It's Time to Start Paying Attention to Wrestling Revolution

A member of the Revolution
Photo Credit: WWE.com

If you haven't been paying attention before, and trust me, while I've been gung ho about this project since my colleague Razor of House Kick-Out!! interviewed Jeff Katz for his podcast, I can understand why, Wrestling Revolution is a new concept in pro wrestling, looking to combine the artform we all love with episodic, three-act storytelling. Okay, all the podcasts in the world and all the hype from one guy who you may or (more likely) may not even know won't mean a thing without the talent involved. Well, over the last week, they've started to reveal the actual cast. So far, it looks pretty impressive:

• Colt Cabana


• MVP


• Kenny Omega


• Kenn "Kenny Dykstra" Doane


• Sami Callihan


• Alex Reynolds


• Dr. Luther

I'm not familiar with the last two names, but the first five have a decent at least pedigree. The fact that Cabana and MVP are involved really excites me. The thing to remember though is that you're not going to see anyone of the above in their known characters. They'll be coming in with new personae, which is something that Katz was adamant about in describing the project. That being said, the pedigree of talent behind those new characters is undeniable.

The concept is good, the players so far are good, and the guy behind the screen is a dyed-in-the-wool wrestling fan who wants something better. If I wasn't fully on board with this before, I'm totally on board with it now.

The Wrestling Podcast, Episode 9: Razor of Kick-Out!! Wrestling

Logo credit: Razor

Episode 9: Wrestle-phenia

Razor of Kick-Out!! Wrestling and Fair to Flair appears on this week’s massive edition of The Wrestling Podcast. Obviously, CM Punk is the hot topic, but there are other conversations explored here. We talk about Razor’s deep-seated yet totally understandable hatred for Randy Orton, why the WWE Divas have a tough lot in professional life, why we love the idea of Wrestling Revolution and how wrestling journalism can be improved. Plus, my dog makes a few appearances.

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!

Wrestling Revolution Sounds Mighty Interesting to Me

I dig it

I'm going to do something that I did yesterday on here. I'm going to pimp to you the podcast that my Fair to Flair colleague and this week's guest on The Wrestling Podcast, Razor of Kick-Out Blog!! did with Jeff Katz, the Hollywood producer and rabid wrestling fan behind the new concept promotion Wrestling Revolution. It really does give a look inside the mind of a guy who made it in life and now is going to attempt to create something different in the world of pro wrestling.

For those of you who are podcast-a-phobic or who have an axe to grind against Razor and KO or who won't listen for whatever reason, Wrestling Revolution is basically turning wrestling into seasonal format. Before you start cringing at the idea of having a wrestling show working like an icky TV show, realize that Katz isn't here to bastardize the product. At least that's what I got from the podcast. It'll still be wrestling. There'll be matches, promos, everything else that makes wrestling wrestling, but there'll be major differences:

1. The wrestlers will be playing a character ideated and developed by Katz and his producers, not playing their "regular" characters
2. In fact, there won't be any "names", just guys being invented or in the case of folks who have WWE/etc. history, reinvented
3. Like I wrote yesterday, storytelling will reflect scripted drama and the "three act" format
4. It will be in seasonal format, meaning there'll be an offseason

So right off the bat, this is something that is striving to be what Impact should have been all along - an alternative.

Katz is saying all the right things, and unlike some other people hawking things that he is promising now, I'm inclined to believe him. For one, he's got a lot of friends in the wrestling business. He's also got Hollywood connections, and that's a huge incentive for guys who may not want to kill themselves in the ring for their whole careers.

I think what's most appealing about this project to me is Katz's candor and realism about it. In the podcast, he claims that he's not really getting his hopes up, and if he can do one season of good TV, then he'll be happy with it. The biggest mistake an auteur in any medium can make is to get too greedy and think his or her project is going to own. I think it's that perspective that gives me the most hope. Katz isn't going to try and reinvent the wheel through some grandiose science experiment using the most dangerous form of energy to fuel it; he'll try to start something grassroots but real, and hopefully that will leave an impression on the industry to go along with (and maybe even influence) WWE.

I know that hope always springs eternal in the wrestling industry, and the perception is that it's rarely ever paid off. While I think there has been more than enough in terms of good resolutions, I'm not going to say that a majority of the stuff that has started out good in wrestling has ended well either. That being said, I still think this has a much better than normal chance of providing good content at the very least. I'll be sad if it doesn't succeed, but if Katz gives me one good year with Wrestling Revolution? Then you're damn right I'll be happy about it. That's the thing, finding quality wrestling rather than trying to latch onto something because you think it'll be successful.

