Eddie Koch and Charl Blignaut wrestle with just what it is that makes the big men in little costumes fly through the air
IS it theatre? Is it sport? we wondered, as the African Storm World Wrestling Federation (WWF) tour rumbled into town. The truth is, it’s probably something altogether in between.
Wrestling is, said French semiologist Roland Barthes in Mythologies, a grandiose series of images that display the social and sexual tensions that lie beneath the surface of civil society – and a symbolic resolution of these.
Which is a fancy way of explaining why your sisters, mothers, brothers, fathers, close friends and (horror upon horrors) kids – many of them reluctant to admit it – sat glued to the TV or flocked to the urban stadiums while the WWF circus was in South Africa this month.
It is as though WWF president and modern- day PT Barnum, Gorilla Monsoon, a macho former wrestler apparently without the brainpower to manage his flamboyant road show, had read and even understood the foppish philosopher.
“There are people who think wrestling is an ignoble sport,” said Barthes. “Wrestling is not a sport, it is a spectacle of excess, and it is no more ignoble to attend a wrestled performance of Suffering than a performance of the sorrows of Arnolphe or Andromaque.”
Take a look at the script, the sequence of events between the larger-than-life WWF heroes and villains, that was played out when Monsoon and his wrestlers came to Johannesburg. It shows the ritualised way that wrestling represents our basic turmoils – good versus evil, victory versus defeat, masculine versus feminine.
Somehow Monsoon understands this. He is the sole owner of the WWF and, like some maniac pop-culture impressario, he is responsible for every cartoonish, choreographed sequence that the crowd will see.
He writes the script and it is his task to create pop stars, not mere athletes. He has developed his plot and written scenarios for each evening’s bouts. He has rehearsed each of his actors – from the sidekicks to the referees to the 20 wrestlers – who played nine shows in 10 days in a different city every two days, from Bloemfontein to Durban, Cape Town to Port Elizabeth, the Carousel to Jo’burg. A different challenger to the inter-continental champion, The Undertaker, in each bout – but the same outcome on each stop of the South African tour.
Outside the stadium, the stalls are hopping. One woman has just bought her kids R1 780 worth of WWF goods without batting an eyelid. Monsoon has carefully consolidated the image of each icon that will be paraded and then he sells their merchandise – from T-shirts to foam gloves.
There will be dodgy liberation heroes; ranting sheiks; fascists from the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (the latter, incidentally, being played by South African actor Robin Smith, who has joined the WWF world tour to play similar characters in far-flung parts of the globe). There will be pretty boys, predators, drag queens, zombies and just about every modern, cartoonish, cult icon imaginable – from early slapstick theatre to B-grade horror. Monsoon will decide who holds the WWF crown and it’s quite likely that he will be the crowd’s favourite. Judging from the pre- match sales, The Undertaker merchandise is selling out.
We enter the stadium during the preliminary bouts along with upward of 15 000 shrieking fans. Flash Funk, a young and flamboyant new boy in the circus, is busy bashing in the head of Salvatore Sincere, who gets the audience to empathise with his fate by blowing kisses and telling them after his defeat: “I lova alla da people in dis building.”
The good guy has been subdued. Next Savio Vaga, member of a clique of bad homeboys in the WWF who call themselves the Nation of Domination and model themselves on the Black Panthers, is busy wrestling with Rocky Maivia, a third-generation wrestler who represents the hopes of New York’s white immigrant community.
Savio beats Rocky fairly and squarely. But the rest of the Nation of Domination – their leader, Farooq, and a giant called Crush who joined the gang after he came out of jail – climb into the ring and proceed to lash Rocky with a black whip and strangle him with one of their belts.
To the rescue comes Ahmed Johnson, a black giant who draped his 120kg torso of muscle with the Springbok’s number six jersey when he fought during an earlier bout in Durban. Armed with a piece of large timber, he vanquishes the WWF’s gang of militants and helps his white friend from the ring.
