Wrestlers’ Court: Olympics a reminder to live in the moment

I am not an Olympics fan, but I live with someone who is.

My wife particularly loves gymnastics, so for the past two weeks or so we’ve been watching the men’s and women’s competitions at the Paris Games.

I’ve learned a lot about the athletes’ backstories — especially Simone Biles, who entered the competition an eight-time Olympic medalist and who returned to form after famously withdrawing from the 2020 Tokyo Games (held in 2021 due to COVID). Suffering from a mental health episode just before the competition started, Biles left gymnastics for almost two years. She came back this year and has already helped her team win a collective gold medal. Biles also won gold in the artistic gymnastics women’s all-around plus a slew of other medals. She has entered the “best Olympian ever” debate.

My wife insists that Biles’ triumph is the greatest return in sports history.

I still give the nod to Edge at the 2020 Royal Rumble.

I’m more taken with American pommel horse specialist Stephen Nederoscik, who was first introduced to Olympic audiences as he sat head-down on the sidelines while the men’s competition took place around him. Nederoscik came alive for his lone event and helped his team win a bronze medal, their first since 2008. He followed this up with a second, individual bronze.

I’m not generally a fan of “best ever” arguments. They privilege athletes whose careers put them in position for multiple medals. Swimmer Michael Phelps is the all-time leading Olympic medalist with 23 gold, three silver and two bronze. He competed in five Olympics, starting in 2000 at the Sydney Games. The most-decorated female Olympian is Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina, who won 18 medals in total, nine gold, five silver and four bronze across three Games (American swimmer Katie Ledecky has now tied Latynina for the number of gold medals). A quick scan of the record books shows that most multi-medalists are gymnasts or swimmers, who can compete across disciplines within a single Olympics, and who start their competing careers young enough that their careers can span several Games. The most dominant track and field athlete is still Carl Lewis. He won 10 medals, nine of which were gold across four Games.

I question whether these performances are “better” than a specialist’s like Nederoscik’s. He spent a decade chasing a moment’s perfection and having achieved it, is unlikely to come back for more. Nederoscik is 25 years old. That’s ancient for a gymnast. He delivered a clutch athletic performance when faced with as much pressure as any of the names I mentioned. Nederoscik was tabbed by USA gymnastics to bring home America’s first men’s medal in 16 years. It seems somehow unfair to compare his accomplishment to Biles’ — or to say that a pool-based polymath like Phelps is better than someone like backstroke savant Lenny Krayzelburg, who *only* won four medals — two individually and two as part of a relay team — in his own specialist role.

A moment I’ll never forget. My past and present coaches there to celebrate with me. It’s all still so surreal to me. I can’t wait to compete at the Olympics 🥳🇺🇸🇺🇸 https://t.co/WGKrAtbOLs

— Stephen Nedoroscik (@GymnastSteve) July 7, 2024

Some athletes spend most of their careers outside the Olympic sphere. Until recently professional hockey and basketball players were ineligible to compete. Even now, few NHL and NBA players make it onto their sports’ Dream Teams and their careers are such that they get one or two shots at most. Exclusions (like Shaquille O’Neal being left off the original Dream Team in favor of Christian Laettner) are notable. The greatest basketball player ever, Michael Jordan has two Olympic gold medals to his name, as a college player in 1984 and a pro in 1992. Wayne Gretzky has zero.

Regardless of how one gets there, or how much hardware one athlete wins, I think each athlete deserves consideration on their own merits. Nederoscik’s performance was stunning but by itself not enough to muster a gold in a team sport. That happens too. There are plenty of Hall of Fame athletes who never won a championship. Olympics aside, baseball players like Barry Bonds, Rod Carew and Ernie Banks, basketball players like Charles Barkley, Elgin Baylor and Allen Iverson, and football players like Dan Marino, Dick Butkus and Barry Sanders never won their sports’ major titles. Soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo, too.

You may wonder what all of this has to do with professional wrestling. The answer comes in a conversation I had on the Wrestling and Everything: Coast to Coast podcast I sometimes co-host with Buddy Sotello, Esq. On a recent episode Buddy asked me how I thought AJ Styles might view his WWE career. I thought Styles would be proud. Styles is a nine-time world champion across the NWA, TNA and NJPW. He is also a two-time WWE champion and Grand Slam winner (a term that originated in the card game of bridge, and was adopted by baseball, tennis and golf). One of his WWE title reigns lasted a full year at a time when longer runs were uncommon. For those who see wrestling, like gymnastics, in artistic terms Styles had plenty of good-to-great matches in WWE’s more restrictive environment — and truly great matches in those other promotions.

I name-checked the likes of Dolph Ziggler and The Miz, both of whom are also two-time world champions in WWE. Buddy thought I was damning by faint praise, but Ziggler spent his career as an underrated star, undone by Vince McMahon’s capricious booking. I know others can’t stand him, but I’m a fan of The Miz. He’s winding down now but put on consistently good matches and as a heel champ used to springboard a pair of John Cena vs. Rock WrestleMania main events did exactly what was needed: he made the fans hate him while representing the company positively before the mainstream media.

Perhaps I was wrong to choose more contemporary champions. Ric Flair and Randy Savage had two WWE championship reigns a piece. Savage’s longest approximated Styles’ year long run, while Flair’s total time as champ barely breaks a quarter.

I sometimes wonder how pro wrestlers view their own careers. In shoot interviews most seem to frame their accomplishments financially. I guess this puts the professional in professional wrestling. Some take pride in what they see as the artistry of their matches, or in presenting realistic bouts without hurting their opponents.

