52. WRESTLING WITH THE GUILT OF WRESTLING: Can You Be An Ethical Person and Support an Unethical Business?
It has been tough to be a fan of professional wrestling this month, especially British professional wrestling. The #SpeakingOut hashtag on Twitter alleged many working in the industry to be sexual predators, including allegations of the systematic grooming of underage women training for careers in the ring, and of violent rape. As someone who has been a fan of wrestling for nearly thirty years, it was heartbreaking to hear people’s stories and learn that wrestlers who I have cheered for at ringside, and proudly worn the t-shirts of, had done such reprehensible things. As a philosopher, especially a philosopher interested in ethics, it was the latest in a list that feels far too long of moral wrongs surrounding the industry that it feels increasingly impossible to turn a blind eye towards. I have been a fan since April of 1992, but this may have been the month wrestling and I finally have to part ways.
Believe it or not I used to actually make a moral case for wrestling. As a younger man I would point people towards the underlying pacifism of wrestling - that it was only simulated violence, almost a mockery of it - that it gave us an aesthetic and artistic expression of violence without people actually getting hurt. Or I would show how it was a noble example of selflessness and mutual cooperation, working together to put on a spectacle, largely through improvisation, responding to the mood of the crowd, and working just as hard to lose the match and make your opponent look good as you would at putting yourself over. I was excited to learn how theatrical improviser, Keith Johnstone, famously devised the common rules now used around the globe for improvising comedy from watching wrestlers call their matches in the ring, believing this somehow gave the pseudo-sport artistic merit as a craft. For years I considered taking wrestling seriously, philosophically, and contributing something on the idea of wrestling as an unexpected vehicle of peace to a philosophy of sport journal. I remember reading Roland Barthes describe wrestling as “a spectacle of excess” in his book, Mythologies, and was excited earlier this year to see Douglas Edwards bring out his new book, Philosophy Smackdown. But I think part of what stopped me seriously pursuing the philosophy of wrestling was the dark truth I knew I was ignoring every time I switched on the TV and heard that bell ring. I could choose to see the fake fight in front of me as a brutalist ballet, a masterclass in cooperation and non-violent outlet for our most violent instincts, or I could see it for what it really was: human beings being massively exploited, and put at great risk of personal injury, to make money for uncaring promoters.
It was easier to sleep at night telling myself the exploited performers “loved it” and were choosing to take the risk to do what they love just as a mountain climber or explorer might choose to live a life of danger to pursue their great passion, or that the physical risks were just part of the trade-off of doing what you loved, like a musician having to suffer the strain which touring puts on the body, or an actor being away from their loved ones for six months as they shoot a movie halfway around the world, but such arguments were bogus and I knew it. In wrestling the physical punishment is the job, not just an ancillary of it - taking bump after bump after bump was the thing they were doing. It jars the body. The illusion of physical violence coming at the expense of doing genuine violence to their own flesh and bone in a sleight of hand which masks only which part of the body, and whose body, is experiencing the impact of the move. Would these people truly “love” putting themselves through such physical pain if there were not bills they needed to have paid and no other alternatives open to them for doing so? And if it is the thought of screaming crowds calling their names which appeals, is that not too a symptom of some other dysfunction in one’s psychology common to so many performers; needing that approval of strangers even at great personal expense?
The problem with arguments from personal choice, where we say people ought to be free to do what they want to do, is that they easily ignore the external and internal factors that make much of what we “choose” no choice at all. Take away our economic system, would we still have professional wrestling? The “professional” bit suggests an inherent intertwining of the physical acts and the paycheque which comes from engaging in it.
