The Reconstructed

This is part III of a reflection on Pro Wrestling and Church and perhaps will be the hardest to articulate. Part I covered Faith and Truth, Part II covered Execution/Liturgy and Etiquette. This part will deal more with behind the curtain circumstances than the performance although they certainly are correlated. It is more about the disposition of individuals which can influence the outward expression.

Pro-wrestling like most businesses typically promote their best performers. In other words the people with the best promos, best look, best crowd reaction, merchandise sales; those generating the most discussion get more of the spotlight and more of the gate. It should go without saying that the smaller the promotion the harder it can be to offer compensation that a worker would desire. But like any other performance art or any aspect of life in general, pro wrestling never promises anyone fame or fortune.

Accountability

And while WWE’s new trend is to recruit athletes that may or may not care about pro wrestling at all, I do think people with genuine passion for pro wrestling can be more compelling characters. This is odd considering my favorite wrestler for 2 decades was Brock Lesnar (his career is teetering on resting in peace) who was notoriously talked about by others as caring very little for the business itself. Proving once again that like anything, pro-wrestling can be just job or it can be hobby or a way of self expression.

One could say the same thing of people in the church. You have people that are involved because they love it, people that stay involved because they are paid to do it, or they like to talk in front of people, or they are simply good at it. Perhaps the difference in church is that we would assume a certain level of character from people leading a church. I don’t think its a secret, but if you have ever seen any of the 4 soon to be 5 seasons of Dark Side of the Ring you might be able to conclude that the pro wrestling arena is not exactly known for bringing to the public eye people of high character. I don’t mean that as an insult. People are sinful, people struggle with addiction and self-image and are broken. It is possible that pro wrestling lends itself to people who may have more of an inclination to self-destruction.

I mean we do voluntarily put our bodies through painful things, some people for a very small audience.

I honestly operated under the thought when I wrestled, if I’m not getting paid a ton, and this isn’t being recorded, and the audience is small, the less risks I am going to take physically. Usually when I was wrestling I had pretty stable well paying full time jobs so I wasn’t taking a chair shot to a head. I wasn’t flipping, although I loved flipping and could flip even though I realistically could count on one hand how many times I flipped in 50 matches. My point here is this, whether it’s yourself, a promoter, the person you’re working with and in some cases the fanbase, something is holding you accountable to something.

In wrestling there are a million ways someone could “go into business for themselves,” they could break their word, injure another wrestler, try to change the outcome, no show an event, hold up the boss for more money, cut a scathing promo they should not have, complain on the internet, abuse their power (this is an umbrella, I won’t list all the illegal and unethical things that happen behind the scenes mostly because many of those things that happen in the world of pro wrestling that are unbecoming of humanity have happened in the guise of church and clergy).

The reality however is the same, we and others should hold each other accountable even if it costs us something. If it costs you pleasure, power, and money that should be a good thing in the name of not doing something horrible to another person. In Christianity, Scripture is clear about having a sober view of yourself and also considering others better than yourselves. What I love about pro wrestling is in a given show I have the opportunity to consider others better than myself a thousand times.

I can greet everyone involved, thank promoters and bookers for the opportunity, thank fans that pay for merchandise and coming to the event, I can keep my time, I can keep the guys I’m working with safe, I can read the room and see if fans are enjoying the show, I can watch my brothers and sisters matches and find something good in it, I can set up and tear down, I can promote the show a lot. In the world of pro wrestling the upside is all of those things usually also benefit you.

In church, this is arguably less visible, but it is also a matter of perspective. Church in relation to the world should live with the perspective that this actually is not for me, it’s not for my own self-promotion, this institution if it must be an institution at all must first serve for the worship of God in Christ and if it’s not doing that we should be asking ourselves, why we are doing it?

What’s more, a certain level of transparency and critique should be invited. A Church should have nothing to hide and I mean that to the fullest extent you can imagine. Everything should be open to inspection. Nothing should be hidden. If it’s being hidden it is likely sinful or unethical. Sure there might be a discussion around things that maybe not everyone needs to know, but those in Christ should no longer have anything to hide. Does that mean everyone needs to know every sin I’ve committed? No, but it’s worth considering that they might have the right to know what Christ has forgiven me of. Scripture mentions anonymous people simply by their reputation for sin and great grace and mercy was bestowed upon them. It might also be true that if people knew half of what I have done and hold me accountable for it, that might be enough to prevent something worse from happening. That might be idealistic; it also just might be true that humans do what they do because they think they can get away with it with no one finding out.

