This week my mood has been lower than the tone set by the Katie Vick angle all those years ago. It all started off so promisingly too. I was looking after my nephew Eoin over the weekend and had an awesome time. I always feel totally energised and enthused when he comes to visit. It’s because he’s 2 and a half and has that brilliant, unspoiled and wide-eyed wonder for everything in life.
The last few days have been a whirlwind of fun, games, Cars on DVD (about 300 times), walks on the beach, kicking a football around outside and generally just having the kind of fun I never normally have these days.
Now he’s gone home and I’m back to the usual mundane and boring routine that life inevitably becomes for all of us. My mood has plummeted and all I can think about is how many years I’ve wasted and how utterly bored I am with so much of what now passes for my life. It’ll happen to you and sooner than you think.
I know some of you youngsters in your early 20s will be reading this going, “no way man, I’ll never end up like Duckman. I’m going to be young and full of life and energy forever. I can be whatever I want to be.” Sorry to burst your bubble but that’s not how life works.
It’s all fun and games at the moment but that’s only because you’re only really a few years removed from being like my nephew – amazed by something like a can opener and living in a warm, carefully maintained bubble that keeps all the real harsh and dark shit of life locked away outside. It won’t last forever. Mark my words; the soul crushing and spirit sucking days will soon catch up with all you spritely little bastards.
One day you’re taking shots, dancing all night with someone you think you love, safe in the knowledge that life is great and there are endless possibilities out there. Then the next thing you know, you’re in your mid-30s, working a job you hate, barely putting up with the person you’ve somehow ended up with (usually due to desperation on both sides to avoid being alone) and wondering if that twinge in your back is old age, or the start of the medical condition that will eventually kill you.
See what I mean about being a miserable bastard this week? I think what’s actually got me down is not the fact my nephew isn’t here anymore, although that’s a big part of what’s wrong. It’s the nagging knowledge that despite my best efforts in my early 20s, I’ve slipped onto the human hamster wheel that I always promised myself I would never end up running on. I know you think I’m being overly dramatic and downhearted and that none of this will ever happen to you.
That’s not your fault. You don’t know any better. You’re still young and stupid. You haven’t worked out just how fruitless and pointless life is for the majority of us. Don’t worry, you soon will. When you do, then it’s the real test – do you keep plugging away with a life that leaves you hollow and bored, or do you do something about it and make a change for the better?
You’ll go with the first option. We all do. It’s the less scary option. The path of least resistance is the easiest to walk. Some of you will go with the second and I admire and envy you for that power of conviction. I, on the other hand, will continue to spin my wheels, all the while complaining that I could and should be doing so much more with my life.
Anyway, in an attempt to lighten my mood and because if I keep writing like this I’m sure most of you will either kill me or yourselves, I thought I’d write about wrestling. That should cheer me up, right? Well, not really.
You see I’ve been bashing my head against a concrete wall of writer’s block that is thicker than Great Khali’s skull and higher than RVD on the third day of Lollapalooza. I couldn’t bring myself to write about anything. I couldn’t care less about TNA at this point. WWE hasn’t really thrown up anything that I want to write about. Everyone and their dog has written about Cena’s return or that midget dressed as a bull that everyone still pretends is funny. I couldn’t even think up some smarky parody or jokey article I could write to fill some space and maybe bring a chuckle or two.
So I jumped on to Twitter with a plea for help and thankfully that plea was answered by my buddy George of SLTD fame. He’s not just the guy who sorts out all the content here and also writes himself, turns out he’s also a bit of a muse when depressed idiots are struggling for inspiration. In the end, George didn’t actually say anything ground breaking or profound – the best ideas are usually the simplest ones. He just suggested writing about the great storytellers in wrestling. So that’s what I’m going to do. If it turns out boring and shit, blame George.
When I was a kid the greatest storyteller in the world was my Dad. I vividly remember being about 4 years old and travelling with him and my brother on some long distance car trip. Granted, it was probably only a couple of hours, but at that age it felt like days. In an effort to pass the time, shut us up and maintain his sanity, my Dad used to tell us this on-going and always evolving story. It was about a Viking called Olaf and his adventures going around the world.
Don’t worry, it wasn’t a wholly accurate Viking story – social services would have got involved if the true tales of their raping and pillaging was my Dad’s idea of story time for his kids. Instead it was a constant adventure. One of those ripping yarns people used to tell back in the day. Olaf would meet all these weird and wonderful characters. He’d have to rescue a damsel in distress or help the Captain of a ship get his stolen gold back.
I always remember the stories being really exciting and they fired my imagination to the point I sometimes felt I was right in the middle of the story itself. The phrase, “and then what did Olaf do” became a staple on any long journey we took as a family.
