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Wrestling and perception
Jan. 29th, 2007 07:56 pmWith spoiler warnings for what's happened to AMW and for John Cena's present storyline.
Because to me, there's three mind-sets I have for consuming wrestling - mark mind, smark mind and my rational mind. Since I might not be using these in the proper, traditional sense, what I mean is that my mark-mind is those moments where I can ignore the other two and think its real, my smark-mind is called upon in those moments where wrestling is being stupid, not for sensible reasons, but for wrestling industry reasons and my rational mind is those moments where I'm neither of the above, I'm watching it as fictional entertainment.
And, personally, I prefer it when wrestling by-passes the other two and takes me to the marky state of mind. It's those moments I watch it for. Which is why I'm so pleased and intrigued with how TNA are handling the AMW split.
Because, normally, when a tag team split up in acrimony, there's the good guy and the bad guy, and the bad guy justifies himself, and the good guy tells him to shove it and there's anger and violence and a fight. But there hasn't been this time, there's been Storm justifying himself and making an ever bigger ass out of himself, which fits the pattern (and seriously, could someone hit him with something, and hard, soon) but the good guy isn't telling him to shove it. Harris's interview was pretty much 'Dude, I have no idea what to say, I'm still in shock'.
That was probably their masterstroke, because, much as I love him something chronic, Harris can't do big and dramatic, so they gave him shocked and low-key instead, and it worked. The visuals also helped, with wee baby AMW being all cute and together, contrasted with a repeat of the incident and Harris in an eye-patch.
The other thing that really helped is that they've kept Harris out of action, which makes everything seem more serious, to the point where I start to worry if there's something wrong with Harris in RL not just storyline, because dude, he's been gone a long time. (Dear TNA, please don't screw this up and have him return with something worse than the Empire Saint gimmick, because if you do I shall be very annoyed.)
Now contrast this to Cena and his ruptured spleen, which I object to, not with my smark-mindset, but with my rational one because there's no way that he could be wrestling with a ruptured spleen. This has nothing to do with pain, because I'd let them get away with that, and it has nothing to do with the spleen being damaged, because people can live long and happy lives without spleens because, as far as I know, their main function is to do with the maturation of immune system cells which can be done elsewhere in the body instead. My objection is with the rupture, because right now, without treatment, Cena should be in hospital with septicemia at the very least. Because a rupture means a tear or whole in the spleen so stuff should be leaking out of it, causing goodness knows what shock in his body and septicemia to set in. Also, there's a good chance that the immune system would go into over-drive and make him even more ill.
How much easier would it have been to give him a "sensible" injury, like a broken rib or brusied ribs or a bruised sternum or a torn muscle in the area because all of those hurt like bejasus and cause you to be held back in what you can do and all of them are infinitely more plausible.
It's not that I don't like cartoony and silly, because I love King Booker and Queen Sharmell and JBL, who are the King, Queen and Clown Prince of cartoonia, but I love them because they're exaggerations of something real and possible.
Because to me, there's three mind-sets I have for consuming wrestling - mark mind, smark mind and my rational mind. Since I might not be using these in the proper, traditional sense, what I mean is that my mark-mind is those moments where I can ignore the other two and think its real, my smark-mind is called upon in those moments where wrestling is being stupid, not for sensible reasons, but for wrestling industry reasons and my rational mind is those moments where I'm neither of the above, I'm watching it as fictional entertainment.
And, personally, I prefer it when wrestling by-passes the other two and takes me to the marky state of mind. It's those moments I watch it for. Which is why I'm so pleased and intrigued with how TNA are handling the AMW split.
Because, normally, when a tag team split up in acrimony, there's the good guy and the bad guy, and the bad guy justifies himself, and the good guy tells him to shove it and there's anger and violence and a fight. But there hasn't been this time, there's been Storm justifying himself and making an ever bigger ass out of himself, which fits the pattern (and seriously, could someone hit him with something, and hard, soon) but the good guy isn't telling him to shove it. Harris's interview was pretty much 'Dude, I have no idea what to say, I'm still in shock'.
That was probably their masterstroke, because, much as I love him something chronic, Harris can't do big and dramatic, so they gave him shocked and low-key instead, and it worked. The visuals also helped, with wee baby AMW being all cute and together, contrasted with a repeat of the incident and Harris in an eye-patch.
The other thing that really helped is that they've kept Harris out of action, which makes everything seem more serious, to the point where I start to worry if there's something wrong with Harris in RL not just storyline, because dude, he's been gone a long time. (Dear TNA, please don't screw this up and have him return with something worse than the Empire Saint gimmick, because if you do I shall be very annoyed.)
Now contrast this to Cena and his ruptured spleen, which I object to, not with my smark-mindset, but with my rational one because there's no way that he could be wrestling with a ruptured spleen. This has nothing to do with pain, because I'd let them get away with that, and it has nothing to do with the spleen being damaged, because people can live long and happy lives without spleens because, as far as I know, their main function is to do with the maturation of immune system cells which can be done elsewhere in the body instead. My objection is with the rupture, because right now, without treatment, Cena should be in hospital with septicemia at the very least. Because a rupture means a tear or whole in the spleen so stuff should be leaking out of it, causing goodness knows what shock in his body and septicemia to set in. Also, there's a good chance that the immune system would go into over-drive and make him even more ill.
How much easier would it have been to give him a "sensible" injury, like a broken rib or brusied ribs or a bruised sternum or a torn muscle in the area because all of those hurt like bejasus and cause you to be held back in what you can do and all of them are infinitely more plausible.
It's not that I don't like cartoony and silly, because I love King Booker and Queen Sharmell and JBL, who are the King, Queen and Clown Prince of cartoonia, but I love them because they're exaggerations of something real and possible.
