So let’s say, for the sake of argument, that pro wrestling is fake — that the outcomes are pre-determined and one competitor agrees to swallow his pride and lose on purpose. OK, if this is the case, then I want to know WHY one wrestler would agree to be the whipping boy??
As a wrestling fan, you go through phases in how much you believe the punishment is real. When you are young and impressionable, you may believe the pain is as authentic as a root canal — after all, who would ever suspect that grown, mature men would willingly roll around pretending to be in pain like a bunch of kids playing Super-heroes??
Eventually, you grow up and logic kicks in. You begin to question the realism of pro wrestling — but aren’t totally sure yet if it’s all phoney. Maybe (hopefully) the bad men really fight and hurt each other at least some of the time. It’s like when you’ve got Santa Claus pretty much figured out, but part of you wants to believe, wants the world to remain a mystical, magical place, so you convince yourself the myth is maybe true. You likewise convince yourself some wrestlers really are pure evil and sadistic, because that’s more fun and interesting than believing they’re just playing a role.
But eventually you witness enough sketchy, improbable shit in the ring that there is no denying that the jobber is play-acting his suffering — at least to a large degree. He’s allowing the other man to dominate him for some reason. He’s not even raising his arms to protect his gut. He’s bouncing off the ropes and running right into an elbow like a fool.
At this point, the critical question facing the wrestling fan becomes: Why?? WHY would a grown, mature man willingly debase himself, lose on purpose, pretend to be hurt, weak, and helpless?? Doesn’t he have any pride as a man?
As I went through my developmental phases as a wrestling fan, I dreamed up a variety of theories on why jobbers willingly accept the submissive role…
Maybe, I speculated, the jobber needs the income, so he sells out and accepts the degradation if the price is right (like a whore). Once he committed to a career as a pro wrestler, maybe he couldn’t find a job that could pay for his playboy lifestyle. So he remains a bitch-boy for pay.
Or maybe the jobber gets off on pro wrestling regardless of which role he must play. I could identify with a man enjoying the body contact so much that he is willing to play the weakling just to be permitted to partake in the hottest sport ever invented.
For a while, I figured that maybe the big, tough, dominant wrestlers forced the jobbers to sell the pain, or they’d punish them for their disobedience. I pictured some big Heel whispering in his jobber’s ear before the match: “You better make this look good and groan real loud after I pretend to kick you, or I’ll really stomp on that cute face. You understand me, punk!?” (“Yes sir! Yes sir!”)
I’m not sure how much I truly believed in this theory, but it was fun to imagine that conversation. (Did anyone else out there dream up scenarios like this to justify the jobber’s self-imposed degradation??)
Or perhaps pro wrestling was like high school, and a group of cool wrestlers (the top stars) stuck together and dominated the locker room, bullying the chubby, wimpy misfits. I’d picture a group of big thugs surrounding a frightened jobber and saying: “You can fight back tonight in the ring if you want, and try to win — but just remember: we’ll be waiting for you right here when you finish. You may win in the ring, but we will make you pay for it in blood…”
If you’ve ever been surrounded, pushed against the lockers, and then had your lunch money taken away, then you’d understand that this Bully Conspiracy theory of jobbing makes some sense. It’s no less brutal than an actual high school hallway between classes.
Clearly, nobody enjoys failing to win a competition. Nobody wants to look like a pathetic loser. Nobody throws a contest to allow some other guy to get ahead and enjoy the prize. So once I realized the jobbers were losing their fights on purpose, I had to understand why. Speculating on the jobbers’ motivation — thinking up theories and fantasies to explain this bizarre submissiveness — made pro wrestling seem even more exciting than if it were a bona fide sporting competition with a straight-forward victory by the better man.