Hosses are good??

[Paranoid Rattlesnake]

It always amazes me how different types of people perceive WWE wrestling in completely different ways.


Certain ‘smart marks’ of this world are so obsessed by workrate they constantly give the impression they wouldn’t be happy unless every single pay-per-view had three cruiserweight matches on it, Chris Benoit was World Champ for life and Triple H was jobbed out to Paul London at the next given opportunity. But not everyone has that opinion – which is why Vince McMahon has to tailor his product to suit a diverse range of customer needs.


Take my five-year-old brother, for example. He is obsessed by giants. Hence The Big Show and Mark Henry are his two favourite wrestlers. Like it or not, their larger-than-large appearance – and the fact that big dudes appeal to a certain type of fan - is exactly why these unco-ordinated galoots are on the WWE payroll. Well, that and the fact Vince was once stupid enough to sign them to 10-year contracts.


Watching an episode of RAW with a female who hates wrestling can also be a fascinating experience. Last fridays RAW, in the rare company of the ravishing laura, was an insight into a completely different perspective. Having no interest in seeing a great match, a well-booked storyline or an entertaining promo, instead she made her judgements on each RAW wrestler based solely on their appearance. Bear in mind my dear girl is an assistant manager at a leading fashion retail store. So in her line of work, image is everything…and first impressions count.


Here was her initial reaction, bearing in mind she knows very little about any of them, on seeing the following list of superstars come out on fridays’s RAW:


Rob Van Dam - “Silly hairdo.”

Booker T – “Looks like that bloke from the Black Eyed Peas.”

Matt Hardy – “Don’t care for his outfit.”

Scott Steiner – “Is he mummified?”

Rene Dupree – “Tan line is too obvious.”

Chris Jericho – “Wears lilac pants, enough said.”

Triple H – “Has to be the ugliest man alive. Can’t he afford a nose job?”

Mark Henry – “You can’t put a man that size in a leotard.”

Batista – “What a hunk.”


What does this prove? Well, some ‘smart marks’ often give the impression they don’t think a wrestler’s look is very important. They reckon as long as he can perform a shooting star press or an Exploder suplex, it doesn’t matter if he’s five foot six and has all the muscle definition of a warthog.


But the fact is, it DOES matter. McMahon wants two things from his WWE TV shows – high ratings and to attract new fans. And if getting casual channel-hoppers or the likes of Laura to tune into RAW every week means giving TV time to a handsome, well-tanned physical specimen with all the wrestling ability of a turnip (like, say, Batista) at the expense of more talented types who fell out of the ugly tree and hit one or two branches on the way down (like Kanyon, remember him?) then that is exactly what he will continue to do. Like it or not, which I don’t. But at least I accept it.


On a side note, after Rico came prancing out last night for his match with Mark Henry, kissed Theodore Long on his bald bonce before mounting the World’s Strongest Man and riding him around the ring doggy-style, Laura turned to me and said: “So what’s his gimmick then?”


Bless her.