The Crowning of Tyrus and the Revealing of Our Political Idols
You know, I'm just as suprised to write that headline as you are to read it.
Introduction
I’m a pro wrestling fan. This will come as no shock to those who know me personally, but to those who don’t know me personally you’re free to stop reading, take a minute to process what you’ve just read, and then continue on at your convenience. The purpose of this post is to process my thoughts on this topic and give my wife a break from acting as my sound board since she couldn’t possibly care less about my love of the sport (yes, it’s a sport. Just because the matches are scripted and the outcomes are determined doesn’t make it less of a sport, but that’s another post for another time.) I’m also trying to get in the habit of writing more. Whether I actually will write more on my blog remains to be seen, but for now, this is a start.
Four days ago (on November 12th), the National Wrestling Alliance put on their 3rd annual Hard Times event with New Orleans being the city chosen to host the event. The main event was a three way match between the two-time NWA World’s Champion, Trevor Murdoch, and challengers Matt Cardona and Tyrus. I didn’t watch the event, and admittedly I haven’t had time to consume much wrestling lately, but I somewhat knew the storyline leading up to it. Cardona was the former champion who never lost the title (it was vacated due to injury) and Tyrus was the NWA Television Champion and chose to forfeit that championship in exchange for a shot at the World title.
As a wrestling fan, the story appealed to me and made me curious as to who would actually win that match, but not so curious as to actually buy the event to watch because, let’s face it, $30 is an exorbitant price to pay for a 2 and a half hour show with only one of the matches on that show being halfway interesting.
It’s Not What I Would Have Done Personally…
When I saw the results online the next day, I saw that Tyrus had won the main event and been crowned NWA World’s Champion. The first word’s out of my mouth were, “Well, that’s certainly a choice.”
I had expected Mudoch to retain the title or even Cardona to get the title back and continue the excellent run that he had with the title before he got injured. I didn’t expect Tyrus to actually win. (For my purist readers, I didn’t actually expect Tyrus to be booked to win.) Maybe ‘expect’ is the wrong word. Maybe I didn’t want Tyrus to win because it’s not how I would have booked that match if I were the booker.
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Tyrus personally, but I’m just not a fan of his professional wrestling work. There’s nothing about him that’s different to me. He’s just ‘meh.’ If I were a pro-wrestling booker and he were on my roster I would book him as an intimidating heel body guard or I would put him in a tag team with someone who had charisma so they could be a good mouth and muscles team.
All of that aside, I don’t think some of the NWA’s fan base expected or even wanted him to win either, but I think their reasons were more sinister than mine. For those of you who don’t know, Tyrus is a conservative political talking head for Fox News. This makes him anathema in the eyes of many fans because they can’t separate politics from professional wrestling or any other part of their lives. Politics, to them, is how religion should be to us Christians - it’s everything. They saw where Tyrus was sporting the NWA World’s Heavyweight Championship on Fox News last night and it evoked a wee bit of nausea because they saw it as a desecration of the Ten Pounds of Gold. For Tyrus to go on to a conservative news channel, and calmy and raitionally point out how their political worldview is problematic. This was never more evident when I came across a comment on a pro-wrestling Facebook page that read: “guy is a considerable p.o.s. may he flounder like his wwe gimmick.” It’s also interesting to note that this guy had like six ‘virtue signaling the current thing’ layers and frames on his profile picture.
There was also this bit of “wisdom” from the Peanut Gallery which someone commented on Dirt Sheet Radio’s Facebook post:
Congrats NWA, you’re now an outlaw mud show with a creep as champ.
Let’s not forget this insightful comment:
ANNNNNnd there it is…
Billy Corrigan selling the soul and integrity of this company for some cheap marketing and visibility on Fox News..
Notice the misspelling of Billy Corgan’s name from this… ummm… gentleman.
My point in all of this is to say that no one who hates this decision does so because they genuinely believe Cardona or Murdoch would have done a better job representing the company apart from their political views. No one criticizing this decision is doing so because they objectively believe that Tyrus is not good enough based on his in ring work alone. They hate Tyrus for the same reason that conservatives all of the sudden thought Colin Kaepernick was a bad football player when he started taking the knee during the National Anthem at NFL games. Kaepernick was talented enough to go pro unlike the guys sitting at home wearing MAGA hats and vowing to never to watch the NFL again and they “didn’t even like it that much anyway” even though their emotionally starved wives would beg to differ.
