Underground Wrestling Alliance by William Taylor, PhD A Dissertation In English Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved Dr. Jill Patterson Chair of Committee Dr. Yuan Shu Marcus Burke Mark Sheridan Dean of the Graduate School May, 2020 Copyright 2020, William Taylor Texas Tech University, William Taylor, May 2020 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am eternally grateful for the attention and support of Dr. Jill Patterson, my committee chair and dissertation Sherpa, who helped guide me through this large and all-consuming project. Also huge thanks to Dr. Yuan Shu, Marcus Burke, and Ghi Fremaux for lending their assistance and expertise during these massively difficult times. Lastly, I wouldn’t have been able to complete any of this without the love and support of Katie Cortese, nor without the inspiration of our two wonderful sons, Milo and Jonah, who make the future worth fighting for. ii Texas Tech University, William Taylor, May 2020 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................ii Critical Introduction ....................................................................................................1 Chapter 1 ...................................................................................................................41 Chapter 2 ...................................................................................................................70 Chapter 3 .................................................................................................................103 Chapter 4 .................................................................................................................132 Chapter 5 .................................................................................................................156 Chapter 6 .................................................................................................................190 Chapter 7 .................................................................................................................226 Chapter 8 .................................................................................................................256 iii Texas Tech University, William Taylor, May 2020 LIST OF FIGURES 1. Wave Effect ................................................................................................................. 28 2. Symbolism .................................................................................................................... 30 3. Visual Exposition ........................................................................................................ 31 iv Texas Tech University, William Taylor, May 2020 CRITICAL INTRODUCTION “Fantasy is reality in the day today.” – George Clinton “Under the mask, the people.” – Janina Mobiüs American presidents have long played fast and loose with the truth, from the lead up to the Mexican War to the Invasion of Iraq, but on January 21st, 2017, newly elected Donald Trump took “truthiness”—the quality of seeming or being felt to be true, even if not necessarily true—to a new level. It was the first day of his administration, and unflattering photos of his inauguration crowd were beginning to proliferate across social media. One viral tweet, which juxtaposed aerial photos of the National Mall in 2017 with aerial photos of the National Mall in 2009, had especially enraged Trump and his aides. The two photos showed the obvious discrepancies. The first photo, from 2017, showed empty space, while the second photo, from 2009, did not. It was undeniable that Barrack Obama had the larger inauguration crowd. The New York Times would later confirm, estimating that two-thirds more people had attended in 2009. In order to mollify their deranged boss, press secretary Sean Spicer was sent before the White House press corps to correct the record, photographic evidence be damned. “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe,” Spicer yelled, red-faced, jabbing his finger into the podium. “Even The New York Times printed a photograph showing a misrepresentation of the crowd in the original Tweet in their paper, which showed the full extent of the support, depth in crowd, and intensity that existed. These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the 1 Texas Tech University, William Taylor, May 2020 inauguration are shameful and wrong” (“Transcript of White House press secretary”). The press corps sat before him, stunned. It was the first day of the Trump presidency, and his administration was choosing to focus on them, the news media. The press briefing had become metafictional. The issue wasn’t the actual photograph; it was the way the photograph was being framed. It was the commentary that was the real substance, not the event itself. Sean Spicer would conclude his remarks without taking questions, a fitting end to the Trump administration’s first press briefing. He would go on to be mocked relentlessly for his performance, of course, from viral Facebook memes to Melissa McCarthy’s brutal parody of him on Saturday Night Live, which lampooned him for his buffoonish, angry insistence that something very obviously false was actually true. But the press briefing was also the start of something far more sinister: the Trump administration’s war against objective reality. Cast as villains were the press, or, as the president would soon label them, the “Enemy of the People,” a term reminiscent of the fascist, totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. This simple, manufactured binary—Donald Trump as Mythological Hero, the News Media as Archvillain—would prove to be effective at insulating his base from any semblance of truth. What resulted would be a mass delusion of sorts, an alternate universe in which a venal, deranged game show host is considered America’s greatest president since literally George Washington. Though this type of epistemic closure doesn’t explain everything about his supporters’ fanatical devotion, or how otherwise rational people could believe in irrational narratives (such as Trump being a Champion of the “working class”), its similarity to the group dynamics of a cult is telling. In a cult, control is often maintained 2 Texas Tech University, William Taylor, May 2020 through an “us vs. them” framework, and by blurring the distinction between “real” and “fake.” It is similar, as well, to the way a totalitarian system maintains control. As George Orwell writes in 1984, “The past was always alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.” Oceania is a fictional setting, of course, but Orwell used it as a way to show the tactics of Stalinism, how easy it is for a government to manipulate large sums of people by narrowing language and distorting information. This kind of epistemic warfare is familiar to America, too, of course. Administrations have long spun the truth in a way that’s favorable to their objectives, or created “truth” wholesale entirely. As an aide for the George W. Bush administration once said to a reporter, “We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do” (Suskind). Surprisingly, these words come not from a Thomas Pynchon novel, but Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s chief of staff. It was as if he was dropping his mask of good manners, just for a moment, and allowing the public to see behind the curtain. Coming from someone operating from the world’s highest level of power, his words were refreshingly honest. Finally, an admission that history is determined by the a handful of elites, all truth subjective. For them, language is nothing but a tool, or a means to an end. It rationalizes. It obfuscates. It is capable of doing anything, even create reality itself. In America, the distinction between what’s real and what’s fake has long been disputed. What distinguishes the Trump administration’s efforts is the crudeness of their 3 Texas Tech University, William Taylor, May 2020 lies and deceptions, the lack of finesse, as well as by their heightened, violent rhetoric towards journalists, scientists, and scholars. Anyone could look and see the difference between the two inauguration photographs. In one, the National Mall is packed with bodies. In the other, it’s not. Yet Sean Spicer stood behind the podium anyway, insisting that less was more, that two plus two equaled five, that ignorance was strength. His performance was Orwellian, certainly, but it was also reminiscent of the theatrics of professional wrestling: the loud voice, the hand gestures, the obvious fakery, the heated vindictiveness. Considering how pro wrestling, too, blurs the distinction between what’s real and what’s fake, it’s fitting. Like Donald Trump at one of his rallies, Sean Spicer wasn’t just briefing the press, he was cutting a “promo,” which, in wrestling parlance, means that he was acting out a monologue (or interview), one meant to both promote an upcoming show and advance the storyline. Typically, a promo involves one wrestler calling out another, and can take place either in the ring or backstage. The promo Spicer gave took