Human Sacrifice

The June 20th episode of Raw was called “Power to the People” because the fans were able to vote for the matches they wanted.  And who did they select to wrestle against cute little Evan Borne??  None other than massive, ferocious, powerful Mason Ryan.  Ouch!  I guess mis-matches and jobber squashes haven’t gone out of style after all!

Evan Bourne is the world’s last remaining jobber.  While most wrestlers today win some and lose some, and control the action in each match about half the time, this cute kid is a Bourne jobber.  Like Ricky Nelson and Lee Scott from the 1980’s, he’s lean, handsome, hard-bodied, and eager, and almost totally winless.

All the Superstars in the WWE have beaten him down at one time or another, yet he puts a proud smile on his clean-cut face and climbs back in the ring week after week for another whipping.  Just like any jobber.

So why did the fans choose to put Evan Bourne in this position — to suffer the humiliation of a mis-match with a much larger opponent??  Instead of giving him an opponent his own size, why did they prefer to see him demolished, broken, and tortured?

Throughout history, the gods have always demanded blood sacrifices.  To keep the crops growing or to prevent a volcanic eruption, somebody had to suffer and be destroyed.

And you couldn’t just sacrifice a blind old goat, or a murderer or thief.  No — to be effective, you had to sacrifice someone or something pure, innocent, young — that shouldn’t have to suffer.

For example, the god Moloch preferred his sacrifices to be mere children. And the Greeks had to kill their leader’s innocent daughter before they could travel to Troy.  The volcano god only wanted virgins.  Even the Christian god told Abraham to sacrifice his young son, Isaac (but later called it off.)

So I think Evan Bourne (and all the innocent young jobbers who are slaughtered in the ring) represent the modern form of a sacrifice.  The people get antsy if there hasn’t been any sacrifices lately.  Didn’t some preacher predict the End Times a few months ago?  And isn’t 2012 supposed to be the big finish per the Mayan calendar??  Maybe we need to bring back Jobber Squashes so the people chill out a little.

It’s apparently cleansing and pacifying for the people to witness a slaughter every now and then.  They can rest assured that the gods are satisfied for a while and not planning to crush us.  Seeing Evan broken across Ryan’s knee like a sacrificial lamb on the altar fulfills this superstition that the gods hopefully won’t crush us all if we crush one of the dearest among us.

Again and again Borne is cracked over the monster’s thigh, symbolically slaughtered in a public demonstration.  The three  announcers, meanwhile, offer their own speculations as to why the sadistic fans selected the monster, of all people, to take on poor Evan.

Jerry Lawler figures (quite correctly) that the sadistic fans must enjoy violence and pain: “The Universe wanted to see it, and that’s what they’re getting, and they’re maybe liking it right now!”

Booker T., on the other hand, figures the viewers get into muscular “spectacular” men like Mason Ryan.  (Booker must read some of my Blogs that talked about role of the spectacular male.)

He says: “Mason Ryan, guys, is a spectacle.  When you look at this guy you say: Man, I wanna BE like Mason Ryan in so many different ways…” Apparently the people voted for Mason Ryan because they wanted to see him and fantasize about being him.

Michael Cole, the Heel announcer, speculates that the stupid fans made a foolish mistake, putting their poor hero in this painful position.

He mocks the fans for their love and over-rating of Evan Bourne and the punishment they wrought on him:  “And thank you, WWE Universe!  Look what you did to your precious Evan Bourne!… Oh, I love the WWE Universe!  Great choice!” (Dripping with sarcasm.)

Whatever the superstitions or psychology behind it, I think we can agree that wrestling fans dig a good squash match — an utterly one-sided beat-down.  This episode of Raw was called “Power to the People” not just because the people had the authority to select the matches, but also because they had the power to make men suffer.

This is similar to the old gladiator arenas where the fans could vote, thumbs up or thumbs down, to rescue or destroy a fallen warrior.  Evan Bourne must have gotten a Thumbs Down.