I have been reading a lot recently. Not writing much, which I feel bad about, especially since I just started here at Cultured Vultures and the folks here are putting out tons of quality content on the regular. I just couldn’t muster up anything to write, and I don’t have much of a reason really considering it was the time of year when wrestling fans come out of the woodwork to talk about WrestleMania. The only thing I could attribute it to was what I am calling “thought fatigue”. Thoughts about adult life, sure, about my various flailing (and failing) careers, and, of course, thoughts about wrestling.
I often think about wrestling, perhaps more than anything else save for sex, which as I inch closer to my middle age, the gap grows smaller still. It’s my default thought exercise, either current issues and booking, fantasy booking major events or, embarrassingly often, fantasy booking a current save in Total Extreme Wrestling (a text based promoting sim that I highly recommend, by the way). While I walk the dogs, drive alone or take a dump, I am most often thinking about something wrestling related, even if it is deciding if I am going to push Jimmy Garvin to the top in 1985 AWA.
It is only recently that I started to try and actively figure out why I have delved so deep into silly booking games and the past in general. I have written here before about my oh-so-dramatic existential crisis of ageing, like I am the first motherfucker to ever decide that the here-and-now isn’t all that great compared to happy memories of when I was younger, better looking, and in better health. I realized that it isn’t getting older, per se, that I dislike so much. It’s the loss of magic the world held. Yet recently I have found my sense of magic returning, bit by bit. Who (WHO? WHO? WHO?) could I credit this shift?
Mostly my daughter, sure. Lets not get crazy. She’s 7 and literally everything can be explained by magic.
The WWE has played a not-so-insignificant role too though, specifically in the case of two wrestlers;
Charlotte Flair and Roman Reigns.
I’ll address Charlotte first. Like I said, I have a seven year old who absolutely adores Charlotte. This was recently put into overdrive when Charlotte chose a peacock ensemble to wear to the ring at WrestleMania and the night after, peacock being my little one’s favorite color scheme to the point of both her Halloween costume and our Christmas tree being themed that way.
Charlotte is a good role model for her, despite being a heel. She is strong, dominant, smart, athletic and determined, with her beauty being icing on the cake and not the definition of her character. She is the best female heel I have seen since Sherri Martel. Despite that fact, my daughter sees her as the babiest of babyfaces. Her irrational fear of giant inflatable tube men only solidified her in Charlotte’s corner against the most natural babyface I have seen since Steamboat in Bayley. It is hilarious and endearing to see her root for a heel Flair, especially since Ric Flair became my favorite, despite being the heel, at roughly the same age she is now. Father and daughter, almost 30 years strong of rooting for the Flairs. Ahhh, rasslin’.
What really struck me though was my daughter’s complete inability to see or pay attention to any reason why she should dislike Charlotte. When I became a Nature Boy fan, I knew he was the bad guy, I had rooted against him in matches against Dusty Rhodes and Ricky Morton, and was looking so forward to his comeuppance against Magnum TA that never came. I knew he was the bad guy, but by 1988 or so, I was a huge fan. My daughter has very little history with wrestling other than it being something her papa loves. Her getting into it is fairly new, maybe a little over a year of sporadic paying attention, and even then it was mostly to the ladies. Her reaction to Charlotte though, it reminded me of some other wrestler that the vast majority of at least the internet fans hate. Reigns. Reigns, who despite being pushed as the Ultimate Hogan-esque Baby, is received as the second coming of Gorgeous George in the heat department, at least online and in “smart mark” cities.
Reigns, as HHH smugly told us stupid marks, is already the biggest heel in the company. After Monday, it is difficult to disagree with that. His seeming mastery of the now officially promoted Raw After Mania Crowd was a sight to behold. He is, without a doubt, getting the most numerous, continuous and repetitive reactions every week. Only Nakamura and Roode inspire the WWE-obsessed-word “passion” that Reigns can, but the sample size of mostly smart mark audiences colors that argument. Even Cena has finally crossed a threshold that allows him to get mostly cheers now, even from hard smart cities.
The reaction Reigns gets versus how he is presented is the exact opposite that my little one gives Charlotte. So, in a way, it makes sense to me. If Charlotte can be a babyface to my daughter despite being an arrogant ultra-bitch on TV, then Reigns can absolutely be a top heel for the WWE despite acting like Hulk Hogan after a three day bender of cocaine, Rocky movies and Reagan speeches.
To be honest, I kind of love it. I love that, as ‘smart’ as we are, we are being worked into being so loud for this schmuck with the greasy hair. For as much information as we have at our fingertips, all it took was for Keller or Meltzer or whoever it was, to mention that Vince wants to push him as the New Cena for all of us to completely flip the fuck out. Rejecting him despite the fact that he has had shockingly decent to great matches his entire run as a single, with only one or two stinkers, with a variety of opponents, and he looks like the kind of guy that you can show to a non-wrestling fan and with his look and presence alone, can get them to watch. He’s eye candy that can work.
So, I’ll make a prediction, one that I know will inspire hate from every direction:
Roman Reigns will end up being one of the greatest of all time. A first ballot HOF’r. A multiple time, heavily decorated champion and , by then, a man respected by marks and smarts alike.
Never forget smart marks are still, and always will be, marks.
That’s a good thing.
Believe that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQJXMyT3PD4
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