Man Against Manager

So you’re watching two men  wrestle when suddenly, a third man (the Heel wrestler’s “manager”) interferes in the match.  Maybe he trips the Baby-Face, or clocks him with a chair, or tosses blinding powder into his eyes.

He cheats to help his wrestler gain the advantage over the out-numbered Good Guy.  It feels so delightfully unfair and dirty, you almost wish the manager would pull out a pair of handcuffs or a bullwhip or nipple clamps, and really take the torture to the limit…

When I was an innocent young lad, I always questioned WHY they allowed these cheating son-of-a-bitches at ringside?  Didn’t the ref realize that the dirty manager in his fancy suit and cocky sunglasses was going to break the rules to help his wrestler win?!?

But now I realize the manager was needed to enhance the cruelty and nastiness of the Heel wrestler just by being at ringside.  His underhanded tactics, his attacks behind the ref’s back, are an extension of the bad guy’s general evilness.

The ring is supposed to be a private space for the two opponents to wrestle in.  The ropes are a barrier that blocks out the rest of the world to leave the two men alone together, like a bedroom with a lock on the door…

When the manager reaches in to attack the good guy, it feels like a jealous lover has barged in to interrupt their privacy and intimacy.

He either wants to prevent the good wrestler from being alone and intimate with his client (his lover?), or he wants to get into the action himself, turning their private moment into a menage-a-trois. When he uses a spike, fork, or other phallic object to strike the good wrestler, it almost feels like a violent gang rape is underway.

In a Tag Team match, when one Baby-Face victim finds himself isolated in the villains’ corner, the interference of the manager — yet another cheater out to hurt the pretty-boy — makes the odds even more overwhelming. Instead of Two Against One, the poor kid finds himself helplessly out-matched in an impossible Three Against One situation!

Many dirty managers wear a business suit and necktie to ringside.  They dress as authority figures in the uniform of the powerful male — a Boss or Official.  We expect them to behave professionally, to exhibit civility and restraint because of their professional dress.

So when the “Suit” proves to be an under-handed cheater, the message to the audience is that you can never trust a “Suit.”  He is a wolf in lawyer’s clothing.  He symbolizes the dishonest salesman, the white collar criminal, the corrupt banker.  The working class audience is wary of his fancy clothing, the uniform of a swindler or a fraud.

The victim, on the other hand, is nearly naked and fully accessible in his trunks and boots, his bare flesh contrasted against the fully-clothed, well dressed manager.  This emphasizes the wrestler’s vulnerability — exposed in his underwear while the manager gets to be fully covered (and therefore more powerful.)   When the Suit reaches into the ring to touch the wrestler’s naked flesh, it feels like a molestation, and the power imbalance of the Clothed Male-Naked Male (CMNM) dynamic is in play.

Meanwhile, the victim gets no help from the official, who is supposed to enforce the rules.  The ref represents law and order (the government) while the dirty manager represents big business, the greedy CEO, the corporation.

The helpless wrestler symbolizes the working class — innocent and hard-working but cheated and exploited at every turn.  He is seen as a hero to the blue collar audience.

Just as the working class is being cheated and exploited by powerful capitalists, while the clueless (or corrupt) government sits back allows it to happen, so too is the wrestling hero being abused while the impotent ref does nothing about it.

The dirty manager is therefore a metaphor for our times — at least in the minds of the working class audience.  Big corporations have taken over our government and our lives — they can do whatever they wish to hurt or punish you, they can break the rules because they have money.  The government, the rule of law and order, will not save you when the heartless corporations decide to claw out your eyes or hit you with a chair (or take away your pension, or lay you off, or pollute your lakes and rivers, etc.)