Grappling hooked

“No-one ever went broke underestimating the good taste of the American people,” quipped the great HL Mencken some time in the 1930s.

It is unfortunate for all concerned that, through an accident of birth, the Baltimore-based man of letters missed out on exposure to the World Wrestling Federation by a mere 50 or so years.

I’d hazard a guess, though, that had he ever clapped eyes on it, his initial reaction would have been something along the lines of “QED!”

If you have Sky Sports at home (or even Sky One, which broadcasts a highlights programme once or twice a week), I’m sure you’ve chanced upon this ludicrous, hammy wrestling show whose most mysterious hold is over its audience.

With its coarse scripts and plotlines, acted out by a cast of cartoonish, OTT characters like The Rock, The Undertaker, Chris Jericho et al, it has attracted a surprising (or perhaps not so surprising) number of converts to its cause.

Take my brother, for example, in most respects a normal and well-adjusted 19-year-old. He has two aesthetic Achilles heels. One is his fondness for the music of Queen. The other is his obsession with the WWF.

I once put it to him that there was little discernible point in wasting time watching this sort of tripe, when every match and result is staged to within an inch of its life. With the steady gaze of the true believer, he retorted: “No, you don’t know who’s going to win each bout, unless you go onto the Internet and check.”

Now it is Foul Play’s sad duty to report that, for some inexplicable reason, the WWF’s place at the pinnacle of US redneck culture is under threat. Afflicted by falling ratings and revenues, it is taking the last resort – that of splitting its roster of stars into two leagues, “Raw Is War” (riiiiiiiiiight) and “Smackdown”.

This has been coming for some time. The annual WrestleMania showpiece recently drew its usual 80,000-ish crowd to the host arena, but the pay-per-view figures were abysmal by its usual standards. All of which poses a problem for the organisation’s president, Vince McMahon.

A 56-year-old multi-millionaire with a greying quiff and a gentle paunch, McMahon has steered his ship out of tighter situations than this one. In 1994, for instance, the WWF suffered a major setback when its main star, Hulk Hogan, was lured to the rival WCW (World Championship Wrestling), thanks to the deep pockets of its owner, CNN mogul Ted Turner.

McMahon’s answer was to create a character far louder and madder than the essentially anodyne Hogan: the growling, expletive-spewing “Stone Cold” Steve Austin (a former WCW reject).

Then, in a true masterstroke, McMahon cast himself as a domineering corporate boss in perpetual conflict with Austin, throwing in his comely daughter Stephanie as the love interest between Triple H (don’t ask) and Kurt Angle (ditto).

The boss, who is referred to at all times as “Mr McMahon”, spends much of the show standing in the ring trading insults with Austin and other wrestlers, without ever really getting involved in the actual business of a bout.

McMahon’s current troubles stem from the fact that he lost his shirt, or at least his cufflinks, by throwing an estimated 15% of the WWF’s revenue into the promotion of the ill-fated XFL, a much gorier and louder version of gridiron, which was supposed to bring the elusive 12-to-24-year-old males flooding back to the network on Saturday nights.

But following its launch in January last year, the ratings were abysmal and the critical notices worse. The whole enterprise eventually went the way of the dodo after six months.

In a move that created another hole in his pockets, McMahon took the now debt-ridden WCW off Ted Turner’s hands last year for a humiliatingly low price to cement his position as the Mr Big of pro wrestling. While this means he now has the marketplace to himself, it has also undermined his financial muscle.

His last few gambits have carried something of a whiff of desperation. In the wrestling equivalent of signing up Gazza on a six-year contract, McMahon has roped in Hulk Hogan, who must be pushing 60 by this stage, to give it one more lash.

Watching Smackdown the other night, it was painfully obvious to even a non-expert like myself that the guy hasn’t bothered to learn a new move in years. Sad. Or, as Smokey Robinson used to say, sadder than sad.

And as if McMahon didn’t have enough problems, the other week saw a court ruling that his organisation must give up the use of the trademark “WWF” initials to the World Wildlife Fund, which had originally copyrighted them years ago.

But despite its current woes, it will be a while before we see the back of this ridiculous redneck roadshow. Given that last year it pulled in some $379 million in revenue, it seems likely to continue polluting the schedules of the American networks – and, by extension, that of Sky Sports – for a while yet. Unfortunately.