OO Column: The Obtuse Angle by Jeb Lund (Pro Wrestling News, Analysis, and Commentary... WWE, WWF, WCW, ECW, The Rock, Brock Lesnar, Triple H, Rob Van Dam, Hulk Hogan, Undertaker, Trish Stratus, Lita, Stacy Keibler, Divas, RAW, SmackDown, WrestleMania, S

THE OBTUSE ANGLE
The Salesfan, Part Two:
The WWE Apologist
August 10, 2005

by Jeb Tennyson Lund
OnlineOnslaught.com/CitizenScholar.net

Previously, on The Obtuse Angle...

Scant hours after the end of this year's Great American Bash, wrestling fans were rightly voicing their displeasure on message boards. Amid the questions asking whether it was an insult to viewers, bad booking all around or the worst pay-per-view of the year came the proud voice of the advertiser, peddling something unrelated to the issue:

"If you hated this pay-per-view so much, you must have had expectations about it that have nothing to do with what good wrestling really is. If you didn't enjoy it, it must be your fault."

This was the salesfan.

Perhaps you have met this animal. It's a type of salesfan called the "WWE Apologist." WWE doesn't have many of him for the simple fact that WWE doesn't need him. The reason he exists is because he needs the rest of us; he needs animals that require tending. We are hapless savages all, wearing rags befouled by our own ungoverned bowels,

making crude bursts of noise on the internet, desperate to be taught to think. The apologist will civilize us, stop us from flinging our excrement at WWE TV, and teach us to eat everything on our plate.

Wherever there's a complaint, he is there. When there are 15 or 50 people telling him that an angle or segment was atrocious, he is there, patiently explaining how they don't understand wrestling and have mistaken expectations. He sends columnists a poorly thought-out harangue: "You suck and you get off on hating the WWE. You're a dumb smark who doesn't know real wrestling and thinks everything has to be spotfests. Print my column." Typically, his message-board avatar is a picture of someone over seven feet tall with the moveset of a refrigerator, and his signature file is usually an aspiring catchphrase that he appreciates completely unironically (e.g., "It's not my fault!").

It's difficult to understand what motivates the apologist. There isn't a psychology of love and devotion behind his actions, as there is with the indie evangelist. He's an intellectual bully. It's baffling why anyone would relish being a stooge and a shill for a billion-dollar company. It's not like WWE really cares; they don't need the muscle. Defending an unconcerned corporation ranks high on the Scale of Unnecessity, somewhere above being an extra-smug Yankees fan and somewhere below, say, punching coma patients in the face in order to "stick up for Mike Tyson."

Still, the apologist feels the need for his behavior. He needs to defend WWE, and he needs to gainsay anyone attacking it. "Gainsay" is the operative word. The apologist has only one idea: WWE is always good. He can't say that over and over, because no one would listen more than once. Thus he has to wait until you write your opinion and give him a new idea. He carefully examines each idea you had, weighs the theories that you posited, then tells you you're wrong, and he knows better.

You're wrong. If you don't accept as a given that whatever WWE is doing is good-to-great and that WWE is the most superior wrestling brand in every way, you're wrong. If a pesky voice in your head reminds you that anyone who claims total superiority of quality in wrestling is going to be moderately full of shit, that voice is wrong. If you note that wrestling has proven through the decades that wrestlers and promoters can fuck up something as simple as a two-car funeral, you're wrong and a snob.

Snobbery is the first part of the apologist's attack, and it defines his mindset. He must attack: empty of ideas, the presence of someone else's are a threat. Thus he tries to discredit you by smearing your character. If you prefer highspots and technical wrestling, you're an ivory tower elitist who doesn't understand what real people want. He'll say something irrational and untrue like, "You won't be happy unless all matches are 30 minutes long and have two people doing hurricanranas and chain wrestling." Though the assertion is baldly false, he needs you to waste time bothering to deny it, as it distracts you from noting the total want of germane arguments he has offered.

