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Okay, so as promised, I also watched the Firefly Funhouse match, and I might have even *more* thoughts about this one. https://twitter.com/JodiMcA/status/1248464822615724034
My first thought was that oh wow, I don't understand any of this wrestling history they're walking through, but my goodness John Cena seems to have had some embarrassing career stages (the one where he raps? that gave me eye-twitching-level secondhand embarrassment)
My second thoughts, though, are extremely nerdy - and there has to be some similar kind of nerd to me quietly working away behind the scenes at WWE, because the levels of allusion in this - especially to classical narrative - are out of control.
This was both a kind of montage-form of aristeia (a scene, usually in epic poetry, in which the hero achieves his finest moments) and katabasis (a hero's descent, often to the underworld).
As well as - well, really alongside - these, it's clearly influenced by Dante (which is itself an example of katabasis), which is evident immediately: the misquote of "abandon hope all ye who enter here" made that clear.
My comedy icon demon beltface operates as a Virgil to Cena's Dante, guiding him through his (and wrestling's? my grasp on the context is weak) finest moments - the aristeia - but it's simultaneously leading him through circles of hell, down into the underworld.
One question I've been puzzled by for ages is the literality of hell in wrestling (is it a metaphor? is it a literal space?), but this match posited a clear answer: *wrestling itself* is hell.
I am going to be thinking about this *forever*.
(also, the fact that the two matches people told me to watch were both extremely high-concept made me think a) that you get me, but also b) about the relative diegetic/extra-diegetic position of the crowd, but I won't burden you with those extreme nerd thoughts)
