About 10 years ago, I had a conversation with one of the great avant garde theatre directors of all time, Anne Bogart. (Hoo boy, not a great way to start a post on a pro wrestling blog, eh? Better insert a cool photo.)

That’s better.

Anne asserted that great theatre has seven elements to which it tends rather well. Good theatre tends to not quite all of them, and mediocre theatre can really only focus on one or two.

I’ve since come to apply this list of elements (or qualifications, if you will) to all sorts of art, especially performance art, and now, to analyzing pro wrestling. (What can I say? Directing plays is my hammer, so everything with an audience looks like a nail.)

The most compelling matches, I’d say, excel at all seven elements.

Here’s the list so far, in no particular order.

THE SEVEN ELEMENTS
1. RITUAL
2. …stay tuned…
3. …stay tuned…
4.  …stay tuned…
5.  …stay tuned…
6.  …stay tuned…
7. …stay tuned…

Let’s start with ritual.

List some pro wrestling rituals.
- Entrances with music and pyro and choreographed moves
- yelling Woo! when someone gets hit by a particularly harsh knife-edged chop
- holding up signs
- yelling “Holy shit!” after an amazing spot
- Hulk Hogan shaking his finger at a guy before punching him the face, usually followed by the big boot and a leg drop
- Randy Orton flopping over like a fish (okay a snake, if you insist) as a set-up for the RKO - shouting “and millions” at the right time when The Rock is talking
- singing “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” when someone gets fired
- chanting “Thank you, Edge” when Edge is retiring
- staged contract signings that end in chaos
- “America the Beautiful” at Wrestlemania
- shaking hands (or not) before an ROH match
- the “Tale of the Tape”
- Triple H and his sledgehammer fetish
- smashing a dude through the Spanish announce table
- Elimination Chamber, Money in the Bank, Hell in a Cell, Royal Rumble, etc. etc.
- squash matches
- Let’s go Cena! Cena sucks!

That’s a lot of rituals.
That’s a rather abbreviated list, but it illustrates pretty well that wrasslin’s got a lot of habits, a ton of patterns, a lot of well-observed, timeless traditions. In fact it’s safe to say our wrestling enjoyment would be destroyed without them.

Ritual in arts can take a couple of different forms. There are the rituals of the forms themselves, like curtain calls. There are also rituals that can be used in the shows. I once directed a play that mimicked the form of a church service. The familiar form helped the audience understand what was going on.

Ritual in real-life.
Speaking of church, need we list the important rituals in real life? Birthday cakes, weddings, Rumspringa, bris, etc. etc. etc. Rituals helps us understand life, they help us mark special occasions, they help us to transition from one stage to the next. They tell us what to do, and they elicit the appropriate emotions. (Think about the way people cry at weddings even when they’re really bored. The ritual itself speaks to something deep in our psyches.) Randy’s snake-flopping routine rarely fails to rally the crowd, eve during a lackluster match. We (or at least his fans) are hard-wired in a really Pavlovian way to expect an awesome RKO and respond with well-tuned enthusiasm.

What’s going on?
Rituals tell us what’s going on. (Oh, he’s gonna do his finisher now. Oh, somebody’s gonna do a run-in. There’s the three-count!) They’re part of the accepted narrative of the matches. Entrances happen first, we meet the participants, we find out what kind of mood they’re in, we find out about any special rules. The rituals helps us know when the climax of the match is coming, so we can stand on our chairs at the right time. And matches end with an opportunity to applaud the performers, get a little catharsis, and release all our built-up tension.

Broken expectationismations.
Equally important for story-telling reasons is that rituals set-up a structure of expectations that can then be broken. When Hogan enacts the holy ritual of shaking his finger, punching the Rock three times in the face, and following it up with a boot to the face and a big leg-drop, we fully expect a three-count. So, HOLY CRAP when the Rock kicks out. (One of my favorite moments of their great Wrestlemania X8 match.) When Edge’s music plays and he doesn’t run around and wave his arms at the audience, instead marching with a very serious face straight to the ring, you know he means business. Or how bout Triple H going through Undertaker’s own ritual, (Wrestlemania 27) right down to the extruding tongue. A brilliant variation on Big Evil’s glorious rites. If HHH had won, it would have been a great way to do it.

Participation.
Perhaps most importantly, rituals allow us to participate, something that’s vitally important in performance arts that involve an audience. (My sign is on TV! I love it when we yell “Woo” together!) Most of the list up there involves crowd participation. It’s something that wrestling does really, really well. Far better than, for instance, the theatre. (I gotta tell you, I’d kill to have people yelling “holy shit” after a particularly awesome monologue or scene change.) And wrestling fans glom on to every opportunity to be a part of the match, whether it’s because they’re hoping to be on TV, or just cause they enjoy being part of the living breathing entity called “the crowd.”

