Welcome to a new website-exclusive PWTorch feature! I am PWTorch founder and editor, Wade Keller. I've been covering pro wrestling since 1987 when I started the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter while still in high school. Over 25 years later, PWTorch reaches more wrestling fans every week than any other independent brand. When we launched PWTorch.com in 1999, one of the features I enjoyed doing the most was "Ask PWTorch." I haven't done it recently on the website, but did revive it in recent years in an audio format for PWTorch VIP members on my Keller Hotline. We reintroduced it to the website audience this month.

If you have a question you'd like me to respond to, send your question to askpwtorch@gmail.com. I, along with the Torch staff, will address you questions.


PWTorch reader Tarun from India asks: Firstly, this site is the homepage on my laptop for last two years and I'd like to say I appreciate all of your hard work to keep PWTorch updated & interesting. On with my 2 questions... (1) Why WWE can't make some of special events like Extreme Rules, Hell in a Cell, and Elimination Chamber TV14 while leaving rest to a PG rating. This can be used to allow the show to be more brutal or have more gore, then save the rest of the events to be more family-friendly? (2) Do WWE, TNA, ROH etc. have a division of employees or writers who read sites like Torch to get ideas about character development , storyline progression and whether they are implemented?

PWTorch editor Wade Keller answers: WWE sells themselves to licensing partners and sponsors as a PG product. If they had a TV14 division, it would cause them to have to explain the nuances of different shows having different types of content, which could drive away some leery partners. They simply don't believe that being PG is a big restriction on what they can do, and they've found being 100 percent PG rated has opened so many doors in the corporate world that they aren't, to my knowledge, considering any changes. I just wish they'd stop talking about being PG, because drawing attention to it, I think, is where at least half of the hostility toward it comes from. Granted, there's not nearly as much blood as there used to be, but otherwise I'm not sure what WWE would do differently if they were PG14. Would it really be that much more exciting if they said "asshole" more often? I think on the list of real problems that cause some fans to be disgruntled with WWE, in reality being PG isn't on the top ten list. What's more important are having characters fans are invested in, storylines that make sense, not overexposing and watering down the product, etc.

As for whether wrestling promotions have a division of employees who read sites like the Torch to get ideas, the answer is no. That said, over the years WWE has designated certain people (Howard Finkle, for instance) to read the top wrestling newsletters and websites and monitor the 900 number reports (back in the '90s) and then file a report with Vince McMahon details on what's being said that would be of interest to him. I don't know of an actual division of people who scan newsletters or websites looking for storyline ideas or character ideas, though.


PWTorch reader Chris D. asks: I'm always interested by your takes about what direction certain storylines in WWE and TNA should go and what you would do if you had creative power. Most of the time I agree. My question is, if WWE or TNA offered you a senior position on their creative staff which a high enough level of infuience on the story lines, would you take it (not taking pay into consideration)? And if not, why not? Thanks for your great website, I've been a reader for what's got be close to 10 years now.

PWTorch editor Wade Keller answers: I wouldn't because I enjoy my current job. I get to be a journalist and run my own business. I graduated college with degrees in economics and journalism, and I get to practice both skills running the Torch and covering the pro wrestling industry. This is what I've done since I was 16 years old and I've never given any serious consideration to a job change the last 25 years, in wrestling or otherwise. I also like the job security of being my own boss (well, the readers, listeners, and subscribers are collectively my boss!). I haven't given much thought to whether it's something I'd be good at or enjoy. I think there's value in watching the wrestling industry from above and see the big picture, and then evaluate it and present my thoughts. It's entirely different to be in the middle of the chaos of writing a show, dealing with the internal politics, and taking everything into consideration - an insubordinate wrestler, a contract squabble, a boss who wants his son put on TV, etc. Thanks for your kind words and supporting what we do here for nearly ten years!


PWTorch reader Paul D. asks: Vince McMahon forbids his Superstars from using the words wrestling, wrestler, athlete, and fighter. Instead, he makes them refer to themselves as in-ring competitors and sports entertainers (ugh). Plus, Vince shortened World Wrestling Entertainment to just WWE and he'll just acknowledge the fact that the E stands for entertainment. He also has long backstage skits, longer pointless filler segments, and short matches. It's like he's trying to tell the world the WWE isn't a wrestling organization. If Vince is trying to spread that message, what's the point of having matches and championships at all?

