Lava Chess: What the WWE can learn from Twilight

[doublehelix]

Lava Chess

What the former World Wrestling Federation can learn from Stephenie Meyer's enthralling hit saga "Twilight"


Italics by Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight saga

Times aren't tough for the WWE. It is a publicly traded company that, though it has its ups and downs, is by-and-large successful. In the United States, it is as synonymous with "professional wrestling" as the NFL is with "professional football"--never in the history of the industry has a promotion held such overwhelming mindshare. It airs television shows four nights a week, most of them on channels people actually have. This success has allowed it to branch off into other media: WWE Films routinely churns out action movies that are maligned critically but successful on DVD, scratching the dumb action movie itch with what I'd guess you have to call skill. The WWE is the most successful enterprise of its kind, ever.

Which is why it's so disappointing. Raw, the flagship show, consistently fails to deliver the same ratings it had when Monday Nitro was splitting the audience, while the secondary shows struggle with the contemptible Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. The lack of serious competition created a wet dream for fantasy bookers, which was wasted in fits of arrogance, folly, and stagnation. After fighting so hard to be the top dog of professional wrestling, the WWE opted to ditch the term entirely, opting for “sports entertainment” over the widely scorned “wrestling”. Despite that misguided attempt to draw mainstream attention, it is still treated like what it is, at its core: a carny sideshow.

In another world, there is Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, the suspenseful yet touching tale of Bella Swan and her vampire boyfriend, set in darkest, wettest America: Forks, Washington. While the phrase "professional wrestling" is met with bemusement and condescension, simply uttering the word "Twilight" draws outright derision--or would, if the deriders could open their mouths without projectile vomiting. Clearly, we are dealing with two misunderstood entertainments, which must be content with their niche. But is Twilight so niche, if it's breaking box office records?

Why is it that Twilight, which breeds immediate disgust in all the unconverted, a cultural phenomenon, while the WWE, which breeds immediate disgust in all the unconverted, left to half-heartedly brag oxymoronically about impressive weekly cable ratings? Spend three seconds on fan boards for them both, and the answer is obvious: passion. Twilight boards are flooded with promises to re-read and re-watch and remember the magical journey. WWE boards are a cesspool of disgust and apathy. The root of the problem is in their respective tones--Twilight's endearing combination of romance and sarcasm is invites joy and satisfaction in a way the WWE's clumsy self-indulgence can never be.

When pressed, Stephenie Meyer, author of the massively popular Twilight series (about a young woman named Isabella Swan who lives in Washington and decides enough is enough and takes love into her own hands), categorizes her books as "suspense romance horror comedy". When pressed, Vince McMahon, chairman of the WWE, fidgets a little before mumbling something about having a pressing matter to attend to before shuffling out a side door. He's so sneaky, you might almost think he's a vampire, if you have had the pleasure of devouring the Twilight saga, and grown accustomed to the quirks and oddities of vampire life, in which compelling awkwardness is a defining trait. But I digress.

There is a clear divergence re: direction, here. Perhaps we can provide some to VKM by taking cues from Stephenie Meyer.



comedy



I nod my head, my too-orange body glistening with sweat. "Get him, Hogan!" the animated crowd exclaims. I lock eyes with my opponent. They were darker than the darkest black. Darker than the arena we were bitterly fighting in. I looped my arm under his ample crotch, as ample as the rest of him, which was pretty ample. I lifted him up. I was elated but strangely empty. I acutely felt a bizarre dread.

"The bigger they are," I whispered.

"You're pretty big, yourself," he retorted.

I could only drop him onto the hard canvas.


The Twilight saga positively oozes drollness. E.g.,

"'Afraid of a needle. Oh, a sadistic vampire, intent on torturing her to death, sure, no problem, she runs off to meet him. An IV, on the other hand...'"

- Edward Cullen about Bella Swan, p. 462

I must confess, I giggled for several minutes at that one. The ironically detached observation of one's circumstances has been a comedy staple for generations, and a firm understanding of this must run in the Meyer brood.

