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Popular Culture Review
NWA’s constituent members, and pumped a good deal of his personal fortune into
it, hoping to displace McMahon’s WWF as the nation’s top promotion.
After a heated decade-long inter-promotional rivalry that featured talent raids
and salary wars, Turner’s WCW, having been acquired by AOL as part of its merger
with Time Warner, was bought by the WWF in early 2001. After a brief “Invasion”
storyline, WCW was officially put to rest, its titles merged with the WWF’s own
and its remaining wrestlers absorbed into the WWF. On the heels of this victory,
however, the World Wrestling Federation was forced to change its name because
of a trademark lawsuit brought by the World Wildlife Foundation. The world being
only big enough for one WWF, the World Wrestling Federation changed its offi
cial name to World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE.
World Wrestling Entertainment, the only remaining “big league” for profes
sional wrestling in North America, currently televises two weekly national televi
sion programs, Raw (Monday nights, TNN) and Smackdown (Thursday nights,
UPN). Five other shows, some with original in-ring action and others that merely
recap the flagship shows, fill out the balance of WWE programming. MTV also
airs Tough Enough, a reality-style program that chronicles the training of wouldbe prospects—the winners of each season get developmental contracts with the
WWE. In addition, WWE produces a pay-per-view roughly every month, and
merchandises a range of disposables, from t-shirts featuring popular stars and their
catchphrases to a replica Rey Mysterio, Jr. luchadore mask. The WWE is big money:
in 2002, an off year, the company reported revenues of over $425 million. The
source of this money shows the WWE’s reach: live events, television advertising,
pay-per-views, merchandising, and a Times Square restaurant, the World (WWE
Annual Report).
This prosperity rests firmly on tricks culled from decades of carnivals. The
“insider” parlance of professional wrestling is littered with camie survivals. Fans,
particularly those who “believe” the storylines, are “marks.” Wrestlers booked as
fan favorites are “faces” (derived from “baby face”), while antagonists are “heels.”
By pairing faces and heels, promoters hope to create compelling storylines that
will “put asses in the seats,” i.e., increase attendance at live shows, ratings on free
TV shows, and buyrates for pay-per-views. Wrestlers are showcased as anatomical
specimens and acclaimed for their strength, muscular development, agility, or physi
cal courage (or, as is often remarked, “testicular fortitude”). In addition, the beauty
and physical charms of female wrestlers are used to attract wrestling’s base of
young male viewers. In this sense, professional wrestling is like a traveling, tele
vised carnival sideshow, which brings an assortment of oddities and exceptional
human beings (such as the strong man) to town.
Wrestling also retains a similarity to carnivals in its presentation. Nothing is
ever presented at face value. Elaborate out-of-ring storylines set up to justify the