thoughts on The Duct Tape decade of wrestling - deaduck's Blog

deaduck's Blog

thoughts on The Duct Tape decade of wrestling

Posted on May 2, 2009 at 02:09 PM.

(2)

"It is...in the body of the wrestler that we find the first key to the contest...the physique of the wrestler...constitutes a basic sign, which like the seed contains the whole fight."

Roland Barthes,"The World of Wrestling"

Sir Barthes was of course refering to one of the classic ages of wrestling where a parade of talents worked their craft under a bright spotlight. An age that the wrestler himself was part of the match not a character defined outside of it.

In todays Duct Tape era of wrestling, the workers themselves are homogenized to the point of abstraction. While tremendous athletes, the physiques barely stray outside the ups and downs of house testing. The haircuts are cookie cutter and the tats tend to make the whole collection look as if a gang is having a round robin tourny within itself.

In this era, the look of the roster is so standardized that the few outside the median range are forced to be defined by it. A giant is asked to be little more than all the other giants. Races are a character trait that pigeon holes the entirety of a workers being.

Turn off the volume, and watch with a clear eye.

That seed of the entire fight, the physique, has been trimmed to a bonsai like perfection so that all that remains is different colored tights are at odds.

Comments

# 1 njd.aitken @ May 2

Its Operation Sports, not Operation Staged Entertainment.

# 2 deaduck @ May 3

Two points....

One, It's a sub forum. So yeah, I feel comfortable blogging on it

And two...

The friggin' board is mainly about simulated sports in the form of video games. Not really the glass house you wanna start a rock fight from.