The Nation of Domination retreat. They stand defiantly in front of the crowd. They give the black power salute. And they tell the audience, which is in a state of delirium because of the spectacular way the non-racial alliance has triumphed over the radicals, that Ahmed is like most South African imbeciles who eat bananas in a jungle. Sooner or later “we are gonna kick his charcoal butt” – but not tonight in front of the Rainbow Nation. Or will they?
Next up is Goldust versus Hunter Hearst Helmsley. Goldust arrives looking fabulous in a magnificent golden cape, glitter over his face, a leopard’s tail sticking out of his cloak and a long blonde wig. Hunter is accompanied by Goldust’s foil, a muscular woman in a tight black vest and leather boots called Chyna who acts as his bodyguard.
Goldust delivers some telling blows to Hunter’s rippling chest. He sidles up to his victim, provocatively rubs his gold- clad hips, pouts his lips and sighs, “Ah Goldussst!”
“Moer the fucking faggot!” yell several teenage boys in front of us and, on this occasion, Hunter obliges with his famous finishing move, called the Pedigree, that involves crushing his victim’s head between his sweaty thighs and ramming it into the canvas. And Chyna jumps into the ring to deliver a few kicks to the fallen Goldust’s ribs. How a drag queen got to be a star in this show only Gorilla Monsoon and Roland Barthes know.
A little later the national hero, Ahmed Johnson beats Crush from the Nation of Domination in a fight that has been built into the grudge match of the night. Then comes the grande finale. Funeral bells chime, eerie music fills the stadium, the lights go down and come up again. Smoke fills the tunnel. The Undertaker versus Crush. The Nation of Domination, who sport their own rap tune, say they will spare him defeat if he does the salute and joins up. There is more to this gesture than you think. We are later told that the Nation distribute their own pamphlets to get kids to join their organisation. They stick together, we are told, and always look after their own interests. So will The Undertaker sell out? Slowly he lifts his gigantic hand and, with dramatic emphasis, draws his palm across his neck – his sign that tonight The Undertaker will use the Tombstone Pile Driver to defeat his opponent.
That is exactly how he ends the fight, turning Crush upside down, lifting him above his head before driving it into the floor. “Rest in Peace,” says The Undertaker before folding the prostrate villain’s hands over his chest.
The audience is ecstatic. Suffering and subjugation have been conquered. Dangerous sexual tendencies have been brought into the open, dealt with, and contained. The respectable middle-ground has withstood an onslaught from its radical political margins. And it has all been huge fun.
The way in which the spectacle has been choreographed, the careful intermingling of wrestling’s universal themes with the special passions of a South African audience, has answered the question that is always on the lips of those who watch it: is it real or rehearsed?
After the show we hear how the event is so carefully conceived by Monsoon that if anyone slips up and breaks from the script, chairs get broken over heads in the change rooms. That happened in Cape Town. Contrary to popular perception, the wrestler’s skill is not in trying to hurt his opponent but in avoiding this. To throw a 140kg body through the air and land on someone without crushing his back requires enormous stamina and skill.
And we learn that life isn’t always rosy for the performers. Most of them live on painkillers – for hyper-extended knees and compound spine fractures. Picked off the junior wrestling circuit by Monsoon’s scouts, they can only do this for a couple of years. They earn huge amounts of money, but get physically wrecked. We learn that breaking ranks with Monsoon results in fines and/or suspensions; that they keep to their diets and get up as early as 6am to begin working out – referees included.
Like their good and bad characters in the ring, we are told that the wrestlers are divided into two camps: B and H. B is for Babyfaces, the health freaks and clean athletes; and H is for Heels, the roughneck, hard-drinking, hard-smoking camp. It makes sense that Monsoon keeps the Bs and Hs apart: separate buses and separate changerooms. That way they keep up their roles in the spectacle. That way the audience will be happy with the ending.
“What is displayed for the public is the great spectacle of Suffering, Defeat and Justice,” said Barthes. “In the ring, and even in the depths of their voluntary ignominy, wrestlers remain gods because they are, for a few moments, the key which … separates Good from Evil, and unveils the form of a Justice which is at last intelligible.”