So, I’m flipping channels and I pass by trusty Trinity Broadcasting Network—which is always good for an inquisitive 35 second viewing (lately, about how the preacherman and his alien-looking wife avoided litigation from some other TV preacher group, or something), when I see . . .
The Road Warriors, Hawk & Animal, The Legion of Doom—heavies of the mid-atlantic wrestling scene in the mid-80s, back when I was young enough to have an interest in that stuff—pounding two dudes in red tights. For a second, I thought Comcast had changed the lineup, but I noticed enough hokey things (i.e., the ring was too small) to think this was a novelty. The overlay graphics at the bottom left of the screen said “Kingdom Connection.” Religious professional wrestling?
Apparently so, for out came the “Million Dollar Man” Ted Dibiase (sp?). In years past, he might have strutted around boasting about all the money and cars and women he had, but not tonight. Nope. He gave a sermon. And that’s not all; I left the room for a moment, only to return to see “Sting” (with Stingy makeup and all) giving a sermon, too.
Now, I’m a fairly religious guy (though not of the TBN-type . . . ), but I have to ask: What the hell is going on here?
As I understand it, Sting (Steve Borden) and Ted Dibiase are both born again christians. And the Legion of Doom (or “O.L.D” as WWE fans prefer) are greatful for any work after blowing up two seconds into an opening match on Raw a few weeks ago.
But simply because the crowd is religious does not mean they won’t find wrestling entertaining. Christians have rockbands, movies, comics, all that good stuff. If they can keep the smut out of wrestling and have a good time by watching some reborn talents, who’s to say its wrong?
I’m not saying it’s wrong, I’m just saying it’s, uh . . . odd.
I’m very familiar with Christian rock in several forms. My best friend in high school used to work at a “Heaven & Earth” bookstore. I’ve even heard Christian “growler thrash metal” band Mortification. That’s fairly weird, at first, but then you notice that Christian rock does all it can to remove the “sex, drugs and” prefix. (However, I think the sex part is still implicit; I saw plenty of CCM artists with “come hither” looks on posters and album covers.) And then there’s video games, which inspired the Simpson 's “Billy Graham’s Bible Blaster.”
But wrestling? Sure, they’d keep the smut out of it, but how many TBN viewers would advocate punching and choking and drop-kicks in any other venue? Hawk (or Animal) did a freakin’ DDT on one of the guys, for crying out loud. (Yeah, yeah, it’s fake.) Part of the reason I found the “Kingdom Connection” strange is that it’s contrived, but another part is that wrestling itself seems rather at odds with what much of TBN’s programming usually concerns (I’d guess): patience, kindness, love. (So is football, I suppose, and many football players are born-again Christians . . .)
But that’s more of a GD or IMHO topic, I suppose. Pollo Boyo , thanks for the explanation.
Yeah, it probably is odd to just find wrestling on a christian network. But if the audience understands its for entertainment only, and they’re smart enough to to think its anything too legit (though it is still quite a serious exhibition of athletism) it shouldn’t cause any problems in the long run.
And who knows, maybe the event they were running was a charity event or a fundraiser. Last I knew Sting was working a pretty light schedule, pretty much WWA pay-per-views. I don’t have access to TBN myself, but I’m guessing it was charity work.
Pollo Boyo
Chicken. Boy. All sorts of questions for his parents.
I’m one of the most churchified people on this board, and I had no idea. That’s truly amazing. I have to run off and email this thread to a number of people.
Oh, and Mortification was just plain a horrible band. First off, combining the Christian lyrics with the mangled bodies motif was just too awful to be real, and they grew out of a legendarily bad band called Lightforce.
I remember reading a review of Mortification in a Christian music paper that ripped them up and down as artists. Of course, IIRC, they had the gall to write in and complain.
Mortification was hilarious. I remember on one album, they had songs called “Bride Planetarium” and “Pride Sanitarium.” Something like that. Man, they were awful. So, by the way, was Bride, with (iirc) their big hit “Psychadelic Super-Jesus.”
The only Christian rock band I ever took a strong liking to was The Prayer Chain, probably because they were the only Christian rock band to produce an album (“Mercury”) that didn’t sound like something I’d heard before in “secular” (i.e., better) music. Of course, I knew they were in trouble when they started sharing gigs with regular rock bands and, one particular time when I saw them, the bassist (or guitarist, I can’t remember) was smoking at the club’s bar and trying to pick up girls. I always suspected those were taboo behaviors in the Christian rock scene.
I don’t remember what this program was called, so I’ll call it Weightlifters for Jesus. It had all these huge muscular guys doing feats of strength like benching 700 lb weights and busting flaming concrete blocks and stuff. I guess the purpose was to show you didn’t need steroids to tear shit up as long as your love of Jesus fueled your testosterone…
The head weightlifter guy would do his sermon, complete with snarling facial expressions and gasps and shouts. I guess as long as long as they include hellfire and brimstone sermons, they can sacrifice oxen on stage and qualify as religious programming.
That was the Power Team! (link is not an official site and actually appears to be a heavy slam) I used to love watching them, but honey it had nothing to do with religion (although there were certain fantasies involving my being on my knees…). The ringleader, John Jacobs, used to and maybe still does have a talk show about Christian nutrition or some such. Back in the day TBN only had the one “talk show” set so everybody rotated in. It was watching that show that I learned that it was no coincidence that “sugar” and “Satan” both have five letters and start with “S”.