In Defense of Professional Wrestling – A Shakespearean Approach

Professional wrestling is something that has earned me my peer’s ire and mockery since the day I first became interested in it. I was a mere preteen, finding sanctuary in the robust adult themed ridiculousness that was my Monday night entertainment, and I spoke openly about how much I enjoyed it. I wrote wrestling themed short stories in English, I wore my favorite wrestler’s T-shirts, and if I had any inkling of interest in the opposite sex at that time, I might have noticed their rolling eyes and covered laughs directed towards me. I’m sure this is a familiar story. Many males, when they are younger, have a similar passion to professional wrestling as I did; however, there is one stark difference between these people and myself: I still love professional wrestling; in fact, I can honestly say that I love it more now than I did when I was twelve, albeit, for completely different reasons.

It wasn’t always like this. I did fall off the path of wrestling for a long time. I stopped watching it regularly around the age of 15. I was bored with the story lines, the characters weren’t as relatable or un-relatable as they use to be, and frankly, it just didn’t hold the same relevance to me anymore. I became far more interested in things such as film and music, and was beginning to fulfill my destiny as a suburban snob. I still watched independent wrestling from time to time – wrestling more focused on the actual matches as opposed to entertainment. I’d borrow a DVD or two from some friends, and in the dark of night after I double checked that no one was around, I’d watch some great matches. But still, I wouldn’t say I was completely interested in professional wrestling again. I would say that didn’t start until I was 20. When I turned 20, a few things happened: I was finally accepted into university, thus leaving the humdrum world of community college, and I found what I was most passionate about: literature. Despite the burn in the previous sentence, community college served its purpose well by allowing me to explore many different majors until I found what I was best at, and most importantly, what I truly enjoyed. That was English Literature. It wasn’t always a strong passion of mine – my love of professional wrestling may have played a strong influence in my role as a non-reader during the time. Somewhere between my senior year of high school, and when I joined university, it finally clicked, and I was freed from college purgatory. I had reason. I had purpose. I had passion. I had something I can speak intelligently about for the sole purpose of impressing women! I had it all. I threw myself in head first. I delved into the Renaissance, Post-Modern, Victorian, Goth, etc. I even took a class called “Comic Books as Literature,” a great and eye opening class about the flexibility of literature. English literature was not only responsible for enhancing my vocabulary, writing skills, and book shelf; it opened my mind to new concepts, new philosophies, and a complete liberalism to the question, “what is…?” I still prefer the classics. Like every Liberal Arts major, I love me some Shakespeare. I’ve taken as many classes as I could take on Shakespeare while I was in college (which is 1, sadly). Whenever he popped up in a chivalry class, or something based from the Renaissance, I became excited to read Shakespeare from this different perspective. Eventually, all the stories were told. I was nearing graduation and didn’t have nearly as much work to do. I had no class to invoke a literary quandary nor had I a different perspective of “King Leer” to occupy me. I was TA’ing for an entry level English class, and fulfilling me physical activity credits by taking, and I’m not kidding, “Walking/Jogging.” That’s right. I paid tuition to learn how to walk. The real tragedy is that I only got a C – I tripped on the final exam. Luckily, I accidentally ran during it, which bought me some extra credit. To say the least, I was bored and had a lot of time on my hands. It was Monday night, all my friends were busy, I had literally not a pressure of work to do, and that’s when it happened. I began flipping the channels, and I saw that wrestling was on, so, I, once again, looked around to see if anyone was watching me, and turned it on. It wasn’t a particularly good episode; in fact, it was quite bad. I couldn’t say the actual wrestling matches were very good, the characters were OK – I was a little unfamiliar with some because of my long layover – but I watched it again the following week, and again the following week, and again, and so on. I became a fan once again, but not because I looked up to the good wrestlers as heroes, as was the case when I was younger. No, I became a fan again because I realized that professional wrestling is the best archetype of a modern Shakespeare production.

