The Funhouse Match: Why it was awesome, why it was nonsense, and what it says about WWE character development
Posted: Apr 6th, '20, 17:57
So, the Funhouse Match at Wrestlemania is a harbinger of controversy, as many expected. However, after stepping away and taking a look at it, I've decided there's some good and some bad, and that combined says something about how characters are developed in a WWE framework. For the sake of clarity, let's state with.
The Nonsense: First of all, I think what fueled the ire of its detractors was that it was a montage of seemingly nonsensical wrestling scenes throughout history. From Cena's debut, to a Saturday Night's Main Event backdrop, to Basic Thuganomics (arguably the weakest part of the piece overall, but we'll get there when we get there), to Hollywood Hulk Cena, to the return of 2013 Bray Wyatt, it all just a mishmash of logos and brands that didn't work when presented alongside each other. But let's look a little deeper. Before I get to my overall point here, let's first examine...
The Awesome: Each of these segments represent a negative view of John Cena that's mutated over the years. That he's gotten by on the vague ass hell WWE branding literally since day one (RUTHLESS AGGRESSION), that he's a generic 80s muscle man (SMNE), that once you strip away the muscle, what do you have (SMNE, once his arms go all floppy), that he's a...bad rapper? (Basic Thuganomic, like I said, the weakest part of the proceedings), and that he's someone who's openly beloved by the person running the company (Hollywood Hulk Cena and Bray Bischoff), to someone who abhors being violent when it would actually make his life easier to be an aggressive Austin-esque Bray babyface (not "finishing" Bray at Mania 30) . What made this all the more beautiful was a lack of an Iron Giant "I am Superman" moment, in which he casts aside the aspersions of what people think he is, and becomes what he knows he is, a great wrestler who's won the hearts of millions of people across the world, and instead falling victim to those insecurities and losing. Now, I know some of you anti-Fiend folks are furiously typing your count-arguments, but what if I said you and I probably agree?
What this says about character development in WWE
A critical question I anticipated answering when I weighed the above pros of the match was, "Yeah, but has any of this been mentioned on TV, or ever, about John, all the insecurities you mentioned?" And the answer is no. If you weren't part of the anti-Cena hivemind on the internet, all those insecurities would be news to you. And that's the problem.
The Funhouse match, and The Fiend overall, is an unhealthy marriage of two places wrestling as a performance art can go Wrestling needs to be long term, storytelling with three dimensional characters for something like The Fiend to work, so that when the time does come to get existential and examine character flaws and insecurities, those have been there all along, those are things that long term fans of a babyface like John Cena can point to and understand without having to have broke the fourth wall. Or it can go in a very Iron Shiek vs Hulk Hogan, one dimensional action figures where you can infer their basic motivations just by looking at them, with no further analysis needed. Both styles of storytelling can be entertaining. I enjoy both 1980s southern rasslin storytelling, and something as utterly fantastical as Impact's Undead Realm. But here's the thing, they can't exist together. It would be like if you took a lovingly crafted sandwich from an artisan restaurant...and put peanut butter and jelly on it. Individually those things can be delicious, but not together. What I'm saying is, go one direction or the other. Go three dimensional, articulate storytelling, or "Good guy good bad guy bad" those are WWE's choices if it wants to survive as an entertainment act in the long run.
The Nonsense: First of all, I think what fueled the ire of its detractors was that it was a montage of seemingly nonsensical wrestling scenes throughout history. From Cena's debut, to a Saturday Night's Main Event backdrop, to Basic Thuganomics (arguably the weakest part of the piece overall, but we'll get there when we get there), to Hollywood Hulk Cena, to the return of 2013 Bray Wyatt, it all just a mishmash of logos and brands that didn't work when presented alongside each other. But let's look a little deeper. Before I get to my overall point here, let's first examine...
The Awesome: Each of these segments represent a negative view of John Cena that's mutated over the years. That he's gotten by on the vague ass hell WWE branding literally since day one (RUTHLESS AGGRESSION), that he's a generic 80s muscle man (SMNE), that once you strip away the muscle, what do you have (SMNE, once his arms go all floppy), that he's a...bad rapper? (Basic Thuganomic, like I said, the weakest part of the proceedings), and that he's someone who's openly beloved by the person running the company (Hollywood Hulk Cena and Bray Bischoff), to someone who abhors being violent when it would actually make his life easier to be an aggressive Austin-esque Bray babyface (not "finishing" Bray at Mania 30) . What made this all the more beautiful was a lack of an Iron Giant "I am Superman" moment, in which he casts aside the aspersions of what people think he is, and becomes what he knows he is, a great wrestler who's won the hearts of millions of people across the world, and instead falling victim to those insecurities and losing. Now, I know some of you anti-Fiend folks are furiously typing your count-arguments, but what if I said you and I probably agree?
What this says about character development in WWE
A critical question I anticipated answering when I weighed the above pros of the match was, "Yeah, but has any of this been mentioned on TV, or ever, about John, all the insecurities you mentioned?" And the answer is no. If you weren't part of the anti-Cena hivemind on the internet, all those insecurities would be news to you. And that's the problem.
The Funhouse match, and The Fiend overall, is an unhealthy marriage of two places wrestling as a performance art can go Wrestling needs to be long term, storytelling with three dimensional characters for something like The Fiend to work, so that when the time does come to get existential and examine character flaws and insecurities, those have been there all along, those are things that long term fans of a babyface like John Cena can point to and understand without having to have broke the fourth wall. Or it can go in a very Iron Shiek vs Hulk Hogan, one dimensional action figures where you can infer their basic motivations just by looking at them, with no further analysis needed. Both styles of storytelling can be entertaining. I enjoy both 1980s southern rasslin storytelling, and something as utterly fantastical as Impact's Undead Realm. But here's the thing, they can't exist together. It would be like if you took a lovingly crafted sandwich from an artisan restaurant...and put peanut butter and jelly on it. Individually those things can be delicious, but not together. What I'm saying is, go one direction or the other. Go three dimensional, articulate storytelling, or "Good guy good bad guy bad" those are WWE's choices if it wants to survive as an entertainment act in the long run.