1. Origins

For me, it started with videotapes when I was about 10 or 11 years old. My younger brother Glyn would borrow them from his friend, and we would watch enraptured as these giant characters in colorful costumes grappled and slammed each other in the ring. Mostly World Wrestling Federation (WWF) WrestleManias, we watched Hogan beat Savage, Warrior beat Hogan, and then Warrior return to save Hogan. Growing up in the south of England, we had little idea where this was happening (apart from that it was in America), but we watched as much as we could. Action figures and posters followed – I remember marveling at my friend Justin’s Legion of Doom poster, with Hawk and Animal snarling in their face paint and spiked football shoulder pads.

The moment when I really became gripped, though, was WrestleMania X, and the triumph of Bret “Hitman” Hart. Bret, at the time a classic babyface, or good guy, was a spirited, plucky hero in distinctive pink and black attire, who, despite not being the biggest guy in comparison to behemoths like Hulk and Warrior, relied on his technical expertise and skill to work his way to the top. At the time Bret was feuding with his brother Owen, and the story of their feud resonated with me. A classic story of sibling rivalry, it hit close to home: my brother and I constantly competed and strove to beat each other, no matter what we were doing. Only 18 months apart, we played pretty much any game you could think of, and the story was always the same. Me, trying to prove that, because I was older, I was better, and him trying to show that that was nonsense. Bret and Owen’s feud, pitched as it was with Bret the babyface and Owen the heel (bad guy) spoke to my 11-year-old self as a mirror of my experience: Bret even had brown hair, and Owen blonde hair, just like me and my brother!

After a shock loss to Owen in the opening match of WrestleMania X (which is also regarded as one of the best matches of all time), Bret overcame the odds to defeat the huge Yokozuna in the main event to become the WWF Champion. All the other good guys came out from the back to celebrate, lifting him up on their shoulders, as Owen looked on, scowling.

This cemented Bret’s status as my hero. And my brother, obviously, mocked me mercilessly for this whenever the opportunity arose. He would support whoever Bret faced. When I bought a Bret action figure, he bought a Ric Flair one. When we would wrestle at home, he would always assume the character of whoever Bret was facing at the time, while I valiantly tried to work out how to lock him in the Sharpshooter, Bret’s finishing submission hold. I think I only managed it once, but it was great. He got his revenge with a Pedigree on a block of wood.

As we progressed through our teens, we were lucky to get Sky TV at home, which meant we could watch WWF weekly shows and monthly pay per views. In 1997 – a pivotal year for the WWF – we watched Bret’s feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin, culminating in the spectacular submission match at WrestleMania 13. 1997 saw Bret become WWF Champion again, and progressed ominously towards his showdown with long-term nemesis Shawn Michaels at Survivor Series. After a long brawl, the match was reaching its culmination when Michaels put Hart in Hart’s own sharpshooter move. In a confusing sequence, the referee called for the bell, and Hart looked bewildered as Michaels went to the back celebrating. “Haha, he submitted”, crowed my brother, as I looked at the screen fading to black in disbelief – no, he can’t have done, he’s Bret Hart! What just happened?

We didn’t know it at the time, but we had just witnessed one of the most seismic and controversial moments in pro wrestling history, and one that would change the pro wrestling industry: the Montreal Screwjob. It was an event that would open the doors to the “reality” behind the wrestling business, and be of great interest to me later on, as a philosopher.

Soon after this, my brother lost interest in wrestling, and I started watching it with my friend Chris. We were watching during the legendary “Attitude Era” of the late 1990s/early 2000s, when Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock reigned supreme. We would stay up late into the night playing WWF No Mercy on the N64, and watch the monthly pay per views which, due to the time difference, ran from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. on a Sunday night. We’d emerge bleary-eyed to school the next day, much to our parents’ dismay. We discovered the alternatives to the WWF. WCW had the New World Order, spectacular cruiserweights like Rey Mysterio Jr. and Eddie Guerrero, and the hilarious hijinks of Chris Jericho. In the early days of online video, we’d find clips from the rebel outfit ECW of Rob Van Dam, Taz, Sabu, Rhino and the gang putting each other through tables, jumping off balconies, and kicking chairs into each other’s faces. What we couldn’t watch, we’d find out about through wrestling news websites, like Jimmy Van’s knowyournews.com.

