The Art of Catharsis

The face of cathartic resolution
Photo Credit: WWE.com

My stance on Daniel Bryan being the one to end The Shield's winning streak was greeted to mixed reactions. Some people took it as red meat, gobbling it down like I was Gordon Ramsay serving it to them at one of his five-star steakhouses in some exotic locale like Las Vegas or Dubai. However, it was the other side of the coin, the criticisms of it that stuck out, as they usually do. Praise and agreement are soothing, but it's not human nature to dwell on the good vibes. I know this exceedingly well because I am proudly a human being. It didn't help that one of the criticisms came from a peer that I respect and who will actually be on The Wrestling Podcast tomorrow night, Jason Mann. He argued that my take on the whole thing was dangerously close to ranting against seeing cool moments and great wrestling on free television, an attitude that I abhor.

Honestly, I could see where he was coming from. I felt like I had to do a lot of explaining to get my point across. When the best points are ones that are poignant without a lot of setup, I can see where I may have just been trying to tap into a well-worn zeitgeist that appeals to a train of thought that may not have a lot of said thought contained within. I've tried not to jerk the knee frequently, but sometimes, the reaction is so strong when the event takes place that the knee's movement overtakes rational thought.

I still feel like The Shield's win streak should have come to an end at a different point of time, but does that automatically make the way WWE did things incorrect as was my implication? Let's run down the entire scene. Did all three members of the victorious team have a longstanding beef with The Shield? Yes, they were all among the group's original targets before the turn of the new year. Was the match good? Uh, there's no question that it met the high bar set for WWE main TV in-ring action for the calendar year so far, absolutely none. Did the match have a satisfying ending? If I put away extraneous trappings surrounding the Shield and things like a "win-loss" record, then yeah, it did. Bryan got to hit a beat in his character progression that allowed him both to vanquish, even if just momentarily, a longstanding foe as well as act as a strong point of evidence against him being any sort of weak link. Did the crowd react to it? I don't think there's any doubt they were into the way it ended.

So, what exactly is wrong with that picture? My argument was then, and it still is now, that the timing was off on the moment. It wasn't that it was shown for free, but that it was shown as a precursor to something that would end up being behind a paywall. That kind of moment doesn't feel like it should be used as a setup for something bigger. Ending a run of dominance, providing catharsis on that level, SHOULD be an endpoint, right? But what if it was an endpoint? What if there was a plan in place all along where that moment on that show was going to be a logical temporary resolution to an arc that had greater purpose?

I am so used to things being a certain way that when change happens, it can seem jarring or even terrifying. It's almost like the ideas of storytelling, of eliciting catharsis from an audience (even if that audience is just me) had become like a science to me. That's the worst idea to have in the world, that something as free-flowing and subjective as artistic release can be codified down into 0s and 1s for processing by androids or Darren Rovell. Catharsis is an art, and it takes a lot of fine-tuning to get down right. The atmosphere around that episode of Smackdown felt to me a bit out of place, but only because I'm so used to seeing WWE treating their Friday night show as a holding pattern before their big paid event. While maybe I was in the wrong expecting something out of that show, maybe WWE was even more wrong because their track record provided me at least with the idea that I shouldn't really care about results that happen on the Smackdown before a pay-per-view.

But then Bryan tapped out Orton on RAW last night, and it became clear that maybe the Smackdown six-man and that winning streak wasn't supposed to be the total catharsis after all. Again, it's an art, not a science, and maybe winning streaks really are immaterial. The Shield, after all, is more than a winning streak. As long as they have a greater purpose outside of the ring, and as long as their matches give off the aura that they more than anything else want to win every match they're in, then should it matter when the first time they lost was, no matter how big a McGuffin that kind of string of consecutive victories could be. Maybe Bryan and Orton were supposed to conclude at least part of their major arc on RAW last night, and unlike the Smackdown that aired 10 or so days ago, I came out of RAW last night feeling wholly satisfied with the yarn that had been spun to date.

Again, it didn't come at a usual spot. This wasn't a special edition of Monday Night RAW nor was it a pay-per-view. It was the second RAW after Payback, one that might seem like a throwaway to some, but in essence is a blank slate. Anything can happen on RAW, right? That's what Stamford wants me to believe? But to frame catharsis as something that should only happen on certain dates again is treating it like a science. In essence, it shouldn't matter where it happens, so long as it happens. And when it does occur, it should be powerful.

Another peer whom I respect, K. Sawyer Paul, wrote about why it was powerful in his must-read "The Heart Is RAW" essay from last night:

So to see [Orton] lose, to lose with the purpose of finally elevating everyone’s favourite pro wrestler to proper main event status, this is a big ticket indeed. WWE is aware of this as Big Deal, and because they like to screw with us (and because we like to be screwed with), they begin the show proper with Bryan and Orton, only to stop the match thirty seconds in due to their outside brawling. “Double disqualification?” Bryan yells at our authority figures, demanding something be done, demanding a real match later in the show. Brad Maddox—WWE’s resident Bob Benson kiss-ass/possible serial killer—refutes him, but Vickie Guerrero grants it, if only to make Maddox nervous about being pummeled by Bryan. The viewer is nervous that the match will again be delayed, perhaps to Smackdown, perhaps to the Money in the Bank PPV, perhaps to a string of house shows to be appreciated by the live audience who pay with money but not by us, the loyal TV audience who pay by watching both ads and the app and with hashtags and sarcasm.

But we were rewarded for our attention, given a mammoth main event with a Big Fight Feel, a violent and cathartic street fight involving weapons, in-crowd fighting, and scores of shots with an increasingly broken kendo stick that factored into the wonderful finishing moment. But since winning isn’t necessarily a victory, Orton stood after his submission and shook Bryan’s hand, finally conceding a respectful loss, making it really count. It reminded me Summerslam 2004, when Orton defeated Benoit for his first World Championship, and Benoit forced Orton to shake his hand and “be a man.” Orton has been gaining my affection recently, and I’d like to think this is the beginning of something interesting for both men. But even if it isn’t, we have had a satisfying series of events, a well-told beginning, middle, and end, and at the end of the day this happens so rarely in soaps, sports, and everything in between, we should relish and appreciate it—Orton and all.

You've got your match.

With all that in mind, it's perfectly clear that WWE has a higher purpose, even if they don't know where that purpose is driving towards sometimes. But maybe part of that, not all of it (they do tell some stinkers of a story sometimes), but part of it is that they are constantly poking and prodding, trying to get the right temperature of the crowd so they can provide the right beats to make them metaphorically and emotionally get off. Right now, Daniel Bryan is the main avenue for this, even if he hasn't reached the plateau that someone like John Cena or even CM Punk has attained. It might fly in the face of what traditionally has worked for WWE, but change is the only acceptable constant in art. It might be scary to see something like a win streak be terminated on an unusual timeslot, but at the same time, whatever works works, right?