The One Thing Everybody Gets Wrong About Wrestling
Be born earlier.
Wrestling fans smashed through the looking glass decades ago, beyond the surface of the story and into an exposed backstage area with its lurid, fascinating politics. Years later, under monopoly rule, this knowledge came to dominate a discourse itself dominated almost entirely by in-the-know fans.
We were the only ones left, and we had a fair understanding of why.
The fiction, more often than not, became lost in the plot: a secondary concern to the manner in which it was told. And, since WWE has become more and more inept at telling stories in recent years, fans discussed pro wrestling exclusively using insider terms and with a tone of dread. Who is getting pushed? Why isn't the guy I like getting the push? Why isn't the guy generating audibly huge reactions getting the push? And, most pressingly:
Is Wrestler X getting buried?
Buried in this context meaning a talent relegated to a position not consistent with their reaction - or left to rot as an afterthought the booker is bored of - as opposed to an onscreen punishment.
This conversation has erupted in recent years because, and much qualitative data bears this out, Wrestlers A, B, C, D, E, F and f*ckin' G were all buried by WWE for one of two reasons, primarily: either getting over when it wasn't in the plans, or failing to get over within three weeks, creating a grim paradox from which a sense of nihilism festered amongst the fanbase.
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