Selling like William Regal

One of the challenges of modern times has been trying to find an honest and reasonable solution to grand problems while accepting that we are going to have make tradeoffs in order to ensure things happen. That's become increasingly difficult as culture wars highjack every conversation and lobotomise every brain involved.

Journalists often rank as the least trustworthy profession in society. Yet it can be difficult to articulate clearly why. Instead, there seems to be an amorphous sense that, 'They're part of the problem'. We can see their inducements to hatred, and their dishonest and uneven approach to what they report. We can see them targeting individual citizens while saying nothing about institutions. We can see the level of reporting on Depp vs Heard and the mismatch between that and the level of reporting on Ghislaine Maxwell.

What's happening? It only explains part of the picture, but it looks like untrodden ground. It's known as 'selling'.

Selling is a term used in wrestling. Given that the fights in professional wrestling have pre-determined outcomes, it's easy to see it as part fight, part performance. This is why the term 'sports entertainment ‘ was coined. A key part of crafting the show is wrestlers agreeing to abide by an ethic to make each other look good. Making each other look good is called selling. One wrestler will sell the moves they're being hit with as being more impactful than they may really be.

This is a well understood ethic of wrestling, but it has the potential to be more difficult depending on the character the wrestler is portraying. If you have two tough guys facing off, then it becomes relatively simple. But the more extreme a character becomes, the more difficult yet more essential it becomes to sell for that wrestler. Otherwise, they'll lose all credibility.

Here's an example. Danhausen is a wrestler whose character involves the capability to curse people. The art of making that work involves Danhausen being a good enough performer with a character so cohesive, strong and engaging that the audience wants to buy in. They know it isn't real, but they want the spell to work. They want to be enchanted. So it doesn't need to be real, but it still needs to convince.

Of course, it also requires anyone that Danhausen curses to be willing to sell for him and for them to be a strong enough performer. Together they weave a spell that people want to accept. It requires someone like William Regal.

Danhausen curses William Regal

Upon being cursed, Regal seems to lose the use of his legs and on some edits can be heard yelling, “Uncurse me you swine!” Put simply, he sells. And the audience love it. Apart from anything else, this teaches us that it’s possible to sell anything.

So, the next time you see a journalist reacting in a strange way, whether it be to revolution, an election result, ignoring evidence or steering completely clear of the institutional class, it could be worth asking: 'Are they selling?’

And if the answer is 'yes', then the next question is clear: 'Who for?’