Is ranking wrestlers political?

[Loss]

I'm starting this thread because I just saw MiB touch on the "silent majority" phrase as a conservative dogwhistle, which outside of this project it is. I saw Dylan make a post on how social justice impacts the way we look at wrestlers, and he's also talked about the difficulties of wrestlers receiving their due that are not products of American imperialism. And funkdoc ties everything back to this for the most part. In my mind, I separate my political worldview and how we view wrestlers entirely, but I'm willing to have that challenged because it's possible I have a blind spot. I'm starting this thread just to listen to the other side and try to understand where this comes from a little more.

[anarchistxx]

You can't bring politics or social values into something as sleazy as wrestling. Once you start going down that road you end up ranking workers based on their moral, cultural and social qualities. That is pretty dangerous on a list where the good proportion of US workers have stories depicting them as anything from unpleasant bullies to misogynistic pricks to sexual offenders to murderers to selfish drug addicts to manipulative users.

 

Social justice and political worldview have a place in wrestling discussion, but not when discussing the merits of people as workers. Of course, I'm sure that subconsciously it has some effect.

[WingedEagle]

I suppose its possible my thoughts on wrestling impacted in this fashion, but if so, its so under the surface that I am unaware of it. Its not something that enters my mind whatsoever. But I do believe we all have certain prejudices, beliefs, opinions or whatever you may like to call them that color how we view things even if this is unintended. Not necessarily a bad thing, just a thing.

 

While not necessarily political, I definitely believe there's a cultural obstacle for wrestling fans at a certain level. Otherwise everyone would be eager to jump into Japanese wrestling, lucha, shoot style and anything else outside of what they grew up on. Not sure how prominent it may be here as by the time you reach PWO you're probably watching more than the wrestling you were first exposed to (whatever that is), but among common fans that makes up the masses Sure. Same thing will hold true for music, movies, any aspect of culture.

[The Man in Blak]

I want to try and expound further on this at some point when I have more time, but to keep it short and sweet:

 

I think everything is political, even when it's deliberately intended and stated not to be, and that's probably the single biggest difference between the person I was ten years ago and the person I am today. Some things are more political than others, but I tend to find more value in criticism that acknowledges, incorporates and challenges cultural context as a part of its critique.

[fxnj]

One of my favorite things about wrestling is that it's one of the few forms of entertainment left that's not afraid to break the rules of not being politically correct, so I'm not a fan of the SJW shit that's been creeping its way into wrestling discussions at all. People complain all the time about WWE lacking true heels, yet when they do have a heel do something to make you legit want to see them beat up (like making fun of Red Flair's death in a promo) they have to deal with a ton of heat from SJW's. It does take some of the fun out it that there's a vocal section of the fans who can't handle the sleaziness inherent to the business.

[El-P]

SWJ ? What do you mean ? Like, saying Kamala was a racist gimmick ? Or that a babyface hitting a woman was wrong ? I haven't seen much SWJ creeping up to be honest.

 

Pro-wrestling is a pretty low form of entertainment (sorry guys, it just is, doesn't mean I don't love it) with historically tons of awful things attached to it : bullying, racism, jingoism, bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, you name it. Yeah it would be great to see "the business", as they say, evolve, and I don't see what's wrong about talking about social issues inside the wrestling world and how they are presented and how we perceived them and how it influences our viewing experience. I mean, even when I was 14, I hated Jim Duggan's jingoist shit.

[Herodes]

I think it's a concept worth exploring. Similar arguments are raised when the traditional white, western canon of literature is challenged by a new voice championing for example previously unknown (to Western readers) African literature; the establishment is willing to indulge discussion of "token" entries as a curiosity, but ultimately will close ranks if it poses any threat to the canon of Western literature. Any legitimate threat or opposing voice will be dismissed as a contrarian opinion and the fundamental status quo isn't allowed to be challenged beyond an orientalist rejection of the attempt to change the canon as a "niche" voice and any proponents as fetshistic (it's no surprise for example to learn that Parv is a Shakespeare scholar and unwilling to give much thought to "contrarian/niche" other than token picks based on a cherry-picked sampling, however enduring the consensus remains unchallenged). I have been part of literary debates where the Shahnameh (the great classical work of Persian literature) has been presented by some as not only deserving to be in the canon but also not to be perceived as a fetishistic pick but any serious challenge was quickly shut down as soon as the notion of it being considered alongside the great works of western literature - very much in the same manner Parv has done (in a passive aggressive manner) by ultimately disregarding opinions that challenge the consensus.

