Wrestling characters and narrative arcs.

We can thank wrestling for the development of brands, storylines and loud mouth jerks.

The wrestling world was organized by independent companies throughout North America. Each company understood an unwritten contract that no one would infringe on another's territory.

Enter Vince McMahon. He inherited his dad's wrestling company and introduced a new kind of wrestling company. He didn't accept old agreements. He wanted to make his company gigantic and through purchases, acquisitions and bullying tactics, he became the number one wrestling company in the world.

The history books will say it started with Wrestlemania. I think it started with something else. Vince knew that every wrestler was a character. He saw characters enter and exit the different wrestling circuits. He witnessed regionalization and disintegration of character arcs because of the lack of exposure for the character

Wrestle mania was his Superbowl. Story development was the magic. Vince developed character arcs and narrative arcs to a national audience for the first time in wrestling history.

We saw Ravishing Rick Rude, Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake, Randy "Macho Man" Savage, The Million Dollar Man, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, Ultimate Warrior, Honky Tonk Man, Hulk Hogan and many more. The announcers even had handles. There was Mean Gene Okerlund, The King Jerry Lawlor, Gorilla Monsoon.

Every wrestler had a handle.

In the early years, the stars wouldn't wrestle other stars on cable television. We watched Ravishing Rick Rude demolish Paul Carter. Macho Man would pulverize Jim Rains. It was never entertaining. It was never in doubt who would win. But we got to see our favourite characters perform their finishing moves on some poor sap trying out for the big leagues. We didn't watch it for the wrestling. It was the story.

The rivalry and intensity that would build from one pay per view to the next kept us coming back for more.

Vince was masterful in developing his stories and characters. We saw Hulk Hogan shock the world when he turned on Macho Man. We watched Shawn Michaels turn heal when he stopped shaving his chest. He showed up at Wrestlemania and turned on his buddy Marty Ginetti in a tag team match.

Shawn Michaels transformed from the likeable, clean shaven good boy to a foul mouthed, unshaven, boytoy in Heart Break Kid. Heart Break Kid became the nineties version of Gorgeous George.

All wrestlers, boxers and even UFC fighters need to thank the pioneer, Gorgeous George, for developing his character arc better than anyone before him.

Gorgeous was a flamboyant, over the top, braggart who sassed the crowd, never shut his mouth and his main talent was his beautiful blonde locks. The crowd loved to hate him. He would enter the ring with perfectly coiffed hair, long shiny robes with an air of indignation that would make the Queen sweat.

Rick Flair copied him.
As does Connor McGregor in the UFC
And so did the most greatest boxer of all time.

A 46 year old George told the young boxer: "A lot of people will pay to see someone shut your mouth. So keep on bragging, keep on sassing and always be outrageous." 

That boxer was the future Mohammad Ali. 



"I wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale; handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick; I'm so mean I make medicine sick."  -  Mohammad Ali

If you want to do effective ads with character arcs and narrative arcs, you can contact me at ricknicholson@wizardofads.com.