Love/Hate, and WWE

Okay, I admit it, there was a span of about seven years of my life that I used to watch WWE. Religiously. Early nineties kind of time. Back when the original DX was cool: before X-Puke. Back when the Rock was booed and a complete sissy. Back when my mouth would drop open in astonishment every time Vader did a moonsault. Back when they were the WWF. Back when WCW was its own vehicle (and before the joke that was the NWO)…Back when…

Okay, you get it ;)

That is where the love part of this post is. In my memory of the soap opera athleticism that was WWF.

But I just can’t get into WWE anymore. It just seems even more preposterous than before.

Okay, maybe not more preposterous…I mean, what was more preposterous than Goldust???

But it is more…gratuitous. Cheap. Shallow. And I don’t mean the sex, although it is quite gratuitous, cheap, and shallow. The Divas don’t bother me. It’s the violence, the blood. I don’t dislike aggression, or blood. I love the UFC, even watch boxing now and then, and rugby absolutely makes me drool. But there is a major, major difference. The blood and violence of those is a side effect of the stress and aggression of the sport. It hasn’t BECOME the sport. (though for a little while I was worried about UFC)

Back when I was watching WWE, and well before, blood was rare on WWE. The impact of seeing it was HUGE. I remember Mick Foley’s wife sincerely sobbing at the extreme abuse he was putting himself through for the show. Now it is obligatory, and taken for granted. It is there about every show. The blood is there because it is ‘supposed’ to be, and not as a side effect of a particularly hardcore moment.

WWE has become a parody of itself, which is really a feat, as it was a parody of the roots of wrestling as it was.  Wrestling was always scripted; the wrestlers have always been characters, but there was still a sense of pride and sincerity of the art that was WWF.

But it has lost all heart. It has lost that pride, and become a cheap Hollywood sequel. It is a poor knock off, and a celebrity impersonator hired by your corporate big wigs to impress.

*sigh*

But I still am playing WWE SvR 2007.

And, like the show, I have a love/hate kind of relationship with the game. I love the nifty new features, the stamina, the crowd in fighting, the environment, the create an entrance, and the reversals are SPECTACULAR.

But the character creation has been nerfed terribly. The wrestlers look wonderful. I LOVE the way the perspiration increases subtly on the skin as the match progresses, and the movements are extremely fluid. And the superstars have been captured perfectly. The facial morphing is very good. But the costume choices have been severely chopped.

And this is the part that really, really annoys me most. I can not play a female wrestler in season mode. I can’t get experience to progress her without tag teaming her with a male.

In a prior version for the PS2 (I think , I can’t remember which WWE game it is) you were able to designate your wrestler as ‘other’ instead of male or female, and then your female could play through anything a male could. 

Why not now? I can’t imagine any male WWE player would be disturbed that he was able to play a sexy female wrestler, and watch her body sweat through a season, instead of a big manly man. The majority of female toons I have met in the multitude of mmorpgs I’ve played were played by males, just for that reason. It was more fun to watch a female on the screen.

And I don’t think it is a huge issue regarding realism (it’s WWE, for cripes sake). There have been females that have fought males. Take Chyna, and Jazz. And this is a video game, a fantasy. It’s already built into the system that a low weight character can not use certain grapples and throws if his opponent is too much heavier than him, so what is the problem?

I know as a female I am the minority in the gaming world. But maybe the minority wouldn’t be so small if the female gamer was considered more often? I don’t think the compromise of letting female toons play in season mode is going to upset the male majority.

But, as annoyed as I am, I won’t give it up like I did WWE. I won’t say good-bye. I’ll keep playing.