 

This leads into the wider question of the influence of American imperialism in the context of GWE and pro wrestling, which is undoubtedly true. I think it's worth exploring. There is the obvious power of influence of US wrestling which most if not all of us grew up on, but the question is then for the subset of fans like us who expanded our horizon beyond the mainstream of what we saw on TV as children, why do so many disproportionately flock to "traditional" Japanese wrestling rather than lucha, or shoot style, or world of sport. All are very much readily available now but we are told the latter styles are niche, difficult to "understand" or "get" and other similar language which reinforces the notion of what is mandatory to consider for GWE and what can be easily dismissed and disposed of outside of some obvious token picks.

 

In many aspects the story of traditional Japanese wrestling is offensive; relatively few years after two nuclear bombs were dropped on the country by the US, the Japanese are willing to passively accept this American import while the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima are so fresh is beyond belief. Beyond some concessions to the host culture to make the style more conservative, it is nevertheless the same fundamental American product forced wholesale upon the same people who were nuked. However, when the American standard is challenged, in the form of shoot style which rooted itself proudly in the native martial arts traditions, western audiences are not ready to accept its legitimacy alongside imported new Japan and all Japan wrestling which is much more aligned to "correct" wrestling.

 

Similarly lucha has always for the most part been completely ignored beyond the surface and to this day we hear the same stick dismissals about "not getting it". The entire wrestling culture of Mexico quickly developed its own traditions and conventions, it's own style of working and even movement, very much tied closely to its own host culture and proudly so, until recent years not conceding to its geographical neighbour and in a defiant manner. So relative to its place in its culture, western influenced fans can so nonchalantly ignore it yet embrace traditional Japanese wrestling which fits much more neatly in the comfort zone.

 

If anything the project has been fascinating and it really is a snapshot of fandom in more ways than one. Primarily it shows how early wrestling criticism is in its evolution, we are now at the point where we can acknowledge token entries like Casas or Dandy based on legitimate championing, by only willing to sample a small set of curated picks while still enforcing the perception of lucha as "the other" but never to the point where it can be thought of on equal terms with the American hegemony. The final list, emphasized by Parvs essay, serves as a reminder than in 2016, while "the other" has made in roads, we are still not at the stage where we can truly argue the case for the "niche" as an equal without being dismissed as contrarian.

[donsem43]

People are taking too much of a big picture view of this. The politics of ranking pro wrestlers is a lot closer to the running of a kids sports team than the battle around any major social issue.

[Loss]

I want to add that one reason I want to keep an open mind in this is that I have seen an impact on music criticism. Pitchfork did their top 200 tracks of the 80s recently and ranked songs by Mtume, Al B. Sure and Frankie Knuckles. It's an interesting contrast to their 500 track list less than a decade ago which was more focused on traditional college rock and indie acts during that time. I've seen more LGBT representation and racial minority presence in indie and punk culture than in the past. It's more visible, anyway. Herodes post gave me some stuff to think about with regards to wrestling. We really are on the ground floor.

[El-P]

Let's not become the Pitchfork of pro-wrestling, please.

That said, Mtume and Frankie Knuckles rule.

[Ship Canal]

I want to try and expound further on this at some point when I have more time, but to keep it short and sweet:

 

I think everything is political, even when it's deliberately intended and stated not to be, and that's probably the single biggest difference between the person I was ten years ago and the person I am today. Some things are more political than others, but I tend to find more value in criticism that acknowledges, incorporates and challenges cultural context as a part of its critique.

 

 

THIS.

 

 

One of my favorite things about wrestling is that it's one of the few forms of entertainment left that's not afraid to break the rules of not being politically correct, so I'm not a fan of the SJW shit that's been creeping its way into wrestling discussions at all. People complain all the time about WWE lacking true heels, yet when they do have a heel do something to make you legit want to see them beat up (like making fun of Red Flair's death in a promo) they have to deal with a ton of heat from SJW's. It does take some of the fun out it that there's a vocal section of the fans who can't handle the sleaziness inherent to the business.

 

Well, as a full blown card carrying "SJW" (that's a phrase coined by the extreme right, btw, and largely about as useful a social designator as "hipster" these days) who genuinely believes that capitalism and patriarchy and racism and homophobia and just about any other form of intersecting oppression you can imagine is, quite probably, very much a bad thing, I am still capable of watching a wrestling match. I'm also capable of listening to Jamaican dancehall music, gangsta rap, black metal - all of which contain certain artists whose views and actions range from juvenile homophobia all the way through to full blown endorsemnent of national socialism, without feeling the need to be particularly outraged by it. I take note of the problematic parts, and any analysis I make - be it written or otherwise - after the fact has to at least take note and highlight the most politically or socially troubling aspects of these things if I want to be in any way honest to myself at all.

 

There is a huge, HUGE difference between having something entirely sanitized and removed of anything that might have once given it some sort of appeal and thrill and attempting to better match an artform - albeit one that is still invested heavily in some of the sleaziest aspects of its creation - to a world that quite rightly has much more of an issue with all kinds of shitty behaviour it once tolerated.