Even if we come to terms with the actual act of wrestlers wrestling (the people risking their health in the ring may still enjoy the art and the thrill, just as might anyone involved in a risky sport. As a person with tattoos, I know myself the strange pleasure of choosing to knowingly have your body harmed for a perceived greater good.), in the current industry such wrestlers - whether freely choosing to wrestle or not - remain exploited. Considered “independent contractors” performers put their bodies on the line each night for promoters to make money from them, but are not covered as employees of that promoter. There is therefore no obligation for promoters to worry about the long term wellbeing of the wrestling talent, to put them up in decent hotels where they can rest their tired bodies on the road, to cover the costs of their transportation, and, in America, to pay for healthcare benefits. There is no unionisation in wrestling, no fairness of pay. Just a series of individual contracts with significant disparity between what different performers can command. Supporting the wrestling business is to support this kind of organised exploitation to benefit the promoters and company owners (or, in the case of WWE, shareholders) and not the actual labourers (the wrestlers) putting themselves at risk for our entertainment. They break their leg, or their neck, it’s a shame, but the show must go on and they are not considered the legal or financial problem of the company where they were injured.
So even without a single match or storyline to make me ask ethical questions, the very set up of wrestling is ethically problematic:
Forced by an economic system to commodify their own bodies and put those bodies through risk and damage in order to entertain us with a taxing spectacle of high-impact faux violence.
Exploited by a system set up to make money for promoters and pay the least amount of money back to the wrestlers themselves where they are not even recognised as being “employed”.
No unionisation.
But even ignoring that, and the trail of broken limbs, long-term concussive brain damage, and premature deaths caused by the lifestyle needed to be successful in such an industry (Google “wrestler deaths” and get back to me if you dispute that claim, or watch the five matches which still took place on the 1999 pay-per-view Over The Edge after a stunt went wrong on the show and wrestler Owen Hart died in the ring if you really think wrestling is a harmless art done merely for the love of the craft), we then have the actual content of the wrestling itself and the moral problems which arise there too.
First, a rebuttal to my own ludicrous earlier argument about pacifism - yes, wrestling is fake and no real violence is taking place, but the very premise of wrestling is the continuous argument that if A and B have a dispute, that dispute can only be resolved through physical violence. Wrestling does not promote peace, it promotes violence because it speaks only the language of violence. Ever-escalating violence, in fact, building from a simple match to bloodier gimmick matches before a storyline conflict is blown off. No two wrestlers have a problem and seek a non-violent solution to their issue; it always ends in the ring because that is the product. So watching wrestling teaches the lesson that the only logical outcome to any conflict is to end it with battle. That in itself is ethically troubling. And the trouble is not merely symbolic. In the market-leader of professional wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), real-life conflicts are often mined for wrestling fodder, perpetuating racist stereotypes and jingoistic nationalism as well as glorifying war. The most ludicrous version of this was perhaps Wrestlemania VII, in 1991, which was built around American hero, Hulk Hogan, and the evil “Iraqi sympathiser”, Sgt Slaughter even though the war in Iraq had ended by the time the event rolled around. Wrestling has a long history of taking national enemies and replicating the very real conflicts as racist pantomime - “evil” Japanese, Russian, European, Afghan, Iraqi, etc. “bad guys” taking on the domestic hero. Combined with, WWE in particular, being run by right-wing business people, we also get that pantomime reflecting the general political views of the promoters and serving overt propaganda purposes. Evil hippies, evil environmentalists, evil intellectuals and experts, evil teachers…wrestling has been on the wrong side of history, and decency, so many times in its storylines it is hard to keep count. As a wrestling fan of nearly thirty years I have seen wrestling be racist, sexist, homophobic and deeply xenophobic and I have just accepted it as part of a broken system I have put up with because ultimately I enjoy watching it. But you combine these two factors - the promotion of violence and the promotion of bigotry - and you have a business which could be accused of actively encouraging violence against groups painted as wrestling “villains” in wider society. Never forget, the current President of the United States, Donald Trump, is, himself, a long-time wrestling fan and performer. Much of his verbal playbook comes from the promos of professional wrestling and, unfortunately, his dangerously simplistic black and white view of the world as good guys and bad guys is also something he owes to his love of professional wrestling.
And then there’s the blood money from Saudi Arabia. WWE, despite the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, refused to back down from a lucrative business deal with the kingdom and continued to make millions from the very crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, accused of assassinating Khashoggi (even causing some wrestlers to be held hostage briefly in the country last year over a botched television deal!) Or the questionable partnerships with the US military and annual Tribute To The Troops shows which began as a way of glorifying two unjustified wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Or, for the religious out there, there was that time Vince McMahon and Shane McMahon had a tag-team match against Shawn Michaels and God and Vince and Shane won. Or perhaps the entire decades women either weren’t used on the shows or were portrayed merely as sex-objects or “divas”? Or that time D-X did blackface on national TV?