By contrast, Raw, on occasion, will feature a large, oily man known as Big Dick Johnson, who enjoys dancing. This is nearly every low form of humor combined into what can only be called a notjoke. Puns on first names/male genitalia? Check. A casual attitude towards the obesity epidemic? Check. A reliance on crude aesthetics instead of subtlety and wit? Check. Such a character is insulting, and simultaneously does nothing to justify the enthusiasm of a fanbase while doing active damage to the WWE's pretenses of popular appeal. It must be re-written.

For starters, the name and physique need overhauling. Instead of the fat Big Dick Johnson, he should be the ironically named Big Bob Wilson of diminuitive stature. If re-casting the role is not an option, Tiny Steve Jenson. Modern audiences will appreciate seeing characters deliver deadpan such an ill-fitting moniker, time and again.

Punchiness is another consideration. Comedy is primarily about timing and brevity is the soul of wit. Let us look to the second novel in the Twilight saga, New Moon (in my opinion, a lesser entry, but still quite funny on its own merits), for another example:

"It was ridiculous that I should be so elated because a vampire knew my name."

- Bella Swan, p. 236

That is ridiculous! And rather than dwell on it, Stephenie Meyer trusts her audience to understand that in one beat, and moves along with the story. The WWE would spend five minutes bashing the idea into the heads of viewers and attendees, and then another five self-congratulating for such an astute observation. This is not just unfunny, it is boring. It is actively repellant. Whether you are building to a vampire marriage or a five star mat classic, you cannot dwell on a punch line for longer than it takes the audience to get it.



horror



I felt a lump in my throat the size of my hat. Gone. He's gone. So much unsaid. I felt like I'd never be able to pronounce the polysyllabic words through my briskly quivering lips.

"Owen Hart was, uh," I gulped, "set to make an entrance from the ceiling and, uh, he fell from the ceiling." Was that the crowd or my racing head? "And I have the unfortunate . . . responsibility to let everyone know that Owen Hart has died. Owen Hart has tragically died from that accident here tonight."

Why? Why Owen?


"Dazed and disoriented, I looked up from the bright red blood pulsing out of my arm — into the fevered eyes of the six suddenly ravenous vampires."

- Bella Swan, p. 29, New Moon

I will grant you that maintaining a sense of horror is easier in a fantasy realm of beautiful men-who-are-vampires and the women who love them than it is in a sporting event, albeit a fake one. How do you make an audience fear for their life, or the life of somebody else, in what is ostensibly a controlled environment?

The WWE has had many ideas. Out of control monsters and walking dead people have gotten some burn (and done some burning), but these are too outlandish to have sticking power--a stark contrast to the timeless and all-too-plausible vampires of the Twilight saga. Shifts in setting have also been tried, taking the action out of the ring and placing it in hotel rooms, parking lots, ambulances, et al. These efforts ring hollow and fraudulent. Indeed, in the history of professional wrestling, the one and only true way to inspire fear in an audience is to place performers at significant physical risk. In the same way we like and respect Isabella Swan for the risks she takes to get what she wants (Edward Cullen, her true love), we need the same from our wrestlers.

While both, in their own ways, are relics of an ancient and more X-treme time, Jeff Hardy has (on pure wrestling merits) a more timeless quality than Kane. Kane is meant to inspire fear as the big ugly bald guy who is crazy but has remained gainfully employed for over a decade. Hardy inspires fear of a different sort, i.e., he could legitimately break his neck at any second.

In a vague way, the WWE understands this. That's why they have and will continue to hold PPVs devoted to their most brutal, high-risk matches, and in doing so demonstrates the less-than-stellar sense of pacing that sinks their comedic efforts. If everyone was a vampire, vampires aren't scary. If every match is in Hell (in a cell), the Hell cell is no longer imposing.

