By "Net.cop" Scott Keith

I just got finished listening to Phil Mushnick on Meltzer's radio show, and I think the best description of him is "a reasonable man living in unreasonable times". The main problem is not that Phil is a bad person, it's that we as wrestling fans are devout followers of an inately immoral and sleazy business to begin with, and when an outside force representing the more "normal" portion of society says "Hey, your sport is run by a bunch of scumbags", we get noticeably upset about it because it's a blow to the ego for us, no matter how true it may be. We , as a society, are conditioned to shift the blame for our own condition elsewhere, and as a result it's easier to blame Mushnick than it is to face responsibility ourselves, especially when following through with facing that responsibility (ie, a full investigation of what exactly goes on) means the inevitable end of the pseudo-sport we love so much.

It’s a catch-22 if there ever was one: Live the lie and be happy or face the truth and be miserable. Life in a nutshell. I applaud him for having the moral fiber to stand up for what he believes in, but ultimately I think (nay, I KNOW) that it's a futile gesture. I personally have said, many times, that wrestling is a scummy business run by hypocrities and we, as wrestling fans, rationalize our tastes because that's we've learned to do in order to keep it from being a moral issue which can't be whisked away by telling the "opponent" to "suck it". In real life, our opponents are rarely face-to-face rivals who can be vanquished with a Space Flying Tiger Drop, which is why the underlying romanticism of wrestling makes it so popular. The problem is trying to apply the lessons learned from wrestling to real life, a situation which never works, and generally ends up giving us, as fans, the kind of bad name we have been fighting for years now. Still, Mushnick’s point, I believe, is valid.

Others have pointed out that the music business and movie business are both equally guilty of being profit-driven machines that don’t care about the consumer, and Phil just happens to have his cart hitched up to wrestling right now.

This is of course true.

But my point is that wrestling IS the cart he's hitched up to right now, and instead of handling it like adults and saying "yeah, wrestling is scummy, but I'm a grown man and I'm capable of deciding that for myself", wrestling fans instead choose to defend the sport the only way they know how: By repeating Vince McMahon's "You just don't get it" mantra and hoping the bad man will go away. It’s as if they feel that by cutting a killer promo just like the Rock, Phil will react like Billy Gunn and cower in fear from the awesome babyface. Due to the bizarre conditioning of wrestling, we as fans interpret a legitimate moral question – Has wrestling gone too far? – as the actions of a heel, because in the cut-and-dried world of pro wrestling (and don’t give me that "there are no more good guys and bad guys" bullshit), direct morality questions are rarely settled with reasonable discussion as opposed to a cookie sheet over the head. A mysterious fan at ringside starts holding up a sign saying "WWF is Filth", intended as a parody of L. Brent Bozell. This of course is the typical one-dimensional stereotype that fuels the sport: The character isn’t given a chance to state his side of the issue in any meaningful way outside of a soundbite, because then people actually admit that he’s right. Case in point: Chris Jericho. He starts cutting promos about how boring the heels are and how sports entertainment sucks, and suddenly he’s a babyface. More than anything, wrestling fears the truth. For instance, try asking a WWF rep if they market to children. The answer is generally "Yes and no", which is the kind of cop-out nonsense I’d expect from a major corporation, not someone like Vince McMahon who claims to have "balls the size of grapefruits".

And the WWF isn't helping it's own cause any by hypocritically marketing toys to kids RIGHT ON NETWORK TV (the Stone Cold figure, where they specifically say "Kids, go buy it"), as well as doing nudity on PPV and then posting a wishy-washy semi-apology on the website instead of just having some balls and telling the moral majority to go fuck themselves. If they did that, I could at least respect them. But this recent "Everything we do is right as long we make a profit" mentality is starting to really bother me, especially coming from a company that flaunts the "We cater to the fans" company line as much as the WWF does. I don't want action figures that talk, I want clean pinfalls. Am I being listened to? Sure, as long as it’s the popular opinion of the moment. I don’t recall being consulted when Viscera was getting hired again last year, and yet he’s still on my TV. Vince wants it both ways -- he wants to satisfy his new-found fad "adult" audience while still keeping the young'uns hooked for future exploitation once the Springer crowd finds a new toy to play with. He uses that kind of Machivellian, callous attitude towards everything he comes in contact with, and then makes it out to be everyone else’s fault when someone actually calls him out for it.

I mean, doesn't it bother anyone else as much as me that Owen Hart's DEATH hardly even fazed the WWF machine, but a couple of sponsors threaten to pull out and suddenly it's family entertainment again? And on the flipside of the wrestling world, you have Vince Russo taking WCW, who were at least making a moral stand by choosing to focus on the wrestling, and suddenly doing a 180 to become the same "Money is the bottom line" business that the WWF is. This, of course, is a ridiculous assertation from a company whose entire purpose is to be a plaything for Ted Turner and a write-off at tax time. And yet as soon as it happens, the trained seals on the WCW Live program blow the horns that Vince Russo tells them to. Hey, it’s a business, I understand that. I’m as guilty of ratfuck capitalistic leanings as the next guy, but then I’m not out there selling Netcop T-shirts to 5-year olds with drug references and swearing on them. That’s the difference: You can’t have it both ways. Somewhere along the line, someone in wrestling is going to have to either take responsbility for the actions of the sport (and history has proven it WON’T be Vince McMahon) or else admit once and for all that the new direction of the sport is not for children and then DON’T LET THEM IN.

That’s really the key. If kids aren’t supposed to be watching, then don’t sell them the ticket. Grow a set of balls for once and use an actual rating system like the movies do and demand ID or at least a parent or guardian to accompany them. Because until someone takes a step like that, the leftist forces are going to keep banging on the door, and one of these days it’s going to cave in. There’s just too much ammunition for them to use now, and Vince (both of them) has become so arrogant and blinded by his vision of what the nebulous "people" want that no one has stopped to ask whether what they want is what’s best.

For instance, why does wrestling always have to cater to the lowest common denominator? Why can’t Road Dogg come out and read Shakespeare for once instead of his marijuana-riddled catchphrase? It’s not like that’s going to go any further over the heads of the audience than, say, a Sid interview would. Who would it kill to make an effort to educate the audience for once instead of keeping them in the dark like wrestling has labored to do for decades? The credo seems to be "Keep ‘em stupid, and they’ll buy more merchandise", but a smarter clientele will buy more expensive merchandise and be able to help defend the product better than the knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers that the WWF and Vince Russo seem determined to market to ever can. Sadly, wrestling is not a long-term business, and no one ever stops to THINK about these things before pumping out the next big fad. The question is always "What can we keep doing to maintain this rating?" rather than "What should we doing to get a better rating?" That’s why most of the major changes in recent history have come about because of outside circumstance -- the only thing wrestling fears more than truth is long-term planning.

And finally, as Phil said on the show, sure it's no WORSE than Melrose Place or America’s Funniest Home Videos, but what's it better than?