Hi everyone,

It’s your old pal Beerguy with another one of his tales of wonderment & whimsy.

Now, it’s no secret that I enjoy the professional graps. When I was a kid & my mom had to work on the weekend, my dad thought nothing of driving me across town and dumping my ten-year-old ass at the Agrodome to watch wrestling for three hours while he went off and did God knows what. Considered “child abandonment” by today’s parenting standards, the babysitting methods of the 1970s gave me the opportunity to hang around carny folk without it being an expensive or life-threatening venture.

Vancouver Wrestling History

Vancouver’s wrestling scene was dominated by “All Star Wrestling”, a local promotion headed for a long time by “Canada’s Greatest Athlete” Gene Kiniski, but ridden into the ground by “Genuinely Awful Person” Al Tomko. I’ve talked about this once before, so you can go read that for more background.

Back then, you could see guys like Roddy Piper and The Sheepherders before Vince McMahon and his money machine sanitized everything for the wider viewing public.

It was crap by today’s standards, but it was good fun for a kid with few friends and a vivid imagination. Plus, before Tomko ruined the promotion by pulling out of the NWA, you could see various other figures from the Stampede (Calgary) and Pacific Northwest (Portland) Wrestling scenes, many of whom would go on to successful careers in the WWF or the NWA/WCW. It’s not much to talk about today, but that era grounded my fandom & makes me an interested party whenever an event is coming our way.

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The Current State of Professional Wrestling

The last five years, and especially those coming out of the pandemic, have seen a boom in the ranks of professional wrestling. There has been an increase in popularity across the board, and not just with the two national & industry leaders. The “minor leagues” have seen an increase as well, mostly due to the competition at the top. Promotions like GCW, MLW, and Billy Corrigan’s NWA are all regular draws across the States, and Impact/TNA is in a solid third place with its niche of being neither of the top-2. In Vancouver right now we have three different wrestling organizations which all share talent to maximize opportunities and venues, and many major cities have at least one small group plugging away at making their business work.

The industry leader still is the WWE. “The leader in sports entertainment” has seen unparalleled growth since the end of the pandemic, culminating in its purchase by Endeavor in April 2023. Recently merged with Endeavor’s UFC holdings into a new company called TKO, the valuation of the combined company in October was estimated at $21.4 billion. While Vince McMahon is still the titular head of the wrestling side (“Executive Chairman”) of the company, the real power is held by two people:

• Ari Emanuel – the CEO of both Endeavor & TKO, and
• Paul “Triple H” Levesque – Vince’s (current) son-in-law and “Head Booker” for all three WWE programs

The sexual assault & payout allegations against Vince have essentially neutered him as an executive in a publicly traded company. The last real decision making power he had over the wrestling was to have Cody Rhodes lose at Wrestlemania 39, stretching out the story another year to maximize interest & profits heading up to Wrestlemania 40 in Philadelphia. Once the sale was finalized & TKO created, Vince slinked into the background.

As Head Booker, Levesque has turned around the stagnant booking that existed under Vince, moving beyond the same stale matchups that helped lead to lost viewer interest. Cognizant of emerging competition, he has used his influence to build up new stars, attract old ones back, and breathe life into WWE. The modern outlook he has on planning matches & programs, combined with existence of competition, has allowed WWE to expand the popularity it found waning just two years ago when the old man was in charge.

That WWE uptick wouldn’t have happened without the emergence of real competition. An upstart just five years old, All Elite Wrestling, or AEW, has emerged as real competition to WWE’s monopoly. They won’t take over the industry, but they are an outlet for wrestlers outside the norm of WWE’s pump-monkey standards. Where they have been crucial is allowing more talent to hone their skills, putting more emphasis on in-ring skills than simply physique. This shift forced WWE to accept the competition and shift their style to more than just bruiser vs. bruiser and squash matches between giants and minnows.

Co-founded by Cody Rhodes and owned by Litre_Cola’s waking nightmare Tony Khan,

AEW has the one thing other challengers to the throne never did – a billionaire owner unafraid to throw shit at the wall to see what sticks. The five years of AEW’s existence have been a testament to seeing different styles of wrestling and partnerships between federations. AEW’s working with Impact/TNA and New Japan (NJPW) have allowed other styles of wrestling to gain footholds on North American weekly TV. This is where AEW has had the most influence, because it furthered the ability of other types of wrestler to find gainful employment.

There have been hiccups – too many hires; too many disinterested WWE castoffs; Tony Khan is too impulsive to be an effective leader. (Dude can’t stop tweeting horseshit.) But on the whole, there’s at least another five good years left in this organization to prove its long-term viability. That’s positive for talent, as competition between businesses can only help raise salaries for everyone. If you’re a wrestling fan that’s a good thing, despite what Wrestling Twitter™ has to say.