It also clashes with their other flawed principle: prevent performers from being injured as much as possible. The reasoning behind the lack of gimmick matches over previous years stemmed from this logic. Now, we are flooded with them, inviting new injuries, without the benefit of added tension. It is breathtaking, like a spoiled child being sent to bed without dessert and vowing to never eat again.



romance



I sank to my knees and began to cry. After all the work, all the pain, I had done it. The stranger in the striped shirts held out the title. I gazed at it like I had never seen it before, then took it in my hands and stumbled to my feet. I began to celebrate.

Turning around, I spotted my old friend, Eddie. We locked eyes, and he began a vigorous clapping. We embraced.

"You are a meteor on a moonless night, Eddie," I whispered. Is this confetti real, or another trick of my mind? Do they have confetti in heaven?


Twilight is a story about love, not lust. Wrestling is increasingly an industry about lust, not love. Wrestling has no sense of grace, no maturity. Male-female relationships are handled like high school crushes and advanced through eye-fuckings and soap opera contrivances. Any rewarding progression, like that found in the relationship between Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, in the hit series Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer, is absent.

Let's be honest: for most of us true wrestling (and Twilight) fans, true love is unattainable. False love is a little more attainable, especially if you're a handsome, young, city-dwelling go-getter like me, but ultimately unfulfilling and expensive. Pseudo love is also attainable, and it may be in your best interest to seek it out, if you live in rural Oklahoma and have resigned yourself to never leaving. But true love is out of the question. To fill this gap in our hearts, we need to live vicariously through our entertainment.

The WWE's attitude towards females has often been as friendly reminders that you are not gay for watching men in tights grapple. I think it would be better to use them to remind you that the crushing loneliness you experience on a constant basis is not universal, and even you may overcome it, given the right circumstances. In other words, the WWE needs to remember its primary function: reality escape.

It would also open fresh storytelling avenues, in the form of classic ones. You can't have damsels in distress if no one is interested in neither inflicting nor relieving distress. You can't have a touching scene where a wrestler's valet shields him from a merciless beat down without a valet and a believable relationship. Edward can't save Bella from werewolves without a good reason. The potential for drama increases, as people are provided motivations beyond "advance career" and "settle grudge".



suspens(ion/e/ed)



I approached the steps. The carpet was the deepest, bloodiest red I had ever seen. Walking on that carpet was like literally walking on a path through hell. I climbed the steps deliberately. My nose itched. "Is my other self trying to escape?" I pondered. "If he does, I'll have to chase him up these steps."

The man in the suit was saying something. He called me prestigious. He called me a king. I'm not a king. I'm a peasant. He was the king. He wanted me to talk. I felt hesitant, but the words came quickly. Is this me? Or my other self?

"You sit there and you thumb your Bible, and you say your prayers, and it didn't get you anywhere! Talk about your Psalms, talk about John 3:16. Austin 3:16 says I just whupped your ass!" I glared.


There are many words that begin with "suspens", many of which are applicable to both Twilight, as well as the past, present, and (hopeful) future of the WWE. I will cover the key ones briefly:

Suspension (future): In New Moon, Bella finds the suspension on Edward's '54 Camaro inadequately tuned. This serves as an unwelcome distraction from the rest of the wonderful journey, and the point is made: even the most perfect pieces of your forever can be wrecked by an amateurish approach to vehicle maintenance.

The lesson for the WWE is, I trust, obvious.

Suspense (present): In the Twilight saga, Stephenie Meyer masterfully blends horror and suspense together, i.e., she uses the horror to create a suspenseful atmosphere, stirring the two into an even blend, as if they were the milk and eggs in a fine brownie mix. That should not trick you, however, into thinking that horror and suspense are twins. They only take shelter under the same umbrella, in much the same way the boorish jump scares of Jacob's Ladder mingle with the nightmarish psychological terror of Leprechaun: In The Hood.