As a wrestling fan you put up with a lot of awful stuff, but the WWE produce a minimum of six hours of TV a week, with three hours for Raw, two for Smackdown and one for NXT on weeks without an additional three hour pay-per-view. There will be a lot of bad ideas amongst the good. And there always were the occasional good ones - dream matches or interesting storylines that kept me from switching off - but in recent months, as the world went into lockdown to protect us all from Covid-19, one of the things that has made me have to confront the immorality of being a wrestling fan once again is that since the world shut down in March, not a single episode of WWE Raw, WWE Smackdown, or AEW Dynamite has been missed. Both wrestling companies found closed-set locations and asked their wrestlers to irresponsibly travel and record TV during the pandemic. As every other real sport in the world suspended action, professional wrestling carried on as normal. And, like a car passing a crash on the motorway, I, like so many others, slowed down to look at the carnage. Weird, sterile matches with no crowd sound. A Wrestlemania without energy or purpose. AEW was better. They at least used the other talent not wrestling as a makeshift crowd to give the shows atmosphere. But every time I watched I was thinking - these guys are already exploited for my entertainment, and now they are being made to put themselves, their families, and anyone they came into contact with on the road at risk to entertain me even when the world had shut down all essential industries. I am a nearly thirty year wrestling fan; wrestling has got me through break-ups, illness, the deaths of my parents; but even I wouldn’t call it “essential”. Just this week, multiple WWE employees tested positive for Covid-19 because of their continuation of television filming during a pandemic. One is married to the champion of rival promotion AEW, who had to miss their own TV taping, may end up infected himself, and as he is due to defend his title soon on live TV, may return to spread the virus to the other organisation.
And now there’s the sexual abuse. Not just one story, but many. An entire #MeToo movement for the industry. Specifically (although several named wrestlers are now working for WWE and AEW) the British independent wrestling industry. Because, being morally troubled by the market-leader WWE, and the cultural and business practices of WWE which are replicated in new number two American company, AEW, I had somehow held on to the idea that by supporting the independent wrestling business I was trying to push wrestling into a better future. How could you not feel a UK promotion called “Progress” was an organisation there to do anything else but push the industry forwards? I remember being amazed to discover LGBTQ-positive characters like Jack Sexsmith and his tag team partner, David Starr (an outspoken advocate for unionisation of the wrestling business) being pushed and “foreign” wrestlers like New Zealand’s Travis Banks being cheered and adored as “our champion” by open-minded crowds, or the British luchadore, Ligero, poking fun at wrestling’s Mexican stereotypes by conforming to all of them despite coming from Leeds. In the classroom I left behind when the schools closed because of Covid 19 is a picture of Progress’ Jack Gallagher, a wrestler I was pleased to discover had studied philosophy at university and use as an example to my students that a philosophy degree can take you anywhere. All of these men have now had allegations made against them - along with many, many others - that sicken me. Abuse, rape, underage grooming on a seeming institutional level in British training schools and independent promotions. Women and men afraid to speak out and threatened with the end of their careers if they did.
Because that artificially happy picture I drew of wrestling as a world of mutual cooperation where you work just as hard to lose a match as you do to win one hides the dirty truth that a world of fake fighting, with pre-determined winners and losers, means a world where the booker of each promotion is god. Your fate is not in your own hands, and has nothing to do with merit. You win because someone tells you you will win, and if you do anything that puts you in that person’s disfavour then you lose. And this can be used as a form of power and control, exploiting not just a wrestler’s labour and bodily safety, but other aspects of their lives if they have no other choice but to put their professional success in the hands, and whims, of that booker.
So as I write this I have had to do some serious thinking. To be honest, I wrote most of this two weeks ago, when the allegations were first coming out and I was trying to organise my thoughts. While I didn’t know about the sexual abuse allegations until they were made this month, everything else in here I have known about and turned a blind eye to for nearly three decades. While not exactly being an apologist for the wrestling industry, I have been selective in what I focus on, remembering the classic matches, enjoying the “good bits” of the TV shows and pay-per-views and watching the rest with one eye on the screen and another on my phone. I have rolled my eyes a lot over the years, but not yet quite found the strength to simply stop looking with them. At what point, however, does continuing to watch something so deeply exploitative and morally questionable make you complicit in it?
