The Surreal Silliness of the WWE in our Horrible New Reality

It’s difficult not to feel depressed at the current state of affairs regarding the coronavirus. For the past few days, I’ve been stuck in a deadening cycle of reading the news in horror, imagining nightmare scenarios, feeling overwhelming waves of dread and depression wash over me, anaesthetizing myself with mindless entertainments, and then rinse/repeat. 

During the anaesthetizing phase, I’ve been watching old WWE/WWF clips on YouTube. I don’t know where it stands these days, but when I was a kid with nary a hair on my chin, WWE, and before that WWF, was the shit. It was for most guys my age, anyway. We knew it was scripted, sure. But its peculiar textures of corny musclemen, early 2000s nu-metal music and edgy posturing, made for a kind of boy child’s phantasmagoria of a rowdy biker bar. The conflicts were fake, but the hype? That was real.   

I’m too old to be suckered into it again at that specific level, but I find new appreciation in how it melded athletics and theatrics during its prime days – (The Attitude Era and The Ruthless Aggression Era – you know I’m right about that). They’re all such one-dimensional living cartoons of tough guys that to figure out who wins the crowd and who doesn’t quite win the crowd, over what has become something of a hobby.

In a more innocent time - a few months ago - you would suggest I get out more. And you would have been right. 

I guess it all comes down to that mysterious “it” factor, that thing that makes you want to see someone succeed: you could call it charisma. And it’s a matter of fact that Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Texas Rattlesnake, had charisma in spades. His tough-as-a-two-dollar-steak Texan drawl combined with an inability to be pushed around, to be made to look like a punk/chump/what have you, made him the biggest hit with the crowd. 

I mean, just look at this:

 It would take a heart of stone to resist this sublime spectacle. There’s one thing that I’d always taken for granted that made this so special, though: the crowd’s reaction. The crowd’s reaction is the membrane that separates the sublime from the silly. 

While the coronavirus has cancelled most things, it has not yet managed to cancel the WWE. These guys truly embody the expression “the show must go on”. But without a crowd, the WWE is…something to see.

I mean, just look at this:

Without the crowd generating energy, the absurdity of Professional Wrestling is laid bare here in the starkest possible terms. Stone Cold Steve Austin’s trademark double-canned beer downage – an eruption of uncontainable badassery in front of a crowd - is now the picture of an unhinged slob desperately attempting to escape a dreadful reality. His “WHAT!”, once an assertion of manly dominance in front of a crowd, takes on a meek and dare I say poignant energy of a lonely man staring into the void – “….what…”.

As a kid, Stone Cold Steve Austin was the embodiment of a tough and impossibly confident guy. Now I guess we can relate to him.

Take care of yourselves. Who the hell knows what’s going to happen. Be cautious, be well, and where you can, appreciate the absurdity of it all.