The interesting thing about this approach is that it condemns the apologist as much as his opponents. In calling you a snob, he paints himself as a meta-snob. Let's say you look down on large brawlers and prefer technical wrestling. The apologist says that he's just as smart as you, and he understands technical wrestling's scientific superiority just as much. The difference between the two of you is that he's learned to rise above all that smarky clinical workrate stuff and just get what real people enjoy. He's so nuanced that he's reached the top of the mountain, then learned how to come down and embrace the delights of the masses. "Real People" are the apologist's Silent Majority, an amorphous group he can neither define nor document. He "speaks" for them, because he's assured of never having the people he claims to represent actually speak for themselves and tell him to shove it. Somehow, he believes his attitude demonstrates that you're the one with an insufferable sense of superiority.

After calling you a snob, the apologist really has nowhere to go but to address each of your points. This is the only time that he is remotely fun. Because, if you give him long enough, every argument he makes in support of WWE's flawless record of awesomeness will eventually contradict some other argument he made in support of the same. As said above, the apologist has no thesis of his own, short of, "WWE is always good; you're wrong." Thus, he has no problem using any argument at hand, even if it means contradiction or outright lunacy.

For insance:
• Disliked the Great American Bash because Orlando Jordan defeated Chris Benoit, despite all indications pointing toward the U.S. Title needing a defender like Benoit? Well, you must have an irrational expectation that strong champions should rehabilitate title belts — something that only snotty internet fans expect. Or you're a "Benoit mark."
• Praise indies for having technical wrestlers? Whatever: unlike WWE, they don't have Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle. Might as well watch the greatest technical wrestlers ever, who are in WWE.
• Hate people who are giant and slow? You're a Benoit or Angle mark. They've never sold as much merchandise as Undertaker, which proves he's one of the greatest ever, and they suck.
• Dislike WWE because matches feature too much brawling? It's a proven fact that high fliers never draw ratings, aren't popular, and no wrestling company with a brain would use them. You should like brawlers; everyone else does.
• You enjoy TNA for the X-Division? Why bother? Everyone knows that the best high flyers are in WWE anyway. WWE has tons of high-flying matches. You must be too hung up on hating "brawlers" to notice that.
• Hate WWE for firing Matt Hardy? Whatever. His character had no future.
• Hate Matt Hardy for not signing with TNA or ROH? You're an idiot. His must-see story couldn't be told anywhere other than WWE.

The contradictions abound. Just make sure to be patient when arguing with the WWE Apologist. Never get into an argument with him more than once within a 10-day span. Otherwise, he has a tendency to remember what he said and is less apt to contradict himself. However, if you get into an argument with him every other week, watch the bullshit pile up. If you get him really riled up, you may even be treated to a trademark false syllogism. Like: "Benoit is God and uses a chinlock. Randy Orton also uses a chinlock. Orton must be God, too. Argue your way out of that, smark!"

Regardless of whether you're praising an indie promotion or merely ripping WWE for a recent storyline, your argument with the WWE Apologist eventually will devolve to one thing: "WWE is always good because it's popular. You criticize it, but millions still watch. So there." The only trouble is that there's no logical or statistical basis for this defense. The apologist doesn't mind, because he's an asshole.

What he will tell you is that WWE has to be good, because it's popular. If you ask why it's popular (why those millions tuned in), he will tell you that it's because WWE is good. In short: WWE is good because people watch because it's good because people watch. One is proof of the other, while the other is proof of it. It's the logic equivalent of this exchange:

You: Why?
Him: BECAUSE!

There are so many fallacies to this argument that it's difficult to figure out where to begin picking it apart. The apologist says that WWE is good because people watch it, but it never occurs to him that the people he's arguing with are people who (a) watched a show, and (b) think it wasn't good. There is no statistical data that in any way verifies that those who watch a show actually think well of it at all. Think of your own experiences: you've probably watched multiple episodes of WWE TV and thought, "Wow, that was terrible."

Viewership is not a confirmation of quality. Like the line in an episode of Futurama, "You watched it! You can't UNwatch it!" Once you and all those Nielsen households admit to tuning in, you can't take that back. Your viewership essentially indicates little more than that you were there at the time. Ratings are not a referendum on show quality and never will be. Granted, you may not watch next week because this week's show was unsatisfying, but you and the apologist know that quality can vary from week to week.

