At first I wasn’t sure what this week’s column would be about. I didn’t want to discuss anything similar to my previous two columns, but I also didn’t want to go off on a crazy rant about a controversial subject. I want to save that for sweeps week. It wasn’t until watching the main event of last night’s WWE pay per view “Elimination Chamber” that I knew exactly what to discuss.

But before I begin, I just want to talk a little about the pyrotechnical malfunction that occurred right before the aforementioned match. In case a few of you weren’t able to watch the show, during Undertaker’s entrance to the ring, his jacket was caught on fire due to a poorly timed fireball from the ramp and he suffered a burn on his chest. Of course none of this was mentioned on television, and I give Mr. Calaway a ton of credit for maintaining his cool during the broadcast. I imagine the risk of being set on fire doesn’t sound very appealing to most people, and if he’s pissed off about it, I say he has every right to be. I hope that his injury has been treated well, and that he will be able to work up until Wrestlemania with little pain.

Such entrance gaffes, along with the mechanical errors from the two pod doors, are what have inspired me to talk a bit about the rapid growth of the ring entrance and the gimmick match. Both factors, while having nothing to do with the act of wrestling itself, are not only common, but are the expected norms in a professional wrestling show. For better or for worse, they are here to stay. But it wasn’t always like this.

At the beginning of professional wrestling’s first “golden era” of the mid to late 50s, the ring entrance was very simplistic. It consisted of the wrestler walking down to the ring with the crowd booing or cheering him, entering the ring, and lightly taunting the crowd while waiting for his opponent. This is the foundation of all wrestling entrances. Even theme music, which is now given to pretty much every wrestler, wasn’t a common thing in those times. Some believe that a man named Glen Stride was the first to incorporate music to his entrance while others have given the nod to former women’s champion Mildred Burke. Most would agree, however, that it was Gorgeous George who brought theme music into mainstream professional wrestling, and it was guys like Hulk Hogan, Honky Tonk Man, The Fabulous Freebirds, and “Ravishing” Rick Rude who helped popularize it.

Yes, I have a point to this history lesson. Over the span of so many years, music went from being a rarity to becoming a requirement. Now that everyone was getting theme music, there had to be a new way of standing out from the crowd. There was only so much a wrestler could do with just theme music. As the nineties made their way, and the era of grunge and attitude was encompassing all of Americana, the creative minds in professional wrestling were looking for a way to bring more “entertainment” into their shows each night. Much like one would find at a rock concert or at a performance show, pyrotechnics and props were created as a means of enhancing star appeal and hyping up the fans. At first pyrotechnics (pyro for short) consisted of a couple rockets being shot at in different directions, but as technology improved over time, many shapes and colors were implemented into pyro, and the more complicated an entrance got, the higher the mountain of expectation became. The usage of props has, for the most part, faded away along with the nineties, but twenty years ago it seemed like every wrestler had at least one product to their name. Rick Martel, when he was known as “The Model,” would often carry with him an atomizer that was filled with a cologne he would appropriately call “Arrogance”. Jake Roberts would bring a bag with a giant snake in it. Undertaker would have his manager Paul Bearer carry an urn to the ring. Even Shawn Michaels, once upon a time, would bring a mirror to the ring. He would eventually move on to pyro, but more on that later.

I could keep going. Hercules with his chains. Big Boss Man with his nightstick. Jimmy Hart with his megaphone. Mankind with his sock puppet “Socko”, and who could forget Al Snow with the strangely popular “Head”. What does everybody want? Merchandising! Before the time of video games and iPhone applications, action figures were all the rage for kids, and of course each action figure had to have a small item that best represented the wrestler. Whether Vince was trying to make action figure out of wrestlers, or wrestlers out of action figures, is a debate that continues to this day. Eventually the use of props just came to a sudden halt. Was it because action figure sales declined? Was it because the wrestlers kept losing their props are the airport luggage pickups? Perhaps a kid shoved a sock in another kid’s mouth and died from asphyxiation? Whatever the case may be, props were cast aside and greater emphasis was placed on a wrestler’s Jumbotron, pyro, and entrance to the ring.
It’s easy to understand why some wrestlers have entrances that are more complex than others, especially when it comes to their pay per view appearances; they need to keep raising fan expectations. How could anyone forget Shawn Michael’s rappel from the rafters at Wrestlemania 12? It was new, it was fresh, and the people loved it. Now how about Owen Hart’s tragic fall from Over the Edge ‘99? It was a similar idea, but it had a very different result. Many blame Vince, and even despise him, for the accident, and if you’re one of those people I respect your opinion. However, Vince McMahon is, above all else, a businessman; a very successful one at that. This man has the unenviable task of trying to please the unappeased week after week. If something is repetitious, he gets criticized for it. If he tries something different and it fails, he still gets criticized for it. If he tries something different and it works, the fans will love him…until next week when they want something different. I may not like many of the decisions that Vince McMahon makes, but I have all the respect in the world for his many attempts to bring something new and exciting to the world of professional wrestling, a form of entertainment that is laughed at by a majority of the media.