You’re Free to Change, You’re Not Free to be Dishonest About Your Reasons
Politics is the god of the day and whether or not that god is worshipped appropriately determines the quality of service. For example, conservatives think Chick-Fil-A makes the best chicken sandwich in the world, and liberals think it tastes like garbage. Meanwhile, those of us whose tastebuds aren’t determined by where a company’s CEO stands on politics believes that the taste is fair enough, but they wouldn’t lose any money if they made the portion size a bit bigger.
Conservatives think Dick’s Sporting Goods is the worst sporting goods store ever. Dick’s has a horrible selection, prices are too high, etc. Meanwhile, liberals think it’s an outdoorsman’s heaven on earth. However, before Dick’s corporation decided to go left on the 2nd Amendment conservatives could be found shopping there like a kid in a candy store, and liberals wouldn’t even touch the place because, *effiminate accent* "Ew, a sporting goods store. What do you think I am, some redneck?”
Even though the quality of the product or service hasn’t changed one iota, all of the sudden the product is presented to be objectively bad because of the political ideologies of its purveyor. It’s intellectually dishonest and people on the right and the left are guilty of it, and it needs to stop. If you wish to abstain from supporting a brand or buying a product because you disagree with a company’s philosophy or political ideology, then you are free to do so, but you are not free to bear false witness against the product or service of a company.
Coming in For a Landing
Tyrus is a professional wrestler. He’s no AJ Styles. He’s no Kurt Angle. (For my older audience, he’s no Hulk Hogan. He’s no Randy Savage.) However, he is good enough of a wrestler that Corgan wants him to be the man to represent the National Wrestling Alliance. People loved Tyrus and thought he got an unfair shake when he was doing the dancing fool gimmick in WWE… until he showed up on Fox News. Now, he’s horrible human being, mediocre wrestler, and he got what he deserved in WWE. Also, he’s ugly and his mother dresses him funny. However, the same people saying those things would probably kill themselves trying to hit the ropes in a wrestling gym. Billy Corgan might be using Tyrus’ exposure on Fox News to garner attention for the NWA, but so what? If he were a liberal talking head, chatting it up with Al Sharpton on MSNBC they wouldn’t care.
It’s the same with people who criticize Colin Kaepernick. Kaepernick was no Tom Brady by any stretch of the imagination, but he was good enough to be pro. That much is objectively true becaus he was, in fact, a professional football player in the NFL. He might not have been good enough to make waves, but neither are any of the balding 50 years who have so much artheritis that they couldn’t even kneel for the anthem if wanted to and didn’t think it was blasphemy to do so.
Here’s the Deal
The secularists are using their politics of death and destruction as a lens through which they view the world and partake of certain products and services. Christians have taken notice of this fact, but we’ve responded poorly. We see what they’re doing and we think that we need to do that to, but with a different set of political lenses. So, instead of Burger King with their gay Whoppers (no, really, this is a thing), we go running to Chick-Fil-A because they honor the Lord’s Day (even though they don’t actually honor the Lord’s Day because that’s when some of their managers hold staff meetings).
Instead of CNN, we created CBN News. It claims to be news from a Christian perspective when really it’s just Fox News, but with an unhealthy obsession of Israel, and instead of using the term ‘Fake News’ you get to call it ‘False Prophecies.’
Back the in 90s, instead of Eminem, we basically created TobyMac. You know, because secularism had a white rapper who dressed like they lived in a Chicago back alley so we have to have one too.
We keep trying to imitate the culture in order to get the culture’s attention, and it never works and it always looks like a cheap imitation for three reasons:
It is.
We never meant to have the culture’s attention. The world hates us (John 15:18-19) and we’re not supposed to be lovers of the world (1 John 2:15-17).
We’re not supposed to imitate the culture, we’re supposed to imitate Christ because it is His image that we are being comformed to. (Ephesians 5:1-2; Romans 8:29-30)
I don’t think you can get away with having zero political opinions in a world where politics is becoming the opioid of the masses, but if you’re going to have them at least make sure they’re ones that are consistent with the values of your Christian religion and make sure that you can defend them on judgment day because you won’t be behind a screen and keyboard when you stand before Christ.