After Chris and I went our separate ways to university, the WWF subsumed these other companies, transformed into World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and I didn’t watch much wrestling for a while. During this time, I discovered philosophy, which became something of an obsession of its own, and much of my time was devoted to it through undergraduate and graduate studies, and into my academic career, the early stages of which I spent in Ireland and Scotland. I would occasionally dabble in some wrestling-related stuff on the internet (particularly CM Punk’s “pipebomb” promo of 2011), but a lot of it passed me by. I did consider using the different ways you can win a wrestling match as an analogy for a view about truth I was developing, but ultimately decided against it.

Then, in 2014, I moved to the United States, and got cable TV. WWE Raw and SmackDown! were now available for me to watch live. I started watching again. I got a trial for the WWE Network and discovered all my old favorite WWF, WCW, and ECW shows from growing up. I began to learn about New Japan Pro Wrestling. I also, and this was a crucial part of my revived interest in wrestling, started listening to a number of podcasts. Starting with podcasts by former or current wrestlers Steve Austin and Chris Jericho, I went on to more fan-based productions, like The Lawcast, which reviewed old wrestling shows. I then branched out into the Conrad Thompson productions Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard, and 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff, along with contemporary review shows like We Enjoy Wrestling and WrestleTalk’s WrestleRamble. Listening to these shows, and realizing the thirst for the reality behind the wrestling business that they aimed to quench, made me see pro wrestling in a whole new light.

Moreover, I started watching live wrestling, which allowed me to experience the phenomenon in a whole new way. My first live wrestling event was a WWE house show of around 3,000 fans in Utica, NY, in 2016, and since then I have attended a variety of wrestling shows, from the smallest to the largest. I have seen local promotions Dynasty Pro Wrestling and New York Championship Wrestling present shows in a local sports center in Whitesboro, NY, with around 150 fans, to a larger independent company, Northeast Wrestling, putting on shows for around 3,000 fans in Poughkeepsie, NY. I also went, with my friend Chris, to Madison Square Garden to see the New Japan Pro Wrestling/Ring of Honor G1 Supercard, with around 20,000 fans, and, the same weekend, we went to WrestleMania 35 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, with around 80,000 fans.

As my relationship with pro wrestling was revitalized, my career as both a teacher and writer of philosophy continued to develop, and I published a number of articles and books. After sneaking a Stone Cold Steve Austin reference into my book on truth, I began to realize that these two interests – philosophy and pro wrestling – were things that had a lot more in common than I first realized. Both are often misunderstood and marginalized in popular culture, yet seem to maintain an omnipresence on the fringes of public consciousness. Both are seen as niche activities that have little to do with the “real world”. Both involve a degree of creativity and pretense, and both require flair and charisma to be done successfully (at least in terms of teaching philosophy!). Both prompt us to think about key questions of human life. And yet, they also seemed so different. One is cerebral, the other is physical. One is concerned with uncovering how things really are, and the other is concerned with hiding how things really are. Philosophy is supposed to be a serious intellectual pursuit for grown-ups, and pro wrestling is often seen as a silly distraction for kids.

I realized that there’s a lot to explore here, and that thinking about pro wrestling from a philosophical point of view would be a fun and interesting thing to do. I looked around and saw, though, that little to no philosophical work on pro wrestling had ever been done. I said my prayers, took my vitamins, drank my milk, and got to work on this book.

2. Rundown

Welcome to Philosophy Smackdown! This is a book about pro wrestling and philosophy – the first of its kind. It aims to examine pro wrestling from a philosophical point of view in a way that is interesting and fun. I hope you’ll agree that pro wrestling is not only one of the most impressive and unique forms of entertainment around, but also that it can prompt us to think about some deep issues concerning who we are as human beings, and how we ought to relate to each other both individually and culturally.

