Obedience Training

Every young pro wrestler faces a rite of passage before he can become a man: the Rookie Beatdown.  This is a painful, humiliating process similar to “hazing” that teaches the young show-off to respect his elders and toe the line.  The story goes something like this:  the lovable young beginner, still wet behind the ears, sticks his nose in an older wrestler’s business, perhaps interrupting some dirty sneak attack, or interfering in a match causing the Veteran to lose.

The Veteran then takes notice of the young rebel, targeting the uppity Rookie for a lesson in respect and how to mind his own business.  They eventually meet in the ring, and a painful beating ensues.  The Veteran unleashes a world of assault, employing rough tactics and fancy holds borne of years of rough and tumble experience in the ring wars that has the innocent Rookie as helpless as a lump of clay.  The fans witness the mis-match and their respect and admiration for the new kid (even though he loses terribly) grows because he got in there and took his lumps like a man even though he never stood a chance of winning.

Several times during the match, the Rookie will show some promise and gain the upper hand with a fancy flippity dippity move or well-executed wrestling hold that takes the Veteran by surprise, but this success is short lived.  His flashes of talent primarily serve to wake up the crowd and keep them hopeful that the kid might just pull out a victory.  But we’ve all learned that the Universe is a cruel mother, and sooner than later, the Veteran uses a low-blow or thumb to the eye to again subdue the cocky show-off and crush the fans’ hopes of seeing an upset.

Part of the appeal of this fairly common theme is that the Veteran is behaving like a classic bully we all had to endure while growing up.  Remember that ruthless, tough baffoon who tortured you back when you were in school?  He was aggressive, mouthy, a dirty fighter, and he seemed to enjoy making you suffer.  Just about everyone has been bullied by some meanie, so our hearts always go out to the helpless young cutie as he struggles to get to his feet only to suffer another fist to the ribs or boot to the man-bag.  He evokes our sympathy because we’ve all been bullied by life in general.  And all of us want to see the vicious bully suffer, if for no other reason than to avenge our younger, less confident selves who were humiliated and beat up by some monster years ago.

There is a popular show on MTV called Bully Beatdown that plays on this same satisfaction of getting revenge on a bully.  The show features a victim of bullying watching the predator who picks on him getting ripped to shreds in the Octagon by an authentic MMA fighter.  The rumor is that the show’s fights are just as fake and just as scripted as pro wrestling, but there is one important difference: in Bully Beatdown, the bully is taught a painful lesson and learns how it feels to be tortured, but in pro wrestling, the bully is invincible.  He spends most of the match further degrading, kicking, spitting on, and walking all over the victim.  So Bully Beatdown always has a happy ending for the victim, but a Rookie Beatdown in pro wrestling does not have a happy ending (at least not for the victim.)

I think the true purpose of the Rookie Beatdown is similar to a “jumping in” process when you’re joining a gang; it’s an initiation process.  In case you’ve never been in a gang, a “jumping in” is where a new member must allow a group of older members to beat him up as he stands there (or lays there) enduring the pain and not fighting back. The initiate has to demonstrate his loyalty, heart, and dedication to becoming a member.

The “jump in” process ingrains a message in the mind of the initiate that being a member of our group comes with a physical price, and therefore, it is valuable to be a member.  This initiation process decreases the chances that the new member will quit the gang (or quit being a wrestler) the minute something better comes along.  For example, if you had to walk barefoot across broken glass to get into the movie theater, you probably are going to stay there even if the movie is fairly awful because, damn it, you walked on glass to get there.  Taking your lumps in a Rookie Beatdown match is meant to serve a similar purpose (or is at least meant to appear to serve this purpose in the minds of the audience).

Chris Jones was the eager young Rookie flavor of the month a few years back.  Here he is taking his Rookie Beatdown from veteran bad boy Roderick Strong.  Roddy soon teaches his cute little opponent why he is known as the “Messiah of the Backbreaker.”  Both wrestlers pay their roles to perfection:  Jones slapping high-five and posing for photos with the fans on his way to the ring to buy their love and sympathy, and Strong strutting around acting all arrogant and ruthless and sadistic as he slowly but surely dismantles the Rookie.