Hello Reader
Overall I enjoyed Summerslam; it wasn’t perfect but I found it an immensely enjoyable show with a main event the likes of which I’d never seen before. But as I read articles on this website in the following days I found that this match (which I found dramatic and a classic in it’s own right without being a technical, competitive, classic contest) was proving to be quite divisive; with no two editorials published back to back arguing the different sides of the divide.
This got me thinking; I knew what I thought, I knew what other fans thought, but what would someone who isn’t a fan have made of it? Someone who was as far removed from the target demographics of a wrestling show as possible and has little or no knowledge or experience of Professional Wrestling or Sports Entertainment.
As luck would have it; I knew the perfect person. I run a creative writing workshop for people in my local community of the London Borough of Redbridge every Thursday and one of my regulars was a perfect fit to run a little experiment on; and as she was the only attendee this week due to most of the membership being on holiday there was really no reason not to try to run it.
Cathy Morley is a middle-class illustrator in her fifties; she is a very well spoken and intelligent woman who classes herself as a lover of sport. Despite this; her only experiences of Professional Wrestling were vague memories of it being on the television when she was a child (that would’ve been old school British Wrestling which, as a product and performance, is vastly different to the modern Americanized product that I grew up on and enjoy to this day) and she in no way classifies herself as a fan. Thankfully she was kind enough to let me put her through what some might class as a form of torture under the Geneva Convention and take part in my experiment; the details of which I will lay out briefly.
I decided to go about it thusly; rather than just throw her into the deep end with the Cena/Lesnar match I decided to show her a couple of other matches on the show so she could get a flavor of what was more typical of a show than the Main Event. I settled on showing her both the Lumberjack Match and the Divas Title bout before the main event and I observed her and made notes; asking her to vocalize her thoughts as she watched them. Beforehand I only gave her basic information (who was the face, who was the heel and brief match rules) and between matches I quizzed her about her thoughts and experience of the match; I will now present these findings and contrast them with my own thoughts on the selected matches.
Hopefully you’ll find this as interesting as I did
WWE Divas Championship Match: Paige vs A.J. Lee (C).
I started with this match for two reasons; firstly because it was a solid and entertaining affair and secondly because I thought it would be interesting to get a woman’s perspective on women’s wrestling. Personally I am really into this feud; it is certainly the best woman’s program to be offered up by WWE in some time and, to me, Paige is one of the most effective heels the company has at the moment.
Cathy’s initial reaction was that she was expecting the competitors to be “big, burly women” and was actually surprised at how thin and small the two competitors were; though she did note that she felt that their “long hair could be a liability”. After viewing the video packages of what had led up to the match; she voiced her surprise at how short the title reigns were in the industry. I found myself, not for the last time during this experiment, chuckling at how Cathy, with no previous experience wrestling, picked up on something us diehards are critical of.
As the match started with A.J. biting Paige’s hand she questioned the rules and expressed her surprise at them being allowed to fight so dirty; “the hair is definitely a f*****g liability” she exclaims at the hair pulling spot. Observing her as she watches the match she seems to find it credible as a competition with very little questioning or pointing out of things she finds unrealistic; and funnily enough she had the same reaction I did on watching the Ram-Paige finisher being used (which was an exclamation that emphasized being lost in the moment; we both reacted as if it were real). In a first sign that she was finding something unrealistic; Cathy questioned the logic of why couldn’t Paige escape from the Black Widow by pushing A.J. over her head, though after watching the replay she withdrew that comment as she could take in the way the move restricted Paige better.
After the match I first quizzed her about whether she felt the match looked real or not and Cathy felt it looked real at first but the potential for real injury if they were really doing the moves they were doing to each other made it like a live cartoon; though she insisted that despite this she found the match imaginative and “quite realistic”. Despite her feeling that it was clearly staged she didn’t feel there was anything that came across as particularly unrealistic or phoney. When asked if she had any issue with woman competing and whether it might be exploitative Cathy had no issue with it whatsoever.
