Review: Beat the Champ

I have never been a big fan of wrestling, which I blame on my mother, who forbade my sister and I from watching the highflying antics of the WWF. She feared the bad influence on us, so I missed out on the early narrative that wove together Rowdy Roddy Piper, Hulk Hogan, and Ric Flair. Other than a few illicit viewings at sleepovers, my first real extended exposure to the sport was in college. Every Monday I would curl up on a couch with Julie Newcomb, the girl I was dating at the time, who was really into the sport. Over the next year, she gave me a crash course in the mechanics of how wrestling operated. While I was never keen on the matches themselves, the dynamics that dissolved and formed between the wrestlers in the aftermath of the battles was fascinating. For a while, I even considered going to see a couple of the Wrestlemanias that passed through Chicago at the time.

Sadly, my interest in the sport waned after Julie and I broke up, but I continued to consume the sport, in small consumptive ways through movies like Nacho Libre and Mikey Rourke’s The Wrestler. I also kept any eye out for films starring wrestlers like The Rock or Mic Foley. Part of me wanted to keep in touch with the mythologies that flowed alongside the battles.

This fascination explains my immediate enjoyment of The Mountain Goats’ recent album, Beat the Champ. Each track is unique, switching easily between driving classic rock like on the track Werewolf Gimmick to a poppy bounce in The Legend of Chavo Guerro. The song, Fire Editorial, could easily fit into any musical about Americana. While the Mountain Goats play with style, lyrically they are digging deeply into people who live in this world of sports entertainment. Some of the tracks like the Ballad of Bull Ramos and The Legend of Chavo Guerro are about the lives and families of real wrestlers.

In many respects, this album is exactly why I started this blog. Beat the Champ moves the fan experiences out of simple consumption and into creation, filling the same space that Filking does in science fiction and fantasy fandoms. Filking is a musical style whose lyrics are about science fiction and fantasy, often television programs or movies. While the Mountain Goats are clearly a mainstream professional band and Beat the Champ will definitely turn a profit, I still think this album is clearly an expression of fandom because it was crafted by someone who has a deep appreciation of wrestling.

While the songs on this album are written by an aficionado, I still think it has quite a bit to offer non-wrestling fans. Each song transcends the action in the ring, playing with themes like inadequacy, loneliness, as well as the thrill of a crowd, all things that could easily have meaning anywhere. Don’t be surprised though, if after you have listened to this album a couple of times through, you feel a thrill when someone climbs up on turnbuckle ready to pounce.