I love professional wrestling and have even since Scott Hall and Kevin Nash showed up in WCW when I was eight years old. My tiny heart resonated with good guy Sting in face paint inspired by The Crow wielding a baseball bat.
Good guys and bad guys struggling against each other. It’s the stuff epic fantasy is made of. This year WWE’s Wrestlemania has a storyline so good that I had to document the tropes behind it and why I love it so much.
Fathers Cast Long Shadows
Much of my fiction writing has to do with characters who wrestle with family legacy. My first published short story is about the latest in a family of assassins taking up the role in the aptly named “Taking the Mantle.” There is no wrestler who has dealt with that in a more public light than the current challenger for the title, Cody Rhodes.
The son of famous wrestler Dusty Rhodes who departed WWE in 2016. Profiled by the The Ringer took a journey around the Independent scene before co-founding a rival promotion (AEW) and eventually returning to WWE last year at Wrestlemania.
An emotional promo the night after Wrestlemania set his goal clear as day to win the championship his father never did. An injury knocked him out until the Royal Rumble this January. After wining he reminded us of his goal to finish the story.
An emotional hero with the support of the crowd across the board cheering for him to claim the title that has eluded him. That’s one ingredient for a great match up, but a hero is only as good as their villain.
Uneasy is the Head that Wears the Crown
The Universal WWE Champion bearing both belts is Roman Reigns who has held the titles for over 900 days. The latest wrestler from the famed Anoa’i family. Roman was a member of the of the most popular factions in modern wrestling, The Shield, and later a good guy that never quite reached beloved status.
After taking some time off during the Pandemic, Roman returned as a bad guy who would take what he wanted. His standard bad guy routined morphed into a mob boss flanked by his real life cousins Jimmy and Jey Uso and debut Solo Sikoa. Like any paranoid mob boss, Roman sees threats everywhere and requires unwaveringly loyalty.
A hero charges threatening his reign and the whispers of his followers disloyalty are as loud as they’ve ever been. His kingdom is threatened. What lengths will he go to keep it in his grip?
The Conflict
Now with compelling characters you have a good start to the story, but it’s nothing without direct conflict. Here’s where the history comes into play. WWE hired Dusty Rhodes as one of its trainers and many of the top stars of the company were under his tutelage there like Seth Rollins, Kevin Ownes, Becky Lynch, and Roman Reigns. The media surrounding them called them Dusty’s Kids.
Now the prize pupil of Dusty’s Kids is facing Dusty’s actual son in the main event of Wrestlemania for all the marbles. Both men have layered in the history of their careers well showing this clash wasn’t just a random match up but an inevitability.
Both of these performers are operating at peak powers and I’m as excited for this story as any I’ve seen in wrestling in a long time. Long term storytelling operating with all the weight of the history behind it. Each week has built layer upon layer in the conflict.
As a writer that’s the lesson I’ve taken from all this. Character history matters. I struggle with this at times, but fleshing it out fleshes out their current conflict. It’s a lesson I’ve taken to give my current work in progress some more weight.
On April 2nd, I’ll be tuned in. I want to see Cody Rhodes finish the story. I want him to complete his undesirable to undeniable trip all the way. Either way they riveted me the entire way.