With this in mind, I should not need to inform you that Hardyesque recklessness is not the only way to attain desired tension in a wrestling ring. It can also be accomplished through extended will-he-tap submissions sequences.

Suspended (present): The WWE's current Wellness Policy draws what should be obvious parallels to the opening chapters of Breaking Dawn. I will assume you all have at least a passing familiarity with the novel, though you may loathe it as it is the nature of all social creatures to obtain undesired knowledge and trivia, and will move on without further comment.

Suspended (past): In Eclipse, the penultimate book in the acclaimed Twilight saga, a romance/suspense by Meyer, Stephenie, Bella and Edward's daring escape is ruined when their shared parachute gets caught in a large Dipterocarpus in eastern Borneo. In other words, they were suspended in the air. The WWE need to harness this sense of being in the air and unable to fall--emphasis on the phrase "unable to fall", an essential part that was woefully neglected in the case of (1) Owen Hart.
Simulations of super heroics are not the only use of wires, of course. "Wire-fu", in conjunction with slow motion, has made for many exciting Hollywood action scenes, and audiences would doubtless greet it with a smattered applause and blank-faced stupors in the overgrown city fair atmosphere of a wrestling arena.

And there you have it. I know my devotion to the Twilight saga is a minority view, in these parts. I know what few fellows I have on the matter will not speak up due to peer pressure. That's fine, I'm not out to change anyone's minds. But I think there are valid creative and business reasons for the WWE to follow Twilight's lead. Warranted or not, Stephenie Meyer knows how to inspire passion, the essential ingredient to the WWE's prosperity. She has mastered the game of lava chess that is modern culture--the uneven, shifting terrain that is popular interest--and rode it to great acclaim and success. If he's looking for role models, Mr. McMahon could do worse.


If you are killing the one you loved, it leaves you no options. How can you run, how can you fight, knowing you have hurt that beloved one? I gazed at her limp form.

"We belong together," I croaked. My mind was made up. I creeped to Daniel's room. He was asleep, breathing gently. I hoped that I would not wake him up, to ease his pain, but if I did, I hoped his autism would prevent him from seeing the grief-stricken face of his father. His killer.

I firmly grasped the pillow and locked in the crossface...


fin

[Uncle Joe]

LAva Chess.


That's all I can really say.


Lava Chess.

[anonymous]

Originally Posted by Ewe

Why is it that Twilight, which breeds immediate disgust in all the unconverted, a cultural phenomenon, while the WWE, which breeds immediate disgust in all the unconverted, left to half-heartedly brag oxymoronically about impressive weekly cable ratings?

Because the audience of WWE is gays, losers and geeks. The audience of Twilight is WOMEN, gays, losers and geeks. That extra audience is key to the success.

Ummm good column which hasn't received the publicity it deserved. Since I saw (and secretly enjoyed) Twilight, I probably appreciate it more than most.

By the way, I class myself as a "loser" not a gay or a geek.


EDIT: If you wrote a column this good on "what the WWE can learn from porn" it would have 10 times as many replies.

[Super Chrisss]

2 Things the CF learned from this column:

1. doublehelix reads and LOVES Twilight.

2. anonymous is a loser.

This may not come as a shock to everyone else, but I was totally caught off-guard here.

With that being said, this was a fantastic column. Big Dick Johnson has to retire and/or die. NOW.

Oh, and I'm a jock in real-life. I swear!

[Jason Boy]

I totally agree, i enjoyed this column, I saw both Twilight movies and enjoyed them. Well done

[doublehelix]

Joe -

anonymous - re: what the WWE can learn from porn: too true.

Chriss - I play sports.

Jason - Thanks.


Thanks for reading, people who read! There's a reason I don't write long columns like this: they take forever. I will never do this again!

[XanMan]

With all the in-depth points you made here, Helix, the thing that keeps reverberating through my mind is, "Helix reads twilight? Really?" I mean, c'mon man, how far astray have you gone since your days as co-host of ETA?