Hello! This short series of 4 articles over the next couple of weeks is going to share some of my novel writing. In particular, it will show the links between the critical side of my PhD (the academic thesis) and the creative side (my novel). The three ‘confessional’ WWE storylines that comprise my critical project – 2005 Lita/Edge/Hardy love triangle, 2009 Jeff Hardy addiction storyline, and 2011 CM Punk Pipe Bomb – also appear in my novel, with the reader receiving character (often wrestlers themselves) via the TV-watching of these storylines. This is something that interests me more and more – TV-watching in fiction writing, the intersection and interaction of different forms of fiction and different types of media. This interaction can not only help to place the TV storyline within its wider cultural context, but reveals preoccupations and hidden desires in the characters’ wider lives.
You might’ve noticed above that I mentioned 4 articles, but only 3 critical storylines. Well, this first extract is about the 1997 Montreal Screwjob. If you’re unfamiliar, I recommend Bret Hart’s excellent memoir for a detailed, albeit bias, recollection of events:
This 2017 VICE article also offers a good summary. In short, the Screwjob is a key moment in pro-wrestling admitting its own ‘fakeness’ to the world, before going on to use this admittance of fakeness as a narrative anchor.
So then, to my novel. My novel is a fictitious biography about British, female wrestler Hera’s chaotic pursuit of stardom, told by her unfaithful partner Alf as an act of penance. By the time of the Screwjob, Hera is 20, Alf is 30. Though they slept together once upon first meeting, they soon became friends, with Alf mentoring Hera’s wrestling training; it’s close to 20 years later that they embark on a romantic relationship. By the time of this scene, after a long struggle with promotors, Hera is no longer restricted to the role of valet, and so has begun taking in-ring bookings around the UK. She is seen by the other wrestlers as the young, green upstart, while Alf is already a respected, long-time performer.
Extract starts below the asterisk. Thank you for reading and let me know your thoughts (bear in mind this is at first draft stage).
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The boys were silently huddled round a TV and VCR in the gloomy storeroom of Norwich Corn Exchange, when Hera and Alf arrived for that evening’s AWA show.
“What you bellends doing?” Hera said, grabbing plastic garden chairs for her and Alf.
“Witnessing the biggest thing to ever happen to this goddamn beautiful business is what,” Roge said.
Warrior Joe told them he’d got hold of a tape of the Fed’s pay-per-view Survivor Series and the few episodes of weekly TV directly following it. Joe’s mate, Psycho Neil, was bang into tape collecting and trading, Joe said, so he’d cut all the scenes from one storyline together on one tape. “You heard about this, Alf?” Joe said. “You’ve got to see it.”
Hera huffed the storeroom’s reek of rubber, pissed off at Joe directing his conversation towards Alf.
“These two,” Alf said as Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels made their entrances, “they’re great but we don’t need to see them work each other again.”
“Why’s that weird commentator guy so close to the fucking action?” Hera said.
“He’s the owner of the Fed, dipshit. That’s McMahon. Keep that in mind.”
The commentator yelled, “You ever tried to stop a fight between two people who hate each other? They’ll both turn on you.”
“Not fucking wrong is he lads?” Hera called, but was met with silence.
As the bout officially started, Hera delighted in pointing out when Michaels and Hart were calling their spots, and the boys told Hera to stop being such a fucking smark.
“Keep watching, keep your eyes peeled, it’s coming,” Joe said.
Hera and the boys pounded the bottom of their seats in appreciation when Michaels riled the crowd to the point they were fighting each other for the right to abuse him.
“Keep watching,” Joe said. “Now.” Michaels put Hart in Hart’s own submission finish, the Sharpshooter, and the referee rang the bell.
“What the fuck? But he didn’t tap.” Hera was on her feet. “Rewind, rewind.”
Joe overruled her, announcing that everyone needed to see what happened next.
“But why’ve the commentators gone quiet?” Hera said, gripping Alf’s shirt.
The commentator answered, “What happened?”
“Got to be a botch,” Hera said. “Fucking unprofessional.”
But then, among the confusion, Hart leant over the ring and spat at McMahon.
Now Hera shook Alf by the shoulder, “What the fuck is going on with this?”
“It’s a shoot,” Roge called.
“No chance.”
“It’s real. Course it is.”
“Is it fuck. You mark. It’s a work, they’re working you.”
Then Hart picked up a monitor at ringside and smashed it on the ground. He destroyed more of the Fed’s production equipment then rolled back into the ring. Facing the TV camera, he clearly wrote in the air the initials ‘WCW’ – the rival company of the Fed.
“This is bullshit,” Hera yelled.
“I’m confused,” Jay Kay mumbled.
Dracula Dave: “Dynamite told me that Bret punched McMahon backstage.”
“Bullshit you know Dynamite,” someone called from the back.
Joe fast-forwarded the tape a little to a sit-down interview the following night on TV between McMahon and one of the commentators, and sure enough, McMahon had a black eye. “I didn’t screw Bret,” McMahon told the TV audience, “Bret screwed Bret.”
As the interview went on, Hera couldn’t stop her leg from shaking. “Why’s he talking like that?” she said. “I don’t get it. Why’s he talking about creative and money and Ted Turner and WCW? Where’s kayfabe, for fuck’s sake. I want to murder someone.”
“It’s real, get it into your skull,” Roge called back to her.
Jay Kay: “It’s making my head hurt. Scrambling my brain.”
Two of the boys in chorus: “Doesn’t take much, Jay.”
Joe fast-forwarded again, conscious it was 6pm, an hour before the doors opened, and they needed to change into their ring gear. Hitting play, he announced, “Last bit, everyone. This was four nights ago on Raw.”
Speaking directly to camera, McMahon announced, “Even though we call ourselves ‘Sports Entertainment’ because of the athleticism involved, the keyword in that phrase is ‘Entertainment’. The WWF extends far beyond the strict confines of sports presentation into the wide open environment of broad based entertainment.” He named several shows as influences on the Fed: Days of our Lives, MTV, Jerry Springer, King of the Hill, Seinfeld. Hera made a mental note of each. Hell, she thought, if she had to fly to the States to see them, that’s what she would do.
Her brain was spinning through ideas for angles. It span further as McMahon said, “We think you’re tired of the same simplistic theory of good guys versus bad guys. You, the audience, are tired of having your intelligence insulted.”
Work Shoot Confessional 
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