Fall2020

First, clarification concerning the phrase “professional wrestling” is
needed. Wrestling is a sport, dating back at least to ancient Greece itself,
but likely has existed in some form throughout civilization. In a wrestling
match, individuals attempt to defeat one another by forcing or “pinning”
one another to the ground. The term “amateur wrestling” refers to the contemporary
version of this sport, practiced almost exclusively by students
and Olympians, i.e. people who aren’t paid, hence the “amateur” epithet.
Until recently, if someone wanted a career in “wrestling” after graduation,
they would have to become a pro-wrestler, which is another sort of thing
entirely. Nowadays, many amateur wrestlers learn other fighting styles, such
as Muay Thai kickboxing and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and practice Mixed Martial
Arts (MMA), where the wrestling knowledge and training ethic accrued
from their amateur experience often allows them to excel. What is called
“professional wrestling” or “pro-wrestling” differs from amateur wrestling
and MMA in one crucial respect: in pro-wrestling, the individuals are not
actually trying to pin one another. The results of pro-wrestling “matches”
are pre-determined, sometimes by individual “bookers” or “promoters”, and
other times by large staffs of writers, with input from a variety of corporate
executives. A pro-wrestling match is not actually a competition between two
wrestlers, but a simulation of one. The “wrestlers” in a pro-wrestling match
are not actually trying to defeat one another, but are working together to
best appear as if they are, while eliciting a reaction from the crowd. For most
of pro-wrestling’s existence, its purveyors portrayed matches as legitimate
competitions, though they often faced media scrutiny and exposure. Within
the past thirty years, there has been a shift toward admitting that it is a show
– entertainment or even art, rather than a legitimate sport. Pro-wrestling 1
blends athletic and theatrical elements, resulting in a unique cultural phenomenon.
Its drama is in large part an artistically accentuated representation
of the spontaneous drama of sports.
1 From here on I will use the word “wrestling” interchangeably with “pro-wrestling”.
However, pro-wrestling is competitive, just not in the same way that
sports are. For one, pro-wrestlers compete with one another for relative
positions of prominence within a wrestling organization (or “promotion”),
with only the very top spots securing lucrative contracts and global exposure,
similarly to how Hollywood actors compete for leading roles. Wrestlers
use their athletic and other performative skills to put on the most engaging
show possible so as to prove their value to the management of the promotion
for which they are working. But in addition to competing for places of
prominence within the show, there is another kind of competition going on:
a competition of values. Wrestlers, and the people in the crowd who cheer
or boo those wrestlers, represent different ways of life, different attitudes,
i.e. different values. The story of a wrestling match is the story of these values
in conflict. Typically, the principal characters in such a story include a
“babyface” (or just “face”) and a “heel”. Babyfaces are the protagonists of the
wrestling story, motivated by the cheers of the crowd (or by the expectation
of cheering) to defeat their opponents. Heels, on the other hand are the faces’
antagonists and are despised by the crowd (the feeling usually reciprocated).
The traditional characterization of wrestling “faces” and “heels” is reminiscent
of Nietzsche’s ideas about agon, particularly in, his early essay,
“Homer’s Contest”, where he explains the flourishing of Greek culture as
depending on its artistic and athletic contests being characterized by one
of two versions of the goddess Eris whose name means “strife”. In Hesiod’s
Works and Days a distinction is drawn between the two versions of the
goddess, in terms of the kinds of actions and attitudes each Eris inspires in
human beings. One Eris inspires envy or jealousy, which are seen by Hesiod
as positive emotions, necessary for a society to achieve greatness, as they
engender healthy competition (Wettkampf), while the other Eris motivates
actions that are malicious and destructive and a desire to eliminate ones
opposition (Vernichtungslust). The traditional dichotomy between faces and
heels in wrestling neatly maps on to that of the two Erises. Faces, in nearly
all periods of wrestling have been characterized by their desire to excel by
outdoing their opponents through their own skill as well as the power they
2 3