Wrestler v. Themselves
When you first learn about stories in school, maybe around fourth grade, you find about the three types of conflict. This makes me think about wrestling and wrestling stories. Wrestling is great with man v. man struggle. It is really what wrestling does the best. It is easiest story to tell and it is the easiest story for the audience to accept. It is really easy to act out.
The second type of conflict is man v. nature. I really think that man v. nature/man v. society/ man v. the system are all the same thing. Nature, society, and the system are all unseen forces that are so big it is hard for people to get their mind around them. I think wrestling does man v. the system conflict sometimes, and it can be done well. I think DX v the WWF, Paul Heyman v. TNN, and unseen Championship Committee stories are all in this category. At their best, these are some of my favorite stories.
I have a hard time thinking of any man v. himself stories in wrestling. I know that a wrestler cannot be in the ring by themselves. Just because there is another man in the ring, it does not mean you cannot tell the story of a man struggling against himself. I think you could tell the story of a wrestler getting older or struggling against injury. A wrestler can fail because they cannot do the moves they could do before but cannot do now. While a wrestler needs another wrestler in the ring, you can tell a story in the ring that is just about one wrestler.
I thought about this because of the TV show Mad Men. The best stories about Don Draper is when he has to deal with his own nature. Mad Men is an example of pushing the boundaries for television storytelling. I really want to see the story telling in wrestling to be pushed the same way.
Let me know if I have this all wrong.
The second type of conflict is man v. nature. I really think that man v. nature/man v. society/ man v. the system are all the same thing. Nature, society, and the system are all unseen forces that are so big it is hard for people to get their mind around them. I think wrestling does man v. the system conflict sometimes, and it can be done well. I think DX v the WWF, Paul Heyman v. TNN, and unseen Championship Committee stories are all in this category. At their best, these are some of my favorite stories.
I have a hard time thinking of any man v. himself stories in wrestling. I know that a wrestler cannot be in the ring by themselves. Just because there is another man in the ring, it does not mean you cannot tell the story of a man struggling against himself. I think you could tell the story of a wrestler getting older or struggling against injury. A wrestler can fail because they cannot do the moves they could do before but cannot do now. While a wrestler needs another wrestler in the ring, you can tell a story in the ring that is just about one wrestler.
I thought about this because of the TV show Mad Men. The best stories about Don Draper is when he has to deal with his own nature. Mad Men is an example of pushing the boundaries for television storytelling. I really want to see the story telling in wrestling to be pushed the same way.
Let me know if I have this all wrong.
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