Any long-term fan has long ago admitted to himself that his viewing patterns have everything to do with routine and often little to do with the week-to-week and minute-to-minute in-show fluctuations of quality. A bad show doesn't mean that a bad show will follow, nor does a good show beget a good show. You watch in the hope that the pendulum keeps swinging toward quality. But hope isn't approval, and you can't measure it either.

The apologist's last gasp on this topic is basic: "Yeah, but even if you're not watching week to week, and even if you think it's bad, millions of people still tune in. WWE is the most-watched and most-popular brand, so that must mean it's the best." That last statement is the heart and soul of the whoring salesmanship of the apologist. It's also totally deluded.

Forget the inequality of the two markets, that WWE has tens or hundreds of times more exposure than competing promotions. Forget the inequality of the established brand names. Forget the inequality of cross-promotional opportunities within WWE itself and on talk shows. Forget all that. Remember this: that in every other aspect of entertainment, we all understand that popularity has nothing to do with quality.

The WWE Apologist will have you believe that WWE is the superior product because it's the most popular. Yet, if pressed on the issue, he'd probably admit that "The Macarena" — one of the best-selling singles of all time — is pretty awful. If he didn't admit this, he'd have to waste countless WWE-defending hours in a detailed analysis of why Los del Rio is misunderstood genius in its purest form.

Millions more people watch According to Jim or Numb3rs than any WWE show. However, most people would not go so far as to say that those shows are the best of their genre, or even good. (Personally, I want them to merge the two shows so I can see Jim Belushi use math to help the FBI solve comedy.) They might be not bad, but there's no call to shower them with superlatives. To narrow the analogy: like WWE, Friends was the number-one show within its genre. But even many devoted fans of the show admit that it was a flawless B+ sitcom. It succeeded best in not failing. There were no holes in its construction, but it also created nothing new. It never came close to the groundbreaking and inspired work that Seinfeld or The Simpsons did within the same genre. Friends appealed to millions. Such appeal did not automatically equal quality, nor did it make it superior to all shows within its genre. Just taking a sample from the years of its run, I’m sure readers could name ten superlative shows that were canceled or never achieved the same audience.

There is no demonstrable link between popularity and quality. While the apologist might acknowledge this in posts about movies or music, he's blind to it when it comes to wrestling. He's blind even to analogues within wrestling itself. For instance, if you scheduled one 30-second breast-exposing wardrobe malfunction on RAW, then filled the rest of the show with crap, then did this for a month, the show's viewership would probably be higher than it has been for years. Millions of teen viewers would suffer through hours of garbage for that sweet half-minute of softcore "celebrity" porn. But no one, not even a WWE drone, would say that the shows were good. They'd be more popular than ever, but it would be manifest how little that popularity reflected the wrestling content.

I wish I had a homily here, some reflection that recast the WWE Apologist as basically a decent guy, despite his attitude. I can't do that, because he's not. He's a whore and a snob. He combines the bottom-basement moral repulsion of being a prostitute for something — irrespective of logic, quality or personal dignity — with the social repulsion of the know-it-all lecturer, the smug moralist, the supercilious preacher who can't recognize his own venality.

To be sure, there are indie salesfans who present their love of their promotions with an attitude of superior taste. They are the exception that proves the rule. The indie salesfan loves his promotion and believes in it and wants to share it with you. The WWE Apologist knows that you already share his promotion. He knows you already watch it. What sets him apart is that he knows better.

There is little point to his zeal. He needn't bother with his columns and letters and posts because he knows you already watch the same product. His impulse isn't to sell you on something he cares about; you're already sold. His impulse is to sell you something he deeply believes in: that he's very important, that you need to recognize that, and that WWE wrestling is the opportunity he has to establish once and for all his enduring wisdom. He needs neither logic nor consistency. WWE doesn't need him. What he needs is your first comment, just so he can have an idea how to annoint himself. And he needs you to reply. God, how he needs you to reply.

E-MAIL JEB LUND
BROWSE JEB'S ARCHIVE

Jeb Lund invites readers to send in tales of their experiences with WWE and indie salesfans. Or feel free to give your account of your wild adventures with a more exotic breed of wrestling salesfan.

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