McGuire’s Mondays: WWE and the notion of kayfabe in modern pro wrestling

By Colin McGuire, ProWrestling.net Staffer

Smackdown returned to USA Network on Friday. You know how I know this? The show didn’t go off the air at 9:58 p.m. EST and instead, we were reintroduced to Friday Night Overruns (set your DVR accordingly!). It was nearly 10 minutes past the hour when Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns reluctantly came to peace with one another and the show went off the air. But wait! Before USA pressed play on La Femme Nikita or whatever follows pro wrestling on that network these days, something appeared on the screen:

“Executive Producers. Paul Herman. Lee Fitting.”

It was jarring – uncomfortable, even – to see those six words appear. Gone are the days of the corner copyright logo that signal the end of a pro wrestling program; in are the days when we … learn who’s running the second ringside camera at the end of each show?

I’ve since wracked my deteriorating brain to try and recall when I’ve seen something like that on a live, primetime pro wrestling television show. Smackdown’s move was not unprecedented – the Saturday night World Championship Wrestling show ran credits – but I will say that to me, it was another step towards fans eventually being able to sit in on run-throughs of matches before they are taken under the bright lights and big stage of network television.

My apologies for going full-on Get Off Of My Lawn, but, as the kids say, what happened to the game I love? When taken in full context, the incremental changes WWE has made since TKO became TKO has led to nothing short of one big seismic shift in the way the leading pro wrestling company in America is presented. That company doesn’t even try to pretend like kayfabe is – or was ever – a thing. “Yeah, we know you know this is just a show. So, guess what? Here’s how we’ve been pulling the wool over your eyes for the last 75 years.”

And to some degree, that’s OK. I couldn’t get enough of the behind-the-scenes stuff on the WWE Network when that was first launched, and even today, I sometimes resort to watching that dumb Cody Rhodes talkshow on YouTube, just to better grasp who these people are as people. But to run a credit line at the end of a show like we’re watching an episode of Family Matters in the fall of 1994? I’m not so sure about that.

In a lot of ways, I blame Lee Fitting, noted Smackdown Executive Producer extraordinaire. He hasn’t even been with WWE for a year, but his College Gameday fingerprints are all over the company’s presentation anymore. That, combined with a corporate board that is way more concerned with stock prices than it is with making sure Austin Theory’s punches look real, has led to a swift change in both the way the product is presented and the way we, as consumers, digest it. PLE pre-shows feel like mini-Gamedays. The graphics that take the shows in and out of commercial breaks could feature Roman Reigns or Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe – it makes no difference because now they all look the same. And those elongated, backstage tracking shots that ostensibly follow the wrestlers from their hotel rooms, to their Uber ride, into the building, past Gorilla and through the curtain and into the ring?

Well … don’t even get me started on those elongated, backstage tracking shots that ostensibly follow the wrestlers from their hotel rooms, to their Uber ride, into the building, past Gorilla position and through the curtain and into the ring.

This, of course, says nothing of the photo that leaked a week or two ago. You know which one. Yes. That photo. The one with the crew and roster standing around in and outside of the ring the day of a television taping. All together. One happy family. Drew McIntyre and CM Punk presumably trading fantasy football advice all before captivating our collective attention a mere handful of hours later as they continue their blood feud centered around a friendship bracelet that you can now buy on wweshop.com(!).

Yes, that photo getting out most likely wasn’t WWE’s fault (or at least let’s all hope so), but it did highlight how fast and loose the historical kayfabe rules are treated these days. And to me, that’s not great. I mean, I love eating some hot dogs on a summer evening, but I have absolutely no interest in how that hot dog is made or worse yet, what is even in those things. I’d rather get some mustard and onions and ignorantly enjoy my dinner. The same logic applies to how I enjoy my pro wrestling. I don’t think Drew McIntyre wants to break CM Punk’s neck in real life. But, shoot. I’ll suspend my disbelief for 20, 30 minutes or so in the name of entertainment.

Ahhh, yes. The “E” word. Entertainment. Such is where the wires get crossed for me. Time and time again, you’ll hear everyone form Paul Levesque on down to Byron Saxton talk about how pro wrestling is great when the lines are blurred, when reality is in question, when we aren’t just all holding hands and smiling together as we know for sure that what we see in front of us isn’t real. That’s true. But if that’s true, why is a company like WWE taking these small measures to remind us that this is, indeed, entertainment, and nothing more?

(Money. The answer is money, of course).

As rhetorical as that question might be – and the answer even more obvious – it still bugs me that we’re at a spot in pro wrestling history where we are force-fed excess or we starve. Last Monday, I whined about the questions swirling in my head after seeing the ultra violence at AEW’s All Out. Staple guns are real, man, and hypodermic needles are about as authentic as it gets. But isn’t there a less-violent way to portray realism within the context of this medium? Probably. So, I change the channel to find WWE … rolling end credits like we just finished an episode of Saturday Night Live?

There has to be a sweet spot in the middle … right?

Hopefully. Because while the sight of those six words threw me for a loop on Friday’s Smackdown, I curse the day when we start seeing pro wrestlers workshop their promos with one another on some Peacock special that TKO can sell to a vodka company for millions of dollars in sponsorships. Worse yet will be four words that’ll grace the hypothetical screen as those episodes turn to black.

Executive Producer. Cody Rhodes.