We’ve discussed in the past how Kevin Sullivan both frightened and excited the viewing audience with his outrageous brutality, manhandling his handsome jobbers, utterly wasting them without one shred of mercy. This added to his persona as a heartless, devil-worshipping savage, and forever earned him a place in our fantasies of punishment and hyper-masculine dominance.
But what about the victim himself — in this case, a pathetic, pale, frightened-looking Jim Backlund? Doesn’t his performance, his excellence as an out-matched jobber, also add to our perception and arousal over Sullivan’s power and brutality? I would argue that skilled losers like Jim Backlund are just as responsible as Kevin Sullivan for inspiring our fear, intimidation, and jaw-dropping worship of the evil Heel. If it weren’t for weaklings like Backlund, frail and vulnerable, willingly climbing in the ring in their little baby-blue singlets for yet another whipping, then brutes like Kevin Sullivan would not exist.
A talented jobber knows how to position himself for maximum effect, to get inside the fans’ heads and inspire their excitement and compassion. After Sullivan injures him out on the floor, Backlund willingly degrades himself for our viewing pleasure, sacrificing his dignity and offering his privates for our inspection.
It really is a vulgar display, that pale body suffering on the floor — his tight little singlet barely concealing him as he humps the air and kicks his tall silver boots around. He’s like a stripper or exotic dancer degrading himself on the floor for the viewer to enjoy.
I wonder if Backlund was ordered to wear that singlet, or if he selected it himself. If Backlund chose his own costume, then I give him even more credit. The singlet is clingy and revealing, exposing his fragile ribcage, his soft flesh, his narrow effeminate hips.
The powder-blue color really makes his white skin appear even more vulnerable and nude. Backlund clearly understands how exposed he is, and he works it by spreading his legs wide, sprawling around stretching the singlet to the limit, squirming in pain like a snake trying to shed it’s too-tight outer layer of skin. They can’t teach artistry like that — it’s born of thousands of humiliating beat-downs in the pro wrestling ring.
As if Sullivan couldn’t destroy this wimp all by himself, his brain-washed disciple Bob Roop enters the ring to help dole out the abuse. As if Backlund hasn’t been hurt and embarrassed sufficiently already, the villains Spike-Piledrive him! Right on a wooden chair! The Heels have lived up to their reputation as satanists, as insane perpetrators of torture as crazy and heartless as Charles Manson himself.
Backlund willingly submits to this abuse, allowing his pale body to be broken and degraded. He either has a very low self esteem, or he is so self-confident and proud that he is able to allow himself to be publicly flogged and raped without the act affecting his psyche. Either way, his complete helplessness makes Kevin Sullivan seem that much more effective and cruel.