I then asked her about the presentation of the women and if she had any issues with the emphasis being more on their sex appeal than their athletic ability and her reply was possibly one of the most interesting things that came up in the entire experiment. Cathy explained how she felt that wrestling came across as a humiliation sport and that by presenting the women in a way that emphasizes their sex appeal gave certain males in the audience a way to deal with any misogynistic feelings they may have towards women in their own lives whom they perceive as “difficult”. I must admit, despite recognizing the fact that a key factor in a wrestling angle working well is the ability of the fan to live vicariously through the baby face, that this was a thought that had never occurred to me. Do I agree with this view? On reflection; I suppose I do to a point. I don’t believe every male fan would have this view or experience; but it’s fair to say that there may be some in the crowd whom do. Food for thought at least.
Lumberjack Match: Dean Ambrose vs Seth Rollins.
The reason I chose this match for my experiment was simple; I thought it was the best match on the night. It was a surprise to me; not because of the talent involved but simply because I find Lumberjack matches to be fairly boring affairs and was disappointed that such fine up and coming talents had been lumbered (pun intended) with such a stipulation.
Cathy initially remarked on how glam and showy she felt the Lumberjacks were as the camera panned the ring before the entrances (methinks Goldust and Stardust had a lot to do with this observation); her reactions during the match were hard to read as she was giving little away. But her verbal reactions to everything up to the participants fighting through the crowd indicated that she was entertained by the match; particularly the spots where Dean Ambrose fought or took out the Lumberjacks with suicide dives. But when the match went though the crowd she began to find it difficult to follow; complaining of lighting issues and stating that she felt this section must be a bit unruly for a live crowd to follow. When all is said and done; she nods and agrees with the commentators on their assessment that the match was chaotic.
When quizzed about her thoughts afterwards; Cathy had this to say about the match. She felt it started unevenly matched and that Ambrose easily dominated Rollins; and that she would’ve found the match easier to watch if it had been less chaotic and had been more along the “more ordered” lines of the Diva’s match. While she felt the match looked more violent than the Divas match; she commented that she found the match less realistic because of it. Cathy said she found the match enjoyable up to a point but it was marred for her by being too chaotic with some of it so fast she couldn’t enjoy; commenting that a few more slow motion replays would’ve helped her enjoyment. She did not find it credible as a fight and said that, despite there being no obvious suspension of disbelief killing moments, if she had watched it without knowing the staged nature of professional wrestling then she would’ve suspected that the match was fixed; simply by the presentation.
The final thing I asked her about was her feelings on the characterization of the two talents involved; specifically whether she felt it was clear as to who was the face and who was the heel. Cathy felt that neither represented their roles clearly and that each was rather a “shade of grey” than a clear opposite of the other.
So what do we take from this? Again I find it interesting that someone unfamiliar with wrestling has some of the same criticisms that we fans have made in recent times. While I feel that this match was far from the worst example of these sins of the modern show; she did pick up on the feeling amongst some in the wrestling fan base that matches have become rushed and that characters are not clearly defined enough as to who is the goodie and who is the baddie. While I disagree with some of her observations when it comes to this match; I have to say I’ve said the same things about other matches in recent times. Though I’m a fan of the modern faster paced product; due to the pressures of time constraints too much room for the story of the match to develop is lost.
I also think Cathy’s observations highlight a problem across the modern wrestling industry; which is that, as much it tries to be all things to all people, it is slowly becoming more niche. As a result, despite trying to make a product with a wide reaching appeal, it is slowly becoming inaccessible to those who haven’t been following it for years; rather like the problems affecting the comic book industry. If they want to reach the mainstream appeal levels of the late ’90s and mid ’80s; more needs to be done to address this.
WWE World Heavyweight Championship Match: Brock Lesnar vs John Cena (C).
My personal opinion on this match was that I’d never seen anything like it before; while it wasn’t a technical classic match in any way, shape or form I still felt it was a classic. It was a match that relied on the drama of the story rather than the competitive in ring showing of the two and did the job it set out to do effectively; namely cementing Lesnar as an unstoppable monster heel by a systematic destruction of a fifteen time world champion who is usually booked to shrug off the worst of beatings and come back like a cartoon super hero despite the odds. Lesnar destroyed the man; who out there can stop such a dominant monster?