Now, I know what I said may have shocked and angered you. I can feel the eyes rolling and hear the “bullshit” rolling off your tongue. Give me a chance. I understand where you’re coming from, because, earlier in my life, I would have freaked out as well. But you have to give me a chance. I was an avid comic book reader for years, but if you would have asked me if it was literature, I would have said “of course it isn’t,” until I gave someone a chance to prove me wrong. I’m asking for the same courtesy, so please, read me out. I know I’m dealing with some fortified walls, but before I can break them down, we need to set up a few guidelines. Before you can understand why wrestling is Shakespearean, you have to understand what wrestling is not. Professional wrestling is not a sport. Sport is defined as an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against each other. Is that wrestling? No, not really. Is wrestling an activity? Yes, I think it’s fair to say. Does wrestling involve physical exertion and skill? Absolutely – It isn’t easy running around slamming people for upwards of thirty minutes. Do individuals compete against each other? Ah, and here lies the beauty. Yes and no. As you readers probably know, wrestling is scripted. The outcomes are predetermined; therefore, the wrestling match in itself is not a competitive event, as the winner has already been decided. But does that mean there is no competition in professional wrestling? Absolutely not. Even if the winner is predetermined, there is still competition to deliver on every move, to perfectly execute every transition, to add to the story of the character – there is most certainly competition in wrestling, but not the same competition as in sport. It is competitive how actors in a play may be competitive. Actors motivate and compete against each other to reach a certain plateau, and there is no difference in professional wrestling. You could be the greatest actor; however, if you are surrounded my mediocre actors, or a poor script, or bad lighting, or an untrained orchestra, your performance may fall on clotted ears. The saying “it takes two to tango” is an applicable analogy for the theatre  as well as wrestling. There is a reason for that. There is a reason for the numerous amounts of similarities between the theatre and the art of wrestling, it is because wrestling is not a sport; wrestling is, in fact, a play.

Once you think about it, it’s not that far of a stretch. Let me use the current format of WWE Monday Night Raw as an example to amplify my point. The program is three hours long, and it is structured as three acts. The first act introduces the characters, lets the audience know who is good and who is bad, and begins the storylines – shows reminisce of problems between characters. The second act, introduces conflict. This guy does not like this other guy, and what are they going to do next? The third act offers resolution – the two people fight, someone wins, and the story is continued into next week. The professional wrestlers play characters – they’re actors. They play characters made to illicit certain responses from the audience. There wear costumes (hopefully you didn’t think Hulk Hogan always dress like that). There is makeup (please pay attention to fake tans and makeup needed for WWE television). There are monologues, and let us not forget the choreography. The choreography in a wrestling match is very similar to the choreography in a battle scene. Face it, pro wrestling is a play. It’s performance art at its very base.  This is why the vexatious jab of “wrestling is fake,” is a completely ineffective argument, and one that is more worthy of beratement rather than the actual watching of wrestling. Do you really think people don’t realize that wrestling is scripted? Saying wrestling is fake in a degrading tone would be like a wrestling layman watching “Glee” and during the most romantic point, I came in and yelled, “Oh, that kiss isn’t real. They’re not really in love. They’re just pretending to be in love. I hate everything that isn’t real.” Seriously, there are SO many more things you can mock about wrestling without having to say it isn’t real. Just a reminder that most Shakespeare is fictitious, but I don’t think we’ll ever hear someone yell “Man, that murder isn’t real!” during “Othello.”

Now that we have established professional wrestling as theatre, let me now dictate the Shakespearian elements of it. I’m sure you’re asking, “How can you possibly compare wrestling and Shakespeare?” It’s quite easy. I’ll breeze through some early talking points. First, let’s discuss venue. Shakespeare’s plays were commonly performed at the Globe theatre. The stage would be at the top of the room and would be expansive; meaning a stage that allows several different levels of depth (Juliet in her window sill, for example). The audience would huddle at the edge of the stage, all the way to the seated area in the back of the Globe. Professional wrestling follows almost the same formula. Naturally, pro wrestling has tools to use than Shakespeare had in his day, but the sentiment is the same. The expansive stage is the wrestling ring, back to the entrance, all the way into the backstage area. Although, yes, it is much larger than the Globe’s stage, it is still positioned in the same matter to harness the same effective attention from the audience. In theory, the Globe’s expansive stage adds to the storytelling elements while not confusing the audience or suffering the story, and professional wrestling follows suit. Also, Shakespeare’s work, as well as that of a wrestling program, has a similar play structure. We discussed the Acts of Wrestling previously; however, how Shakespeare builds and cools drama can be found in wrestling. Shakespeare is one of the best at building drama and suspense. He builds the story up, encapsulating the audience in the inky palm of his writing hand. He builds the drama until it reaches its highest point, and without fail, he will transition to a comedy part. I’ll use examples from his historical dramas to prove the point. In “Richard II,” we reach a high point of drama, when Queen Isabel learns of her husband’s, Richard II, capture by Bolingbroke, and to make matters worse, Bolingbroke has the loyalty of all the English noblemen. She begins her departure to London to see for herself. The very next scene is the comedic gauntlet scene, where all the noblemen challenge each other by continually throwing their gauntlets down. In both parts of “Henry IV,” no drama isn’t met without a character like Falstaff cloudening our sun with his humor. Finally, in Henry V, we reach the most epic and shocking portion, when Henry tells Harfleur to surrender his town to prevent the English army from killing, raping, and destroying the village. The following scene is a humorous portion of Catherine mispronouncing English words, and making them sound dirty. Professional wrestling does the same thing. They have their Falstaffs – they have their clowns. They have characters, good and bad, whose sole purpose is to make the audience laugh. They need to break the dramatic tension. To have pure drama exhausts the audience, and some of the story could be lost along the way. Not to mention that a good comedic break adds to the entertainment value, and believe me, Shakespeare knew how to entertain and entertain well.