You bought it.
Rituals give us a reason to be there, because we’re accustomed to them and so we’re willing to pay money for them. Plenty of Catholics profess to loving the rituals even more than the message. Going back to that Hogan/Rock match at WMX8 – imagine what a thrill it must have been for all the people who got to be a part of the experience of cheering Hogan like a babyface after the match. Hogan cups his hand to his ear and leans over the ropes and that’s all it takes for the 20,000 people on that side to connect with their childhood memories and go crazy. They might not have put words to it, but you gotta know that’s exactly what they came for.

Oh, Honky Tonk Man. Honky Honky Honky, the greatest Intercontinental Champion of All Time. He just may have been the perfect villain, certainly for his item. A few notes on what made him so great. 

1. No superficial character traits. Don’t jump down my throat, obviously he was putting us on, but at least he wasn’t faking it. He wasn’t doing a rotten Latino accent, or wasn’t pretending to be a robot or an alien or a dentist or a carny or … well, you make the list. Maybe he was pretending to play the guitar, but that was part of his character. 

2. We were expected to hate him because he was obnoxious, and arrogant, and because he cheated all the time. You hated him for in-story stuff, not external factors like him being really bad in the ring, or because his gimmick was so lame.

3. No lame background story. He was exactly what he looked like – a professional Elvis impersonator. Even if he never got paid outside of the WWF, at least they didn’t ask you to believe something obviously untrue. Like that he’s a porn star, a model, a rock star, an ex-con, etc. Gimmicks like that just make us hate the WWE for asking us to believe such crap, we never bother to develop any feelings about the character himself.

Character is what a guy is, so don’t lie to us about what he does. We all know the gimmicks got <a href=”http://bleacherreport.com/articles/717264-wwe-ranking-the-40-worst-gimmicks-in-history/”>way out of control for a while</a>. In hindsight, that seems to be a symptom of a WWF (and WCW) that knew it needed to manufacture some stars for the future. As they’d learn, though, it’s difficult to consciously do that.

Jim Cornette, in the Monday Night Wars documentary, says that the best characters emerge when you just take a compelling personality and turn the volume all the way up. That’s how WWE ended-up with Steve Austin and The Rock. They let them tell the truth and be themselves on a larger scale and it all worked out.

Seriously, what’s Hulk Hogan’s gimmick? Could you explain it? What’s Randy Savage’s gimmick? You’d have to make a list of the details of his performance as the Macho Man. That’s all character stuff, not a cut and paste gimmick. Ric Flair? Shawn Michaels – and these guys were the BEST characters around.

Or what about the Road Warriors? Was that a gimmick? Maybe it was, but they did things right. No one tried to convince us that they were gang leaders or super-heroes or something. Most importantly, the make-up, armor, and catch-phrases were inseparable from the personalities of Michael “Hawk” Hegstrand and Joseph “Animal” Laurinaitis. In fact, maybe that’s a good litmus test for the limits of gimmickry. If the gimmick could work just as well in the hands of a similarly competent wrestler, it’s probably too gimmicky. (I’m lookin’ at you, Mountie.)

A few guys have lived right on the edge - Road Warriors and Honky Tonk for sure. (But could anyone else have made Honky Tonk so engaging?) I’d add Undertaker to that list – they got lucky with Mark Callaway and played it mostly straight over the years, but there were times they strayed too close to the edge. Corporate Ministry? American Badass? The time he descended to the ring like a bat?

Look at Triple H. There’s a guy who started with an unsustainable gimmick, and they learned to strip it away until they revealed the personality underneath. 

And look what they did to Ricky Steamboat and Tito Santana. The Dragon? The Matador? Those guys were big hits without help from funny costumes. (Though… would you like to start the discussion about ethnicity as a gimmick?)

And John Cena? Well, frankly. I think he’s kinda boring. And the WWE turned his personality up to 11, and while he’s charismatic, he’s still pretty boring.

They talk about the big change in wrestling presentation the past 13 years or so being the disappearance of gimmicks. Fewer guys have cool or bad nicknames, fewer guys wear anything other than trunks or tights. That’s sure helpful in some ways, but at times it seems like “just being yourself” is just the latest popular gimmick. It’s the WWE’s usual knack for taking what they lucked into and trying to apply it as a rule.

But these guys gotta get some character. The Miz has style (funny suits, catchphrases), if not a character. CM Punk has a character who’s defined by his actions as much as his look or his name. Dolph is establishing a character, Randy Orton is a character, we like those. Brodius Clay seems to have a character and not just be a gimmick, part of why he seems so exciting. Thank goodness Mark Henry turned out to have some character. Maybe that’s why they chose to push him against all odds. Daniel Bryan’s character is slowly emerging. It seems like maybe they’ve decided to give him the mic and see what emerges. Good plan, I’d say.

But I gotta ask – What’s Wade Barrett’s character? What’s David Otunga’s character? What’s Michael McGillicutty’s character? (Too bad Dolph stole all the Curt Hennig-style heat) Alex Riley? Drew McIntyre? Evan Bourne? Even Kofi Kingston - who has a gimmick, but no personality. Ezekial Jackson? Hunico? Jack Swagger? Justin Gabriel? And poor, poor Teddie Dibiase?

