Wrestling with Art
Sunday two different things happened. In the afternoon Jason Mann, Hammer Dialectic, and I had a conversation comparing Allen Iverson to wrestlers like RVD and Shane Douglas. Just before I went to bed I saw a post by Lee aka el Spriggs on twitter wrote a blog post expanding on my idea that the Rock an Impressionist wrestler.
It strikes me that these two conversations are opposed to each other. It was easy for a number of people to compare sports and wrestling. There have been a couple good conversations comparing wrestlers to NBA players. When I tweeted "Who is the Scotty Pippin of Pro Wrestling?" I got two people to say Arn Anderson right away.
I am not sure people would give me the same reply if I asked about artist movements. If I asked who is the Banksy of wrestling? Who is the Daniel Day Lewis of wrestling? Who is the Beck of wrestling? I am not sure I would get an answer for any of these. Today I did say that CM Punk is the Shepard Fairey of wrestling.
I think if we are going to talk about wrestling like a liberal art, we need to frame the discussion in a very different way. We need to talk about style, genre, and artist movements. I know there are things that get in the way of this, but I think someone needs to start talking about it.
It strikes me that these two conversations are opposed to each other. It was easy for a number of people to compare sports and wrestling. There have been a couple good conversations comparing wrestlers to NBA players. When I tweeted "Who is the Scotty Pippin of Pro Wrestling?" I got two people to say Arn Anderson right away.
I am not sure people would give me the same reply if I asked about artist movements. If I asked who is the Banksy of wrestling? Who is the Daniel Day Lewis of wrestling? Who is the Beck of wrestling? I am not sure I would get an answer for any of these. Today I did say that CM Punk is the Shepard Fairey of wrestling.
I think if we are going to talk about wrestling like a liberal art, we need to frame the discussion in a very different way. We need to talk about style, genre, and artist movements. I know there are things that get in the way of this, but I think someone needs to start talking about it.
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