s kinda dangling in space waiting to do something that isn’t soaking up real estate in a women’s division that she’s, as mentioned, already conquered.
The intrigue comes in whether Khan will actually let her wrestle men as an equal. If you know anything about me, I’m a gender anarchist in that I believe gender is faker than wrestling and that men, women, and everyone outside that binary can and should be able to compete on equal footing. Wrestling is a place where there’s no reason for that division to exist because it’s a goddamn work anyway. Baker, originally floated by the esteemed Porksweats of Twitter/Bluesky fame, would be such a bold and fresh option if she were the one wrestling Max. If she were being used as Cole’s herald? Eh, it becomes warmed over in an instant. But we’re broaching brave new worlds here.
Of course, the nuclear OBVIOUS option is that the Devil is CM Punk, who was either quietly rehired or never fired in the first place, but I’m not even that much of a conspiracy theorist to think that’s plausible, so much so that I offered to buy someone who brought it up in the Discord server for fans and readers of this here newsletter a pizza if Punk was the one behind the Devil mask.
Shut the Fuck Up about Attendance - Wrestling fans have always been insufferable pricks when it comes to business metrics. Acting as if a show’s quality is measured by how many people paid for a seat is the most asinine thing one could do with something they desperately want to consider art, and generally, it’s the same crowd of Vince McMahon-gargling sycophants who say “WRESTLING IS CINEMA” every time one of the Uso brothers has a pained look on his face before throwing a superkick who peddle that nonsense. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how business is done in 2023. WWE can draw zero fans to a building and still pretend like they earned all that money by themselves mainly from a deal with a genocidal royal family that has a lot of oil in the dunes dotting their land. Both major companies are pretty blessed by the fact that wrestling is relatively cheap to produce, gets good ratings, and has that live sports action that advertisers crave.
Not every town is going to be a hit, obviously. That’s fine because both companies, AEW especially, draw when it matters. I say “AEW especially” because Khan actively likes his fans and cultivates a show they react to normally, whereas McMahon more often than not plays to crowds either sitting on their hands or chanting with antipathy towards what they’re being served. This might have changed lately with the “improvements” in booking, but every time I check into highlights of that company, even the “good” stuff under noted good guy, Paul Levesque, pictured here with a war criminal…
…is decidedly not for me2. Seriously, again, if I have to watch another five minute prolonged melodrama face from an Uso and be told this is better than the Young Bucks/Lucha Bros. matches that I actively enjoy in AEW again, I will scream.
Ratings, attendance, money, it’s all fake. As long as there’s enough interest to warrant a spot on TV or these companies, they will make enough money to provide the locker rooms a living wage to do the thing they love. And I don’t care if I’m the only one watching AEW against a near consensus of everyone who’s not me watching WWE. Fuck that shit-ass company. If you want wrestling to be considered “art,” start treating it as such, you armchair economists.
El Hombre Mas Peligroso del Mundo - I didn’t really appreciate Ken Shamrock until after I started to get shoot style, MMA influences in wrestling, and his entire aesthetic. However, I’m willing to admit that as a kid, I was in the minority in terms of the crowd WWE was getting in 1997/98. I had some things in common with the crowd that wanted something “real” that didn’t feel plastic like WCW did at times or like the WWF did in the prior “New Generation” era. I loved Steve Austin. I thought the Nation of Domination was a good heel gimmick at the time and realized they were actually babyfaces as I grew up. But even if Shamrock didn’t really get over the way that they intended him to, he provided something special to the show in his limited role. He felt legitimately dangerous.
In 2023, you don’t get that from a MMA fighter based solely on their credentials in the “real” fighting. There are so many ex-fighters in the biz now with even more of the wrestlers as marks for UFC that it’s become just another style. I get it. Nothing gold can stay. The underground allure of UFC in its early days was wild as hell. Being around for all the news magazine show exposes on how dangerous and immoral it was really puts how monetized and overexposed it is now under a hilarious microscope. However, you can still get someone who has that allure. AEW has one of those guys in Rush.
Everyone bleeds in AEW, but Rush’s opponents in the company before he re-signed with them earlier this year felt like they were doing it hard-way and not with a gig3. Folks spread rumors about him being too stiff and hard to work with, but even if you had to take those rumors with a grain of salt because Khan signed him to a long-term deal AFTER they broke, you have to admit they add an air of danger to the man. People love seeing stuff that breaks down because it looks raw as hell. And they parlayed that into Rush having this unfuckable air to him that adds to his mob boss mystique. He really does feel like the most dangerous man in the world.
Personally, I would love to see him be the next guy in AEW just because it would be so different and really put respect on the company’s name in terms of all the violence and wins/losses mattering. Wouldn’t you want to have a dude who looks like he hits the hardest in the ring be the guy carrying your banner, provided he’s not legitimately concussing people all the time? Besides, even if he holds back, he’s now got the reputation. That’s a hard thing to shake, but it could play to his advantage.
Let’s Appreciate Tony Schiavone - Once upon a time, Tony Schiavone was perhaps the most reviled commentator in wrestling. It wasn’t his fault. Eric Bischoff screamed in his ear to say the worst, most shill-crazy things on commentary, burying everything else. Before the Monday Night Wars, Schiavone was one of the best play-by-play commentators in the biz. And in the four years since AEW has been open, he’s consistently been the best guy behind the mic.
You can tell he’s having so much fun when he gets in the ring to interview people, especially Sting or Britt Baker. This is what happens when you let people have fun at their jobs, especially when that job is front-facing an audience as an sporting/entertainment media. He’s having a career renaissance, and few people in the biz deserve it as much as he does.
Chuck Taylor called White that when they were both members of CHAOS in New Japan, and the nickname stuck with degenerate nerds like myself even today.
If you wanna see how much of a “good guy” Levesque is, you should look up Triple H’s feud with Booker T going into WrestleMania XIX, see how racist ol’ Trips got in the build, and then look at who won the match.
Hard-way means a worked strike actually lands too hard and breaks skin. A gig is another name for a razorblade, which counterintuitively is the far safer way to draw blood in a wrestling match.