Tim Kail's Raw Review
Jun 27, 2018
If last week's backstage-segments
were an example of Raw's unique badness, then this week's main
event was an example of Raw's unique goodness. That's not to say
this episode didn't feature backstage segments with the same
marionette-acting and the same trite dialogue (admittedly, I
fast-forwarded through most of the Hulu version to get right to the
goods). It's to suggest that the strength of professional wrestling
(even WWE's "Sports Entertainment" version) is, unsurprisingly,
professional wrestling.
The main event Intercontinental
Championship match between Seth Rollins and Dolph Ziggler
exemplifies pro-wrestling's ability to successfully deliver pure
fun and dramatic spectacle to any audience. Where last week, I felt
that any non-wrestling fan who happened to channel-surf their way
to a Raw backstage segment would be embarrassed by what they saw,
this week I felt that any non-wrestling fan who saw Seth Rollins
and Dolph Ziggler go to work would become completely immersed in
the action.
You don't have to be a diehard
wrestling fan to understand what's good about a good wrestling
match. Even the most cynical "It's fake" truther feels their
disbelief bend to the will of a good hold and an unexpected
kick-out.
You do need to be a diehard
wrestling fan to stomach backstage segments, though. Without a
foreknowledge of the nuances of the company, its characters, and
its creative rhythms, backstage segments watch like weird teleplay
non sequiturs. They just don't fit with pro-wrestling, and
yet they've become deeply ingrained in the visual, thematic, and
structural essence of wrestling.
The unavoidably bad acting, the
hamfisted dialogue, and the broken conceptual premise behind the
amateurish way they're filmed (i.e. the characters act as if
cameras aren't filming them, suggesting cameras
aren't in the backstage reality, which begs the question,
"how are we, the audience, seeing any of it?") can only be
"appreciated" by wrestling fans inured to WWE's unchanging style of
presentation.
Backstage segments, therefore,
represent an obvious creative weakness on Raw's part. They alienate
prospective viewers, if not directly during a channel-surf,
indirectly by reinforcing the idea that "it's okay for
pro-wrestling to be kind of bad". Backstage segments are also meant
to advance a story, and yet they make stories less
accessible because of how they look, sound, and feel. There are too
many opportunities for badness (either in the writing, the acting,
or the filming) to overshadow any validity a story may have when
that story ventures backstage.
Good wrestling, on the other hand,
and the story that can be told between the ropes, is
instantly accessible. Dialogue isn't even
necessary. With the
likes of Rollins and Ziggler, the sheer athleticism on display
immediately arrests the viewer's attention, and then the nuances of
their impeccable timing and expressiveness draws the viewer into a
deeper human theater.
The rhythms of a pro-wrestling match
naturally mirror the rhythms of any sport, and so the audience
doesn't have to strain to appreciate the drama. There is a blend of
grace, determination, improvisation, and pain, all operating within
the conceit of a fight. The joy comes in watching that fight
unfold, building, every-so-carefully (as this match did) toward The
Finish; that moment when a winner (and loser) is determined, and
the audience experiences Pop (catharsis).
If our hypothetical channel-surfer
happened upon Ziggler and Rollins' stellar match, and somehow
didn't quite know how to feel about it, well they'd be in luck; a
massive, ecstatic crowd tells them how to feel. There were multiple
times during the Ziggler/Rollins match where the crowd, rapt by the
action, burst into natural exclamations of shock and joy, rising
into a collective "Yes!" chant. The crowd even stood to offer the
rare, dignified clap, a smattering of applause that served as a
simple, communal "Thank you" to Rollins and Ziggler for putting on
such a great show.
Something a wrestling match
always has that a backstage segment never has is
that participatory audience.
Sure, we sometimes hear the
cheers and boos from the arena-audience reacting to backstage
segments. But they are abstracted from the content, often
sounding muted, bored, or confused (which is no surprise given the
arena-audio sometimes cuts out). Consider that during backstage
segments, live attendees are forced to crank their necks upward to
stare at a big TV that hovers over the wrestling ring.
Did they come to watch TV, or did
they come to watch live wrestling?
If backstage segments feel
incongruous to television viewers because of their inherently poor
quality, backstage segments feel incongruous to live attendees
because they are the exact opposite of the reason they're
in attendance.
For both television viewer
and attendee, wrestling's the thing! Wrestling is
that which catches an audiences' attention, not the ancillary,
cheap-looking melodramas sutured onto it like so many needless
appendages. Standard WWE backstage segments, therefore, have not
merely outlived their usefulness, they were never useful
to begin with.
When good wrestlers get to do their
job, we all get swept up in the positive energy of that process,
and we lose ourselves to the wonder of simulated conflict. That
process is fun. It is one of discovery and pure, raw
emotion. Even if your brain thinks pro-wrestling is stupid, your
soul understands why it isn't. Nothing obscures what makes
pro-wrestling good when it's presented as it was in Monday's main
event.
Ziggler vs Rollins represents a
pro-wrestling that isn't trying to be something it isn't. It's a
wrestling that respects the real value of the art. It
doesn't self-conscientiously concede that "wrestling is kind of
stupid". It instead earnestly posits that wrestling is
good, and that you should take it seriously
because it's good.
Put another way, Ziggler vs Rollins
demands the viewer's respect because, in this match, they clearly
respect themselves and their art. They created something to be
proud of, a fantastic story that demonstrates their individual, and
collective abilities. The booking, directing, editing, and
commentary all worked in concert with their strengths. The
presentation serviced the wrestlers, the wrestlers were
not struggling to service the presentation. It had the distinct
feel of a night when both performers were told, simply, "Go out
there and do your thing".
They did their thing, and the
audience was all the better for it.
Their "thing" (again,
unsurprisingly) is wrestling, the simulation of combat to
provide audiences a theatrical experience.
Had I seen that, and only that, I
would have thought Raw was good television.
This is not to suggest that Raw
should be nothing but a series of matches (although, why not try it
for a night?). The show can certainly flesh out its narratives and
it can even use the backstage area as a setting if it wants. But it
should always do so within the context of what makes wrestling
good.
That means re-imagining the way
non-match-time functions and looks on Raw, and how rivalries are
expanded beyond what we see in-ring. It means real-sports-like pre
and post-match interviews, press conferences, and candid glimpses
into production booths, locker-rooms, hallways, and catering areas
- all looking and feeling the way they actually look and feel for
the wrestlers in real life. It means creating scenes that are natural
extensions of the ring-world, rather than scenes that feel like
they belong in a lesser, alternate universe. The WWE has even
offered this more mature and naturalistic style I advocate for
in recent years to great dramatic effect (most recently during the build to WrestleMania 34),
but such scenes remain outliers to the company's mediocre
norm.
When Raw finally escapes that norm,
maybe I won't have to fast-forward to get to the goods. In the
meantime, I'll continue needing to craft my own experience of the
WWE-product, all the while appreciating superb matches like the one
that closed this show.
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