I think the subject of greatness in professional wrestling is loaded. Wrestling is theater masked as athletic competition. A pro wrestler may have all the talent, heart and skill in the world, but no wrestler operates in a vacuum. ‘Great’ wrestlers are made as much by (and occasionally in spite of) promoters who decide how they will be used, bookers who determine their character and story arcs, opponents who put them over, and occasionally fans who see something the ‘experts’ don’t.

The same goes for ‘legitimate’ athletes who are plucked from obscurity as children and run through a mill that turns them into elite level competitors. While the Olympics celebrate individual sporting achievement, I can’t think of many who succeed without a team of coaches and trainers and therapists and teachers pushing them on their way. The Olympics is set up as a competition between countries but most athletes seem to gravitate towards the same few with the most robust training programs. French swimmer Leon Marchand, who won four gold medals in Paris trained at Arizona State, where he could take advantage of Michael Phelps’ coach. Armando ‘Mondo’ Duplantis won the pole vault representing Sweden. He was born in Louisiana and trained at Louisiana State University. His mother is Swedish.

There are plenty of legitimately great wrestlers who never held a recognized world championship. More, like Bobo Brazil, Killer Kowalski, Edouard Carpentier or Gene LeBell claimed a piece of a disputed title or represented promotions that have been lost to history. There are also champions who measure their reigns in hours or minutes — a list that includes impressive talent like Rey Mysterio, Daniel Bryan, John Cena, Yokozuna, Andre the Giant, and most recently Drew McIntyre.

I get that pro wrestling championships are props rather than true measures of greatness, but I still think that ‘transitional’ or ‘lesser’ champions, those whose runs serve broader storyline purposes or who help convey the promotion’s top MacGuffin from one generation to the next, deserve more recognition than they get. However long they reign, their runs are an essential part of wrestling’s ongoing saga and reflect management’s confidence in their abilities.

WWE’s approach to championship reigns has changed over time. Under Vincent J. McMahon titles rarely changed hands, especially at the top of the card. The WW(W)F was built on a strong ‘scientific’ champion defending against a series of rulebreaking contenders. The years-long reigns of the likes of Bruno Sammartino, Pedro Morales and Bob Backlund stood in contrast to most promotions, which favored more frequent changes and longer spans for heel champions — feeling that the money lie in the chase for the title and the crowd’s satisfaction when a bad guy champ got his comeuppance (other territories also had access to a touring NWA champion, who often played the heel in order to shore up the local talent’s credibility). Other promotions like the AWA or WCCW relied on long-running babyface champions, but said champions either owned those promotions (like the AWA’s Verne Gagne) or were friends/family (like WCCW’s Von Erich brothers).

In McMahon’s federation, transitional heel champions bridged the gap between popular long-running stars. It was an important role, as they primed the audience for their new savior. Listen for the deafening silence when Ivan Koloff beat Bruno Sammartino or the boos that rained down on the Iron Sheik when he beat Bob Backlund, then the thunderous applause when Pedro or Hulk vanquished said villains. We still talk about the Iron Sheik despite his fleeting reign. Fans object to Ivan Koloff’s exclusion from WWE’s Hall of Fame and Stan Stasiak’s inclusion without a proper ceremony via the Legends wing.

Vincent K. McMahon initially stuck to the same formula as his father. While Vince changed much about professional wrestling, he relied on a popular babyface champion fighting off a series of monster heels. That is, until Hulkamania’s popularity started to wane, Hogan sought more time away from wrestling, a series of scandals erupted and proposed replacements from Randy Savage to the Ultimate Warrior to Diesel failed to pan out. As wrestling transitioned into “car crash TV” and more TV shows and pay-per-views demanded more content at a faster rate, title reigns became shorter so we’d all tune in for what happened next. More recently, the likes of CM Punk, Styles, Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns suggest the pendulum is swinging back again… or is it?

Damien Priest just dropped his World Championship to Gunther at SummerSlam, ending his first title reign at 118 days. It remains to be seen if he will re-enter the championship picture. For the record, Priest’s reign is 50 days shorter than Jinder Mahal’s, and over 150 days shorter than Justin ‘Bradshaw’ Layfield’s.

When title reigns are often prescribed by gates and backstage politics and contract snafus, what makes a greater or lesser champion?

Former titlist Jinder Mahal spent almost half a year as WWE champion. He is grateful for the experience even as he notes that once he won the title, he was directed by McMahon to work rest holds instead of putting on action-packed matches. I appreciate that excellent in-ring work is important, but when your boss tells you to do otherwise you’re kind of stuck.

Sid won two WWE championships totaling 100 days; at a time when the title changed hands often, in matches featuring legends like Shawn Michaels, Steve Austin, The Rock, The Undertaker and Bret Hart. Given how stacked and ego-driven the top of the roster was it’s impressive that he got his name in the books.

Eddie Guerrero held his version of the WWE championship for 133 days but his influence over storylines persists. Chris Benoit on the other hand…

With over 60 years of history for WWE alone, some champions are bound to be more memorable than others. Add in changing audience tastes, shifting social mores and the fact that wrestling history is written by the victors, and I think that like the Olympics, it’s better to celebrate each accomplishment on its own terms.

We can stratify greatness, but to what end? Why not just enjoy it when we see it?

TOP PHOTO: Simone Biles with her gold medal and a “G.O.A.T.” necklace. X photo via @NBCOlympics

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