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The Event

The keys to any downtown event are timing and advance scouting. Smackdown, like any live television event, is predicated on Eastern time. It’s scheduled for 8:00 pm on FOX, which means that it goes live at 5:00 Pacific – right at the end of a normal work day. 

Now, it just so happened that the Ministry scheduled this year’s Christ err… “Winter Break”  to run the weeks of December 25th and January 1st, because they didn’t want to pay for the stat holiday if we returned on the 2nd. That’s smart, given that you have roughly 45,000 teachers in the province at a gross salary of $500/day; it’s a savings of $22.5 million. What this trip through budgetary mathematics means is that I had that Friday off, so I could organize my day around attending the event.

Rogers Arena is right downtown, meaning that it’s a much more convenient venue to attend than an Ottawa Senators game.

Given that a large percentage of the attendees would be parents and children, despite the average $125/ticket price, it meant that picking a bar close by was much easier than trying to attend a restaurant. Thus, I found my spot,

took my seat,

and settled in for a couple hours of pregame.

When the time came the three blocks to the arena were nothing, despite the Harps I’d enjoyed. Normally, upon entering, I’ll head straight to the merch counter to see what awaits. However, as I anticipated, the lineup was ridiculous due to the aforementioned parents and kids. Besides, most of the merch was banal garments of current performers, or “Superstars!” in the WWE vernacular. They did have one “local venue” concert-type shirt, but the logo & font were so bad (see header image) I didn’t even consider it. Have a look:

Shop @WWE Smackdown merchandise!

📍 Visit Sec. 107, 111, 117, 309 or 328 pic.twitter.com/0J8OwChWW6

— Rogers Arena (@RogersArena) January 5, 2024

Great for the kids to wear back to elementary school to impress their friends – kind of like wearing your concert shirt to homeroom the next morning back in the day – but as something for a grown-up, not really.

Our seats were relatively high up in the lower bowl,

which meant we weren’t likely to be on TV (BOO!), but also that there weren’t going to be irritants holding up signs trying to be on TV & blocking our view (YAY!). All things considered, that’s a plus. In addition, sitting where we did allowed us an angle to see the timing clock they were using to plot out the show – something that was handy when they cut to commercials or were doing backstage segments we couldn’t hear.

The event started promptly at 4:45 with a “dark match”. This is the amuse bouche to get the crowd warmed up for the two hours of hurry up & wait. It was a contest between light-heavyweight Cedric Alexander and super-heavyweight & Olympic gold medalist Gable Steveson.

The result was never in doubt, but from the crowd’s perspective Steveson still has a lot to learn about the professional game. The man was slow & plodding, and his “U-S-A” jingoism didn’t get the reaction he expected from the multicultural crowd in attendance. Alexander was able to get the crowd behind him simply by virtue of his athleticism and the fact that he didn’t appear to be a lumbering oaf. Steveson won with what appeared to be a botched belly-to-back suplex,

and we were left with three minutes to kill until the show started. Time for beers!

At 5:00, the show started with the usual fireworks that was followed by the announcement that “SMACKDOWN IS… LIVE! FROM VANCOUVER, CANADA!” In person, that pyro is loud. Also, that announcement was the only thing from the live broadcast we heard all night. Thanks to TV delay, you don’t get to hear what the announcers are talking about; you’re expected to react to the match and the histrionics that abound.

In total, there were four matches in the two hours – two per hour, plus accompanying in-ring promos (which we could hear) and backstage antics (which we heard sometimes). 

The Owens match was particularly engaging, mostly because – like Bret Hart – the guy is super-over in Canada, and a little more so in Vancouver because he is best friends with fired yet beloved former Canucks coach Bruce Boudreau. Logan Paul was there, saying his typical bro-shit on commentary and (post-match) doing that same tired “Canada sucks! Local sports team sucks! I rule!” thing that appeals on TV but just doesn’t work when you know it’s an act. To make the crowd hot & to build the match, they had Owens pop Paul right in the mush.

It still wasn’t as cool as the time Owens powerbombed Machine Gun Kelly,

but it did its job.

The women’s match was an excellent technical contest, sadly a bit undone for the live crowd because they cut to commercial early in the match due to having to stop to fix the broken sports bra Mia Yim (Michin) was wearing.

The cameraman was there because he had a mic so they could keep the director updated as to their progress. When they restarted after the apparently extended break, it didn’t quite have the same energy despite the two women putting on one of the best technical matches I’d seen in a while.

I ignored the men’s tag match entirely. I do not care for Pretty Deadly because it is the same cheating & mincing British trope I’ve watched since the early 80s. They are/were just irritating to watch.

The main event was a hoot, with everyone getting their moves in and using some originality to avoid having someone win.