PWTorch editor Wade Keller answers: That is the million dollar question, isn't it? I'll do my best to present what I understand to be his reasoning. First, context is important. He took over the WWF in the early 1980s after growing up in a territorial industry where wrestling was seen as tawdry, phony, and appealing mostly to the lowest classes of society. He knew that to attract sponsors, top cable networks, and celebrity involvement, he needed to redefine what he did as something other than what people had come to think of pro wrestling in the 1960s and 1970s. So thus was born "sports entertainment."

He positioned himself, strategically, as being in competition with other forms of entertainment, not rivals pro wrestling promoters. Pro wrestling fans scoffed at McMahon saying the AWA, NWA/WCW (then Jim Crockett Promotions), and other promotions seen on national cable weren't his competition. He would say, with a straight face, they weren't in the "pro wrestling business," they were in the "sports entertainment business." I don't think he ever believed it fully, but strategically, in order to break down the resistance TV networks and sponsors had to embracing his brand, he needed to give them a story they could believe in, or at least pretend to believe in to justify to their bosses why they were getting involved with this WWF enterprise.

Also, McMahon wanted to get past the stigma of people on the outside thinking he was trying to pull a con on them, pretending that his fixed fights were on the up-and-up. His vision of pro wrestling was more bombastic and less realistic anyway, so it made sense to move away from insisting it was real competition. So that further emboldened him to move away from calling what he did "wrestling."

It was smart of him to call his wrestlers "Superstars." As annoying as it was to pro wrestling fans to have every wrestle, no matter their position on the card or their tenure or record be called "Superstars," it elevated the image of wrestlers to impressionable younger viewers who believed what Gorilla Monsoon or Vince McMahon told them. Also, he could say he had "Superstars" while the other promotions merely featured "pro 'rasslers."

I think he's gone too far. I don't think there's any harm in saying that one of his "Superstars" is a "good wrestler" or "the best wrestler of his generation," and that sort of thing. Calling them instead "sports entertainers" is clunky and distracting. I think people get that WWE is a scripted, pre-planned presentation of simulated wrestling contests, no different than a TV series featuring actors playing the roles of police officers or lawyers. Imagine how weird it would be for viewers to hear cops refer to themselves as "law enforcement entertainers" in the context of the dialogue of the TV show. It'd be ludicrous and distracting from the story being told during the show. So there does come a point where WWE's attempts to distance themselves from the term "wrestling" crosses a line away from strategic business and into the realm of the McMahons being ashamed of what they do and trying to pretend it's something else, rather than embrace it.

Of course, they know that what makes them money is having their Superstars battle inside a ring to try to settle a grudge or win a championship, and there's no getting away from it. If there was another way to make money, they'd probably have shifted the product toward it instead by now, but there isn't, and despite attempts to promote boxing, movies, nightclubs, pro football, and record labels, they are and always be known as a family that promotes pro wrestling. They will always be written about in the same historical context as Sam Muchnick and Verne Gagne and Jim Crockett, whether they like it or not. They are pro wrestling promoters who feature pro wrestlers on pro wrestling TV shows. They slap whatever label they want on it, for better or for worse, but they ultimately cannot change what they are seen as. Sometimes it comes across a little sad and even pathetic that they try so hard to pretend to be something else instead of embracing what they are and being proud of how successful they've been at it.

What I have no answer for is why Ryback avoids the use of the term "hospital" at all costs.

SPECIAL NOTE We have launched a new FREE PWTorch Email Alert service today where you can receive BREAKING NEWS ALERTS on occasion plus TOP FIVE STORIES OF THE DAY reports. To sign up (you can easily unsubscribe anytime), click here.)

NOTE: You can ask PWTorch staff questions live on the PWTorch Livecast (www.PWTorchLivecast.com) Monday through Friday. Mondays the show airs at 6 p.m. ET / 3 p.m. PT in the hour before Raw and Tuesday through Friday at 5:30 ET / 2:30 PT. The show airs five days a week and you can talk to PWTorch staff members Bruce Mitchell, Travis Bryant, Pat McNeill, James Caldwell, Greg Parks, Sean Radican, and me on other days during the week.

READ PREVIOUS "ASK PWTORCH" FEATURES BY CLICKING HERE.

(Send your question for PWTorch editor Wade Keller and the PWTorch staff exclusively to pwtorch@gmail.com for consideration! You can hear expanded conversation on the above topics from Wade Keller by becoming a VIP member and gaining access to the daily Wade Keller Hotline, posted every day for VIP members for over 1,000 days straight. Sign up at www.PWTorch.com/govip)

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