The WWF & Wall Street Villainy

Many years ago as part of short-lived and sometimes bizarre writing career I found myself working for a professional wrestler, one of the stars of the WWF in its heyday. Back in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s the World Wrestling Federation was a billion dollar enterprise and had become very mainstream. While I found myself a bit out of my element (I had never been to a wrestling match or NASCAR race in my life), I had to admit the experience was somewhat exhilarating. Professional Wrestling is the ultimate spectacle, sort of a combination morality play, political convention and circus all rolled up into one, larger than life event.

The whole thing came together quite unexpectedly, I met the wrestler through a family member and soon discovered that he was working in Japan. I struck up a conversation with him (he shall remain nameless, at least for now) and happened to mention that I was studying Japanese. The wrestler then offered to pay me to help develop an identity for him to use in Japan. So I had my assignment and began putting together names and personas that I thought might be appealing to the Japanese wrestling market (of course I had no idea what that was, but it was an interesting assignment).

Not long after the assignment began I heard back from the wrestler, he told me that he’d reconsidered going to Japan and wanted to revitalize his North American image instead with a new character. He had been used to playing the “good guy” and felt it was limiting his star or earning potential. He wanted to go rogue and I was just the guy to help him get there. I studied the WWF, where he worked, almost as though I were an anthropologist trying to understand both the spectacle and the culture which supported it. I soon realized that he was absolutely correct, in pro wrestling bad guys definitely have more fun. We started talking about the possibilities and he then asked me if I would help him with his WWF transformation and I immediately agreed.


These bad guys couldn't hold a candle to the Wall Street American Nightmare Team

In many ways, the exercise was like developing a character for a book or movie although here the plot wasn’t altogether that important and would remain fairly predictable. The fact that the plot never changes is rather cool though if you think about it because then everything revolves around character development. I gave him 100 notorious villains to choose from, some of them borrowed from common culture references, some of them quite funny and others more menacing. We worked together on that character for more than a year and at that time it became one of the most popular (or unpopular depending on your point of view) stars in the WWF. Working with pro wrestlers didn’t seem like a viable career path though so I moved on – never even got to meet Vince McMahon, but suddenly this week I was struck by an inspiration or urge perhaps. It seems to me that now is perfect time to create the ultimate pro wrestling villain.

The entire nation is restless and worried about war and economy; the nation is outraged at bailouts and scandal, the nation is ready for the best wrestling villains ever, so here they are, ready for the new year:

Character 1 – The Goldman’s Sacks: A shifty looking man in a banker’s suit with a rather large, gold colored sack which he fills up with taxpayer dollars. The Goldman Sack’s sometimes tag teams with Senator Scandal.

Character 2 – The Geithner: This character resembles the Hamburglar and steals lunch money from impoverished children, handing it over to foreign banks at 100 cents on the dollar.

Character 3 – Senator Scandal: What can we say, this guy has everything. He cheats on his wife, takes bribes and helps The Goldman Sacks scoop up all of the money while ordinary folks lose their homes and go bankrupt.

Character 4 – The Outsorcerer : He has magical powers and looks a little bit like a deranged Merlin, he can wave his wand and poof, American jobs disappear in a flash.

Character 5 – The Politician: Need we say more? He lures his victims in by pretending to be reasonable and then lowering the boom on them once they’ve bestowed their trust to him he crushes their hopes and dreams (and vital organs). He can tag team with any of the other characters.

Together these arch villains might make up the 4 1/2 horses asses of the apocalypse? What do you think, should I call up Vince McMahon?


Copyright 2009, Raving Reviews™