No Surprise

If you watched pro wrestling in the 1970’s and 1980’s, you’re familiar with the old “Jobber Squash” match.  This is where a talented Superstar would mercilessly beat up some inferior opponent — either some dude you never heard of before, or more likely, a determined but unlucky (or unskilled) Joe Sixpack type of guy who could just never seem to win.  Ever.  This guy, the perpetual loser, was known as the “jobber.”  He got paid to get beat up and to look really pathetic and hurting and vulnerable while doing it.

Even before the opening bell, you just knew that the guy wearing a championship belt and having his own entrance music theme song — who got into the ring second — was going to win.  The guy with a really common name like Tommy or Gene or Paul (and having no descriptor like “Amazing” or “Enforcer” or “Flamboyant” in his name) — the common looking guy already in the ring when they came back from commercial — was going to lose.  And if you knew your wrestlers, you knew exactly what holds would be used in the destruction of the jobber.  There was very little surprise and very little variation.

Each week, they would feature Arn Anderson, for example, torturing and defeating yet another chubby or young or cute or over-the-hill jobber — whomever he was being paid to punish that week.  Arn would invariably:

1. Start with a series of long-held arm bars from both a standing and kneeling position.

2.  Increase the level of punishment by twisting the arm in a circle over his head then snapping it down.

3. Mix in some loud strikes, stomping or slamming a knee down on the arm.

4. Hammerlock the arm behind the victim’s back and body-slam him onto his trapped arm.

5. Get a bit kinky by twisting the arm grotesquely around the ropes or ring post.

6. After about 6 minutes, REALLY bend the arm out of joint to ultimately force a screaming submission, or sometimes pin the man.

It was like a formula, and just like a formula, the result was the same each time.  Where is the entertainment value in such a repetitive spectacle with a known outcome?

In most sports, the excitement comes from not knowing who will win, in watching twists of fate and surprise plays that leave the outcome in question until the last second.  In fact, if a baseball or football team loses week after week, the fans  stop showing up.  However, when it comes to pro wrestling, even though there was no suspense in the outcome of the match, and even though the star wrestler repeated the same moves week after week like a dance routine, it was still somehow very thrilling to watch and fans would tune in or show up at the arenas.

The main reason behind the rise of the weekly television squash match was to encourage fans to attend the big arena shows or, after Pay-Per-View was invented, to shell out for the next Event.  If you wanted to see a real competition, if you wanted to experience the thrill of not knowing who was going to win, well you were going to have to pay for it.  They used the weekly televised squash matches to show off the sweet finishing holds and promote the big-named wrestlers’ awesomeness, with passionate, cocky, or angry interviews to stir up interest in the next big Event.  It was like a tease to get you excited for more, careful never to give away too much for free until after you’d gotten your wallet out.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the closing credits.  Some fans actually fell in love with these sadistic, low-budget squash matches and began favoring these weekly beat-downs to the big grudge matches.  Certain young wrestling fans would rush home from school, or stay up late after everyone else was in bed, or lock themselves in their room (if they had their own t.v.) just to view the same exact series of moves applied by the same star wrestler on whatever rag-doll victim, and with absolutely no surprise in who was ultimately going to win.  And they loved it — they wouldn’t miss it for the world!  It was a ritual — it was habit-forming like a drug.

The Super-star wrestler, because of his ability to control and punish everyone they pitted against him, became an object of greater awe and wide-eyed worship by winning time after time.  Fans tuned in each week hoping he’d be on the show, each notch he carved in his wrestling belt further enhancing his legendary awesomeness.

The parade of soft-bellied victims eagerly marching to slaughter each week also drew the interest of the viewers, with their expressions of suffering and groans of agony playing on your feelings of compassion, or contempt, or blood-lust.  To this day, some wrestling fans pine for the days of the jobber squash match, actually preferring the ritualistic, pre-determined, slow-paced, repetitive format to the wild, back-and-forth, high-energy spot-fests of the modern age.