 

You can literally watch ANY pro wrestling match from before about 2000 and have that entire recorded history of work as a space for you to indulge in memories of a time before "SJW's" begun spoiling your fun with their pesky trigger warnings or what have you. But you can also quite readily accept that this, just like, I dunno, an old film in which the one queer character is an effeminate, mincing, Liza Minelli obsessed queen, is a depiction that belongs to a less enlightened time.

 

That does NOT mean that pro wrestling can't still have heels engaging in truly heelish activity. The problem with WWE specifically is that its a company that has been proven to be incredibly insensitive in terms of its depiction of marginalized groups in the past, so when a heel is dropping "natural heel" moves you do have to wonder whether or not its more a reflection of the incredibly right wing dynasty that is pulling the strings.

 

And that's just it: every person who believes the idea that pro wrestling should be watched in an apolitical vacuum free of any kind of politicized analysis is pissing in the wind if you are trying to persuade a lot of the rest of us that that is possible or even desirable. We've been told for years that we should be more objective, just let things roll over us like water off a ducks back and "hey, its wrestling! Its full of sleazy shit!" and that's fine up to a point, but you can't expect those of us for whom our politics are an important part of our everyday lives and shape the view we have of... well, pretty much everything, to feel like we are somehow hamstringing ourselves.

 

I have to exist under capitalism every day and I'm not going to go all Unabomber and run off to the hills and live in a tent and live off berries and exclude myself from the rest of society, I don't see that as particularly productive. So instead you become comfortable with certain contradictions - you aren't going to immiserate yourself in a muddy field for the rest of your life because you genuinely feel guilty for buying something from Apple given how they treat their workers in China - so you picket the Apple store instead. Its a compromise that allows you to retain your sanity (and your central heating).

 

Watching pro wrestling as an "SJW" is no different. Its not a zerosum game. Just like discussing any other kind of art.

 

In reference to Dyaln's point about political dimensions in pro wrestling discussion, I have a lot of sympathy with that. I find it difficult not to bring politics into just about EVERYTHING, by which I don't mean just randomly quoting blocks of Kropotkin at people or whatever. There are ways to discuss political dimensions of things without being didactic or explicit. We do it every day. The personal is political, after all.

 

I should also point out that I've been genuinely nervous about expressing some of the stuff in my post on PWO before now, and I can't really touch on why

 

Thanks for starting this thread Loss.

 

[Ship Canal]

Can we be the Larry Levan of pro wrestling at least? Please???



Also Loss, given you've popped for my This Heat reference in a previous post and Frankie Knuckles has been brought up. we should totally exchange mixtapes.

[Grimmas]

Great post Ship Canal.

 

Really wrestling doesn't need racism, homophobia, misogyny, etc.

[El-P]

Great post Ship Canal.

 

Really wrestling doesn't need racism, homophobia, misogyny, etc.

 

Ditto.

[Loss]

Can we be the Larry Levan of pro wrestling at least? Please???

 

 

Also Loss, given you've popped for my This Heat reference in a previous post and Frankie Knuckles has been brought up. we should totally exchange mixtapes.

 

I would LOVE for us to be the Larry Levan of pro wrestling!

 

And I'm all for a mixtape exchange. More than all for it, even. As soon as I repair my destroyed music library that I foolishly didn't have backed up before my laptop bit the dust.

[Loss]

The responses in this thread tell me it might be worthwhile to have a folder on this board devoted entirely to the topic of wrestling criticism itself, where we can dive into the wider sociopolitical implications of how we watch wrestling, while those who prefer to keep their fingers in their ears and scream "La-la-la" can easily avoid it. Thoughts?

[Ricky Jackson]

I think that is a good idea

[Timbo Slice]

I'm down for that. A lot of the issues brought up in the reaction threads really made me long for a place to actually have the type of discourse worthy of the topic.

[BuryWindham]

"Americanized" Wrestling is a ridiculous term for the point that is trying to made.

 

Japanese Wrestling as we know it was spawned out of American wrestling, the first known Japanese pro wrestler Sorakichi Matsuda started in the US in the 1800's and brought 20 American and wrestlers with him to Japan and it wasn't that successful.

 

Then move to Rikidozan who's career and rise in popularity was beating up the Americans.

 

Japanese wrestling however has its distinct narrative of fighting spirit, strikes, less theatrics, promos, etc etc.

 

That style has directely influenced American wrestling as we see it today.

 

The two have shaped each other.

 

Lucha has also has a direct influence on American and Japanese wrestling. So it's kind of a moot point.

