Why I Don’t Watch WWE Anymore by BH the Uncivilised

By BH the Uncivilised

I’ve been a wrestling fan since the early 90s. Watched WWE (back when it was called WWF) when I was a child, and all my friends watched it, and as an adult, when all my friends were saying it was stupid. Now, after some twenty-five years, I no longer watch WWE.

Recently Hulk Hogan was fired from WWE for using racially insensitive language in a private setting. On the surface this might seem perfectly reasonable, considering the public nature of the wrestlers and the company. But old school fans remember Vince McMahon, head of the company, on their very own TV show, in front of millions watching all over the world, saying “What’s up, my nigga” to John Cena. Thus, Hogan is just the latest example of the organization’s hypocrisy.

WWE have a long history of racial insensitivity. Many non-white wrestlers' gimmicks (the characters they portray on TV) were some kind of racial stereotype. Sometimes it worked, other times it was just awkward. In August 2014, former employee Alberto Del Rio complained of racism from staff. Del Rio was fired after slapping then Social Media Manger Cody Barbierri for making a racist joke. WWE were originally going to suspend Del Rio without pay, but Barbierri threatened to sue the company if they didn’t fire him, so Del Rio was fired. WWE never made an official comment as to what happened, nor stated what, if anything, happened to Barbierri as result of his alleged comment. Though it is worth noting that they never denied it either.



It’s not just racism. On more than a few occasions they’ve been inconsiderate of religious beliefs. Most notably the tag team match of Vince McMahon and his son Shane Vs Shawn Michaels and God. Yep, God, except God was a spotlight. What made this especially awkward was the fact that Michaels was a recent Born Again Christian. The build-up to the match included Vince McMahon going to a church, spitting holy water, and on the day of the match, telling ’God’ to get jiggy with it.

McMahon has also run several story lines where he gets to be intimate with the hot chick. Bear in mind that this is the Chairman of the company putting himself in stories where he has his employees dance for him, share a bathtub with him, feel their breasts and French kiss in front of his wife. Speaking of kissing, he also ran the “Vince McMahon Kiss My Ass Club”, where several wrestlers, an announcer, and his own son, kissed his bare ass on television.



Everything I’ve mentioned so far could fall under a couple of categories: “Only one side of the story” and “They obviously agreed to do it.” WWE have acknowledged at least some of their, shall we say, WTF moments. Which is one of the reasons I kept watching. The final straw for me came after Triple H appeared on the Stone Cold Steve Austin Podcast in February 2015 and was asked if Chyna would ever make it to the Hall of Fame (HoF). Chyna is the only female to ever hold a men’s championship, considered a legend amongst wrestling fans, and the ex-partner of Triple H. He replied no, citing her actions after leaving WWE as the reason. After leaving WWE (or fired without being told, according to Chyna) she briefly entered the adult entertainment industry. After leaving adult entertainment, Chyna settled in japan and worked as a teacher.

There are plenty of people who’ve had less than stellar life experiences after leaving wrestling, including one who killed a man. Chyna, like others in the HoF, had been working to get her life in order. Triple H chose to drag her through her history again. When Chyna was employed by WWE, they fully supported and promoted her posing for Playboy magazine, even working it into her story line. This was not just hypocritical, but potentially sent a whole new generation of people looking for something she was trying to move on from.

I haven’t been watching WWE for a while now, maybe one day I’ll come back to it. But for now, I am a wrestling fan, there’s only so much hypocrisy one can take.

BH the Uncivilised, aka Bunmi Hazzan, film geek, gamer geek, general all round geek. I've been writing since the Cretaceous period my life experience is long and varied, plus I'm kinda mysterious, some say I'm d

Why Wrestling Isn't Fake

fake1

feɪk/adjective

adjective: fake

1. 
not genuine; imitation or counterfeit. 

“She got on the plane with a fake passport"


by Bunmi Hazzan

So let's get the obvious out the way first. It's staged, it's theatrical, scripted and outcomes are predetermined. Wrestling is a lot of things,  but ‘fake’ is not one of them.

Fake is something that pretends to be something else. In wrestling there exists a concept called Kayfabe (like the 4th wall for those familiar with theatre). The general idea is that a wrestler maintains a character at all times in order to make the story they're involved with believable.

Sound familiar? It should; politicians do this all the time. Way back in the olden days, breaking Kayfabe was a very serious offense. Wrestlers could find themselves in a lot of trouble with promoters, maybe even lose bookings. Back then, they absolutely were trying trick the audience. These days (at least the last 20 years) Kayfabe still exists, but for the sole purpose of telling a story. Wrestlers aren't required to act as their characters when doing interviews outside the company. Sound familiar? It should; actors do this all the time.

“Theatre, movies, politicians, they're all make believe as well.”

Yes, they are. But think about the last time someone was talking about a film they saw, and you felt the need to ask them “You do know it's fake, right?”

The movie fan, just like the theatre-goer, book reader, and wrestling fan, knows from the beginning that he or she is being told a story; no one is really trying to fool anybody. In fact, you can very easily find shoot (unscripted, out of character) interviews on official promoter's websites. There is no trickery here, wrestling is what it is:  it's entertainment -- a soap opera set in a wrestling ring. It's not pretending to be anything else, therefore, it is not fake.

Now, allow me to debunk a few myths:

1. Wrestlers do actually hit each other. 
2. Blood is, the majority of the time, actual blood. 
3. Even when everything goes to plan, injuries can still happen.

Most wrestlers spend many years training. Although action inside the ring is staged, outside the ring, what they do is all them. When a wrestler gets booed, they're booing his/her years of practice, tryouts, speech training, writing, creativity. Which is fine, when said wrestler is deliberately trying get heat (angry crowd reaction). But when they're not, that could get you right in the feels (could hurt ones feelings, that's not wrestling jargon, just Internet slang). What they say, how they perform, and how the crowd responds, they are as real as anything.

Championships aren’t won, like say in a boxing match, but neither are they given to just anyone. Championships are awarded, as in wrestlers earn the title by how they perform, their work ethic, and crowd reaction, among other considerations. In other words, no matter what it seems like, it's a highly competitive industry. The final product you see is the result of passion, desire, sleeping in their car because all their money was spent on lessons, blood, sweat, mistakes, failure, repeat, learn, improve, never give up. 

To call that fake is an insult.

BH the Uncivilised, some call me Bunmi Hazzan, but a time traveller has many names. I've existed for over 10,000 years and lived over 9000 lives. Travelling through time, space and multiple dimensions and writing about my experiences and observations. Or, in other words, I analyse art, and create art. The driving license I hold in this realm claims I have residence in London, England. The truth is I spend most of my time in upper regions of my cerebral cortex. I am, that poet.