So we covered a few logistical similarities, now let’s talk audience. Let’s begin by pointing out that Shakespeare and professional wrestling use the audience similarly: as a character. In Shakespeare, there is a chorus: the character that usually reads the prologue. The chorus is there strictly for the benefit of the audience. He addresses the audience, catches them up to speed on this history of the characters, etc. Wrestling does the very same thing. We have color commentators to hold our hand through matches; wrestling characters themselves address the audience as if they were part of the show. Believe it or not, the audience of a Shakespearean play in the Renaissance and a professional wrestling event today is very similar. Now this may lead to the question: who is the audience of professional wrestling? Without referring to people as “white trash,” let’s use the more accurate term of blue collar lower to middle class people. Would these people go see Shakespeare today? I’ll choose to not answer that. To show the similarity, we need to go with what is important. What is important to remember is the audiences that may go see a Shakespearean work now is not the same as someone who saw it back in the day. There is a certain stigma to a Shakespearean audience today: educated, smug, etc; and all for good reasons, there are a lot of smug pseudo-intellectuals who go see these plays; it is fair to say that it was not the intellectuals, or even the pseudo-intellectuals who were the majority of the crowd, it was the blue collar lower to middle class people of their day. It was the professional wrestling crowd of their day. Hard to believe? I can see that. How can something like Shakespeare cater to a similar audience as professional wrestling?  Admittedly, to the naked eye, the jokes and the storylines of wrestling are not the most complex. For lack of better terms, there is a lot of stupid shit that goes on during a wrestling program. The thing is Shakespeare’s plays weren’t the most complex either. Sure, we have plenty of little boys playing girls, who usually ending up playing boys in the play, so the audience is watching a boy play a girl play a boy; but, is that a complicated plot? Is Romeo & Juliet complicated? Is Macbeth an original story? The answer is no, they aren’t. On a side, but related note, while studying Shakespeare, everyone would always tell me “you know Shakespeare never wrote those plays, right?” Well, where that theory originates from is the fact that Shakespeare stole, borrowed, or perfected (depending who you ask) plots from other writers. Does that make his writing any worse? Is his language any less perfectly placed? No. The plot of Shakespeare is not complicated, and there is a reason for that: Shakespeare wrote for common people. Professional wrestling and Shakespeare both write for the common people. Sure, you may never hear a “shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” in pro wrestling. To be honest, the worst of Shakespeare’s language won’t be found anywhere near professional wrestling, Damien Sandow excluded (Sandow is an elitist thespian who constantly berates and attempts to “save” wrestling fans from their stupefied lives).

I know you’re asking yourself, “did he just play off language in Shakespeare like it isn’t the thing that makes Shakespeare Shakespeare?” Yes and no.   Language is such a big part of Shakespeare, and since, as I just admitted, it is missing from professional wrestling programming, can wrestling really be Shakespearean? Wrestling’s language and humor is crude – almost juvenile, but, let’s not forget how rude and crude Shakespeare was. Yes, among all the beautiful soliloquies, ravishing monologues, and eloquent prose, Shakespeare was truly a dirty dirty boy. Let me take you to Hamlet, perhaps Shakespeare’s greatest work. “To be or not to be: that is the question.” This play is certainly a masterpiece. It’s also a prime example of Shakespeare’s dirtiness. What did you think Hamlet meant when he asked Ophelia when he was tormenting her with public flirtation, “Do you think I meant CUNT-ry matters?” Not so high class now for ol’ Bill. I guess you won’t see Ophelia the same after she “suck’d the honey of his music vows.” Shakespeare is dirty, and he’s dirty to appease the common audience. Wrestling has juvenile and dirty humor for the same reasons. It’s an easy way to illicit a response from a mass audience. Shakespeare wrote his play for the Queen – WWE has shows for the troops. It’s the same thing. They are appeasing the same audience, while using the guise of a more fixed figure to get away with controversy- to get away with callousness.

