Kenpachi Zaraki
10-22-2008, 11:39 AM
10/19/2008 by Mark Madden
A recent trend in wrestling is to take real-life occurrences and weave them into storylines to blur the distinction between fact and fiction, thus theoretically making disbelief easier to suspend and edging wrestling a step closer to reality TV, an entertainment genre that is sadly prospering.
It doesn’t work. Bookers think it does, but it doesn’t. Look at the ratings and buy rates. The only thing that is driving wrestling to its current minimal level of success is star power.
Yet, this concept keeps getting foisted upon us.
We’re so numb to it, we don’t even notice when they’ve gone too far.
Jeff Jarrett went too far.
In his epic, never-ending (and never going to be fulfilled) quest to rise above the mid-card in the eyes of the fans, Jarrett allowed the tragic death of his wife at the hands of cancer to be exploited for the sake of a storyline. He allowed the grief of his young daughters to be exploited for the sake of a storyline.
It was bad enough that Jarrett turned on the schmaltz when he recounted how he had to tell his girls that “Mommy’s not coming home.” But when Kurt Angle looked into the camera and said “Daddy’s not coming home” as if talking to Jarrett’s daughters, it went way, way off the deep end.
Jarrett probably thinks this storyline gets anyone who’s lost a loved one to sympathize with him. That’s not the case. It insults anyone who’s lost a loved one by trivializing premature death as part of a wrestling plot. Jarrett trivialized his wife’s death, involving his daughters in the process. He’s got to live with that.
It not only shows you how low wrestling can sink, it shows you how dead the creative process is, particularly in TNA. A booker shouldn’t feel something like this is necessary.
Jarrett should be ashamed.
Angle, meanwhile, should be embarrassed that a wrestling storyline seems to have contributed to the breakup of his marriage, and that he allowed said breakup to be exploited on TV.
Is nothing sacred? Is nothing private?
Oh, Jarrett and Angle have every right to use their personal tragedies as they see fit. Vickie Guerrero, too. That’s America. I’ve certainly used bad taste for my own personal gain over the years.
But this appears to have left a bad taste in the mouths of almost everyone who followed the Jarrett-Angle storyline en route to Bound For Glory. Was that TNA’s goal? I doubt it.
A recent trend in wrestling is to take real-life occurrences and weave them into storylines to blur the distinction between fact and fiction, thus theoretically making disbelief easier to suspend and edging wrestling a step closer to reality TV, an entertainment genre that is sadly prospering.
It doesn’t work. Bookers think it does, but it doesn’t. Look at the ratings and buy rates. The only thing that is driving wrestling to its current minimal level of success is star power.
Yet, this concept keeps getting foisted upon us.
We’re so numb to it, we don’t even notice when they’ve gone too far.
Jeff Jarrett went too far.
In his epic, never-ending (and never going to be fulfilled) quest to rise above the mid-card in the eyes of the fans, Jarrett allowed the tragic death of his wife at the hands of cancer to be exploited for the sake of a storyline. He allowed the grief of his young daughters to be exploited for the sake of a storyline.
It was bad enough that Jarrett turned on the schmaltz when he recounted how he had to tell his girls that “Mommy’s not coming home.” But when Kurt Angle looked into the camera and said “Daddy’s not coming home” as if talking to Jarrett’s daughters, it went way, way off the deep end.
Jarrett probably thinks this storyline gets anyone who’s lost a loved one to sympathize with him. That’s not the case. It insults anyone who’s lost a loved one by trivializing premature death as part of a wrestling plot. Jarrett trivialized his wife’s death, involving his daughters in the process. He’s got to live with that.
It not only shows you how low wrestling can sink, it shows you how dead the creative process is, particularly in TNA. A booker shouldn’t feel something like this is necessary.
Jarrett should be ashamed.
Angle, meanwhile, should be embarrassed that a wrestling storyline seems to have contributed to the breakup of his marriage, and that he allowed said breakup to be exploited on TV.
Is nothing sacred? Is nothing private?
Oh, Jarrett and Angle have every right to use their personal tragedies as they see fit. Vickie Guerrero, too. That’s America. I’ve certainly used bad taste for my own personal gain over the years.
But this appears to have left a bad taste in the mouths of almost everyone who followed the Jarrett-Angle storyline en route to Bound For Glory. Was that TNA’s goal? I doubt it.