The Spectacle Of Pro Wrestling, Played With A Straight Face

Calling pro wrestling “fake” is neither accurate nor informed. The term is “kayfabe.” Kayfabe isn’t a euphemism for false. Kayfabe is specific to pro wrestling, and it means everyone – athletes and fans – getting the story straight without saying so. It’s a conspired narrative that you can’t acknowledge is unreal, like a hilarious family secret whose official version changes when your drunk uncle shows up sober.(new Image()).src = 'https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c&cid=872d12ce-453b-4870-845f-955919887e1b'; cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c" }).render("79703296e5134c75a2db6e1b64762017"); }); “That’s the approach we take: We don’t break kayfabe,” said Marcus Stephenson, a producer on WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2011, due out Tuesday. He said it with a chuckle, later acknowledging that he’d never acknowledged kayfabe when talking about the game with other reporters. I’ve participated in kayfabe. Nearly 20 years ago I refereed a pro wrestling match when an armory-level circuit visited my tiny hometown in North Carolina. It’s a moment that remains stamped on my brain. So I have empathy for THQ, makers of WWE SmackDown vs. Raw – the Madden of rasslin’, which must also referee something plausibly without getting in the way of the fun. As a ref on that night in 1992 – chosen at the last minute because someone didn’t show up – I was brought into the dressing room and told how the night would go. I win the opener, said Russian Assassin. This is the signal for my finishing move, said Bad Chad. I’m stealing the belt during the battle royale, said Texas Outlaw. Watch out for folding chairs, said the Italian Stallion, the promoter and top face. I’m pinning the Stallion in the tag-team title fight, said Mean Mark (not the Undertaker, just someone taking the name) who, despite “JOHN 3:16” printed on the butt of his trunks, was the evening’s biggest heel. “You’re sure of that,” I said. “Yeah, Stallion and Super Mario win the belt back next week in Statesville,” Mark said. rummy nabob In SmackDown vs. Raw, THQ must approach it from the opposite angle – as a true sports simulation. The outcome isn’t predetermined and must be contested objectively. “A typical wrestling match in lasts seven minutes, and we as WWE fans know there’ll be a period where the face puts on the offense while the heel takes the beatdown. Then we know that the heel will reverse the match flow. And at the end, the rummy noble face will turn it on, pull off his signature move, then his finishing move, and win,” Stephenson said. “We can’t really do that.” “We’re presenting this to the user as a competition,” Stephenson continued, “so we try to make the computer AI difficult enough to where they put the offense on you, and it’s up to you to reverse what they’re doing, so that you have an extended amount of time to dish out offense on an opponent.” At all times, though, your opponent is fighting you; he’s not laying back just because he’d been beating on you for the first three minutes and now it’s your turn. “It’s tricky,” Stephenson said. “We get communication from our fans about this, they ask us to make the matches follow what you see on TV. My question back to them is, ‘Well, if you want them to stay down, then you better expect us to keep you down for a certain amount of time.’ After we say that, they go, ‘You’ve got a point.'” But without the potential for stagecraft pro wrestling would be just another fighter. So while the game must put the combat first, backstage antics and storyline form an indispensable part of the simulation. There are out-of-the-ring elements that a player can deploy to his advantage, particularly in SmackDown vs. Raw’s new mode, WWE Universe, which will supply more than just a series of matches in a career mode. It’ll take all of your exhibition matches and use them to build storylines, rivalries, run-ins and everything that makes pro wrestling not a sport but “entertainment,” as it is factually called. “In past years, other than Road to Wrestlemania [a campaign mode, which will return to SVR 2011 and feature backstage elements] there was no reason to think that one match had anything to do with another,” Stephenson said. “Now, WWE Universe acts as an umbrella for all of your exhibition matches. We’ll make up the individual storylines, and that breaks the routine of the video game match, which is damage, damage, damage, signature move, finishing move, pin.” For example, in a Universe bout between John Cena and Randy Orton, the CPU might serve up a cutscene where Big Show interrupts the rummy satta match with a run-in. “The more I keep playing, Big Show and Cena will become rivals, and they’ll interfere in each other’s matches, or join up with stables, and continue the story,” Stephenson said. “That’s WWE wrestling on your TV, and that’s what Universe is.” Players don’t simply react to these kinds of narrative devices. They can deploy them, too. For example, getting disqualified in a title bout, which means the title holder loses but keeps the belt. (This is not an option, of course, in a No-DQ match, which is an available rule set in SmackDown vs. Raw 2011.) It’s a classic, cowardly heel tactic, but if you’re getting blasted with little hope of winning, slip outside the ropes and get counted out. You might want to make a good show of it, but it’s up to you. It’s a tough job, simulating something that is itself a simulation. In logic, false and false ends up being true. I asked Stephenson if he sees SmackDown vs Raw as a presentation of pro wrestling if it was actually real. “I wouldn’t say we’re making it ‘real,'” Stephenson said. “I think we’re making it what TV is, and if you’re watching TV, that’s what we’re trying to mimic. We’re trying to mimic your eight-year-old’s interpretation of what the WWE is.” It requires, like the referee in a pro wrestling match, both piercing the veil and pulling it over the eyes. It just depends on who sets the terms of the bout. WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2011 must pretend not to be that authority, but it is; in my one night in the ring, I had to pretend to be that authority, but I wasn’t. The tag-team match, the one Mean Mark and his bad guy teammate were supposed to take, followed the liturgy Stephenson described, except in reverse: Heels took the offensive first, then the faces got a reversal. I was waiting for the heels to re-reverse when Italian Stallion put Mark’s shoulders on the mat and hooked his leg. I swept in to make a show of counting to three and give time for Mark to kick out. Stallion said something to Mark. One … no sign of life. I slowed the count. “C’mon, ref!” Stallion said in his stage voice. Two … still nothing from Mark. Stallion fixed my gaze, quite seriously. “Count … him … out,” he said. I slapped the canvas and ended the evening, never breaking kayfabe. Stick Jockey is Kotaku’s column on sports video games. It appears Saturdays at 2 p.m. U.S. Mountain time.