Wrestling may have the simplicity of Shakespeare down; however, Shakespeare is, by no means, a simple read. Even through the generational language barrier, he obviously flexes his literary techniques throughout his plays. That’s what makes him classic: his genius in his complications that a layman may not notice. This literary flex exists in professional wrestling, as well. Let me bring up “Hamlet” once more for this. The genius of “Hamlet” is the idea of the play within the play. I’m, of course (God, did you just feel the smugness of the “of course.” I was shaking my head discerningly while speaking in a rich New England accent while doing it.), referring to scene where Hamlet attempts to expose his uncle, and now King, as the perpetrator of his father’s murder. Naturally (God, again with the smugness), he accomplishes this by going through an elaborate plan of presenting his father’s murder in the form of a play, performed to his uncle and other royal subjects with the hopes that seeing the murder performed would force his uncle to buckle under the pressure, and give Hamlet the certainty to enact his revenge. What we have as an audience is a play within a play. We are attending a play, and watching the fictitious characters perform a play in the play that we are attending. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, brilliant. And how wrestling uses the play within a play method is also brilliant. Unfortunately, to further explain this, I must go back to defining what wrestling is and is not. The actual wrestling match, again, is not sport, but rather a story. No, I’m not talking about the story surrounding the match – not the fact that bad guy brought up the good guy’s born again Christianity as a joke, or the bad guy has put a voodoo curse on the good guy – put all that aside. I am talking about the wrestling match itself as a story. It is a story as common and timeless as there is, and it is present in most matches. The good guy (the face, as it will be referred to from now on) starts off quickly against the bad guy (heel), and takes the advantage early. The middle, and what seems like the bulk of the match, is the heel using every possible tactic, clean or dirty, to regain and control the advantage. The face fights back through all adversity to even the stakes. Both participants are exhausted and pushed to their limits. The ending can be the face triumphs, the heel wins the battle, or the heel uses nefarious strategies to pick up the win – perhaps using the help of an illegal weapon or a non-participant in the match. This is the story in most professional wrestling matches. We have the story that surrounds the match; that is, the story line between the characters for the programming, and the story in the match. This, in itself, is the play within the play. The story line  as well the story in the match, help build off each other to tell a unique story in itself. To add to it, we are given glimpses into the backstage of the wrestling world. There are constant segments that take place behind the curtain, where the politics of wrestling are discussed, or feuds between characters are built. It is truly an ingenious tool, as it showcases the audience a look into the making of wrestling, but is still a fictitious world. It’s the play within the play.

It doesn’t stop with the play within the play; there is a level of subversion found in Shakespeare’s work that is present in wrestling. Stephen Greenblatt spoke about subversion in Shakespeare in his essay published almost three decades ago, and the same subversion is in professional wrestling. Greenblatt spoke specifically about the historical dramas, and how they continually referenced the fact that the bloodline for Henry IV does not have the royal bloodline – the English king was thought to be chosen by God. By overthrowing Richard II, Henry IV had effectively overthrown God’s order. It’s a pretty controversial topic especially when Queen Elizabeth, the ruler of the time, is from the same bloodline as Henry IV. Wrestling presents the same kind of challenge. If you go with the most recent storyline, the characters of Jack Swagger and Zeb Coulter fit the bill. They both play a conservative tea party character. They say borderline racist statements, as well as say tea party slogans pertaining to America needing to go back to its old ways – a very constitutionalist stance, if you will. Despite Coulter having a huge Yosemite Sam moustache, what makes these characters so challenging is that they are not hyperbolized at all. They take their lines straight from tea party conservative’s statements. Their stance on immigration is, indeed, the tea party’s stance. There are, of course, several tea party members in United States Government, and continually have rallies for their cause; yet, these two characters who represent them in this facilitated world, are constantly booed and heckled every time they step into character. This is just one of several subversive plots including, Sgt. Slaughter pledging allegiance to Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War, Vince McMahon claiming he was God, the Nation of Domination (a group comparable to the Black Panthers or the Nation of Islam, to be more accurate) during the time of Louis Farrakhan, and many many more instances. The best example of subversion in wrestling has to be when Hulk Hogan, the hero and good guy for his entire career, suddenly turned heel. Hulk Hogan came out to the song “I Am A Real American,” and always did what was right, until he decided he had enough. He felt he was being overlooked and forgotten, and consequently decided to stop doing what was right, and do what he wanted to do. He sold out, for lack of a better term. He sold out and became “Hollywood Hulk Hogan.” Could WCW have been making a statement of the American dream with Hulk Hogan’s departure into evil? Are they making a statement about capitalism and what needs to be done to continually succeed in today’s America, while they were trying to put their rival companies out of business? You tell me.

In closing, I only hope to give a little more credit where credit is due. Professional wrestling should harbor more than your jeers and punch lines, for it can holds the same tools that make William Shakespeare’s works classic pieces of art. So next time you hear someone refer to a sloberknocker, I hope you can refrain from disdain, and know that somewhere, Bill Shakespeare is happy- you know, when they aren’t having mud wrestling lingerie matches, or finding any C-Rate celebrity to help promote the company.