I gave Cathy slightly more background to this match than the others; her initial observations from the pre-match video packages included how she felt these two looked older than those in the other matches, how she didn’t like the look of Cena much, finding Lesnar’s “…blood, urine & vomit…” statement unpleasant and how she wasn’t keen on “gorilla sized men”.
“I have to say; he’s a grim looking son of a bitch”; she said as Lesnar strutted around the ring waiting for Cena.
In the early parts of the match; Cathy reacted strongly to the German suplexes, commenting on how dangerous she felt they looked. The match was much slower than she expected and she felt that Cena came across as much less powerful than Lesnar and, as a result, the competitors felt unevenly matched; but also commented on the repetitive nature of Lesnar’s strategy. Around about German number seven; she looked at me and said that she was surprised the match hadn’t been stopped so Cena could be taken to hospital. Expanding further that she felt Cena looked as though he may be legitimately hurt; a comment that raised a giggle from this writer due to my poor opinion of Cena’s selling ability. But even I had to concede that Cena was able & willing to sell the beating in the appropriate manner that the match called for; making the occasion even more unique for me than I was already finding it.
Cathy was into it enough that she had a genuine reaction of support and enjoyment when Cena made his first brief comeback into his Attitude Adjustment near fall spot; yet by his second attempted comeback into the STF spot that belief had clearly drained from her as she remained blank and stoic. “I’m tempted to say choke the c**t” she said as Cena wrapped his arms around Lesnar’s chin for the STF; a moment that provoked a small choking fit of laughter in this writer.
When the matched was over; I asked her to sum up the match in five one or two word statements then pressed her as to why she chose them, Cathy picked:
- Unfairly Matched: As opposed to something like boxing; Cathy felt the competitors were unevenly matched.
- Unpleasant: She found neither man likable; someone as grim as Lesnar strutting around the ring was unpleasant to her while she found Cena “cold & uninteresting”. She found Lesnar repetitive and would’ve liked to see more from Cena in the match.
- Unruly: She felt the German Suplexes were dangerous.
- Unrealistic: Cathy felt that you couldn’t throw someone to the ground in that manner as often as Lesnar did without sending them to hospital after the first couple of times.
- Unappealing: Due to the lack of competitiveness and repetitive nature of the match.
I asked if she found it at all dramatic, as I had, and she said no; but when I asked if the story of the match had been clear she said yes. When asked if she felt that the announced rematch would sell tickets based on what she had seen; Cathy said she believed it would because people would want to see Cena get revenge. I then questioned her about the characterization of the two wrestlers and while she felt Lesnar’s characterization was effective as he had made himself truly hate-able; she wasn’t keen on Cena’s characterization, stating that she felt he came across as a “compromise underdog”. She went on to say that the uneven matching of the two made the match uninteresting and that it had killed any believability of Cena making any sort of comeback; yet, when asked, she said she didn’t believe the match had killed the credibility of someone else beating Lesnar for the title at some point in the future. Finally; Cathy stated that she did not like the match though she had enjoyed the other matches I had shown her.
General Feelings About Everything.
When given choices as to how she’d classify the show; Cathy settled on “unappealing sports entertainment” and said the show was “about what she expected”. She said she had found the commentary brash and would’ve valued more slow motion highlights and better lighting at points.
The Point?
So what was the point of me doing this? Well, when you’re passionate about something it’s hard to see it in a different way; so getting a different viewpoint from someone with a different attitude to what you’re passionate about can sometimes help you see things in a way you didn’t before. While I don’t agree with everything Cathy saw in the matches I showed here; I still found things and ways of thinking I hadn’t thought of before. I also found that the experiment at points highlighted just how big some of the problems that we passionate fans identify in the current WWE product are; if someone with no interest in the product can watch it and see the same problems then there must be something there that seriously needs addressing. While my feelings on the Cena/Lesnar match haven’t changed; I now better understand just how subjective a viewing of it was and why it’s caused such division in opinion of it. I found it an extremely interesting experience and I hope some of you find something you can take away from it.
Before I close; I’d like to thank Cathy Morley for indulging me and giving up her time to take part in this experiment.
Well; that’s what I think. How about you?
Until next time
JJKH
