Welcome to the final instalment in this series. Here, I’m sharing how the ‘confessional’ WWE storylines that form the academic side of my PhD project also appear in the creative side of my PhD, the WIP novel, Work, Shoot; Shoot, Work. If you fancy reading the rest of this series, click the following links: part 1, part 2 and part 3. A reminder that the idea here is the reader receiving character via the act of watching TV within the narrative. This is something that interests me – TV-watching in fiction writing, the intersection and interaction of different forms of fiction and types of media. This interaction not only helps to place the TV storyline within its wider cultural context, but also reveals preoccupations and hidden desires in the characters’ wider lives.
For this final instalment, we have CM Punk’s famed 2011 Pipe Bomb. This probably needs no introduction, but if you’re not familiar then the GQ interview referred to within my novel extract may help. I have also written a kind of poem about the Pipe Bomb and its reception, which you can read here.
For context in this extract, English wrestlers Alf and Hera are still living together as friends. Alf’s beloved mum has recently passed away, and her untimely passing unfortunately denied them both the opportunity to wrestle in Florida. Hera has been an invaluable support to Alf after his loss.
Extract starts below the asterisk. Thank you for reading and let me know your thoughts (bear in mind this is at first draft stage).
*
She woke alone on the couch covered by a blanket, to the sound of Alf making coffee in the kitchen. She was scraping spiky crusts of sleep from her eyes when he handed her a mug and said, “Internet’s going fucking insane for what happened on Raw after we fell asleep. I want to know what you think.”
He sat next to her on the couch and on his phone, they watched CM Punk, the same stringy-haired wrestler – now shaved-headed – who’d insulted Jeff Hardy’s addiction issues two years prior. He was sitting cross-legged on the stage with a microphone. Addressing the Fed’s biggest babyface John Cena, he said, “I’m the best. I’m the best in the world. There’s one thing you’re better at than I am and that’s kissing Vince McMahon’s ass. You’re as good as kissing Vince McMahon’s ass as Hulk Hogan was. Whoops! I’m breaking the fourth wall!”
Alf looked at Hera. “Definitely different this guy,” Hera said.
Punk went on: “I have proved to everybody in the world that I am the best on this microphone, in that ring, even in commentary! And yet no matter how many times I prove it, I’m not on your lovely little collector cups. I’m barely promoted. I don’t get to be in movies. I’m certainly not on any crappy show on the USA Network. I’m not on the poster of WrestleMania. I’m not on Conan O’Brian. I’m not on Jimmy Fallon.”
Hera gulped her coffee, and recoiled at the sugar Alf had absentmindedly plopped in there – the way his mum had taken her coffee. “Punk’s really on one,” Hera said.
Still Punk went on: “After I’m gone, you’re still going to pour money into this company. I’m just a spoke on the wheel. The wheel is going to keep turning and I understand that. I’d like to think that maybe this company will be better after Vince McMahon is dead. But the fact is, it’s going to be taken over by his idiotic daughter and his doofus son-in-law and the rest of his stupid family. Let me tell you a personal story about Vince McMahon alright. We do this whole anti-bullying campaign–”
After Punk’s mic appeared to cut off, and then the video ended, Hera thumped Alf on the shoulder. “That was mental, mate.” This was the reaction she believed he was hoping for. But he said, “Come on. It’s a work. Clear as day.”
“I don’t know. Some of that stuff about the McMahons. It was brutal. You really think they let him say that shit? And that line – ‘the only thing that’s real is me’. Gold.”
Alf got up and fussed with the curtain ties. “I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t buy it. It didn’t” – he affected Leo’s London accent – “elicit an emotional reaction in me.”
She watched him. Calculated that he could take what she was about to suggest. “Well, it’s wrestling. There’s bigger things–”
“Yes, yes, my mum died. No, listen. Punk looked pissed off, fine, but there was no vulnerability.”
In the days afterwards, they followed the journey of Punk’s promo into the mainstream. Alf bought an issue of GQ magazine featuring an interview with Punk and read it out loud as they ate on trays in the front room, ‘Cena has a new foe: C.M. Punk, a tatted-up, fire-eyed, uncommonly erudite bad guy who thinks, and sometimes acts, like a good guy. But there’s a catch to that feud. It won’t last long, since Punk doesn’t expect to be in the company a week from now.’
He said, “This is G-fucking-Q, for fuck’s sake. ‘Doesn’t expect to be in the company a week from now’? Why they buying it? This is why wrestling shouldn’t go mainstream, these people, they don’t understand it. What does Leo think about all this?”
“Fuck knows. I’ve got better things to be doing than talking to that twat.”
Though it was mid-summer, the curtains were pulled, the room lit only by one small lamp; Alf, no longer used to the ground floor of a terraced house, where people could walk past the main window and peer inside, had taken to keeping the curtains closed. Hera laid her wooden fork over her fried haddock. “Why you getting so worked up about it? You okay?”
“Yes, I’m okay. Not everything’s about my mum dying. This just pisses me off.”
Hera offered him the tub of mushy peas and when he refused, she slopped it over her chips. “Look,” she said, “ninety-nine per cent, it’s a worked-shoot yeah? But it’s kind of cool. It’s got people talking about wrestling.”
“If he doesn’t like the business, he should just fuck off. We’d kill to be where he is. Sounds like a spoilt brat to me. Oh, you’re not on the collector cups? Boo hoo.” He glared across the table. “Go easy on the vinegar, you know I don’t like the smell.”
“It’s fish and chips, mate.”
“Just because he’s not your simple good guy or bad guy, suddenly people reckon it’s real. That’s all it is. I could do that.”
“Why does it matter how real it is?”
“I don’t know. But obviously it does. Ask G-fucking-Q.”
Every Monday after that, Alf insisted they stay up to watch Raw. He even paid for the pay-per-view, Money in the Bank, which was billed as the climax to Punk’s story. He refused to change his mind when Punk won the Fed’s World Title at this event, and apparently left the company with the belt. When Punk returned a few weeks after that and announced his new contract with the company, Alf jumped up and turned off the TV. “There we go. Right all along. Sweet fucking vindication. You’re not working the Greek Alpha. Fuck the Fed. I’m done with them. Night, Jackie.”
Under her breath, to the now empty room and blank TV, she said, “Well I was still entertained.”
Work Shoot Confessional 
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