Reading · Test 33

The wrestler who became an author

Pete Watson looks like the biggest, sweetest teddy bear you ever saw. It is only when he opens his mouth that you notice the missing front teeth. Watson is a three-time world champion wrestler turned author. He was adored by fans because he was different: while other wrestlers were supreme athletes, he was just a hulk who knew how to take a hit. You could throw as many chairs as you liked at Pete Watson, you could smack him repeatedly, but he wouldn’t go down.

After two autobiographies and a series of children’s stories, he has just written a brilliant first novel: a work of immense power and subtlety, likely to gain a wide readership. At its simplest, it is about a boy and his dad getting together after a lifetime apart, though there is far more to it than that. Was he inspired by anyone he knew? The father, he says, is based on guys he met on the road – wrestlers, friends of his, who appeared to be leading exciting lives, but deep down were pretty miserable.

Watson does not come from traditional wrestling stock. He grew up in Long Island, New York. His father was an athletics director with a PhD, his mother a physical education teacher with two master’s degrees – one in literature, the other in Russian history. He was a big boy, bullied for his size. One day his neighbour had a go at him, and for the first time Watson realised he could use his weight and size instead of feeling awkward about it. It was a turning point.

At college, he did a degree in communication studies. Meanwhile, he was learning the ropes of professional wrestling. Did his parents try to dissuade him? ‘No. They were just really insistent that I finished college. I am pretty sure they thought I’d get hurt and quit wrestling.’ But he didn’t.

He looks in remarkably good condition for someone who spent 20 years in the ring. His skin is smooth and firm; there are few visible scars. ‘It’s amazing what retirement can do for you. I looked really rough five years ago, and now I think I look a good deal younger,’ he says. People are surprised by the softness of his handshake. ‘Yeah, that’s the wrestler’s handshake,’ he says.

Do you have to be a good actor to be a good wrestler? ‘I used to really resent the acting label, but it is acting. When it’s really good, when you’re feeling it and letting that real emotion fly, it comes closer to being real.’ What did his children think when they saw him getting hurt? ‘Well, they used to think I never got hurt because that’s what I told them. When they got old enough to realise I did, they stopped enjoying it. That was, in part, what led to my decision to get out.’

Nowadays, his time is dedicated to family and books – his next novel is about boy wrestlers living on the same block, and he is also writing more children’s stories. He does not think this life is so different from wrestling. ‘Wrestling is all about characters,’ he says. ‘So when my fans hear I’ve written a novel, I don’t get the sense that they feel I’ve abandoned them.’

Films and computer games

In just a few decades the gaming industry has become a lot bigger than the film business. In terms of turnover, what is rather grandly called ‘interactive entertainment’ makes twice as much money as Hollywood cinema. Which of course leaves people in the film business wondering if they can harvest any of this new income. Is there any way of making films more appealing to people who regularly like to play computer games?

Making a film out of a best-selling computer game can certainly guarantee a large audience. 37. New games have stunning action sequences that rely on fantasy effects, and now films are being released with similar scenes. Gravity is discarded as heroes leap across huge gaps, while slow-motion techniques show bullets moving through the rippling air.

A major segment of the gaming market comprises science-fiction games, and film-makers have started to realise that they could set films in similar sci-fi future worlds. 38. Any attempt to borrow more than the setting from a game is probably doomed.

There are many examples of successful film-game combinations. Rather than making a film using characters and stories from a computer game, the trick seems to be to make a film that has a fast-moving action sequence and then bring out a game based on that sequence. People who enjoyed the film will probably want to buy the game. This clearly creates a new market opportunity for the gaming industry.

Why do gamers feel disappointed by films based on their favourite games? 39. Computer games can show the action from a number of perspectives easily, because everything is computer-generated. But filming a sequence from 20 different cameras would cost a fortune, so it simply isn’t done in the film version – leaving the gamers feeling that the film didn’t look as real as the computer game.

Cameras matter in another sense, too. In a film the director shows you the action from certain perspectives but makes sure he doesn’t show you some things to keep you in suspense. Think of your favourite thriller. 40. In films you are not supposed to have access to all the information. Suspense and mystery are essential elements of film-making.

41. When you play a game, you have to do certain tasks to proceed to the next level. Therefore, you must be able to see everything in order to make your choices, to decide what to do next: which door to open, and so on. You must have access to all the information. You, as the player, are always in control. In the cinema you never control the action. You just sit and watch.

There can be some interaction between films and computer games on a number of different levels, but in the end they fulfil different needs. 42. For all the similarities between technologies and special effects, we shouldn’t forget that a story and a game are fundamentally different.