"This is the story…"

"True story!"

"… about bookers in a wrestling company"

"… trying to find a way to save their sorry asses from firing"

"… or a one-way trip to ECW"

"… find out what happens when people stop following kayfabe"

"… and start shooting, bay-bee! RATINGZ~!"

[Graphic on screen that shortly explodes into flame reading]

"Real World: WCW"

[Scene: a conference room in Atlanta, GA. Various WCW bookers are sitting around sipping coffee.]

Eric Bischoff: "Okay, buyrates are way down, ratings are stagnant, and what little interest we had from the Hogan thing is dying down. What can we do to get some heat back in this company?"

Vince Russo: "How about we have Mike Awesome sell sex-tapes of him and three fat chicks? The kidz will love it! Look what it did for Mark Henry’s career when we taped him getting head from a transvestite!"

[Silence falls around the table as they all stare at Russo.]

Russo: "Okay, so maybe that’s not the best idea. But none of you old geezers have any better ideas! You’re all still stuck in the kayfabe era of wrestling! Everyone knows this stuff isn’t real! The best way to entertain them and get their minds focused on the product is to tell them that it’s fake repeatedly, and any way we can!"

Kevin Sullivan: "I’m not so sure about that, Vince. I mean, these fans still want to see good matches between good workers who have issues. And I DON’T mean real-life, backstage issues. I’m talking about storylines, angles, reasons for them to feud, like over a title or valet or…"

Russo: "SHUT THE HELL UP, you old goat! Nobody cares what you think!"

[Grainy videotape of Sullivan talking on an office phone.]

Sullivan: "Vince really hurt my feelings when he blew up at me like that in the booking meeting. I mean, what right does he have to yell like that? I’ve been in this business for over twenty-five years, and he was just a writer for WWF magazine. I mean, he had a kayfabe job, and now he’s fighting against it? Boy be trippin’, yo."

[Back to the conference]

Ed Ferrera: "Well, I’ve got to fill up some more time on Thunder. I’ve already got too much of that in-ring crap. I mean, nobody is gonna want to see Lance Storm wrestle a match. All he does is stay on the mat and act like he’s hurting his opponent. What does he think this is, ECW?"

Russo: "ECW?"

Ed: "Yeah, I think it’s some indy league somewhere."

Bischoff: "Yeah, something like that."

Ed: "But what am I gonna do about the content for this show?"

Russo: "I know what we can do! Have Big Vito and Cpl. Cajun in a camouflage evening gown match for the right to face Scott Steiner in the Asylum! The kidz will love it! We’ll have Nitro Grrlz cavorting naked in mini-cages around the Asylum!"

Bischoff: "Um, Vince, maybe you need to switch to decaf. And you’ve got to be just about out of those Viagra samples you got from Mexico."

Russo: "Smuggling that stuff up from Tijuana was the only useful thing those luchas ever did."

[Grainy video of Eric Bischoff speaking aloud as he types into his journal]

Bischoff: "I respect Vince’s views a lot… after all, he was part of the creative team that kicked my ass back in ’99. I kind of wonder if he’s going too far, though. We’re on pace to lose over sixty million dollars this year, and he’s talking about monster trucks… sixty million dollars. Holy shit, that’s a lot of money. Kinda makes the dollars we’re spending on Hogan to keep him home look like chump change. [Long pause] Sixty million smackers… wow."

[Back to the booking meeting…]

Ed: "This is getting us nowhere. I need something to help me fill time for this Thunder, or else the higher-ups are gonna have my ass! I’m out of ideas!"

Russo [suddenly calm]: "I’ve got an idea. Everyone seems to love our shoot interviews. Let’s throw out the ultimate shoot… Goldberg. He can talk about the booking committee, Nash’s booking himself into the world title, all of it. He’s gonna totally blow the lid off the industry. This will be revolutionary! He can shoot all over Nash and every other veteran in the locker room, and then he can talk about how badly he’s gonna kick Nash’s ass at the PPV! The kidz will love it! I swear it! We can make it last about ten minutes!

[Sullivan talking with his secretary, again shot through something like a security camera]

Sullivan: "When Vince suggested that shoot with Goldberg, I was ready to walk out of the room. But then I figured I’d let him dig his own grave. Once the boys learn that he put Goldberg up to it, they’ll kill his skinny Yankee ass."

[Meeting again.]

Bischoff: "Vince, it’s great for shock value, sure. But how in the world are we going to sell a match between these two when they’ll admit that booking politics is going to decide it? Aren’t we destroying the last shreds of suspension of disbelief by doing this?"

Russo: "C’mon, Eric! There ARE no marks anymore! All that’s left is rubes who buy the t-shirts, and they don’t care who wins or loses! They just want to wear the shirt of the guy who’s on TV! They’ll still tune in to see this! Trust me!"

Ed: "But what’s the next step? How much further can we go in taking down the curtain between reality and fiction? If we drop the pretense of actual wrestling and admit that it’s all predetermined by a group of guys in suits sitting in a conference room, how can we put anything dramatic on TV ever again?"

[Russo subtly smiles as the camera fades to black and the following words appear on the screen]

"A Vince Russo production"

Until next time, I am...

Thread aPa~!™

(©2000 Matt Etling.  Originally posted on OraclesWar.com; reprinted by permission of the author.)