This is why I think pro wrestling is so apt for philosophical investigation: philosophy asks questions such as “What’s reality really like beneath the appearances?”, “What is it to be free?”, “What makes us the people we are?”, and “What is it to be a good person?”, which are all questions that arise when thinking about pro wrestling. Whether it’s thinking about the matches, the characters, the storylines, or the backstage politics, these questions are never far away. Pro wrestling’s stubborn resistance to classification into the categories of “sport” and “art” also poses a philosophical challenge, as philosophers love giving clear definitions!

Each chapter takes a key philosophical concept and analyses its role and significance in pro wrestling. We talk through reality, freedom, identity, morality, justice, and meaning, which – I suggest – all have central roles in what pro wrestling is as a phenomenon. We work through key examples in pro wrestling history to develop the central ideas, and also reflect on how the way these issues play out in pro wrestling is mirrored in the way they play out in our “real lives”. As a bonus “dark match”, we also discuss the relationship between pro wrestling and philosophy itself.

Here’s a brief summary of each chapter:

In Reality: Work vs Shoot, we explore the long-awaited encounter between what is real and what is fake. We will get to the heart of what reality is, and how pro wrestling helps us to understand the key distinction between appearance and reality. We will witness the times when that distinction breaks down in pro wrestling, known as “shoots”, including the infamous “Montreal Screwjob”, and discuss what being a pro wrestling fan can tell us about being responsible citizens in a democracy.

In Freedom: Scripting vs Spontaneity, we look at the idea that pro wrestling is scripted, and the extent to which this is a distinctive mark of pro wrestling over other sports, and real life. We explore the different extents to which pro wrestling is scripted, and discuss philosophical accounts of how “real life” is scripted. We also talk about breaking cultural scripts, look at the development of women’s wrestling, and examine the controversial issue of intergender wrestling.

Identity: Person vs Gimmick delves into the relationship between a wrestler and their character, or “gimmick”. We explore questions of personal identity, such as what happens to a character when the person playing them changes, and how we can make sense – if at all – of a character changing over time. We also talk about what happens when wrestlers “work themselves into a shoot”, and inadvertently become their characters. We also see that the predicament of wrestlers and their gimmicks is not a million miles removed from the issues of identity we face in our everyday lives.

In Morality: Babyface vs Heel, we examine the age-old question of what makes a good person, and how this idea plays out in pro wrestling storylines. Of particular interest is the classic babyface/heel dynamic, and how this has evolved in the last 30 years or so. We track this using Aristotle’s account of the virtues to explore how the roles of good guys and bad guys have changed, and what this tells us about our cultural interpretations of what it is to be a good person, and the aims we set for ourselves.

Justice: Prejudice vs Progress scrutinizes pro wrestling’s sometimes uncomfortable relationship with issues of social justice, such as racism and homophobia. We explore some controversial cases of race and jingoism in pro wrestling storylines, and contrast different ways of approaching LGBTQ issues. We also look at what it would take for a pro wrestling company to be socially responsible, and discuss the challenges awaiting the different approaches to doing so.

In Meaning: Sport vs Monster, we tackle the question of what pro wrestling fundamentally is. Is it a sport? Sports entertainment? Or a “monster”: something entirely resistant to categorization? We see that the issue of whether or not it is a sport is far more complex than it might seem, particularly when we clarify what sports pro wrestling is most similar to. We also trace the carnival origins of pro wrestling to develop the idea that pro wrestling is, and ought to be, in a class of its own.

The Dark Match: Pro Wrestling vs Philosophy offers some reflections on the similarities and differences between pro wrestling and philosophy, both as a subject, and as a discipline. It gives an insight into philosophical practice and method, and how both bear a striking resemblance to aspects of pro wrestling, such as the similarities between the narrative structures of philosophical works and pro wrestling matches, and the need for a philosopher to develop their own gimmick in order to succeed.

