Top-Down Smackdown: How Max Landis and Chloe Dykstra Made Me Like Triple H

Nerddom and wrestling fandom always used to be extremely uneasy bedfellows. Even as both groups enjoyed the exploits of men in tights with unrealistic physiques, the former were often bullied by the latter. At one time, perhaps, it could have been said that they key difference was that nerds never believed superheroes were real, but rowdy rednecks thought their in-ring heroes were legit.

The lines have been blurred all around, as the existence of this very column proves. But in his new short film, “Wrestling Isn’t Wrestling,” I think Max Landis may have made the definitive treatise on why pro-wrestling – and WWE specifically – lends itself to a fandom that’s just as geekout-worthy as all the other kinds.

Landis is the son of director John Landis and writer of the movie Chronicle, as well as a 436-page Mario World script that will never be made, and a video takedown of the Death of Superman storyline. He is also a huge enough wrestling fan that he has decided to reenact years worth of WWE character arcs via gender crossplay, in a video just under half an hour long that also compares WWE to Game of Thrones.

His point is that if you take the actual wrestling part away, what’s left can still be a great character-based story, and to prove it, he gets women to play the roles of Triple H, Randy Orton, Batista and all the rest. Matches are depicted in various ways, including a game of Scrabble at one point. For hardcore fans, there are easter eggs like a Shockmaster gag; for nerds, it’s full of cameos like the Mythbusters, Macaulay Culkin, Seth Green and David Arquette (who actually was WCW world champion for a week, in what most wrestling fans will tell you was the worst storyline ever).

Dykstra, known for Heroes of Cosplay and the web show “Just Cos,” plays the central role of Triple H, though Landis overdubs all the dialogue himself, in an obnoxious choice that actually works (his self-sung version of John Cena’s entrance music is a thing of half-assed beauty).

Someone less of a fan than I would have to tell you if his argument overall is persuasive; I can only note that he said everything I would have wanted to say. On a technicality I could debate some of it: saying Triple H has had a wonderful decades-long arc is a bit like saying The Room is a brilliant comedy – technically true, but the result of so many bizarre decisions, poor planning and on-the-fly choices that it seems a bit excessive to directly compare him to a more planned-out character like Neo from The Matrix. At the same time, to hear Max Landis describe Triple H’s journey in a more articulate fashion than I’ll bet Vince McMahon or Paul Levesque ever could makes me appreciate the character maybe more than I ever have. The point that he’d be universally acclaimed if he existed in any other kind of fiction is dead on.

And considering that I’ve always meant this column to be about what’s on the screen versus what the dirtsheets say is behind-the-scenes, I’ll leave it at that. Happy 3:16, and enjoy “Wrestling Isn’t Wrestling.”

Feel free to also talk back about Raw below.