Expectation

This connects to the idea of expectation. Having a clear articulation of what is expected of the Christian is helpful. That’s why the sacraments are valuable as markers for the Christian faith. Like there are tangible things we do, and it helps to know what is expected of us when considering and participating in the sacraments, including confession. These seem to be from Scripture clear attributes of a life lived in Christ as demonstrated by the life of Christ Himself in the Gospels. People seemed freer around this God-Man.

Similarly it couldn’t hurt for promotions and wrestlers themselves to articulate clear expectations. I can’t be made about not getting paid to work a show if payment was not agreed upon before the show. Likewise a promoter can’t get mad if a wrestler had expectation for payment and it was not followed through upon. That’s a bit above my pay grade but wrestling like most things, you have to spend money to make money. You have to have merch, you have to self promote and usually you have to say something on the independent level when developing a name for yourself.

I honestly do feel like the best time to be a pro wrestler is right now or the last 10 years. I have never once asked myself why I never “made it” because my answer to myself is clear, I didn’t want it enough. I didn’t get more cut, I didn’t make merchandise, I didn’t wrestle 2-3 times a week. I didn’t self-promote a ridiculous amount. I didn’t tan. Sure I’m only 5’8″ but even that is not an excuse anymore.

The reality is I put way more effort into ministry and that worked out about as well as wrestling did, but I had less expectations for wrestling than I did on God and the people of God.

I think if someone were to ask me for advice if they were going in to ministry, I would tell them to expect to be disappointed and expect to have a plan when you are consistently disappointed by people and just resolve to forgive. The worst thing in the world might happen to you. In your pursuit of justice forgive. Then lower your expectations of people, raise your faith/trust in God. In the same sense I would say expect much of God, expect to have your life upended or things to change at the last possible moment, expect that God can provide miraculously and that it is usually more in God’s wheelhouse to use foolish or unexpected things in order to increase our affection for HIm. God wants credit for the work.

Additional Note

I didn’t know where to work this in:

Roman Reigns is an interesting character study in expectation. He started out as a member of pretty cool stable. Truthfully, they introduced an amazing group of wrestlers and feuded with the Wyatt Family. Their 6-man tag match had me in awe shortly after getting back into wrestling. Eventually Seth Rollins turns on The Shield, hitting Roman Reigns with a chair and about 6 months later Roman Reigns wins the Royal Rumble and the crowd turns on him. They hate him, he wins the Rumble gets booed in Philly even with The Rock holding up his hand. I mention this in part because of the potential awesomeness of Roman vs Rock in Philly almost 10 years later. But Roman loses his Wrestlemania match verse Brock Lesnar because Seth Rollins enters the match. Great storytelling all to be overshadowed by people not liking Roman Reigns.

The WWE’s expectations was the fanbase would get behind Roman Reigns. They would cheer for him. Even after beating leukemia they still weren’t keen on him until he embraced being the bad guy and has turned into one of the most dominant champions in the last 40 years. In a way a failed experiment was the fuel that created a very good storyline and title run. It’s the false expectation and hope of developing a likable Roman Reigns that created a version of him that would become from a fan base that turned on him. Now he demands acknowledgment from that same fanbase that turned against him and he kind of gets it honestly.

Villains have an origin story too, but I don’t actually think anyone wants to be the villain. I don’t think we as humans want to be defined by our disappointments or our failures or by our worst sins. I don’t think the church intends to become a perverted or white washed tomb. I don’t think it even intends to become a corporation. I do think Western church pastors are strangely entirely gripped by the desire to have big churches. I think there is a large personality type that loves the idea of celebrity and have found an avenue to be that and leverage that through Christian ideology and dress it up put it in a makeup chair and mass market a distorted version of truth.

I’m still not certain what is actually taking place in those environments, what the expectation is or was but I’m also note sure it concerns me and what does concern me is letting everything go that doesn’t lead to greater love for God, for the Church and for even my enemies.

I think that only happens based on what I will discuss in the final portion of this series: reflection & forgiveness.