seek and destroy – Necessary Evil

For years, and possibly to this day, the muscle memory answer to the question of the greatest wrestling PPV of all time would be Wrestlemania 17. The epic denouement of the Attitude Era! Austin’s heel turn! TLC II! Shane’s Coast to Coast! “You think your special… you do… I can see it in your eeeeeeeeeyes…”.Peak fake fighting perfection!

…in retrospect, of course. Mania 17 in 2001 might not just be the greatest wrestling show of all time, but the greatest example of “Fuck it, it’ll be good on the night, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯” in wrestling history. Because 25 years later we can conveniently forget that the build to that historic 2001 show was pretty much dogshit.

That historic TLC II match was just the WWF throwing their hands up and thinking they may as well do the exact same match they did at Summerslam 2000, because the sweaty marks seemed to enjoy that. The Shane v Vince McMahon match is one of the greatest examples of Sports Entertainment soap opera to have ever been sweated out, but it all stems from a questionable handing of the WCW purchase in storyline that would eventually lead to the biggest example of money left on a table that you would later take a big curly dump on and set fire to in wrestling history. HHH v Undertaker was an incredible match, but only happened because the company had nothing for either star to do; the great Chris Jericho and William Regal opener was built by having Jericho piss in Regal’s tea (no, honestly); and the incredible match between Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit – two of the greatest workers of that or any era – was announced the week before the show. And that historic Austin v Rock II was a complete shitshow. Remembered now as the storyline peak of their legendary rivalry and historical second match in their Mania trilogy (though not as good as their Mania 19 match #FightMe), WWF at the time instead chose to focus the feud on Stone Cold’s wife Debra becoming the Rock’s manager, because this was an era when WWF couldn’t conceive of any major wrestling angle not involving Jerry Springer level domestic nonsense. And, to ensure the challenger looked as strong as possible going into the match, they decided to have him lose to HHH on the PPV a month before! People now like to remember the story behind the match being how Austin was so desperate to get his hands on Rock’s title that he was willing to win by any means possible, but that whole idea was only introduced in a sit down interview with Austin, Rock and JR, on the Smackdown nine days before the show. It was also during this interview that Austin said the immortal words “Let’s just go ahead and take Debra out of the equation. BAM! She’s a non-factor…”

It’ll be alright on the night…

i am going somewhere with this

For the vast majority of human history, everyone was mainly just into the same shit, and had the exact same cultural references. You think in 5000 BC, when you and your fellow Sumerians were starting your little agricultural society based around the cultivation of dates, people would have much time for your niche appreciation of tomato crops? They’d be like “nah kevin we all about the dates right now fr”. It was essentially a monoculture though, so everyone would at least be aware of the tomato subculture, even if they weren’t fans themselves. Everyone went bananas for dates*, and everyone knew that some weirdos like fucking Kevin inexplicably preferred tomatoes. For thousands of years, we have had the superstructure and the subculture, with a clear distinction and easy to judge distinction between the mass support of dates and the dangerous, fringe interests such as tomatoes.

*‘Das Gespenst’ is German for ‘The Titty Master’*

(*but, crucially, not bananas)

Which brings us, naturally, to professional wrestling.

There are statistics to argue that professional wrestling is as big – or even bigger – now than it ever has been. Or at least as big as it’s been in the modern era, biggest since 943 thousand people somehow crammed into the Atlanta Omni in the 50s to watch George Hackenschmidt put Toots Mondt in a headlock for 97 minutes. Live gates are huge, merchandise sales are huge, the world’s Problematic Fave WWE are making billions upon billions of dollars in increasingly morally dubious ways. Sure, TV audiences are a fraction of what they were during the first (Hogan) and second (Austin) WWF/E boom periods, but do you know why that is? Because no fucker actually watches TV anymore! I asked a Zoomer what their favourite TV show was, and they didn’t actually know what I was talking about, had never heard of a ‘TV’ before, and actually refused to speak to me any further because they’d assumed I’d made a transphobic slur. Wrestling on TV may only get fourteen people and one ferret watching every week, but it’s one of the only things that gets any sort of repeat viewings, so stations like Fox will still throw a billion dollars at them in the hope of securing at least a handful of people to show Dominos Pizza adverts to (also eggs. Ferrets love eggs. You should always do market research). Attendances, money made, CM Punk clout farming (the three most crucial elements to measure cultural integration), wrestling might be bigger now than any point in my or anyone reading’s lifetime.

But wrestling doesn’t feel big does it?

are you going to mention the event at any point?

Tag: seek and destroy

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