My apologies for digressing from the main point. Let’s go back to ring entrances. As I was saying earlier, Shawn Michaels was one of the big names that incorporated pyro into his entrance. Whether it was as “The Heartbreak Kid,” or as the leader of the rebellious D-Generation X, that pyro would be your wake up call to either cheer or jeer him. Because of his great success, many other wrestlers had this sudden belief that if they had pyro, they would get over as well. And as the use of pyro grew, so too did the means to present it to the fans. Whether it was off the ramps, off the sides, from the top, or even in the ring itself, pyro got bigger, hotter, and more explosive. This brings me back to Undertaker’s pyro accident. The bigger pyro gets, the greater the risks get. This isn’t the first time that pyro got out of control. Back at Wrestlemania 24, when the show ended with pyro going off on wires from all around the arena, a few of the explosions wound up injuring a number of fans in the upper seats. Back in WCW, Goldberg’s entrance could cause slight burns to not only the wrestlers, but to fans who sat up close to the entrance. In TNA, a pay per view was delayed due to a fire that occurred from technical difficulties in the arena. For the record, I think the pyrotechnics group should be commended for having a high safety priority, and that such accidents are few and far between. Not all entrances require pyro though, and I suppose my main point is that there should be pyro, but not too much of it. Undertaker has a great entrance, but does he need to have fireballs rise up from the ground? And if so, does he need more than two? Does Kurt Angle, a wrestler whose actions speak for themselves, need to have red, white, and blue pyro shoot off into the air? Edge used to just come out with a smoke machine and flashing lights. Does he really need pyro too? And don’t get me started on the use of pyro in independent federations. That just shouldn’t even occur. These are all things to consider next time you watch a wrestling show.

Don’t think I didn’t forget about gimmick matches. A lot of people are criticizing the WWE for replacing familiar pay per views with shows that focus on one type of gimmick match. Whether it’s TLC, Hell in a Cell, The Elimination Chamber, Hardcore rules, or even Submission matches, Vince has decided to replace the idea of using these matches randomly throughout the year with getting them out of the way with their own show. Just recently The Survivor Series has been shelved and replaced with a pay per view dedicated to Money in the Bank, a young yet traditional match that is the highlight of more recent Wrestlemanias. I can’t say this left a good taste in my mouth, but neither did my first bottle of beer. What I’m trying to get at is that all new things are bound to bring uncertainty and fear, and we naturally reject such change. These gimmick pay per views could become as successful as Raw, or as big a disaster as the XFL. Either way, we have to give the company kudos for trying something new, even if they fail. Failure does not mean the end of everything. This is not a sign of the “end of day”, and no four horsemen (the bad kind) are going to come down and cause Armageddon (again, the bad kind) to all of mankind (the kind without a sock puppet). It only means that they go back to the drawing board and come up with something different.

The only real problem I have with gimmick matches is how many risky spots there are. Don’t get me wrong, I love ladder matches, table matches, and the classic “flaming-ring-filled-with-barbed-wire-that-explodes-every-five-minutes” matches. What I don’t love is the fact that they need to be used so often, and without any good reason. You know why the cage match was so great years ago? Because it had a legitimate storyline purpose. With a cage a heel can’t run away and can’t have his buddies help him; well, that was the original idea at least. The ladder match had a story where two guys thought they were both champions of the same belt, so they used a ladder to see who was more willing to reach for that belt; it was a glorified tiebreaker. Now considering those two match types, can anyone tell me what the tale of the Hell in a Cell match was? Can anyone tell me what the Elimination Chamber’s story is all about? Does anyone here actually know the legend of the Parking Lot Brawl match? These were not creations based on stories, but rather they were destructive tools used to ensure that there would be blood, high risk spots, and a fat increase in buy rates.

So knowing all this, what good can get out of it? Well, change isn’t necessarily a bad thing…in moderation. These pay per view changes were rushed, and the sudden replacement of a number of popular pay per views caused an online uproar. If it were me at the helm, I would have done a slow progression of name changes and subsequent gimmick match additions. Over time, if the buys were decent, I would add another one, and so on and so forth, until a fair amount of people were used to the idea. Vince’s method is like ripping a Band-Aid from a wound. It gets done at once, but leaves a lot of people in pain. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but it’s something that takes getting used to. These changes help the WWE, and other wrestling companies, grow and alter their look and demographic accordingly. That doesn’t sound too bad to me.

And as for entrances? They’re manageable risks with rewards. For every one pyro incident there are hundreds of memorable moments that we can’t ever forget. From fire to smoke to monks to money from the sky to cars to thrones to American flags to techno lights, and yes, even to a slide from the rafters, they create lasting impressions of the times and of the people who represented those times.

Alright, let’s go over the main points I made.

-Entrances have grown over the years, and will continue to do so.

-Pyro, while dangerous, does bring a thrill not seen often at other events.

-The way a wrestler presents himself to the ring can make or break a character.

-Props are dead. The William Regal figure will not come with crown included.

-Gimmick matches are routine, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

-The pay per view name change is a forced evolution (remember the “In Your House” shows?)

My Final Statement: Professional wrestling is not just about the wrestlers. It’s also about the way a character is presented to the fans, and in that regard, ring entrances and gimmick matches are of a great importance that will continue on for many years.

Remember, if you guys have any ideas for what my next Silver Lining should be, or if you just want me to Suck It, e-mail me at tagibbs4@yahoo.com

Until next time, remember that every ring is bound to have a silver lining.