So with that in mind, I'm really looking forward to this, and I hope that Katz at least creates a cult classic if anything. Honestly, there needs to be more people with his mindset rather than the one that has poisoned the industry for as long as I've been following it. Trying to recreate the past to a tee doesn't work₁. Trying new things doesn't always work either, but that track record has a way, way, WAY better percentage of success than blatant and blow-for-blow rehashing. With all that in mind, I hope you're as jazzed for this as I am.

1 - There's a big difference between trying to catch lightning in a bottle twice and using tried and true tropes that have worked in wrestling for over 100 years to help get new stories and people over. The former sucks. The latter should be a part of any wrestling promotion, whether old or new, traditional or innovative, if that makes any sense to you.

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!

The Lost Art of Telling a Story

Pictured: Katz, a guy who gets it
Photo Credit: Ames247

If you haven't listened to the landmark 60th episode of Kick-Out Radio, what the hell are you waiting for? Seriously, it's one of the best personalities in the wrestling journalism/opinion writing community talking to Jeff Katz about turning the wrestling industry on its ear. If you have listened to it, then you know that Katz spent about an hour detailing his vision for Wrestling Revolution, which is his plan to take wrestling to its next evolution. He laid out a lot of really good ideas, but one thing that he mentioned in the interview was that he hoped to lay out a wrestling promotion that had a three-act storytelling structure.

If this idea in general sounds revolutionary to you, then man, to quote Kurt Cobain, "I wish I were like you, easily amused". In terms of movies, television, scripted stage productions, etc., this format has been around since the dawn of recorded history. So why would he be so adamant about bringing that format back to wrestling? Well, "back" is definitely the key word here. That overarching storytelling trope has been lost in both WWE and Impact Wrestling, either for instant gratification, the swerve-for-the-sake-of-having-a-swerve model or some combination of both, depending on what month it is. If that doesn't make you sad, then hello, Vince Russo! Glad to see you reading my blog. I'm not sorry that I trash you on here, because you deserve it.

For everyone else who likes to have a cogent story attached to their wrestling, this has to sound like a breath of fresh air. I mean, what happened to having acts, having rising action, a climax, falling action and a resolution? WWE gives you 5 PPVs in a row of a babyface beating a heel clean as a whistle and tells you it's supposed to be a story. In what universe? Impact starts stories, muddles them with swerves and gives us no resolution. What sane person would buy a book or watch a movie if they were promised nothing even coming close to an end to the story? Wrestling companies in the mainstream strain to be accepted as part of the established entertainment, so why do they abandon the thing that keeps people coming in and satisfies them with the greatest success?

While wrestling is more than just theater, and while it has way more elements to it than scripted drama has, the fact is that the artform is still very much storyline driven. The matches are only a part of the equation, and even then, those matches probably should have some kind of story contained within to be good, whether it's part of a continuing arc or whether it's self-contained within the match.

Granted, WWE does give you a good story, but by and large, their angles and feuds are muddled messes where babyfaces dominate for the most part. Impact had one story that was put together okay in Jarrett/Angle, but other than that, it's best that we don't talk about them. Consistency, an overall master-plan and having people delegated towards planning the future for the individual stories while keeping the whole vision of the company in mind are all things that are missing in both companies and in some of the indies in America today.

If these problems are fixed, would it lead to another wrestling boom? I don't know, and really, I don't care. Unlike some people, I couldn't give any more of a fuck than what I give now if wrestling returned to 1998 levels of popularity. Let it stay afloat enough so that I have options. I care more that the product I'm consuming is good. That's why I feel like guys like Jeff Katz should be supported. If the only contribution he had in the next five years was that WWE and/or Impact ripped off his ideology, then he'll be rightfully lauded as one of the great people in this business. It shouldn't be up to CM Punk alone to make the show's story feel like something more than a hastily-thrown-together mish-mash of instant gratification.

Until then though, storytelling will remain a lost art in pro wrestling, and as a long-time fan, that makes me sad. I want a lot of things out of my wrestling, and to be completely honest, storytelling is tied for first along with great wrestling action in the ring. I'd dare say that it should be like that for you too. But if I did say that, I'd be projecting.

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!