WWF... oops, now WWE...


Haven’t we all been exposed to this ’sport’ at least in some form or
the other? I remember board games and especially Trump Cards being
played in School with WWE Wrestlers (and inevitably, in the early
1990’s, those trump cards would have wither Hulk Hogan or Bret ’the
Hitman’ Hart as the number 1 rank...


Professional Wrestling can loosely be described as a showcase whether
athletes compete with each other in bouts in a 10 * 10’ ring according
to a pre-determined script. They normally work towards a storyline
involving revenge, hatred or simple general competitiveness and compete
for what are called ’Championships’’. For e.g. The World Heavyweight
Championship.


In all these bouts they punch, kick and stomp on each other... but
there’s more, some of them leap from the Top Rope of the ring, some put
their opponents in painful submission holds, and inevitably, each
wrestler has a ’finisher’, a move which looks cool and is normally
meant to finish off your opponent so you could win the match.


WWE has evolved over the decades, and indeed, if you see some of the
older matches (as comes on WWE Vintage on Ten Sports), you realize that
it is quite boring.... the move sets seem repetitive and there is none
of that joie-de-vivre and energy which we get in Wrestling these
days... or are the pyrotechnics simply better?


So why do we like watching fully shaved men pretend to beat each other
up? Well, I guess that this comes from a basic human instinct... I
guess that’s why Gladiators were so popular... but with time we have
mellowed down and grown civilized... hence the need for this pretend
bashing up of people.


That’s not to say that the action is boring... indeed, the athletes do
compete and train with extreme dedication and hard work to make the
moves happen. (Indeed, the movie, ’The Wrestler’ is a very fitting
tribute to the pains and hardships which wrestlers go through to
entertain the crowd).


Matches are normally a one-on-one affair, but there are also tag-team
matches, where a team of two competes again the other, tagging each
their partners in to compete. In most matches, a win can be secured by


A: Pinning your Opponent for a count of 3

B: Making your opponent submit

C: If the opponent is out of the ring for more than a ten count, he is counted out


Of course, that is in the course of the ’Normal’ matches, but the WWE has seen plenty of barbaric matches over the years:


The 2 most brutal of them would be the Hell in a Cell match and the Tables, Ladders and Chairs Matches.


In the Hell in a Cell match, a giant cage, around 20 foot high, is
lowered over the ring and opponents can use it and foreign objects
(usually placed under the ring) to beat their opponents to a pulp.
These objects include anything from Tables, Folding Steel Chairs and
Ladders, to Thumbtacks, Barb Wire, and Trash Cans. Indeed, the most
brutal display of it was when the Undertaker threw Mick Foley (as
Mankind) from the Top of the 20 foot cage to the floor below.


TLC matches involve the use of the Tables, Ladders and Chairs...
normally to grab the prie or championship belt which is suspended over
the ring.


One common practice in wrestling is to ’Blade’ oneself, i.e. cut oneself
open in the forehead during the match to give the impression that your
opponent has made you bleed. And the blood which comes out is the real
wrestler’s blood. It is not faked.


The commentary team sitting alongside the ring is one of the reason’s
why wrestling is interesting... especially Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole
and JR Jim Ross... they bring the emotion and call on the moves made
during the match.


But the real stars in this business are the Wrestlers... indeed, it
takes a great wrestler to truly bring out the best in a match and from
his opponent... and indeed, the crowd. They can either make the crowd
cheer for them (as a Face), or make the crowd jeer and hate them (as a
Heel). Indeed, in many ways, Wrestlers are like actors, it takes the
Truly Great ones to really connect with the crowd.


There are 3 shows on the WWE currently, namely RAW, SmackDown and ECW,
which come on Ten Sports normally at 6:00PM in the evenings,
Monday-Saturday. Each show has its own Championship for which people
compete. And each Wrestler is written different story lines.


The WWE, according to me, reached it’s Golden Period During the
"Attitude’ Era of the late 1990’s, when instead of being a  staid old
show about just Wrestling, the writes introduced personal feuds...
on-screen affairs, and generally, a soap opera like casting... its just
that in this case,  unlike Soap Operas, people had great lines
(Ifffff... you smelllll what the Rock is Cooking!), and great Feuds
(Austin v/s McMahon)... Wrestling was more crass, had a lot more behind
the scenes drama... suddenly, the matches looked like they were made
for a reason.


It was also the time when the Women’s championship made sense, with
great competitors like Trish Stratus, Lita, Molly Holly and others.
Nowadays, Women Wrestlers (or Divas) merely serve to be eye candy to
the viewers and nothing more.


Of course, the entrance music and videos of some of the wrestlers is
very special in itself... some theme songs being borrowed, the others
sung exclusively for the Wrestlers. My 2 personal favorite entrances
are Shawn Michaels and the Undertakers, both of whom, incidentally are
currently the oldest performing wrestlers in the WWE.


Which brings me to the Pay-Per-View events... these are normally
conducted on Sunday;s and are special events meant to bring out
Championship deciding matches. They take place on a much larger scale
as compared to the regular Weekly shows and in some cases, the
attendance in the stadiums can top over 70,000.


The main event every year is Wrestlemania, which normally takes place
on the First Week of April, and is currently running in its 25th year.
The other Big 3 events are Summerslam, Survivor Series and the Royal
Rumble.


Of course, it is the atmosphere and the audience involvement which
truly makes wrestlign worth watching, just like it does with other
Sports. How else does the IPL in India seem a lot more enthusiastic and vibrant than the IPL in South Africa? It’s because of the involvement
pf people.


The WWE is a long running American institution and though it did
vanquish its past competitors (like WCW), and is fighting from
Television ratings with TNA Wrestling Currently... it is the behemoth
in the field... even if its current standards of story telling and
performance of Wrestlers is not at par with the late 1990’s era (John
Cena anybody?).


But, if you are looking for a slap-dash-bang action of athletes beating
each other up (or at least pretending to do so), mixed with sometimes
good scripts, great pyrotechnics and cool looking finishing moves, the
WWE, like the gladiators of old, will strike some sort of cord with the primeval side that exists in all of us.