Mustang Sally
Sells seashells by the seashore
![jcu.jpg](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fimageshack.us%2Fa%2Fimg12%2F3497%2Fjcu.jpg&hash=50b54fe67bd4ab55625fb3df9c588d8c)
How many times have we read statements like that? He's mad at this, he's in a blue fury at that. Clinically speaking, a man his age shouldn't indulge in rage at all, much less go nuts every time something goes wrong. In filmed movies and TV shows, when a mistake is made, camera action is halted and they get to try it again. What the audience sees is the finished product, a presumably perfect presentation. That's fine for prerecorded stuff, but one of the attractions of live TV is that anything can happen......and it's entertaining to see how the cast handles the flub. Usually, as in a play on stage, it involves blowing a spoken line and the cast is (hopefully) adept at picking up the action and smoothing out the rough edges. The audience may (or may not) know a mistake was made, but it's understood that these things will occur in live productions.
In athletic endeavors, whether scripted or not, it's much harder. It's one thing to simply misspeak a few words.....and quite another to perform maneuvers that require flying blindly through the air or lifting and throwing the weight of another human being......and having your boss demand it be done perfectly in front of a live audience of 10,000 people and a TV viewership of millions. In addition to that, the wrestlers are required to memorize the order that the matches and backstage shenanigans are supposed to proceed......and execute them flawlessly in front of the entire world.
Hard?
No, it's not hard; it's impossible to get it perfect every-damn-time.....and if anyone on the planet should appreciate this, it's Vince McMahon, who's been around it his entire life. In fact, he should understand that one of the great attractions of his product is that things are apt to go wrong at any time.
In the circus, isn't one of the thrills in watching the tightrope walker the possibility he/she could fall and be killed or seriously injured? In auto racing, isn't one of the big (though usually unadmitted) reasons to watch cars go around a track 200 times at 200 mph the chance there will be a huge smash-up? How about mixed martial arts and boxing matches? How many watch to see someone's brains beat in? If things go haywire, do they get to call "Do over!" Does a director cry "Cut!" and let them try it again?
One of the reasons people watch pro wrestling is to see how good the performers are at what they do; to see how well they keep the act going......in fact, to wonder if a mistake has been made at all, or was what we saw the intended result?
Daniel Bryan's injury last Monday night comes to mind. When the ref stopped the match, I didn't realize he was really hurt. We watch these guys fake injury all the time; I figured this was more of the same and that Creative didn't want a definitive decision between Daniel and Randy Orton, so they scripted that the match be stopped.... with no clean winner. (Yes, Randy was declared the winner, but not by pinfall or submission). After reading the injury was real, I wondered if Vince McMahon was furious at that. Was he stomping around and waving his arms in fury because the scripted result wasn't followed? Was he mad at Orton for not jumping out of the ring and attacking Daniel, whom Randy knew was legitimately hurt?
To my way of thinking, mistakes made by WWE performers are like watching the tightrope walker in the circus; errors that are obvious even to the fans make the product seem more real....and therefore more attractive.
Watching honest mistakes give us two things: The understanding that we're watching human beings, not robots..... and a greater appreciation of how hard it is to do what pro wrestlers do.
Accept mistakes, Vince. You want your product to appear as reality.....and nothing spells reality like human beings screwing up occasionally.