Television: Lords Of The Ring

What kind of programming do you identify with cable television? Probably shows like Larry King Live on CNN and Nick at Nite's reruns of Bewitched, or Biography on A&E and maybe those documentaries about Adolf Hitler that the History Channel always seems to carry (this week's is a classic: Hitler and the Occult). These offerings may seem emblematic of cable, but if you think they represent its most popular shows, you are very wrong. Cable TV's true signature is not a conversation between Larry King and Trent Lott; it is a Hell in a Cell bout between Stone Cold Steve Austin and his archrival Kane.

Remember professional wrestling? That phenomenon of the 1980s you thought disappeared along with wine coolers? It is back, it is booming, and it is by far the most highly rated form of programming on cable. Last week, for example, wrestling shows were ranked 1, 2 and 3. On Monday nights, the two rival wrestling organizations--the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling--have shows on at the same time, the former on the USA Network, the latter on TNT. In the past year, the shows' combined Nielsen ratings have risen some 50%, and together they are watched in more than 6 million households. Larry King's audience is about a fifth that size. Taking all telecasts into account, about 34 million people watch wrestling each week.

Meanwhile, live wrestling events are sold out night after night; pay-per-view revenues and sales of merchandise (toys, video games, hats, tank tops, temporary tattoos, backpacks, beach towels, hot sauces, Halloween costumes) are well over a billion dollars; and celebrities are beginning to make cameo appearances. In July, for example, Karl Malone and Dennis Rodman, lately of the NBA finals, will do battle as members of opposing tag teams in a WCW match. There is even a plan for a chain of WCW theme restaurants, the first of which will open this September in Las Vegas.

Looking at what goes on in the ring, it's hard to see why all this is happening, since wrestling doesn't seem very different from what it always was: men with very large muscles pretend to sock each other while stamping a foot on the canvas to make a loud noise. But wrestling has changed. No one claims anymore that the bouts are legitimate; indeed, to reassure families that they will not see real violence, the promoters now emphasize that wrestling is staged. Then there is the change in the characters and story lines developed for wrestlers. In the past few years, these have become darker and more elaborate, and that largely accounts for the new-found popularity.

In the old days there was a fairly simple distinction to be made between the good guys, or "baby faces" in the carny lingo of wrestling, and bad guys, or "heels." Now no one is reliably good. The emphasis is all on rebellion and arrogance, black leather and shades. At the same time, the narratives in wrestling have become more complicated than Icelandic epics. The plots involve different factions of wrestlers in each organization who are trying to dominate the others, amid constant betrayals. "We're storytellers," says Vince McMahon, owner of the WWF. "You can't just throw wrestlers out there to wrestle. That's not what an audience wants to see."