Nicholas Zakas' Personal Blog A deviation from my usual tech writing

Politics is like professional wrestling

Not too long ago, I was having a conversation with a friend about politics. I typically refrain from talking about politics because it's one of those hot-button conversations that can set people off at any time. When I do talk about politics, I never mention who I'm for or against. In reality, I'm against all politicians...to me they're all the same. Just a bunch of people in suits that I don't trust, regardless of their party affiliation. For this conversation, I was expressing my displeasure with the options for United States President this time around. That led to my explaining politics as being analogous to professional wrestling. Then it hit me: this would make a great blog post.

For those of you who aren't professional wrestling fans, let me give you a little bit of background information. Professional wrestling has been around for a long, long time. Initially, the United States was setup into a series of professional wrestling territories, a geographic location wherein only one wrestling organization would work. There was an unspoken rule forbidding organizations from moving into already-established territories. Eventually, two large, nationwide organizations emerged: the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now World Wrestling Entertainment, WWE) and the National Wrestling Alliance (later called World Championship Wrestling, WCW, after being bought by Ted Turner). The regional territories became breeding grounds for the next nationwide stars. The larger organizations would follow the careers of the wrestlers in various territories, and when they thought they were ready, give them a lucrative contract to join the nationwide tour. The result was that wrestlers would typically end up having 5-10 years of experience before making the leap to television and bigger crowds.

However, the territory system started falling apart, largely due to the actions of the WWE and WCW, who were in a furious battle to find the next big wrestling star. They would both raid the talent pools of location promotions, leaving them without talent and ultimately into bankruptcy. The problem was that there was no longer a "farm league" for younger wrestlers to develop in. WWE and WCW began trying to make their own talent by recruiting former amateur and professional athletes to become wrestlers. They would train them for a few months or a year and then bring them onto the nationwide tour. These wrestlers didn't have enough experience or training and inevitably ended up hurting other wrestlers or themselves, the result of pushing them into the limelight too quickly. But WWE and WCW were in a war, and any one wrestler could tip the balance, so anyone who showed even a little bit of potential was brought up quickly. The organizations were no longer happy to wait for someone to develop; anyone with promise must be on TV now. If the guy was good on a mic, able to deliver interviews that would rile up the crowd, he was pushed even faster. This seems to be the way that politics has gone recently.

Barack Obama shows a lot of potential and promise. No one can argue that he is a great public speaker and can whip a crowd into a frenzy in a matter of minutes. He's also only been in the Senate for 4 years. The Democrats are desperate for a victory and took the same approach that wrestling organizations have taken: find the most promising and vibrant guy that you can and push him to the top. He plays well to crowds so let's get him in front of crowds. But just like young wrestlers, a lack of experience means that he could ultimately end up hurting people. My heart sinks when I think about the candidate he could be 8 years from now, with a decade of experience in Washington and even more support than he has now. Similar to young wrestlers, the organization is forcing him into the limelight too early; if elected this November, his peak would occur towards the end of his second term. Wouldn't it be nice to have a full eight years of him at his peak?

On the other side of the ticket, there's John McCain. McCain is akin to an older wrestler who has come up through the territories and yet never won a world championship because he's just not that good. He's been friends and colleagues with former world champions but just hasn't been able to make the jump himself. McCain is towards the end of his career and because the Republican party needs to go in another direction, he's the only one that people recognize as both Republican and different. He's not all that good on the mic, which plays against him when compared to the young stud, Obama. He's the Hacksaw Jim Duggan to Obama's Randy Orton.

Another thing that's important to understand about professional wrestling is that it's not about muscular guys in tights beating the crap out of each other; it's actually about crowd manipulation, and professional wrestling promoters are brilliant at it. Politicians want to manipulate crowds as well and use many of the same techniques that are used in professional wrestling.

A wrestler is said to have "heat" if he can elicit a strong reaction from the crowd, whether positive or negative. In professional wrestling, it doesn't matter if you're loved or hated, you just can't be ignored. When the organization believes that someone worthwhile isn't getting enough heat, they take steps to rectify that. One of the most popular ways to get more heat for a wrestler is to pair him up with a beautiful woman to act as his valet/manager. The theory is that beautiful women always get crowd reactions, and since the woman is attached to the wrestler, that heat will eventually rub off onto him. This technique goes back decades and works like a charm. So when no one was talking about McCain as Obama was getting all the press, what did the Republicans do? Announce Sarah Palin as his running mate. While you can argue about the "beautiful" part of the wrestling analogy, the effect is the same. Pairing an older wrestler with a younger woman always gets more heat and also makes him instantly "hip."

On the other hand, young wrestlers need to be legitimized in order to get heat. It doesn't matter how good they are on the mic, if they can't perform, then they're doomed. Organizations tend to attach younger wrestlers with more experienced ones in order to legitimize them. This is typically done by pairing the younger wrestler with an experienced wrestler in a tag team or in a stable. Randy Orton, the youngest world champion in WWE history, was almost immediately placed into a stable called Evolution that featured himself, two very experienced world champions, Triple H and Ric Flair, along with another newcomer, Batista. Triple H and Ric Flair legitimized Orton and Batista, bring them legitimate heat while protecting them from making stupid mistakes.

So it was natural that Obama's running mate would be a much more experienced Joe Biden. He joined the Senate in 1973, giving him an incredible 35 years of experience in Washington and making him the sixth-longest tenured Senator. Talk about legitimizing Obama as a presidential candidate! Between them, they have nearly 40 years of experience!

And if you have any other doubts about the similarities between politics and professional wrestling, I'd invite you to take a look at the treatment given the candidates at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions and then look at wrestler's intros. Here's Barack Obama and here's Triple H.  Heck, look at the stages! Politics is just like professional wrestling in so many ways that it's laughable...and scary.