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| Not original, but not ripped off TNA either Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Apparently, WWE has plagiarized TNA! It played out right there on Monday too, exactly like Gut Check. Except that the three judges were integral story characters instead of three "shoot" figures brought in to evaluate talent. Oh, and Stephanie McMahon gave up her deciding vote to the WWE Universe. And Brad Maddox didn't immediately get sent to NXT to get "seasoned" as an authority figure before taking over as RAW GM. Oh, and the segment itself wasn't presented as some kind of "real life" thing within the "fake" universe. It was all story from the get go. But yeah, other than that, it was totally like Gut Check. But you know what, hindsight is 20/20.
I don't know from that sentence blurb of "news" whether Meltzer's sources within the company leaked him those exact words or whether he editorialized it. Truth be told, that's a fairly innocuous sentence, and as always, many cut and paste sites blew it up to make it look like WWE was devious and intellectually dishonest. That would be true if they pulled a WCW-naming-a-character-Renegade with the Gut Check thing. Even if it was cribbed note for note, it gives credence to the ludicrous notion that TNA invented the archetype of having judgment in front of a panel of three, a ludicrous concept to believe. It patently ignores the fact that judicial triumvirates are pretty much reality show public domain at this point. It also obviously sensationalizes WWE as this villainous body that steals from poor little TNA, when it's TNA that steals more ideas from WWE than I can count on seventeen hands. They've modeled their entire identity after WWE for crying out loud.
The truth is, WWE does crib ideas from promotions smaller than it. So does TNA. I would argue that while there is true innovation in wrestling, it's in so few places right now. Mostly, wrestling companies are taking old ideas and trying to put a refurbished spin on them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that at all. Nearly every idea in pro wrestling has been done before, even the seemingly "innovative" ones like the nWo, which had roots in Japan, the Midnight Express vs. Midnight Express feud in the '80s, and most famously, the ICW/Poffo family invasion of Mid-South. WCW didn't do it first, but at least for the first year to two years, they did it exceedingly well at times. That's what people ultimately end up remembering.
So why would or should anyone even phrase a WWE action as a takeoff on anything as if it's groundbreaking? I don't know. Again, I don't know what Meltzer's sources tell him, mainly because I don't know who his sources are. But should it even matter where they got the idea from as long as they didn't intentionally copy an angle word for word and character for character? That wasn't the case. Last night's angle wasn't bad because it was "plagiarized," which again is lulz-worthy to accuse. It was bad because the principals in the angle continued to treat the Vickie Guerrero character as a punching bag while reinforcing patriarchical ideals on both sides of the judgment table. That is, it was executed poorly.
Basically, the idea of intellectual property in wrestling, or about IP in general, is murky and hard to understand let alone navigate. Some people don't think it exists. Others, like Patton Oswalt, have written thoughtful defenses of being original all the time. However, of all the things wrestling shares with comedy, the ease of being completely original is not one of them. It's a lot easier to craft a totally original joke than it is to create a completely original story archetype. By giving TNA ownership of the three-person judging panel, Meltzer, inadvertently or intentionally (and for all the shit I give him, I don't think he did it on purpose) created the implication that in order for WWE not to draw comparisons to someone else, they'd have to create a completely new story archetype. To me, that's like saying no one can make a coming-of-age movie because whoops, John Hughes (or whomever made the first one before his time) already made one.
Ultimately, the battle over authenticity and ripping off other companies is mostly destructive to discussion at the macro level. There are much more constructive ways to discuss why or why not a WWE angle fails or passes than whether it was original. I doubt Vince McMahon has had an original idea in 20 years or more. But short of stealing trademarks or actively sabotaging companies through tampering, copyright infringement, or identity confusion, (at least one of which WWE has been accused of in the last year, in all fairness), what's so wrong about lacking a general feeling of originality?
Being completely out of the box is special because it doesn't happen often. But in any medium, there is room to grow within certain archetypes and subgenres in order to attain perfection of the form. Tropes are tropes. Wake me up when WWE's next stable to help save them from The Shield is named the Glass Ceiling Gang or some shit like that. Then we can talk about them doing a takeoff of TNA.