What’s worse? No personality or bad gimmicks? And why is it so hard to avoid both? Somebody needs to ask the Honky Tonk Man.

I almost feel bad for WWE.

I’ve been watching a lot of old events, in chronological order, and noticing how many guys were at the center of the company’s storylines recently who aren’t around anymore. And I’m not even talking about Shawn Michaels or the Undertaker, surely everyone knew they were playing with borrowed time. (Looks like Taker will come back one more time, but I’m willing to bet that’ll be it.)

But look all the guys who’ve disappeared even though the company probably thought they were going to be featuring them for a least a few more years to come. An incomplete list: Mr. Kennedy, Jeff Hardy, MVP, Umaga (well, those huge guys rarely lost long, still…), Batista, Brian Kenrick, Carlito, Shelton Benjamin, Vladimir Kozlov. I’m not saying any of those guys were going to become transcendent stars, but certainly Vince & Co. must have been expecting them to carry the load for awhile.I didn’t even include Edge or Jericho on that list.

It’s also sad because of how many of those guys really were main-event-worthy performers.

Then look at the list of guys who are still supposedly on the roster, but are currently out of action for one reason or another: Rey Mysterio, Christian, Sin Cara, Undertaker, Kane, and (at the moment) Triple H.

I just watched most of Survivor Series 2007. Of the 22 guys on that card, the only ones left (and currently active) are CM Punk, The Miz, Cody Rhodes, and Randy Orton. You might wish to add Kane, Triple H, and Undertaker to that list, but you know you really shouldn’t. The entire heel team from the elimination tag match is gone. I looked at the turnover over similar periods of time and you could usually count on just less than half of any card to be still be around 4 years later. Right around 10 guys, not 4!

I’m just sayin, if you’ve been feeling like WWE is a little lacking stars-power it’s not just you. They’re hurtin.

Ouch.

Some folks are missing part of the action on this “Cena sux” thing. It’s been going on for years, of course, mainly because a lot of people don’t actually like John Cena and are more interested in cheering his opponents, like Randy Orton, Edge, Chris Jericho, Shawn Michaels, CM Punk and other incredibly charismatic/talented people of that ilk. That goes back at least six years, right?

So what makes it different now? Certainly the jeers are more lusty than ever, and throwing him into a year-long story on the other side of the ring from The Rock will do that. But what about Money in the Bank?

It was CM Punk’s home-town, and he was at the very tip-top of his peaking popularity as a result of smashing the 4th wall down on the June 27th Raw. Long story short, the anti-Cena/pro-Punk vibe was so pervasive in Chicago, Cena almost looked sad about it.

And then what about Survivor Series? I was at Madison Square Garden for the event, and the crowd was live as fuck. Just incredible. And totally uncooperative. They cheered all the bad guys and boooooed all the good guys. As soon as Mark Henry paused for a deep breath they jumped in with the ol “boooooooooring” chant. And then of course they booed Cena so loudly he Cena himself has said that “it was just New York being New York,” but it seems like it was even more than that. They booed Cena’s entrance, they booed when the Rock tagged Cena (after chanting “Don’t tag Cena!”), sometimes they booed just cause Cena wasn’t getting beaten-up at that particular moment. And when Cena put R-Truth on the mat with a couple of flying shoulders and raised his hand to signal for the 5-knuckle shuffle, the crowd booed so loudly Cena looked genuinely surprised. 

The Survivor Series crowd, like the Money in the Bank crowd before it, was embracing the new “reality” narrative that Punk created and The Masked Man named. That promo was aimed directly at the hearts of all the smart (and willing) marks who’ve grown frustrated of late with the product, and especially those who never accepted John Cena as their WWE champ. (Let me step into super-smart mark mode for a second and tell you that I like to imagine that the WWE creative had no idea how much histrionic behavior that promo was going to stir up. I also like to think that CM Punk did have a pretty good idea.) Punk’s ur-promo set up the narrative of not just Punk vs Cena, but also the fans vs the WWE powers that be. If you like what the WWE is up to, and/or you don’t know or care what a Colt Cabana is, you cheer for Cena. Or, you cheer for Punk to show how smart you are. It’s like the guy who laughs at the obscure foreign language jokes when he’s at the movies even though he should probably just go ahead and say “I got that joke and I know you didn’t,” since we all understand what he means anyway.

Of course, Punk was honing that tool and playing to the smarties for a while befor it got him on Grantland and took him viral. Remember RAW’s 900th episode? August, 2010, Punk, doing his best Triple H impression - “I’ve got two words for you.” {The crowd responds with “suck it.”) “No, Katie Vick. If you don’t get it, that’s fine, just YouTube it. It will drive you to drink.”

Anyway, new narrative, same as the old narrative, the narrative of the smart mark, but now it’s part of the show in a bigger way than ever. Cause the smarties have always considered themselves way better at what they’ll call booking than the WWE writers, um … bookers, and so on, and now they’ve got the boos to prove it.