The storyline is heating up at the little wrestling promotion where I used to ring announce and am now a smarky gonzo journalist in the audience. The top referee in the company is a woman. Her love, the embattled babyface, proposed to her in the ring after a big show last month, right after he finally won the championship. As she held his hand up to affirm that he was the winner, he pulled her to him and got down on one knee. Right there in the ring. Caught her off guard. The crowd went wild. It was a beautiful moment.
As they were leaving the ring, the inevitable happened. “Wait a minute!” A man in the front row said to his friends. He began to muse about how this ref had been officiating a match in which she was clearly biased. His friends laughed at him, merging story with life like a big mark. But it’s a problem that was bound to be exploited: the referee has had a conflict of interest all this time.
And indeed! At the next show, the dark lord monster heel–who will soon face her fiancé for that championship–pulled her to him as she held up his hand when he won his match, just like her fiancé had done at the last show. It was a deliciously creepy thing to do, and she looked offended as she yanked her hand away. The narrative die is cast: this referee is officially in a moral quandary.
What will she do?
Will she stay true to her black and white and call her beloved’s match with the dark lord impartially? This would mean counting to three when her fiancé taps or can’t get his shoulder up, because–and I’m just being honest here–her happy-go-lucky babyface cannot beat this monster heel in an honest narrative. He’s simply outmatched on every level. What will happen if she lets her man lose the belt he worked so hard for, just two months after his perseverance finally paid off?
Or what if her moral compass loses its bearings? What if she counts too slow for the babyface and too fast for the heel? Will her emotions fog her judgement? Will she find a way to DQ the dark lord? Will another ref have to step in and solve this problem for her? Knowing both her shoot and kayfabe integrity, this is quite a narrative dilemma for the only woman still active in this promotion.
Congratulations to Lady Stripes! She is now a character in the storyline. This is no small feat for a ref in a throwback “southern storytelling” wrestling show, in which the promoter sneers at innovation and has more than once proclaimed that those in non-wrestler roles should not be noticeable as characters. I had to quit ring announcing for this promotion because I was “too flashy” and was unwilling to tone it down. It’s an antiquated notion, but the logic follows that non-wrestler roles should not steal attention away from the wrestlers themselves (especially, by the way, if they’re women). Lady Stripes has smashed this glass ceiling and has found herself in a quagmire of moral ambiguities. She should only be proud of this strange accomplishment.
If you take part in a moral allegory where the performers play characters who are extensions of themselves, sooner or later you find yourself lost in a hall of mirrors, unsure how to get back out to the light of day. It’s not fair that they pulled her personal life into the story without her consent. But then again, professional wrestling is inherently unfair. It’s unfair that I got told I needed to “dress plain” and preferably wear a pants suit as the ring announcer, instead of the stylish ensembles I was carefully crafting for each month’s show. I chose to stay true to the brand I built and to honor my influences, but I didn’t have a dog (so to speak) in the fight. Much love and support to Lady Stripes, whose choices in the upcoming championship match will have a powerful effect on her role in the narrative going forward.
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