Looking back now it’s obvious my Dad just lifted parts of books and movies and incorporated them into this wonderful world of high seas adventures, treasure, fighting and all other the good shit that kids love to hear about. Where the content and ideas came from didn’t matter because the story he told was always exciting and wholly original to my 4 year old brain, which at that point had been raised on a steady diet of Pigeon Street, Postman Pat and Transformers.
Those stories are the seeds that grew into my own life-long love of reading, writing, movies and in a way wrestling.
When I think back on some of my favourite matches or wrestlers, it’s never the guys who did the best or most moves that spring to mind. It’s always the guys who had the kind of character and working ability that made them a master storyteller. There was more to them than just being able to do cool movies, they made me care through the stories they told. They left an indelible mark on my memory.
I’m a firm believer that along with jazz music and comic books, professional wrestling is one of the original art forms of the United States. Of course wrestling didn’t originate there and I don’t need the history lesson about wrestling in Europe or whatever. I’m talking about professional wrestling and as far as I’m concerned, that originated in the US. We can argue over the details another day, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not in the mood this week.
The storytelling aspect of professional wrestling is one of the most fundamentally important aspects of the genre. Without storytelling professional wrestling is nothing more than dudes in speedos rolling around and pretending to fight. Or it’s skinny, pale kids doing a well-choreographed but ultimately unmemorable gymnastic routine. At its worst, professional wrestling without storytelling is dudes hitting each other for real with dangerous plunder, in a misguided attempt to make people care about what they’re doing because it’s real. As Jim Cornette once famously said,
“It used to be that we’d pretend to hit each other and the people would think it’s real. Now guys go out there and hit each other for real and people think it’s fake. Who are the real marks here?”
Conversely, professional wrestling with storytelling is one of the greatest art forms in the world. There is nothing better than a well-constructed feud between two interesting personalities that leads to a series of in-ring confrontations, which themselves tell a story, that ultimately settle the issue between the two combatants. If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s what the UFC now does.
That smarky comment aside, great storytelling in professional wrestling is what keeps bringing us back. It doesn’t matter if it’s a story told by household names or young wrestlers just starting out in their careers in front of a handful of fans. All that matters is they draw you in, allow you to switch off that part of your brain that constantly beeps “bullshit” when you’re watching TV or a movie and allows you to immerse yourself completely in the story being told.
That overly romantic and misty eyed description of professional wrestling will appear alien to anyone who only watches WWE or has only discovered wrestling in the last 10 years or so. Thanks to an over reliance on hot-shot booking, the use of writers with no wrestling knowledge or experience, coupled with convoluted and oftentimes confusing committee agreed storytelling, the feuds we are presented with by WWE and TNA never seem to fully capture the true essence of great wrestling storytelling.
Thankfully the art of storytelling hasn’t been completely lost in the ring. Last night I was wasting my life on YouTube, hunting down Louis CK shows and old school wrestling matches. I stumbled across the HHH vs. Undertaker Hell in the Cell match from Wrestlemania a few years ago. That is the perfect example of great storytelling in modern wrestling.
The strength of the characters involved makes up about 60% of the match. The other 40% is about five moves from each guy. The reason it works so well is each move truly means something and each move is sold masterfully to maximise their effectiveness. The match builds on their clash the previous year and takes you on a journey that ultimately brings you to a satisfying and memorable conclusion.
I’ve always found the simplest stories are the best in wrestling. The underdog battling the larger opponent is one of the oldest and easiest to follow stories. I always loved Rey Mysterio and Batista when they worked this kind of story together. The hero returning from injury to beat the man who put him out is another classic. There’s no finer example of that then Ric Flair and Terry Funk in their famous 1989 I Quit match.
Just so I can still keep in with all you indy wrestling fans out there, I have to mention the series of matches in ROH between Samoa Joe and CM Punk. These matches put ROH, its World Title and both wrestlers on the map when it came to great workers who can tell great stories.
The first one hour draw saw Punk use the old rope-a-dope tactic and various wear down moves to take Joe out of his comfort zone and push the bigger man to the limit. He didn’t quite topple the dominant World Champion, but he came closer than anyone else had and Punk proved he was more than just a great promo guy with this match.
They kept that theme throughout the second one hour draw, with Punk again wrestling smart and trying to keep the big man down and work on wearing him out. Again, Joe survived and Punk was elevated, even in defeat. In the third match they changed things up and just went all out for around 40 minutes with Joe eventually getting the win.
What was awesome about this series was the way Punk and Joe would reference back to moments that happened in the earlier matches. They also brought new moves into their arsenals which were logical and effective in the long, intense matches they had. They let their work inside the ring tell the story and even if you’d never seen a match of theirs before, or heard them talk, you could still engage and connect with what was happening in the ring – that’s wrestling storytelling at its finest.