Smart fans knew there wouldn’t be a winner, because they need to have a way to keep the title on Roman Reigns until Wrestlemania. Making the main event that night be a DQ finish to set up a 4-way at the Rumble means someone can eat a pin (due to CHICANERY) without looking weak. Ending the live show with a beatdown feeds the trope of “making Roman look strong”, and makes the set-up more plausible.

[As an aside, the buildup to Wrestlemania is both strong and disjointed. They have kept Roman Reigns undefeated for three years as an excellent storytelling technique. It also serves the purpose of downgrading many past champions from the list of all-time championship reigns, specifically Hulk Hogan. But recent returns of CM Punk and The Rock have made the original plan of ‘Cody finishing the story’ look like an afterthought. No one knows where they will go, and they are on the brink of having too much going on and ruining many of the stories they have been building all year. It’s like when Vince didn’t have Hogan fight Ric Flair at Wrestlemania immediately; he wanted to stretch out the potential draw, but then Flair left & the match was lost. They could easily ruin the goodwill they’ve spent years rebuilding.]

After the live event finished, we got three additional high profile matches. The first was local girl Chelsea Green versus Bianca Belair. This was the typical match where the returning local talent puts over their hometown… only to turn against everyone right before the match starts in order to be the ‘heel’ where they otherwise would be cheered. (It’s a legacy of Vince’s carny days – book the local to increase attendance, and then have them lose.) This same thing happened in 2020 with the Bollywood Boyz, who came out in Canucks gear only to strip down to Leafs & Kings jerseys.

Next up was your lesbian barista’s favourite superstar, Rhea Ripley – picture a Charlotte Flair with dyed jet-black hair who can actually hit the moves she attempts – versus an NXT callup in Ivy Nile.

Both of these matches were what the smarks call “squashes”, in that you pretty much know the winner in advance but get to enjoy the beatdowns they provided. The finale was high-flier Ricochet versus WineWife’s true Scottish fantasy, Drew McIntyre.

This was a showcase match of Ricochet’s aerial artistry and McIntyre’s solid physical presence. In the end, it was McIntyre who got the victory, but they both applauded each other when they gave the crowd a farewell.

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Conclusion:

On the whole, attending a live event like this is somewhat worse than attending a live football or hockey game. So much of the wrestling broadcast is dependent upon the announcers and the live editing that when things aren’t going on in the ring you can get bored. I never need to worry at a football or hockey game about the announcers, and I can easily catch up on the action by just looking at the scoreboard. Plus, the TV timeouts are shorter in football than televised wrestling. The attraction to going to something like this, at this stage of my life, is not due to fond memories of yesteryear but rather the opportunity to spend time with my friends. Plans like these guarantee significant others do not want to enjoin, and so it can be an evening of unfiltered camaraderie. 

But the WWE is a well-oiled machine at this point. According to Wrestlenomics, they drew 13,157 to the show, a practical sellout given that they lost 1/5 of the arena to their digital screens and entrance ramps. (They drew almost the exact same numbers in 2020.) They’ve been the industry leaders for nearly 25 years and have their broadcasts down to a T. We got about 75 on-TV wrestling minutes. The wasted movements we saw live did not translate to the live broadcast. Thankfully, the broken bra didn’t happen during the McMahon-Lawler era, because there would have been lurid camera angles & screams about “PUPPIES!” They just adapted the broadcast to the changed conditions and kept going; on the broadcast I watched later you wouldn’t have known what had happened. Everyone hit their marks and did their jobs.

Where you feel bad for the performers is when the broadcast conditions leave them hanging, like when they do an introduction before a commercial. For example, when Bobby Lashley and his crew walked to the ring, they got the full up-front camera treatment (with chyron) letting us know they’d be speaking “LIVE! NEXT!!” Once that finished, they stood in a darkened ring for five minutes waiting for their cue to actually begin their segment.

The lights came up five seconds before they started their in-ring bit. As they were talking, in the ether, shenanigans were afoot. They were interrupted by a seemingly new faction who we could see but not actually hear. The broadcast made the situation more clear, but in the crowd the reaction was muted because we had no clue what was going on; when I watched the broadcast later, you could tell they piped in noise because the reaction they’d hoped for from the crowd wasn’t there.

To sum up – If you have kids who like wrestling, you should attend. The adrenaline of the live crowd is something they can’t fathom, and the spectacle will overwhelm their senses. It’ll give them a memory, and you some quality parenting points. If you have friends that like sporting-type things, it’s a good time because the ups & downs of the broadcast give you plenty of time to converse. But if you’re thinking about it as a casual fan, save your money. The whole thing will whelm you, and you’ll feel cheated that you spent that much on something more fleeting than strippers.

I’ve got tickets to AEW Collision in May, so I’ll get to make some comparisons. See you then!