Professional Wrestling: Local Performance History, Global Performance Praxis Neal Anderson Hebert Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College

Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2016 Professional Wrestling: Local Performance History, Global Performance Praxis Neal Anderson Hebert Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons Recommended Citation Hebert, Neal Anderson, "Professional Wrestling: Local Performance History, Global Performance Praxis" (2016). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2329. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2329 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING: LOCAL PERFORMANCE HISTORY, GLOBAL PERFORMANCE PRAXIS A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The School of Theatre By Neal A. Hebert B.A., Louisiana State University, 2003 M.A., Louisiana State University, 2008 August 2016 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................. iv ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................v CHAPTER 1. Introduction ................................................................................................1 1.1 The end of Southern Wrestling at the New Orleans Superdome ...................1 1.2 Literature Review ...........................................................................................7 1.3 Wrestling Style: Southern Style, WWF Style ..............................................19 1.4 Working the Reader .....................................................................................26 CHAPTER 2. Wrestling’s Ontology and the Metaphysics of Dance .............................31 2.1 The Case for Re-Theorizing Professional Wrestling ...................................31 2.2 “Analytic Philosophy,” “Ontology,” and “Metaphysics” ............................32 2.3 Ontology of Dance, Metaphysics of Movement ..........................................37 2.4 Identity, Style, and Regional Performance ..................................................49 CHAPTER 3. Philosophy of Mass Art ...........................................................................52 3.1 Introduction to Mass Art ..............................................................................52 3.2 Mass Art v. Popular Art ...............................................................................54 3.3 What is Mass Art? ........................................................................................58 3.4 Objections to Carroll; Carroll’s Replies ......................................................66 3.5 The Ontology of Mass Art ...........................................................................83 3.6 Steamboat v. Flair, Fall 1 .............................................................................88 3.7 Steamboat v. Flair, Falls 2 and 3 ................................................................105 3.8 World Wrestling Federation Main Event Style .........................................114 CHAPTER 4. Cowboys, Blind Men, and Junkyard Dogs ............................................119 4.1 The Ascendance of Catch and Birth of “Worked” Pro-Wrestling .............119 4.2 Tri-State Wrestling: Shooters and Hookers ...............................................123 4.3 On the Imminent Demise of Mid-South Wrestling ....................................133 4.4 Superdome Supershows and Mid-South Opens its Doors .........................139 4.5 Enter: The Junkyard Dog ...........................................................................144 4.6 Exit: The Junkyard Dog ............................................................................165 4.7 The Rise and (Mostly) Fall of the Universal Wrestling Federation ..........173 CHAPTER 5. Conclusion .............................................................................................187 5.1 Attenuation Understood .............................................................................187 5.2 Stylistic Transformation: Regional to National .........................................188 5.3 Business Transformation: Regional to National ........................................199 5.4 Further Questions, Further Research .........................................................207 BIBLIOGRAPHY .........................................................................................................212 ii VITA .............................................................................................................................221 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would not be possible without the help freely offered by the members of my committee, past and present: Alan Sikes, John Fletcher, Leigh Clemons, Femi Euba, and Jon Cogburn. Their help has been appreciated, their feedback substantive and necessary. But there are other people who contributed to this who need to be recognized: my Ph.D. classmates past and present, whose insights and conversations shaped this document in ways small and large; the casts and crews of How I Learned to Drive, The Shape of Things, and Stupid Kids—the first production put on by my theatre company Bang Bang You’re Dead Theatre—who challenged me artistically as much as my committee challenged me scholastically; the numerous scholars in my discipline who offered words of encouragement throughout this process, solicited or otherwise; and the more than 1000 students I’ve been fortunate enough to teach in the Departments of Theatre and Philosophy who constantly forced me to refine my thoughts, explain my research, and convince them why they should care about it (not that the latter happened particularly frequently, but the practice was appreciated). Most of all, though, I want to acknowledge my parents’ sacrifices and patience. My mother died while I was in the final stages of finishing this document, and my father and I still mourn her loss and celebrate her ten year struggle with aphasia and partial paralysis. My parents are my heroes. Without them, I would never have made it to college in the first place—and I certainly wouldn’t be here now. iv ABSTRACT Professional Wrestling: Local Performance History, Global Performance Praxis, is a work of interdisciplinary scholarship (combining elements of theatre history, performance studies, and philosophy) that addresses an area of performance currently under-researched within the liberal arts and humanities: professional wrestling. My dissertation directs much-needed attention to the fact that professional wrestling is the only kind of live drama many Americans ever see (or even want to see). Although it is no doubt easy for theatre historians and performance theorists to dismiss this performance practice because of its location somewhere between “illegitimate sport” and “lowbrow popular entertainment,” I contend that United States professional wrestling is a sophisticated performance form that boasts a rich history whose study yields vital insights about how movement-centric performances are staged in commercialized spectacles. My dissertation archives the history of Louisiana professional wrestling and sheds light upon the repertoire of performance practices passed down from one generation to the next. In this dissertation I argue that the death of Louisiana professional wrestling provides an archetype for how the performance of professional wrestling transitioned from a local performance practice viewed live in a community to a televised, globalized product watched around the world. I argue that this transition can best be understood through the lenses of analytic philosophy of dance and the establishment of mass art forms in tandem with the development of mass technologies, rather than through primarily semiotic analyses popularized during the 1960s by Roland Barthes. v 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 The End of Southern Wrestling at the New Orleans Superdome It is April 2, 1989. More than 5000 people have turned out to the Louisiana Superdome for the National Wrestling Alliance’s sixth “Clash of the Champions” event.1 The NWA, once a confederation of regional promotions located around the world and concentrated in the United States was a frequent business partner of Louisiana’s Mid-South Wrestling, 1 The National Wrestling Alliance was a formal organization of numerous regional wrestling territories that eventually grew to be a national promotion. The establishment of the National Wrestling Alliance in 1948 effectively created a monopoly on professional wrestling performances in the United States wherein regional promoters formally allied with each other to ensure that they could prevent rivals from encroaching on their territories within the United States. While there were promotions in Florida, Louisiana, New York, California, Missouri and assorted other states, the promoters pooled their resources to protect each others’ businesses in each state, recognized (and voted upon) a single world champion who toured all territories, and traded talent between each other. Because of anti-trust laws in the

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