On Triple H vs. CM Punk, WWE And Rasslin’s Best Socio-Capitalist Future

Or…Why Shane McMahon Wrestling The Undertaker At Wrestlemania Is Happening…

On April 3, 2016, World Wrestling Entertainment’s 32nd Wrestlemania spectacle will take place in Dallas, Texas in front of a Wrestlemania-record breaking crowd of upwards of 100,000 people in Cowboys Stadium. The main event of the show is fourteen-time World Champion and cagey 23-year veteran Triple H opposing thickly muscled and deeply tanned good-guy upstart Roman Reigns. However, when you look at it again and note that the match could also be characterized by being WWE’s current Executive Vice President (who is also married to owner Vince McMahon’s daughter Stephanie) wrestling someone who is a third-generation member of the well-established Anoa’i pro wrestling dynasty — when there are likely other performers like now-retired ex-WWE performer CM Punk who have captivated crowds in a manner deserving of headlining praise — the idea that WWE is just another out-moded American corporation using antiquated business methods in the digital-driven social age becomes readily apparent.

However, if WWE were to switch it’s aims as a company from being an sports-as-entertainment corporation to a free-market socialist embracing entertainment empire, there’s no telling how potentially successful they could be as a company.

“Free-market socialism” is what happens when a capitalist society is faced with a situation wherein market values are driven to zero, but systems must still exist in order to define traditional class structures. How free-market socialism applies to WWE requires first noting that it’s 2016, and we can now safely say that we understand professional wrestling to be a scripted athletic entertainment vehicle involving physicality.

In 1989, WWE admitted that pro wrestling was “entertainment” to the New Jersey State Athletic Commission, and that participants were trained to avoid serious injuries. Somehow still, with the aid of wrestlers-as-cross-cultural phenomenons including The Rock, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Mick “Mankind” Foley, WWE became a billion-dollar earning corporation that went public as a stock on the New York Stock Exchange in 1999. However, by 2002, Rock, Austin and Foley ceased being every-day performers in WWE. Not surprisingly, it was also in 2002 that WWE lost $20 million as a company. By 2002, WWE had failed to develop other stars to the level of the aforementioned trio. Couple WWE presenting “fake fighting” without tremendous starpower alongside massive global economic decline, and cash-on-hand in WWE has fallen from $175 million in 2010 to just $47 million in 2015.

Similar to WWE, many corporations in the modern age are facing declining profits and a lack of answers to satiate the imaginations of a marketplace demanding a greater array of options than ever before. Just like numerous other companies, for a solution, WWE’s turned inward towards their traditional employee and consumer base instead of into a deeper and wider set of potential solutions for assistance.

Aside from the boss’ son-in-law wrestling a performer with an employment legacy stretching back nearly five decades, another one of Wrestlemania’s top matches showcases this as 50-year old Mark “The Undertaker” Calaway — WWE’s longest-tenured in-ring performer — faces Vince McMahon’s own son and on-again/off-again wrestler, 46-year old Shane McMahon. Undertaker’s appeared less than 10 times in WWE in the past three years, while Shane’s making his first WWE in-ring appearance in a decade. The fact that this match is receiving premium placement as an attraction on the show falls in line with this classic corporate model of business stabilization, and thus makes sense.

Now consider as well the case of now ex-WWE employee and pop culture relevant, under-40 and retired pro wrestler CM Punk. Not-so-traditionally “corporate” tattooed and straight-edge atheist Punk’s acrimonious split from WWE came after he’d earned a rumored $40 million, and was a seven-time World Champion overall in his 15-year wrestling career, once holding the same World Championship currently held by Triple H for 434 consecutive days.

…after I’m gone, you’re still going to pour money into this company. I’m just a spoke on the wheel. The wheel is going to keep turning and I understand that. Vince McMahon is going to make money despite himself. He’s a millionaire who should be a billionaire. You know why he’s not a billionaire? Because he surrounds himself with glad-handed, nonsensical, douchebag (censored) yes men, like John Laurinaitis, who’s going to tell him everything he wants to hear, and I’d like to think that maybe this company will better after Vince McMahon is dead. But the fact is, it’s going to be taken over by his idiotic daughter and his doofus son-in-law and the rest of his stupid family. — CM Punk, 6/27/11

Punk’s issues with WWE cut directly to the core of the dichotomy between being a company remaining firm and true to old-school capitalism instead of engaging with free-market socialist ideals. Therefore, CM Punk’s now in training for a UFC debut instead of having what could’ve easily been a main event match at Wrestlemania.

Free-market socialism breaks down as thus:

• Ruling class is composed of the beloved individuals with the most significant social and political outreach across all levels of an organization. Their voices define what company culture is, and everyone listens.
• The political class is made up of the radicals, the free thinkers and the tastemakers that have adapted to working in the corporation in the 21st century’s digital/decreased barriers of access era. Not so much arbiters of cool, they are the gatekeepers of this new structure.
• The working class are the “people without power” within a free-market socialist corporation, those who do the large part of the labor as prescribed by the rule of the political and ruling class.
• At the bottom is the consumer class, the people who are slow to adopt, refuse to adapt, and still largely, fervently believe in the classic definition of capitalism. When presented with the right message by the right person, they still happily use dollars for goods.

In WWE’s capitalist-driven corporate environment, CM Punk was a free-thinking and opinionated performer whose ideas regarding the who, what, when, where, how and why of how WWE operated their business bucked WWE’s established systems. As showcased in his infamous “pipe bomb” promo transcribed and seen above, his ideas did antagonize long-held doctrines, but were presented with significant populist appeal. WWE fans understand more than ever that WWE isn’t legitimate fighting, but rather scripted entertainment. In this being the case the idea that WWE’s one-time wealth accrual model is possibly missing its most component part — the idea that the fans have been presented with significant enough reason to believe that a “fake fight” is “real” — and we have a problem that the only free-market socialism Punk was alluding to can solve.

WWE’s already shown a willingness to adapt to creating some pieces of what’s necessary to accept the “free-market” age. Since Punk’s 2014 departure from WWE, the company has embraced NXT, their own Orlando, Florida based training center/developmental promotion where a mix of new-to-wrestling performers and established journeymen and women can prove their worth to be elevated to the main touring roster. NXT’s top performers in many cases are wrestlers who in not fitting the square jawed, charismatic and heavily-muscled model fall more into those equipped to fill the roles in the free-market socialist “political class.”

WWE’s lost nearly three-quarters of the company’s all-important cash-on-hand worth in five years. Therefore, not even content delivery through subscription-driven apps can likely save them. The company’s TV ratings for their Raw and Smackdown cable programs are dipping too. As well, it can be argued that having The Rock, Triple H, The Undertaker, Ric Flair, Vince McMahon himself, Shane McMahon, and ex-UFC Champion Brock Lesnar show up at Wrestlemania on April 3 will likely not create a return on investment to the tune of well, significantly increasing WWE’s financial standing. Also consider that NXT as a promotion delivering a “political class” that’s re-defining the look and feel of the company may not be enough either. Ultimately, if the company is unable to captivate an evolving society demanding that corporations adopt extremely progressive business methods in a fully evolved age, WWE’s actually in quite serious trouble.

WWE won’t get CM Punk versus Triple H for the WWE Championship at Wrestlemania 32, and that’s a shame. For WWE to survive, it’s the idea of anti-traditionalist Punk defeating “corporate” champion Triple H that should mirror WWE adapting to a free-market socialist model instead of the ever-so-slowly dying corporation it represents.