I remember Peter Singer once saying that sometimes we just have to acknowledge we are doing the wrong thing. It doesn’t absolve us, but it is worth acknowledging it even if we know we are not going to stop doing the immoral thing. I think Singer’s example was something honourable, like saving someone you love from a burning house instead of saving ten strangers. On utilitarian reasoning such thinking (saving one instead of ten) is wrong, but as a human you can’t stop yourself. You’re just going to save the person you love. That doesn’t make it right though. It is still wrong. But sometimes you just have to hold your hands up and say “yup, I did the wrong thing there, but I don’t regret it.”
I think with wrestling, for me, it has been like that. Like watching a bad movie and enjoying it because it is bad. I know watching wrestling is wrong and yet I keep on watching. Throughout Covid19 I have watched AEW every week, despite my objection to their continuing to produce shows. I even bought their pay-per-view. I haven’t watched WWE’s weekly shows. But if I am honest with myself it has not been a boycott because of their putting performers at risk during a pandemic (before this week’s new positive cases of Covid 19, a week ago someone in their crowd tested positive for the virus and those in attendance were told not to wear masks because they looked bad on TV!) but because, frankly, I just don’t think they do a very good show anymore. Their writing has been poor for years and once AEW existed as a viable alternative, I had no reason to keep watching. And even then I’ve still watched their bigger events “just to see”. Let’s face it, it’s been too many years. I’m an addict now. I’m trying to come off wrestling, have weaned myself away from WWE, but I’m still on the patches - AEW, NXT, New Japan Pro Wrestling, Progress... And the primary motivator for stopping watching WWE has been about hours in the day and whether the TV show is worth it, not a moral stance. Even now, do I want to stop watching wrestling and contribute to killing the very industry in which the victims who have been so brave coming forward and #SpeakingOut want to work in without fear of sexual predators? Or do I want to keep watching, amplify the voices for change, and see wrestling get better? Can wrestling get better or is it fundamentally immoral? I really don’t know anymore. The UK promotion I mentioned - Progress - attempted a clear-out of suspect talent and restructuring at the top, only within 24 hours to have the new faces in charge finding themselves accused of terrible things. Is the industry just inherently immoral?
All I know is that in the process of writing this the arguments not to watch wrestling seem fairly clear, and the arguments for continuing seem to amount to nothing more than it being a habit I find it too hard to break.
But then, at least before covid-19, I still flew in airplanes, sometimes multiple times a year, despite knowing the damage they bring to the environment. I still eat eggs and cheese despite knowing I should be vegan. It is one thing to let ten people die in a burning building to save your child or spouse and live with a reasonable acceptance of that moral wrong, but continuing to do the wrong thing just because it is hard to break a habit or because you don’t want to lose the (guilty) pleasure it brings is hardly a legitimate moral excuse. And if I don’t want to ban all dairy from my diet just yet, or stop travelling, surely the very least I could do is stop watching people pretend to hit each other every week?
I wish it was that easy.
The problem with ethical reasoning in the abstract is that the rubber meets the road when it comes to applying those conclusions to real life. Morality can get crowded out by other more pressing (motivationally) considerations (such as seeking the enjoyment which comes from a good Matt Hardy storyline, or hearing Chris Jericho on commentary, watching a Young Bucks match or a Cody Rhodes classic). But doing some good is better than doing no good. For now, as far as possible, I have decided to stop financially supporting Progress and WWE. Reducing my “wrestling footprint” merely to AEW (and occasional NJPW) may not seem like a lot, but it is a step in the right direction. And maybe one day, if I keep taking these small steps, maybe I will finally find the strength to stop watching all together. After all, it’s been a year now since I bought any milk. I’m still not the vegan I want to be, but it’s not nothing. And maybe next year I’ll work on cutting out something else…
AUTHOR: D. MCKEE