Pro wrestling showcases the work of some of the best athletes and entertainers that the world has ever seen. It is not often given its due as a cultural phenomenon from which we can learn much about ourselves and the world we live in, and my hope is that this book is a small step in changing that narrative. Pro wrestling’s not perfect, for sure, and there are some very troubling aspects in its history – and its present – that we will reflect on seriously and critically. I hope the overwhelming feeling though on reading this is positivity and optimism for what pro wrestling can do for us.

The speed at which pro wrestling moves provides a challenge for anyone writing a book about it. I have aimed to use examples that are reasonably timeless, but note that, particularly in the sections about the social and cultural aspects of pro wrestling, things can change over time. If progress has been made in regard to some of the social issues in pro wrestling raised in this book by the time you are reading it, then that’s wonderful, and I hope won’t detract from your enjoyment of it.

Also, just to clarify, I’m a philosopher who’s a wrestling fan, and that’s the perspective from which this book is written. I don’t pretend to be a wrestling journalist, or someone with expertise working in the pro wrestling business, and I hope that comes across in the text. As a philosopher, I expect many of the points made here to be conversation starters, as opposed to definitive claims. If you disagree with some of the things said, that’s great – let’s talk about it!

3. Thanks

I am very grateful to Pascal Porcheron at Polity for the discussions that prompted this book, and for his feedback, comments, and encouragement throughout. I’d also like to thank Ellen MacDonald-Kramer for her help and efficiency, along with a number of anonymous readers for Polity who gave very helpful comments on the proposal and the first draft of the book. I’d also like to thank Ian Tuttle for copy-editing the text.

Thanks to my colleagues in the Philosophy Department at Utica College, Chris Riddle, Leonore Fleming, and John Lawless, who have been interested in the project from the beginning, and very supportive throughout. I’m also grateful to Utica College for a grant to support a research trip for the book. Thanks too to Lisa Jones for reading the first draft of the manuscript, and to Jesse Weiner for many helpful conversations and jaunts to watch local wrestling in upstate NY.

I’d like to thank Chris Underwood, for years of fun watching and talking about wrestling together, and also for discussing the project with me many times, and reading and commenting on drafts. Thanks also to my brother, Glyn Edwards, for starting the wrestling journey with me when we were kids, and to whichever of his friends it was that lent him all those videotapes. Thanks also to my parents for getting Sky TV, and for tolerating all the wrestling madness.

I am very grateful to my wife, Alex Plakias, for encouraging me to pursue this project, for reading and commenting on drafts, and for putting up with all my wrestling podcasts, TV shows, and trips to live events. Thanks to my son Theo; it was on long walks trying to get him to sleep as a baby when I really got into wrestling podcasts. I’m surprised his first word wasn’t “kayfabe” given the number of podcasts he’s subsequently listened to in the car. A pre-emptive thanks too to my daughter Lola, who is blissfully unaware of all this.

I am very thankful for the number of entertaining and informative podcasts, websites, books, and documentaries on pro wrestling, which make it so much fun to be a wrestling fan. Of particular use were The Steve Austin Show, Talk is Jericho, The Lawcast, We Enjoy Wrestling, Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard, 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff, and WrestleTalk’s WrestleRamble.

Last but not least, thanks to those who give us pro wrestling: the performers and promoters. I’d particularly like to thank every wrestler who has laced up a pair of boots and entered the squared circle. I hope the book conveys not only the passion I have for pro wrestling, but also my deep respect and admiration for pro wrestlers themselves. Thank you for the risks you take, the sacrifices you have made, and the pain you have endured to make such a wonderful thing possible.

4. Glossary

I’m assuming that, if you have picked up this book, you have some interest in pro wrestling, and may well know that pro wrestling has its own terminology of sorts. This is explained at relevant points in the book, but I thought it’d be handy to include a glossary of some of the key terms used here for reference.

OK, enough stalling, let’s get it on – RING THE BELL!