 

If I had to make an argument why Lucha was underrated in the GWE poll it wouldn't be about "Americanization" it would be that it's simply an acquired taste.

 

The bumping, psychology, match styles are all different to wrestling. There seems to be a narrative and I've even heard Konnan say this that Lucha lacks psychology, (I disagree) I would say moves and matches are performed more with grace and elasticity.

 

I would also add that I think some of the rules can take people out wanting to watch it.

 

What is curious to me is why so little of Japanese and American wrestlers have competed in Mexico and vise versa. That's actually played a pretty decent part in my Top 10.

[Ship Canal]

I think that's a great idea Loss.

I've often held off from posting in other threads as I've genuinely not wanted to be accused of making things too political in the sense of attaching certain kinds of analyses to things. As I say, nothing heavy handed or, I hope, in any way dismissive of any other beliefs or ways of seeing the world, but sometimes it just didn't feel all that appropriate to do so.

A section of the board for those of us who want to go down those particular rabbit holes in an environment of conviction that doesn't veer over into unnecessary aggro would be really useful, I think.

[ohtani's jacket]

Japanese professional wrestling being a direct product of US cultural imperialism is a blanket statement that would take hours of research to properly assess. The first recognised pro-wrestling matches in post-war Japan were performed by a small troupe led by Joe Louis. They were invited to entertain the troops by a service association the same way Bob Hope would be. For all we know that's all pro-wrestling in Japan would have ever amounted to if not for Rikidozan, Toshio Yamaguchi and Masahiko Kimura deciding there was money to be made in pro-wrestling. Those three guys, and their backers, had more to do with importing of pro-wrestling to Japan than any American I'm aware of. And in the case of the latter two, their wrestling activities in the early 50s were deeply rooted in the failure of the post-war professional judo association. Rikidozan's biggest supporters, NTV and the Mainichi newspaper, have always claimed altruistic motives for promoting pro-wrestling. Their execs always say they were helping to restore national pride, raise the people's spirits and that sort of thing. Of course there were commercial interests too. Pro-wrestling and television had a symbiotic relationship in post-war Japan as we all know. Pro-wrestling was tailor made for TV and the Japanese were fascinated by television much like the rest of the world. I actually think the most interesting thing about the post-war period is that the Supreme Commander Allied Powers didn't seem to mind the portrayal of Japan vs. the West that every man in the street was aware of because the SCAP actively tried to disseminate nationalistic ideologies during the post-war recovery period. Much like the police didn't seem to mind how riled up the throngs of people got crowded around street corners, it seems the SCAP saw pro-wrestling as a positive distraction from the post-war hardships.

[ohtani's jacket]

It's also worth noting that pro-wrestling as we know it in Japan really began in the post-occupation period so Dylan's line that it was imposed on them at gun point is stretching it a little. The allied occupation ended in April 1952 and Rikidozan was in the States at that time. I guess you could argue that his JWA promotion as an offshoot of the cultural hegemony of the NWA, but that would require more exploration of who was really pulling the strings in the 1950s Japanese pro-wrestling promotions. Nobody really talks about the influence that the mobster Nick Zapetti had on shaping pro-wrestling in Japan. Outside of Western journalists based in Japan, that is. Not really in our circles.

[El-P]

Lutteroth's name comes from the french word "lutteur", which means, "wrestler". Make of that what you want, I'm no lucha expert at all.

[Matt D]

Isn't 00s AAA basically Americanized lucha?

[funkdoc]

well, if you've ever read a post of mine here, my opinion on this shouldn't be hard to guess

 

strongly agree that this would be a useful subforum. this board does get some criticism for trending overly old & white & Southern in its topics, and i think there's plenty of discussion to be had in areas that aren't so "Pro Wrestling Only". really, the idea of talking about an artform solely within the context of its own bubble has been rapidly dying elsewhere. long overdue here, i think.

 

i've been apprehensive about making more in-depth posts here as of late, since they didn't seem to fit the mission of the site. i guess in retrospect that may have been from GWE further taking over the forum, but i'm still really glad to see this =)

 

BuryWindham: the argument is that the roots of a given style are what matter most for its development. lucha evolved more or less independently of American influence for many decades, creating something that's much harder for us to grasp and relate to. a further point in favor of the argument is all the other facets of Japanese pop culture that caught on in the west: cartoons, comic books, video games, horror films, etc. you can tie all of that to the same "cultural imperialism"/"American roots" point.

 

and yes, to fxnj & co., there has been plenty written about enjoying problematic media. i know plenty of "SJWs" who still stand by the likes of Punch-Out & Doom and can damn well explain why that's not hypocritical. i do think certain elements of classic territory wrestling won't age well with this sort of crowd, which is a fascinating conversation in itself...but you don't have to write off the entirety of it as garbage.