Sadly that kind of great storytelling isn’t as prevalent on the indy scene as it used to be. The firework display pop (loud at the time but quickly forgotten) seems to be the goal of a large percentage of indy wrestlers today. There are wrestlers who are guilty of throwing psychology, selling and storytelling out of the window and instead rely on hitting as many flashy moves as possible, as quickly as possible. While that’s entertaining for a short period, just like a fireworks display, they will be quickly forgotten once all the bangs and crashes have finished.
Every good story needs to have a beginning, middle and an end. In Japanese wrestling that is particularly true. Sometimes I will watch a match from NJPW and I sit there for the first five minutes or so bored out of my skull. Then, slowly the story that’s being told by the wrestlers in the ring begins to unfold. I feel my interest begin to pick up as the wrestlers begin to pick up the intensity. If they’ve timed it right, the crowd usually rises with them. By the end of the match, everyone is going crazy, the wrestlers are hitting their biggest moves and the story builds to an epic conclusion.
I’m not one of those fans who instantly thinks something is better because it happens outside WWE or TNA. However there’s no doubt that the best in-ring storytelling is currently happening in NJPW; in particular the series of IWGP World Title matches between Tanahashi and Okada.
These men are two of the premier workers anywhere in the world. They have faced off six times in the past couple of years and each time they build on the story they told in the previous match. They call back to moments in earlier battles. They use finishing sequences that worked earlier in the series, but are now countered. These two men are masters of the in-ring story and if you want to see how great storytelling can be in a modern wrestling match, then these are the matches for you.
Given that I’ve written about storytelling I suppose I should tell a story of my own to wrap things up. I’ve told this story on my podcast and I’ve written about it countless times. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it shows that if the story works, even the most jaded, cynical and ‘smart’ fan can be dragged into the story of a match. I’m talking, of course, about the infamous “not like this” moment.
For those of you who don’t know this story, I’ll set the scene:
It’s Wrestlemania 27. The first match between Undertaker and HHH. I’m watching the match with brother and my nephew (who freaked out at ‘Taker’s entrance that year) and it’s safe to say my disbelief was more suspended that the kids who got caught smoking behind the bike sheds at school.
The match is raging on and building towards the finish. HHH heaves Taker up and hits him with his own Tombstone piledriver. The crowd gasps. Duckman’s brother drops his nacho and stares at the screen. Duckman squeals three words that will live on in infamy as HHH makes the cover,
“Not like this!”
Undertaker kicks out! The crowd pop shakes the stadium. Duckman instantly realises he’s just marked out like a little bitch and been completely draw into the story being told in the ring. Duckman’s brother looks at him with utter distain,
“You sounded like you were about to be raped in prison. You’re such a nerd.”
And from that day forth, ‘not like this’ has become my nemesis. Every time I watch wrestling with my brother it’s brought up. Even his fiancé mocks me for it and she barely knows what wrestling is. But you know something? I don’t care.
The story they told was so well paced and so well constructed that in that instant I was a kid again. I had that wide-eyed wonder of my nephew when he sees a can opener being used. I was transported back to the stories my Dad told me as a kid and I completely immersed myself in a moment that I’ll probably remember (for good or bad) for the rest of my life.
That is the power of great story telling in professional wrestling and it’s why, even when my mood is black and my life appears to be a giant waste of time, I will still watch and I will still care. It’s for those tiny moments of expert storytelling. I just wish we could get that more often and from someone other than the likes of HHH or Undertaker.
There’s a whole generation of wrestlers sitting there, ready to tell us their stories, ready to amaze and entertain and infuriate and inspire. Hopefully soon, someone lets them off the leash and they can add their stories to the countless great ones that have been told inside the squared circle down the years.
There. Done. Man that was a tough nut to crack this week. A bubbling rage of frustration and annoyance inside me, plus a heavy dose of writer’s block does not maketh a fun writing experience. Hopefully some of that was at least mildly entertaining and those of you who didn’t know about ‘not like this’ now have plenty of ammunition to slag me off with. Just don’t do it this week, I may kill you.
You can follow me on Twitter which is @MFXDuckman. You can also hear me ramble on like a moron on the MFX Podcast every week where my partner-in-crime Sir Ian Trumps and I take a sideways look at the week in WWE and TNA. I’m not even going for the smartly constructed hype this week. The show is funny and entertaining. Go listen to it. We’ve got this week off, but that shouldn’t stop you from hitting www.mfxpodcast.com and checking out our previous shows.
As always thanks for reading and be sure to keep supporting all the great people here and SLTD and if you’ve got some of your own favourite wrestling story tellers, feel free to share them in the comments section or wherever you might find me.
Until next time…
Peace
Duckman
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